Per comments over there, I’m not the only person appalled that this “Institute” is being based on the false narrative that what happened to Gabby Giffords had anything whatsoever to do with civility in discourse.
Joel Kotkin follows up on Robert Samuelson. When will these religious fanatics understand that this makes no economic sense? Well, if this Congress doesn’t pull the plug on this lunacy, the next one (in even more dire financial straits) surely will.
I agree. That absurd name elevates Buchanan, Pierce, the fascist dictator Wilson and the hapless Jimmy Carter (not to mention the present inhabitant of the White House) to the same supposed national esteem as George Washington. It’s absurd.
The mask is off — the leftists in academia intrinsically hate the military. I wonder what excuse they’ll come up with to continue to violate the law and keep ROTC off campuses now?
It was pretty obvious to me and many at the time, but it’s becoming more and more clear that soldiers were murdered at Fort Hood out of political correctness and an insane multi-culturalism, in the one institution in which we can least afford it.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should add that while I have a generally low opinion of Senator Collins, she deserves kudos, along with Senator Lieberman, for continuing to prevent this from being swept under the carpet.
For anyone interested, I’ve never participated in this, primarily because in my experience, they’re not really carnivals of space — they’re carnivals of space science, a subject in which I have little more interest in than other kinds, except to the degree that it provides knowledge of how to develop and settle it. This is a specific instance of a more general irk — when many people learn that I’m an expert on space policy and technology, or I do a radio interview, they assume that I’m both an expert on and interested in space science and astronomy and (even more annoyingly) UFOs. It’s the same kind of general public level of (lack of) knowledge that leads to phrases such as “rocket scientist.”
Like Palin, she paints with broad strokes, which makes her opponents deeply concerned about the level of rhetoric in this troubled land. Rep. Alan Grayson can say Republicans want Americans to die, and Howard Dean can say the GOP doesn’t care whether kids go to bed hungry at night — these are regarded as piquant phrasings of an essential truth. Bachmann calls scooping up the health-care system into the arms of the government “socialism,” and she’s a shrieking know-nothing. For some, Bachmann is regarded as Palin’s Mini-Me, minus the high-powered weaponry. She’s one of those inauthentic women who has not realized that the possession of ovaries requires one to fight for social justice and greater regulation of everything except the Department of Regulations.
Go read the whole thing, from the best writer in Minnesota, if not the country.