Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Losing It In Charlotte

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What a fiasco:

Tom Brokaw shares the story of how Hubert Humphrey lost the 1968 election after Americans watched television images of the young radicals in Grant Park scaling statues and flying the Viet Cong flag. At that moment, Americans fully appreciated the lawless direction that some wanted to take the country and saw Richard Nixon as the antidote.

The young radicals of 1968 have become the old radicals who now control the Democrat Party. They put on a convention this week characterized by incompetence, radicalism, and race.

I’m starting to wonder if 1968, or even 1972 are a better analogy for this election than 1980.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Convention Tonight

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I watched Scarlett Johanssen and Eva Longoria, but turned down the sound, because they’re a lot easier on the eyes than the ears.

I listened to John Kerry until I heard the word “neocons,” at which point I muted, because this is a surefire sign that whoever is speaking is politically a moron, or attempting to appeal to same, if he uses the term in a non-ironic manner. It only took ten seconds or so…

[Update a while later]

I will confess that the best (only? yeah, probably) moment of the Dem convention that warmed my heart was Gabby Giffords staggering to the lectern with the help of her friend Debby Liarwoman Schultz, and leading the congregation in the Pledge of Allegiance, including the words “under God.”

But the cynic in me wonders if this was an afterthought, to try to dilute the venom of the previous day’s vocal repudiation of Him?

I guess, in theory, we could know by looking at a convention schedule from earlier in the week, but considering the people we’re dealing with, who’s to say what it is now is what it was then?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Weird

The DNC Got All Biblical Yesterday

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…and didn’t even know it.

That’s what happens when you substitute a political ideology for religion.

Ah, well. As the Anchoress says, Peter got in, so maybe there’s hope for them yet.

[Update a few minutes later]

God runs deep:

…it’s not a matter of one word more or less, one or more mentions of God. The real heart of the issue is that most of the people in that hall, in the Democratic convention, really don’t accept the understanding of rights contained in the Declaration of Independence: The Declaration appealed first to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as the very ground of our natural rights. The drafters declared that “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal,” and then immediately: that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” George Bush was not embarrassed to insist that these are “God-given rights,” as opposed to rights that we had merely given to ourselves. For if we had given them to ourselves, we could as readily take them back or remove them. Newt Gingrich made this point during the primaries; it’s not as though the point were so esoteric as to seem mystical or somehow remote from the understanding of ordinary folks. And Paul Ryan touched on this understanding of natural rights during his own speech at the convention. He could surely respond even now by putting the question to Obama and the Democrats, and putting it in the terms of a dare and wager: If we took a survey on this matter, we bet that about 70–80 percent or more of the delegates at the Democratic convention would be too embarrassed to say that these rights were given to us by our Creator, the Author of those Laws of Nature. And we could bet that, in contrast, about 80 percent of the delegates at the Republican convention would assent to that proposition without a trace of hesitation. Why not put the question so that the heart of the matter does not fade?

I would say that I do believe in natural rights, but I don’t need to believe in God for that, any more than I need a god to provide gravity. But when people like Touré Neblett deny natural rights, they might want to consider this:

…his is not an isolated view; it is/was shared by a number of world figures: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Amin — just to name a few. So take heart, Touré, you’re not alone.

Sadly true.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

That “You Belong To The Government” Video

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…was no gaffe:

Later this summer, Obama notoriously argued that government created the environment for success through infrastructure spending. “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that,” Obama told a crowd in Oakland. Obama later claimed he meant that businesses didn’t build the infrastructure that allowed them to be successful, and that government deserves the credit. But where did government get the capital to build the infrastructure in the first place? From the successful businesses that produced that capital, not from the Progressive Sunshine Forest.

The reference to churches in the video is another interesting point, although not one that Democrats want voters to notice. This administration imposed a mandate on employers to provide free birth control and sterilization to employees, even those employers whose religious values prohibit them from facilitating such access. Explicitly religious organizations such as schools, health care providers, and charities did not get an exemption, either. The message was very similar to what the video argued: you can join a church, but you belong to the government.

Yup.