Category Archives: Political Commentary

Kafka In Canada

Ezra Levant could use some financial support in his new battle with the Canadian Human Wrongs Commission:

…here’s where Dagenais becomes a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the CHRC and its censorship fetish: she blacked out portions of my defence before passing it on to the commissioners. Seriously — she censored what I wrote in my own defence, before she passed it along to the people who will sit in judgment of me. She’s only allowing me to say things in my defence that she approves in advance. Look at the version of my letter she’s passing on: several of my arguments are blacked out.

It’s too bad that Harper couldn’t get a clear majority. I hope that nonetheless he’ll be more confident in doing something about this ongoing travesty of justice. But I fear that with an Obama/Reid/Pelosi administration, this assault on freedom of expression will migrate south. Certainly the behavior of the Obama campaign has done nothing to assuage my fears.

The “New” Obama

Stanley Kurtz has been looking more deeply into Barack Obama’s politics and political alliances:

While a small group of bloggers have productively explored Obama’s New Party ties, discussion has often turned on the New Party’s alleged socialism. Was the New Party actually established by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)? Was the New Party’s platform effectively socialist in content? Although these debates are both interesting and important, we needn’t resolve them to conclude that the New Party was far to the left of the American mainstream. Whether formally socialist or not, the New Party and its ACORN backers favored policies of economic redistribution. As Obama would say, they wanted to spread the wealth around. Bracketing the socialism question and simply taking the New Party on its own terms is sufficient to raise serious questions about Obama’s political commitments — questions that cry out for attention from a responsible press.

Yes. Well, as (Democrat) Orson Scott Card points out, we haven’t had a responsible press in quite a while.

Stupidity

I’m getting a little tired of things like this.

Let me state, to attempt to prevent any future comments in this vein, that (apparently) unlike many people, there is no one whose opinion I have sufficient respect for who could convince me that Barack Obama would be a better president than John McCain (not to imply, of course, that I think that John McCain will be a great president). Only those who have no time to evaluate the candidates and the issues rely on endorsements, from anyone, and to do so is a short cut and an intrinsic logical fallacy.

I have abundant information on both candidates at this point, and while (in theory) I could be persuaded to change my mind, this seems unlikely. What I will not be persuaded by is an endorsement by anyone, absent new facts. All that I will be convinced of is that the endorser is either an idiot, ignorant, or on the take (e.g., Colin Powell). I would like to think that this is the case with (at least the intelligent) readers of this blog as well. And (I would like to think that this would go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t, because it keeps happening) I will have a similar opinion of the commenter who informs me of the endorser.

I hope I have made myself clear about this, because I have no more to say on the subject.

A Response To Some Of My Foolish Commenters

Treacher (who has been on fire lately–scroll around the site), in response to the “argument” that the Annenberg Challenge was funded by Republicans:

“Well, how about that. Did you know the planes used on 9/11 weren’t built by terrorists?”

Yup.

[Update a while later]

If the Obama campaign think that the Senator’s relationship with Bill Ayers is no big deal, why are they trying to hide the evidence?

[Update at 11:30 AM EDT]

Fact checking factcheck.org (which it’s becoming increasingly obvious is badly misnamed). And this seems part of a pattern:

The press seems more interested in attacking Rep. Bachman than in doing its job by asking Obama the many legitimate questions that flow out of his past dealings with Bill Ayers.

Can’t disrupt the narrative, particularly two weeks before an election.