Category Archives: Political Commentary

On Extremism

“Grim” has some thoughts.

Which is the extreme position: to think that people should be able to put substances into their own body without government interference, or that people should be imprisoned for ingesting smoke from burning leaves?

Is it really “extreme” to think one religion inferior to another? I’m not a member of either one, but if one religion really does preach peace and turning the other cheek, and another believes that all non-adherents to it should die, who really doesn’t believe that the former is superior to the latter? This kind of loony moral relativism is what I find extreme, and not in a good way.

In any event, like Glenn Reynolds, I consider myself an extremist, but an eclectic one. And like Barry Goldwater, I don’t think that’s necessarily a vice.

It’s Not The Crime, It’s The Coverup

This was one of the first stupid political decisions that the Clinton White House made, in their ongoing interest of manufacturing a false image, and it’s reverberated right down to Hillary’s campaign. It seems particularly true in this case, because there doesn’t seem to have been a crime. Bill Dedman has read Hillary’s thesis, and it comes off as pretty weak tea to me. Pretty anti-climactic, after all the fevered speculation during the nineties, which (like many Clinton imbroglios) was fed by the secrecy.

[Via La Dynamist]

It’s Not The Crime, It’s The Coverup

This was one of the first stupid political decisions that the Clinton White House made, in their ongoing interest of manufacturing a false image, and it’s reverberated right down to Hillary’s campaign. It seems particularly true in this case, because there doesn’t seem to have been a crime. Bill Dedman has read Hillary’s thesis, and it comes off as pretty weak tea to me. Pretty anti-climactic, after all the fevered speculation during the nineties, which (like many Clinton imbroglios) was fed by the secrecy.

[Via La Dynamist]

It’s Not The Crime, It’s The Coverup

This was one of the first stupid political decisions that the Clinton White House made, in their ongoing interest of manufacturing a false image, and it’s reverberated right down to Hillary’s campaign. It seems particularly true in this case, because there doesn’t seem to have been a crime. Bill Dedman has read Hillary’s thesis, and it comes off as pretty weak tea to me. Pretty anti-climactic, after all the fevered speculation during the nineties, which (like many Clinton imbroglios) was fed by the secrecy.

[Via La Dynamist]

A Thought On Ann Coulter

Not from me–I haven’t said anything about her latest fragging of her own troops, because I rarely say anything at all about her (and not being a conservative, I’m not as concerned as conservatives should be as to how she makes them look). It’s from a Freeper. In West Hollywood:

The other protest that I have seen already, on different threads, is as follows: Ann is a private citizen, she can say what she wants, only a fool would think that Mitt Romney or Duncan Hunter feels the same way. But I submit to you that this is what I call “insider thinking.” Of course, WE know whose stance is what… we are familiar with the nuances of conservative thought. We read up on politics every single day. But compare how an outsider such as Michael (and glittery Tony) views the conservative world: much like we view the muslim world. When a mad mullah or bomb-laden extremist foams at the mouth about decimating Israel and America, we look to the rest of the muslim world as if to say politely “And do you agree?” When all we hear are crickets chirping (and a few bombs going off prematurely because some Palestinian’s cell phone got pinged) we notice. And we think, ah. I see. You agree.

If we do not agree, we do indeed have the responsibility to say so, as conservatives.

In fact, at the end of the evening an incident occured that captures this second point nicely. A very intoxicated young man with a penchant for chanting hiphop lyrics in people’s faces, and flicking his lighter perilously close to women’s noses, tried to put his arm around me. I had already developed a dislike for this one, and gave him a slight elbow while I stepped away. Outraged, he pursued me and I gave him a good shove. My sister told the bouncer and the other guys gathered round and chimed in their outrage. Throw that guy out! The bouncer threw the guy out.

For the next ten minutes, gay men were coming up to me anxiously: Are you alright? He’s gone now, don’t worry. He was a jerk. I don’t like him either. I hope you aren’t upset. We aren’t all like that. Are you sure you’re alright?

They instinctively came to reassure me, knowing that as an outsider, I could not distinguish between them unless they made known their stances. And Tony said, “I may be gay, but I’m still a man. Woman are supposed to be protected, you know?”

Unfortunately, while many will agree with her, there are a lot of hateful people over there (though nothing like the denizens of DU).

More Double Standards From The Chatteratti

I’m kind of amazed at the latest kerfuffle about the firing of the six US attorneys. As has been noted multiple times, they serve at the pleasure of the president. The only unorthodox thing about it, as far as I can tell, is the loophole that would allow them to be replaced absent Senate confirmation. And there seems to be a certain lack of ingenuousness in some of the reporting on it. For instance, in the piece at Slate, note this graf:

This kind of purge is legal but unprecedented. A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service revealed that since 1981, no more than three U.S. attorneys had ever been forced out under similar circumstances. And now we have six in a day? What’s going on?

Unprecedented? Really? We’ll come back to that in a moment.

Note the emphasis, which is mine. What does “under similar circumstances” mean? Well, if one follows the link to the CRA report, it turns out that it means “having served less than a four-year term.” But why is it so awful for a president to remove his own appointee? The CRA report doesn’t count those removed as a result of an administration change.

Which gets us to the “unprecedented” rhetoric. Where was all the fuss and bother in 1993, when Janet Reno fired every single US attorney bar one (over ninety of them) in a single day? As Judge Bork noted:

She was not in charge from the beginning. Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege.

Just as Whitewater was heating up. Just a coinkydinky, one can be sure.

Yet I don’t recall it being such a big deal at the time. In fact, it’s hard to find much reportage on it from the era (something that caused some of my commenters to unjustly accuse me of lying about it a few months ago).

Guess it’s only an outrage when Republican presidents fire a few US attorneys. A wholesale slaughter isn’t very interesting, when a Democrat does it. Particularly when it’s a Democrat whom the press had just propelled into office by ignoring, or helping spin away, all of the many corruption issues and incipient scandals associated with him (certainly Clinton’s problems with ethics and aversion to truth weren’t unknown to Arkansas reporters of the era). And as Bork also notes, it set the stage for all the scandalous activity to come.

[Update]

Andy McCarthy has more on Democrat double standards in such matters, particularly from Senator Feinstein..