Category Archives: War Commentary

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, War Commentary

Trump And Russia

119 Comments

Yes, the benefit of the doubt is gone. And I agree with this:

Why on God’s good Earth would you defend any of this? Since I’ve been having this ridiculous argument all week, let me skip ahead. Yes, “Crooked Hillary,” Ted Kennedy, and a host of other liberals did bad things. Whether those bad things were analogous to this is highly debatable. But let’s just concede the point for argument’s sake. Let’s also accept the president’s grotesquely cynical and false claim that pretty much anyone in politics would have done the same thing and taken the meeting. (I for one am perfectly happy to concede that Sidney Blumenthal would happily have done equally sleazy things for his Queen-master. But I have every confidence that if some shady Russian cutouts approached, say, James Baker with a similar scheme to “incriminate” Michael Dukakis, he would become a helicopter of fists.)

But here’s the thing: Who gives a dirty rat’s ass? If you spent years — like I did, by the way — insisting that the Clintons were a corrupt affront to political decency, invoking their venal actions as a moral justification for Team Trump’s actions is the rhetorical equivalent of a remake of Waterworld set entirely in the main vat of a sewage-treatment plant, i.e., the intellectual Mother of Sh*t Shows. This is a point Ben Shapiro made well earlier this week (and which I’ve been writing about for two years now). If you want to make the case that Democrats or the media are hypocrites, whataboutism is perfectly valid (and quite fun). But if you want to say that it’s fine for Trump to do things you considered legally and morally outrageous when Hillary Clinton did them, you should either concede that you believe two wrongs make a right or you should apologize for being angry about what Clinton did. And you should be prepared to have no right to complain when the next Democrat gets into power and does the same thing.

When Trump does something good, I’ll praise him. When he does something stupid and dubious, I’ll call him on it. I am consistent in my insistence that public officials be held to the same standards as the rest of us.

I wouldn’t mind him being impeached and removed, or even prosecuted, but if either of those things happen, I’ll be incandescent in my outrage if the investigation against her is not renewed and finally done properly, so she can finally be accountable to the law. I’m still glad she lost, but I will not worship this gang of ethically challenged incompetents.

[Saturday-morning update]

Wow, the comments sections is under attack by an army of strawmen.

Here’s what I didn’t say and what I don’t believe. I don’t believe that he is plotting with Putin against the United States. I don’t believe that he’s Hitler. I don’t believe that he is plotting to undermine democracy. I don’t believe he should be impeached (yet). I don’t even believe that he committed a crime (at least with regard to the Russian stuff). If I were as under the sway of the media as some fools fantasize, I would believe all these things.

All I (and Jonah) said is that, for months, we’ve been told by Trump supporters that any suggestion that the campaign had colluded (that is, had meetings with them to discuss how they could help elect Trump) with the Russians was “fake news.” For months, given the absence of evidence, we have given them the benefit of the doubt, despite all of the smoke, and the continuing changing stories (sometimes daily, which continues even now, with the number of attendees at the meeting continuing to grow). So now we know that we can do so no longer on this particular issue. I don’t believe this because I’ve been brainwashed by the media. This is not a position I came to from Trump hatred (though I continue to find him loathesome). I came to this rational, objective position because Trump’s idiot namesake told me that he colluded with the Russians (albeit unsuccessfully in terms of getting the desired Hillary dirt), even if he didn’t use that word.

But apparently (as with Obama) no criticism, no matter how objective, no matter how fact based, of the God King will be brooked by his acolytes. I don’t suffer in any way from Trump derangement, but apparently many of both his opponents and his supporters clearly do.

[Late-morning update]

“This isn’t Watergate. This isn’t treason. And there’s still no smoking gun.”

Oops, guess I shouldn’t have noted this, because according to my brilliant commenters, I’ve been brainwashed by the media (which I in fact find even more despicable than Trump).

[Afternoon update]

BTW, this is why I don’t post about Trump all that much. It’s impossible to have a sane conversation about him with both his opponents and defenders.

[Sunday-morning update]

I see that Ken continues to insult my intelligence in comments because I had and continue to have the temerity to criticize his God King in any way.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Sweden

4 Comments

The terrifying way in which it’s killing itself:

This is a country where rapes by Muslim men are systematically ignored by the authorities or responded to with minimal punishment. Routinely, Swedish courts refuse to return these monsters – some of whom have repeatedly subjected small boys and girls to violent sexual abuse – to their home countries for fear that they’ll be put in danger. In other words, Swedish judges care more about the safety of foreign rapists than that of Swedish children.

Across the straights, Denmark seems to be trying to be more sensible.

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

The War Of Ideas

13 Comments

The Democrats and the Left are losing it, because they don’t have any ammunition. And really, have they come up with any new ideas in the past half century? Governments running peoples’ lives is as old as civilization itself.

[Late-morning update]

Who killed the Left?

The only thing one can be sure of is that the Republican Party didn’t cause it; nor did their tame and feeble publications. In fact, not even publications like Breitbart, valiant though their efforts were, can claim credit. Trump couldn’t have done it either, since the proud tower that Gerlenter describes would have been impervious to the mere touch of the orange-hued real estate mogul without some other factor in play.

Yet most of us know who did it, though we hesitate to name the obvious suspect. The Left, even in its downfall, has stilled our tongues. The word comes to the edge of our lips before we choke it back, fearful even now of the ridicule and abuse we will get should we blurt it. That word is God. God killed the Left. Of course one could legitimately use some other term. “Reality,” “consequences,” the “laws of nature,” “economics,” even “truth” will do. Through some process of increasing entropy, failed memory management, or unanticipated side effects, the status quo — the one dominated by the Left — is collapsing.

Not fast enough. And sadly, there is something in human nature, in our envy, our greed, our self righteousness, our lust for power, to which their toxic ideas appeal.

Business, Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Trump And Putin

18 Comments

He has Vlad over a barrel (of oil).

Funny, I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama told Sarah Palin we couldn’t drill our way out of our energy problems. But then, I’m old enough to remember lots of stupid things that Barack Obama said.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Leftist Freak Out Over Trump’s Speech

29 Comments

Why yes, yes they do hate Western civilization:

So, for Jamelle Bouie, a Westerner asserting the value of Western civilization is barely-veiled racism? If that’s true, then the term “racism” is meaningless. In fact, it’s worse than meaningless: it’s dangerous. If you tell people that to love and to want to defend the culture of the West is a racist act, then they will cease to care about your judgment on the matter, because you are requiring them to hate themselves as an act of virtue. In that regard, Jamelle Bouie’s sentiment here is a much greater gift to the racist alt-right than anything Donald Trump said in Warsaw.

I mean, really, how ignorant and provincial do you have to be, Messrs. Beinart and Bouie, to hear Trump’s speech and think of it as a #MAGA version of a Nuremberg Rally Address? Is the degree of self-hatred of the West required to be a virtuous, woke person such that you cannot tell the difference between Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and the Horst Wessel Song? Do they really think Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation (all of which is available on YouTube, starting here) is a plummy version of Triumph of the Will? If standing against this kind of liberal insanity means I have to stand with Donald Trump, well, okay, I’ll stand with Donald Trump. I won’t like it, but at least Donald Trump doesn’t hate his own civilization.

It’s why they find common cause with Islamists. Also (as usual), want more Trump? Because this is how you get more Trump.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Jonah Goldberg: In defense of western civilization.

[Saturday-morning update]

Trump defends the West, and the Left cries foul. They’re really showing their colors. So to speak.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some of the critics of Trump’s speech in Poland reject the idea of the greatness of Western Civilization. You don’t say.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Obama’s Foreign-Policy Mess

23 Comments

Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of links and thoughts:

Yes, I keep repeating this stuff. Because it bears repeating. In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him. Whenever you see anyone in the media bringing up 2003, you will know that they are serving as palace guard, not as press.

Worth noting that the Nobel Committee embarrassed itself beyond redemption as well.

[Update a while later]

More of Obama’s foreign-policy mess: Venezuela, the Syria next door. Because he never met a dictator he didn’t like.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Trump And Russia, The State Of Play

5 Comments

Byron York lays it out. As far as I can tell, Obama was doing more to help Putin subvert the election than Trump was. And what are the Democrats who are blocking witness testimony trying to hide?

[Update a couple minutes later]

More thoughts from Don Surber. As Glenn asks, then why is Mueller hiring over a dozen more prosecutors? What’s the crime, and who is the target?

[Update a couple more minutes later]

Chaffetz: Congress has to look over Mueller’s shoulder. They certainly need to bring him in to explain himself. And the Justice Department should assign someone else to the hopelessly compromised obstruction investigation.