The Bigger Lie: Andrew Sullivan's projections

It is gratifying and sad at the same time ("sorrow and joy are one" to borrow Auden's phrase) to see the intellectual dry rot at the core of American liberalism finally exposed in the public square. Andrew Sullivan has long been an example of this inexorable decline and he has shown himself once again to be a product of his time with his piece "The Big Lie" The irony of writing a column describing "the Right"'s construction of a deliberately false narrative to destroy our president and then hyperactively naming it after Nazi Germany's most infamous program of racial propaganda seems lost on him. In Sullivan's pretzel logic President Obama is stymied not by his actions or political views but by " a deliberate, simple and systemic campaign to kill Obama's presidency in its crib" that stems from... well, what?Andrew Sullivan does his best to prop up Obama's Even as the "Occupy" protests have devolved into uneasy coalitions of trust fund kids, shadily-funded community organizers and homeless opportunists.

It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail

Thus it is tempting if you were raised to be an entitled pseudointellectual in a Godless world filled with hypocrisy and dystopian fantasy to see everything like this:

The Children of Aftermath

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/38363/the-children-of-aftermath

Bush's Tragic Legacy

How 9/11 Triggered America's Decline

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785405,00.html

That is just too depressing for me

Anyone who doubts the veracity of Christianity...

... has only to read the Pentateuch and appreciate its deep understanding of human nature (our constant failing in the face of the divine) 3000 years before Freud was in diapers.

Word Coinage of the day

Conflatulence - upon reading the word "confluence" after Scotch and wine

Pray For Dallas Willard

I heard recently that Dallas Willard is having a series of health problems related to surgery. He is a man very close to God's heart I think, but I selfishly hope that God is not yet ready to bring him home. Here he could be speaking to anyone:

“'Contempt' is a big problem -- discounting people; saying that they don’t matter, etc.' Much of today’s conversations are filled with contemptuous words. Jesus endeavored to 'remove contempt' between people – this was HUGE to him. Even the very notion of “unclean” is a type of contempt..."' It's common in our culture to act contemptously. For example: “Business is Business' – what does such a person have in mind when they say this to us?" [answer:] “I’m about to do something that’s not entirely (or morally) “right”. We need to teach people that business cannot just be business.

On the 6th Circuit Upholding ObamaCare and the State of our Judiciary

from (link above):

6th Circuit on losing streak in Supreme Court cases

"It's a bit surprising to see 15 reversals in a row," said Michael Solimine, a University of Cincinnati law professor who studies the federal courts.

Some 6th Circuit judges are surprised, too. But they say they're doing their best and are trying to take the rejection in stride.

"Getting reversed by the Supreme Court, some people these days think, is a badge of honor," said Gilbert Merritt, a semi-retired senior judge and one of the 6th Circuit's most liberal members. "It depends on your point of view."

Hello, I Think you Must Be Going!

Mr. Gingrich had the good sense to stay out of the 2008 presidential race, but time has weakened the checks on his oversized ego. Fortunately he can't stop being Newt and has showed his true colors, extemporizing and breaking Reagan's eleventh commandment. Hopefully Newt will retain (or regain) enough self-awareness to exit the race at the earliest opportunity.

Maybe he can still get his deposit back from the government.

Michael Steele Needs to Move On

Like many others I first took notice of Michael Steele during his unsuccessful 2006 Senate run in Maryland. He was confident and well-spoken and his attitude during his David-vs-Goliath campaign was truly inspiring. Buoyed by his newfound national identity he managed to stay in the limelight enough to be considered (again as a long shot) for the RNC chairmanship. So I was truly happy to see him get elected to that position, expecting him to be a fresh and articulate alternative to the Republican Party's rather lackluster public face. Well since then he seems to have done little but continually put his foot in his mouth, undermine the RNC's message, and act in a generally self-serving manner. This latest strip club scandal is just that - the latest in what is becoming a very long list. But now we hear his defense is to play the race card? This is the last thing the RNC needs after having squandered so many advantages and being so out of touch as to launch and entire political movement.

Steele needs to find a well-paid consultancy position somewhere and stop helping the Republican Party commit suicide.

The Obama Theme Song

Heard this driving in to work today and was struck by the similarity of its sentiments to those of our current administration. The theme of "we're outsiders and its not our fault"- it couldn't be more perfect:

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's hard to beat the system
when we're standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television
what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's not that we don't care,
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we're still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

Now This Makes Sense

Given Obama's abysmal performance so far:

The chatter has increased in recent days about Clinton leaving the cabinet sometime in the first term, likely over some matter of principle, so that she can position herself to challenge Obama in 2012"

That so makes sense.