This Idiot Goes To Cornell

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about six kids preparing and applying to sundry universities across the United States. Normally, I would read these stories of over-achievers and maniacal parents and move on, but one of the six stories really stuck out to me--for all of the wrong reasons.

Consider Ramond King. Given that his parents hiply-misspelled his name, nothing in this story should come as a surprise.

When Dartmouth College rejected Ramond King last December, he blasted Radiohead's "Let Down" and tried to figure out why he wasn't at least put on the wait list. He had a 3.9 grade-point average his senior year, took five Advanced Placement courses and won the headmaster's cup, an award to the student who showed the most personal growth at the Branson School in Ross, Calif.

A few weeks later, as he was finishing 13 applications, Mr. King's college counselor called with a possible explanation. On his application, where he'd described his course load, Ramond had spelled chemistry as "chemestry" and literature as "literatre." The errors appeared six times.

"When it happened, of course, I'm freaking out," Mr. King says. Before he'd sent that Dartmouth application, his mother, father and sister had studied each word, scouring for mistakes. But the errors were on a page he filled out on his own and gave to the guidance office to complete with recommendations.

In his next round of applications, the errors were corrected. This time, he was accepted to five schools, including Cornell, where he is now a freshman. He says blatant misspellings can be fatal to an application (ed. note: seriously?): "I try and laugh about it now," he says.

Advice: Check every section of an application immediately after finishing it, as well as before sending it. Many college counselors recommend printing out an online application and proofreading the hard copy.

In 13 applications, he misspelled the same two words 6 times. One time on one application--that I would understand, but 6 times out of 13 applications makes me think this kid is a complete idiot who still isn't sure how to spell "chemestry" or "literatre." And it's not like he consistently misspelled those two words in all 13 applications. He only screwed it up 6 times. Presumably he got it right the other 7? Who knows?

Cornell, you deserve whatever you get from Ramond King.

Also, I'm no longer accepting the "Cornell is a 2nd tier Ivy" crap I've been hearing all of these years. Sorry, not when your frosh applicants are pulling stuff like this.

[ed. note: if someone emails me in a couple of years to tell me that King became a Rhodes scholar, I'll eat my words.]


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Health Care Reform

For the record, I am not (nor have I ever defended) defending the status quo.

I dislike the health care status quo for two reasons broad reasons:
- It is inefficient and costly.
- It gives impetus to the useful idiots clamoring for universal health care.

I am for a reform of health care that would at least do the following:
- correctly align incentives
- eliminate the tax incentive in favor of employer provided health care thereby freeing labor movement AND allow wages to rise
- reduce regulation allowing for greater instate and intrastate insurance competition
- expand Health Savings Accounts and use of "catastrophic" health insurance
- encourage greater use of statistics-based health care evaluation & best practices
- I'm sure there's something I'm missing ...

I further propose that we avoid a federal, one-size-fits-all prescription for health and instead eliminate government-caused, market distorting interventions such as tax free employer provided health care. Wherever possible, the federal government should encourage and allow various states to attempt reform at that level--in the mode of Wisconsin's welfare reform in the early-mid 90's.

As an example & case study, I offer Bobby Jindal's plan to reform Medicaid in Louisiana.

This is the type of reform we should be encouraging.


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George Washington's Thanksgiving

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

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Thankful For Education

They came first for religious freedom. Now, descendants of the ones who stayed behind, come for the education.

In the media telling, America during the Bush years has been an unpopular and insular country. But one group would seem to differ: young people. The U.S. remains the top destination for students from around the world, while Americans are studying abroad in record numbers too.

The New York-based Institute of International Education's "Open Doors" report, published this week, shows that more foreign students than ever are flocking to American colleges and universities. International student enrollment increased by 7% to 623,805 in the 2007-08 academic year -- the largest annual increase since 1980. The survey, funded by the State Department's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, accumulates data from 3,000 institutions of higher education.

The easy answer is that American universities are the most liberal, anti-Bush places in America (maybe the world)--that if they don't like us, they will find people sympathetic to their viewpoint at Berkeley & Columbia.

Of course, they aren't attending universities in such high numbers in other countries they supposedly don't like, or of whose leaders they so strongly disapprove.


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The Moral Hazard Of Secularism

Another reason religion and morality matter. Prop 8 & doing away with Christmas and everything else--it's all of a piece.

Daniel Henninger:

It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions.

The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.

Read the whole article. I'll take Dan Henninger over Tom Friedman every day of the week and twice on Sundays.


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Hopefully We Can All Hang Out

You know, when Michelle Obama sends those of us in the loyal & conservative opposition to liberal re-education camps, to teach us not to be racists for voting for John McCain & that Prop 8 is bad. Bad! Bad! Bad!

Since my daily blog readership doesn't quite break 4 digits--yet (haters), I'll probably last a little bit longer than my heroes Ace & Iowahawk.

But rest assured, when Michelle's T800s (all designed to look exactly like Rachel Maddow. sick & wrong, I know) put me in the camp, all you'll have to do is look for those guys, and you'll find me. No doubt we'll be planning a little Great Escape-style escape. We'll name our tunnels Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley Jr. (WFB, for brevity's sake), & Milton Friedman.

Be sure and check out Iowahawk's latest offense against his lordship, the high Obama:

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.

"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet."

Clinton said he was "excited and honored" by the appointment, and would work "day and night" to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign.

To all my liberal friends: Please show mercy on me now, in your moment of supreme power and might and dominance. I mean, all I did was use Obama's middle name in my posts over and over and over again in a vain attempt to scare Americans into thinking he was a jihadist in disguise.

That's not so bad, right?

Right!?!!

If I promise to take some of those lame 48 loves 52 pictures, will you let me off with a simple, Berkeley-style brainwashing, and a little bamboo under the fingernails? Please?

I don't think I can take the John McCain Experience. (heh. you see what I did there, with "experience?")


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National Review Sticks Up For Mormons, 1st Amendment

I'm tempting the Fair Use fates (again) by posting this, but I just don't see any other way around it. If you care about the 1st Amendment, you must read this article.

Last week in a Denver suburb, someone lit a Book of Mormon on fire and dropped it on the doorstep of a Mormon temple, presumably as a statement about the church’s support of Proposition 8 in California, an initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In a move that may make gay-rights supporters’ heads spin, the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The outbreak of attacks on the Mormon church since the passage of Proposition 8 has been chilling: envelopes full of suspicious white powder were sent to church headquarters in Salt Lake City; protesters showed up en masse to intimidate Mormon small-business owners who supported the measure; a website was created to identify and shame members of the church who backed it; activists are targeting the relatives of prominent Mormons who gave money to pass it, as well as other Mormons who are only tangentially associated with the cause; some have even called for a boycott of the entire state of Utah.

The wisdom of hate-crimes legislation aside, there is no doubt that a lot of hate is being directed at Mormons as a group. But why single out Mormons? And why now?

Dozens of church bodies — including the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Christian bishops of California, and a wide variety of evangelicals — supported the proposition. It’s also worth considering that, while gay-rights advocates cannot discuss same-sex marriage for more than 30 seconds without making faulty analogies to Jim Crow-era anti-miscegenation laws, some 70 percent of blacks voted for Proposition 8. While there have been a few ugly racist statements by gay-rights supporters, such vile sentiment has been restricted. Not so the hatred directed at Mormons, who are convenient targets.

To date, 30 states have voted on initiatives addressing same-sex marriage, and in every state traditional marriage has come out on top. But somehow the fact that Mormons got involved during the latest statewide referendum constitutes a bridge too far? In truth, Mormons are a target of convenience in the opening salvo of what is sure to be a full-scale assault on much of America’s religious infrastructure, which gay activists perceive as a barrier to their aspirations. Among religious groups, Mormons are not the biggest obstacle to same-sex marriage — not by a long shot. But they are an easy target. Anti-Mormon bigotry is unfortunately common, and gay-rights activists are cynically exploiting that fact.

There are no websites dedicated to “outing” Catholics who supported Proposition 8, even though Catholic voters heavily outnumber Mormons. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not remarkably strident in its beliefs on the subject. So far, no gay-rights activist has had the brass to burn a Qu’ran on the doorstep of a militant mosque where — forget marriage! — imams advocate the stoning of homosexuals.

Churches oppose same-sex marriage in part because it represents an implicit threat to freedom of conscience and belief. California already had one of the broadest civil-unions laws in the country. There was little in the way of government-sanctioned privileges that a state-issued marriage license would confer. But the drive for same-sex marriage is in practice about legislating moral conformity — demanding that everybody recognize homosexual relationships in the same way, regardless of their own beliefs. Freedom of conscience, or diversity of belief, is the last thing the homosexual lobby will tolerate: In New Mexico, a state civil-rights commission fined an evangelical wedding photographer $6,637 for politely declining to photograph a gay commitment ceremony. In California, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against two San Diego fertility doctors who refused to give in-vitro fertilization to a lesbian owing to their religious beliefs, even though they had referred her to another doctor. And just this week, evangelical dating site eHarmony, which hadn’t previously provided same-sex matchmaking services, announced it had been browbeaten into doing so by New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights and the threat of litigation. The first 10,000 same-sex eHarmony registrants will receive a free six-month subscription. “That’s one of the things I asked for,” crowed Eric McKinley, who brought the charges against eHarmony.

Where do they go from here? Gay activists are already using the legal system to try to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. If you believe that churches and synagogues, priests and rabbis won’t eventually be sued for their statements on sexuality, you’re kidding yourself. Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist who helps draft federal legislation related to sexual orientation, says that, when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” A National Public Radio report on the conflict noted that if previous cases are any guide, “the outlook is grim for religious groups.”

Given their cavalier disregard for the freedom of conscience, it’s little surprise that the gay lobby is equally disdainful of democracy: They began pursuing legal challenges to Proposition 8 practically before they were done tallying the votes. Lamentably, the state attorney general defending the will of the people will be former Jerry Brown, the liberal former governor who was an open opponent of the measure and tried to sabotage it. The legal challenges will be heard by the same state Supreme Court that overturned California’s previous law forbidding gay marriage back in May. There’s a real possibility the will of the people will be spurned a second time, democracy be damned. They’ve already burned the Book of Mormon. The First Amendment is next.

(emphasis added)


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Marines Kick Taliban A**, Take No Names

30 Marines vs. 250 Taliban. It's like something out of a movie. Only better.

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.

“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”

For an R-rated (you've been warned), Chuck Norris-style lauding of the young corporal's deeds, click the link.

(thanks to Ace)


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Here's A Link To The Video

After hunting around for a bit, I finally found the video of our discussion on conservatism as a part of PJTV's Conservatism 2.0 thing last week. No embed or keepvid option, so you'll just have to click the link.


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Prop 8: Building A Strong Conservative Alliance

In the run-up to last week's round-table discussion on PJTV, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say. After consulting with my brother and a Wise Man, I concluded that I would speak to the strength of social conservatism, as evidenced by Prop 8's passage in California.

(In the end, it didn't really matter, as they just wanted to talk about conservatism on college campuses.)

Specifically, as prompted by this point from the aforementioned Wise Man, I wanted to talk about Mormonism's inclusion in the broader coalition of socially conservative Christians:

given the demographic change that now favours the Democratic Party and certainly the voting in California on Prop 8 bore this out--young people voted overwhelmingly against it--and seeing the excellent cooperation between Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons--isn't now the time to embrace Mormons who are bucking the demographic trend (largest families amongst Christian denominations in America) into the Conservative alliance

Indeed, this may be the silver lining to the cloud of persecution facing Mormons post-Prop 8. There is no question that members of the Church of Jesus Christ played a lead role in GOTV in favor of Prop 8 and that they also funded much of the Yes on 8 ad campaign.

Members of other Christian faiths witnessed Mormons' efforts first-hand and have seen the persecution these efforts brought in the wake of Prop 8's passage.

A recent press release from the LDS church notes the common cause coalition being built by the fight for traditional marriage. Michael Barber, Professor at John Paul the Great Catholic University:

As a Catholic school, we stand beside our friends in the Mormon Church and of people of faith who work tirelessly to preserve the freedom of religion in America. We also strongly oppose any attempt to ridicule another person’s faith, even faiths with which we have strong historical and theological disagreements."

This is the key point: theological differences ought to be put aside in favor of a partnership in defense of common goals and values.

Mormons can and should make common cause with other faiths on issues regarding life (abortion, stem-cell research, assisted suicide, etc.), family (marriage, divorce, adoption, etc.) and other issues without having to get into debates about theological questions.

Chuck Colson, The Christian Post:

Two days after the election, 2,000 homosexual protesters surrounded a Mormon temple in Los Angeles chanting 'Mormon scum.' Protesters picketed Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, holding signs reading 'Purpose-Driven Hate.' Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills was spray painted. Church members' cars have been vandalized, and at least two Christians were assaulted. Protesters even hurled racial epithets at African-Americans because African-Americans voted overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage. What hypocrisy from those who spend all of their time preaching tolerance to the rest of us!

Apart from highlighting the hipocrisy of the tolerance crowd, this comment groups together 3 churches which never would have found themselves on the same side of any question prior to Prop 8. Calvary Chapel and Saddleback Church have typically been critical of Mormonism, but on marriage, they agree.

Again, this is where the focus should be.

Rod Dreher, Beliefnet.com:

Now is the time for traditional Christians -- Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox -- to come to the aid of our Mormon friends. They put themselves on the front line of the traditional marriage battle like no other church group. And now individual Mormons are paying a terrible price for standing up for something we all believe in. I don't know how we can stand with them from afar, but at least we can thank them, and speak out when we see them being abused. We might also think again about how we view them. … I have deep disagreements with Mormon theology. But they are our friends and allies and fellow citizens, and they deserve our thanks and support.

This is the time. On the most important questions that face American families (especially from a socially conservative, religious perspective), Mormons and "traditional" Christians see eye-to-eye.


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Raising The Bar

This is up there with saying that ol' bi/post-partisan-Obama is governing from the "center-right" because he nominated Hillary Clinton--friend of conservative-Republicans everywhere--as Secretary of State. (thanks to Morgan H. for the image)

Reads the Washington Post headline: Obama Sets Expansive Goal for Jobs - Plan Aims to Create or Save 2.5 Million Positions by 2011

Has the WaPo turned into the Onion? How can they put something like that on the front page ... and keep a straight face? Could you imagine if President Bush had made such a claim? Yeah.

If you thought the media's inthetankedness for Obama would end with the election, think again: They got him there, now they aim to keep him there for 8 years (or longer, Obama willing).

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Happy Victory In Iraq Day

Congratulations and thank you to our men and women in uniform.

Two years ago this fall, things looked pretty bad. Iraq was falling apart, our troops were playing whack-a-mole with the insurgents, Sunnis and Shiites were resuming their blood feud. For a reminded of how bad it was, read my post from two years ago. You'll note that Joe Lieberman figures prominently.

Though the hard fighting may be done, Iraq still needs our support. A hasty withdrawal, or cessation of Iraqi troop-training--pretty much anything that ignores the advice of GI Joe General Petraeus--could endanger hard-won gains in that country.

I guess that's why this is my biggest Hope for Obama: That he listens to and takes the advice of good generals like Petraeus & Odierno.

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Michael Yon On The Way Forward

Let me be clear: I'm joining in the celebration of 22 November as VI-Day (Victory in Iraq) not because I want to give whoever more fodder with which to ridicule those of us who want to win, but because I want to celebrate the accomplishments and sacrifice of our men and women in the military.

What they have achieved in Iraq is an incredible feat of arms. It ought to be celebrated. If, indeed, it works out that Barack Obama is able to withdraw on any timeline whatsoever and that withdrawal does not result in chaos and a failed state, it will have been because of what our military accomplished in Iraq.

I've said this before, but I repeat it again now: If you want to know what's really going on in Iraq and now, Afghanistan, you had better be reading Michael Yon. He doesn't do drive-by reporting, just visiting combat zones a few times a year, he is fully immersed, living in country and filing regular reports. He is funded and supported by the voluntary donations of his readers (in fact, this would be a good place to donate). He is not a cheerleader, but tells it like it is. His reporting is indespensible and, as far as I can tell, can't be had anywhere else.

His 10 November report talks about the success in Iraq but also warns President-elect Obama about the many challenges that we face in Afghanistan. Like everything he writes, it's a good read.

The Iraq war is over. Barring the unforeseen, the darkest days are behind, though we are still losing soldiers to low-level fighting with enemies that are true “dead-enders.” Last month we lost seven Americans in combat in Iraq. Peace, however, is not upon us. Another thirty or so Iraqis died today in suicide attacks. Nobody suffers more at the hands of Islamic terrorists than other Muslims.

A new President will soon begin to make critical decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis at home, and countless other matters. While the Iraq war began, then boiled and finally cooled before President-elect Obama will be sworn into office on January 20th, 2009, the Afghanistan-Pakistan spectacle is just getting started. He was always a fierce opponent of our involvement in Iraq. And, as with so many Democrats in the Senate, he argued frequently, during the campaign, that we should have been focused on Afghanistan all along, because it is the real incubator of the international terrorist threat. Timing being everything, our new President will get his wish. Afghanistan now moves to center stage. The conflicts in Afghanistan and between Afghanistan and Pakistan have the simmering potential to overshadow anything we’ve seen in Iraq.

Click to read the rest of what Yon "hopes" Obama understands.

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Michael Crichton: 'Take Your Consensus And Shove It'

From Michael Crichton's lecture delivered at the California Institute of of Technology on 17 January 2003:

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses -- just so we're clear -- are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

The Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. . . .

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage -- similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example -- meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. . . .

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . .

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world -- increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

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Thomas Sowell On 'Intellectualism'

This stuff is pure gold:

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending “the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.”

He cited Adlai Stevenson, the suave and debonair governor of Illinois, who twice ran for president against Eisenhower in the 1950s, as an example of an intellectual in politics.

Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are “interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity,” people who “read the classics.”

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson “could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book.” But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance.

What is more telling, form was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed, though apparently not to Mr. Kristof.

That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.

As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.

Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.

Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.

The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model — all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear — that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.

After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.

More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine — about the same number as the people killed in Hitler’s Holocaust.

In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.

It would be no feat to fill a big book with all the things on which intellectuals were grossly mistaken, just in the 20th century — far more so than ordinary people.

History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley’s view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable — or even expert — within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

(emphasis added)

Just remember: Conservatives are stupid and anti-intellectual and liberals are smart and debonair.


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Love Dennis Miller

Thanks to Scott L.


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Conservatism 2.0

Billed as "a discussion about the future of conservatism," Pajamas Media's TV outlet, the aptly named, PJTV, will broadcast a round table discussion featuring Mike Huckabee, Glenn Reynolds, Dr. Helen Smith, Michelle Malking and some college conservatives & Young Republicans.

If you're a subscriber, check it out. I don't know if it will be made available to non-subscribers or not.

I'm meant to contribute in some manner, but it remains to be seen exactly how much I'll be seen--that is to say, my part might get cut. If it does, I'll update later and fill you in on what I said that they thought wasn't worth airing.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Stephen Hadley, Awesome American

In the week-long run-up to VI-Day (Victory in Iraq Day), I'll be posting good articles related to the success of our troops, The Surge, and those who supported The Surge against the Democrat and public opinion tide.

One of the people to include in the pantheon was Stephen Hadley.

[...] one fact trumps everything else: Without this good man's courage and persistence, there would have been no surge.

I don't think I am talking out of school to mention facts that have been recorded in newspaper articles and books as different as Bing West's "The Strongest Tribe" and Bob Woodward's "The War Within." The surge story begins back in 2006, when al Qaeda finally succeeded in setting the Shia and Sunni at each others' throats. That October, with Baghdad consumed by sectarian fires, Mr. Hadley tasked William Luti to come up with a new way forward.

Mr. Luti was then serving in the National Security Council (NSC) as special assistant for defense policy and strategy. A retired Navy captain who had commanded an amphibious ready group that included thousands of Marines, he was familiar with war planning. The briefing that he came up with was called "Changing the Dynamics: Surge and Fight, Create Breathing Space and Then Accelerate the Transition." You know it as "the surge."

The difficulty for these two men was that outside their colleagues in the NSC and West Wing, few wanted to hear about sending more American troops to Iraq. The Democrats wanted out and were declaring the war lost. Some Republicans were joining in. The Iraq Study Group offered a face-saving out, and many in the Defense and State departments wanted to take it. The American public was weary.

By having Mr. Luti draw up the concept for a surge, Mr. Hadley ensured that when options were presented to the president, one of them would be to fight. In Mr. Luti's strategic conception, securing the population became the top priority. In public, advocates like retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and military strategist Fred Kagan did yeoman's work to press the case for a surge. But within the White House decision-making process, it was almost this simple: No Steve Hadley, no surge -- and no success.

What can this possibly mean for Mr. Obama? The answer is plenty. Many things have changed since he first came out against this war. For one thing, he is now the president-elect instead of an opposition voice in the Senate -- which means he now bears the responsibility for how the war turns out. For another, back when he first called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn, President Bush's victory talk was treated as a joke. It is no longer a joke.

As Gens. David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno are keen to remind us, the gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible. But they are nevertheless real. And that means that if Mr. Obama is not careful, he could be the president who loses Iraq.

It need not turn out that way. At bottom, Mr. Obama's war stance boils down to reducing our presence in Iraq and increasing our presence in Afghanistan. The success of the surge permits him [Obama] to carry out this strategy from a position of strength. In fact, the security pact just approved by Iraq's cabinet suggests that Mr. Obama is now in a position to achieve most of his Iraq aims without jeopardizing the hard-won gains our troops have made -- provided he keeps his word to listen to our commanders on the ground.

(per usual, emphasis added)

What a difference 2 years makes.


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Goldberg On Social/Religious Conservatives

The Republican party needs them. And, as evidenced by Prop 8's passage in California, being socially conservative does not lose elections.

Goldberg:

It turns out that people who buy into the logic of social liberalism, not just on abortion but racial and other issues as well, usually find themselves ill-equipped ideologically to say no to additional spending on causes they care about. They even find it difficult to stay Republicans, as we can see from recent example Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama for president for largely ethereal reasons.

It should be noted that it’s also difficult to be fiscally conservative and socially conservative if you’ve jettisoned the conservative dogma of limited government. We saw this in spades as President Bush embraced “activist government” and ended up wildly increasing government spending over the last eight years.

And that should serve as a warning to those, on the right and left, who would like to see the GOP defenestrate millions of actual, living, breathing members of the party — e.g., social conservatives — in order to woo millions of largely nonexistent jackalopes. The GOP would simply cease to exist as a viable party without the support of social and religious conservatives.

Keep the social cons.


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No H8ers Allowed

In the liberal paradise that is the Castro district of San Francisco, tolerance, peace, & love abound.

Or not:



Michelle Malkin has the YouTube author's story about his experience.

Lovers of the Constitution beware, from Hot Air:

The violence wasn’t captured on camera this time; read the boss for a description of that. The media’s unwilling to place blame where it belongs in these incidents since the identities of the harassers and harassed confound the established Narrative, so they resort instead to feeble, evenhanded tsk-tsking about how “both sides” need to “cool down.” Look out for that as the coverage of this breaks big.

There’s only one man now who can rescue Prop 8 opponents from the terrible trappings of democracy — and luckily, not only has he had a lot of practice at it, this particular issue is one of his specialties. Expect a major 5-4 equal protection decision striking down the referendum sometime next year, with you-know-who writing for the majority. A surefire consolation prize for conservatives? Angriest Scalia dissent evah.

Looks like I'm going to have to break out my judicial activism rant after all.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.