Better to listen than to talk
Like I'm listening to Christopher Priest:
This nation has had a lot of experience with leaders who put saving face above saving the nation. Bill Clinton put this country through enormous pain and turmoil and, indeed, set the stage for this very scary man to succeed him, by simply not admitting, waaay back during Paula Jones's suit, that he'd had inappropriate conduct (if not quite legally provable sexual intercourse) with a White House intern. George Bush before him spent billions of dollars to bring us to Saddam's door and then turned and went home, and then proceeded to squander a 90% public approval rating to be beaten by an Arkansas governor we'd never heard of.Richard Nixon sentenced tens of thousands of teenage boys to die in the jungles of Southeast Asia because he wanted to win reelection in 1972 and because he didn't want to look bad, or be the first president to "lose" a war. We fought in Vietnam for a principle, to protect our values and our way of life from a tiny, impoverished nation that we pretended was the linchpin to Soviet world dominance so General Dynamics and Bell Helicopter could make a fortune.
The piece is about our current President, and titled, "OJ Stupid." Nice shorthand phrase, that.
I am suggesting that they [the current administration] are stupid. Very stupid. Or perhaps they are OJ Stupid: pretend to look stupid, leave blood trails, drop gloves, low speed Bronco chase, so the defense goes, "You can't possibly think he's that stupid? It's a frame up!" which makes OJ Stupid a very smart maneuver. The public loves a good mystery. While most police officers will tell you, the most obvious criminal scenario is often exactly what happened, the American public has been conditioned by Matlock to look for complexity where none really exists. So Clinton was the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy, OJ was set up, and this Iraq business can't possibly be about the 2002 elections because that possibility really is just too ridiculous and obscene.Which, to me, means the Bush White House is either Stupid Stupid or OJ Stupid. Stupid Stupid if they are genuinely protecting vital US interests while not muzzling Rove and Card (and not hiding a clearly uncomfortable Colin Powell). OJ Stupid if all of that chaos was meant to make us suspicious of the administration's motives, while dismissing the obvious because it's just too skeevy to be contemplated.
He's a cool guy. I don't agree with everything he says -- can't think of anyone I do feel that way about -- but he makes it clear that he's just writing his informed opinion, and that there's the distinct possibility that he's wrong.
Don't do that nearly well enough myself.
I'd also say his opinions fall well within the mainstream of African American politics, and might even be a wee bit on the conservative side of 'em. That's a dangerous thing to say, though.
After all, I didn't think Harry Belafonte's comments were way out of line either, and David Horowitz is taking up a collection to send him out of the country.
Harry Belafonte doesnt speak for Black Americans. He speaks for the radical left. [. . .] I am planning to run ads in college papers across the country with this Message to Harry. The Message To Harry campaign is going to expose his thinly veiled attack on America. It will also challenge the lefts ongoing cynical appeal to American Blacks to betray their American birthright.
Thanks (if that's the right word) to Horowitzwatch for pointing that out. I try to avoid Front Page Magazine unless I'm looking for something extremely stupid to make fun of.
Y'know, like taking up a collection to send someone out of the country for expressing an opinion. Or yet another example of kindly coservative/libertarian white folk explaining what we believe, and what our best interests are. So good of them to take time out of their busy schedules to do that, really. I should send them a gift basket.
The name of this little crusade, by the way, is, "Message to Harry: Respect African-Americans Who Love Their Country Or Leave It."
I can think of several messages I'd like to send to David (we're on a first-name basis here, apparently), but they may not fit on that little card that comes with the basket. . .
Well, ok, he's raising money for the ads, not a plane ticket. This obviously needs work. It may vanish and be replaced with Hello, Kitty animated gifs. Please stand by.