Category Archives: Elections

Israelis Should Ignore American ‘Ethnic Agitators’

Elections, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Will the America’s political caste succeed in infecting Israelis with the pigment burden? I hope not, but they’re trying mightily:

Bibi Netanyahu urged his supporters, on Tuesday morning, to head to the polls, by warning them that Arab Israelis were being bussed to the polls by “left-leaning organizations.” Does that sound like a familiar strategy? Something the Democrats do? Indeed, says Ann Coulter. And “Instead of [Republicans] cowering in the face of left-wing ethnic agitation, how about pointing out that they’re busing Somalis to the polls in Minnesota; that they’re dumping illegal-alien ballots at the polling booths in Arizona.”

Netanyahu’s realistic appeal was viewed as “racist” by the US media. Via Newsbusters:

… the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg repeatedly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral strategy which he labeled “the Israeli version of the Southern Strategy. … basically [trying] to scare his base into coming out and giving their votes to him by saying essentially the Arabs are coming.

When advocating for Israel’s 1.7 million Arabs citizens, Christiane Amapour had to be reminded by her fairer colleague, Jack Tapper, that “these Palestinian voters … are citizens with full voting rights.”

How about that? Not only do Israeli Arabs have equal voting rights – Israel is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. Israeli Arabs have freedom of speech, assembly and press, as is evident from the many Islamic, anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic journals that thrive in Israel. Arabs hold seats in the Knesset. Israeli Arabs have held government posts and serve on the bench. Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel.

That’s the real story here. For the rest, Israelis should ignore the terminally self-righteous preaching about racism coming out of the US.

Huckabee, ‘Forrest Gump’ Of The GOP

Conservatism, Constitution, Elections, Neoconservatism, Republicans

A “confidence trickster worthy of a P.T. Barnum circus” was how this column captured Mike Huckabee’s appeal. It must be conceded that Charles C. W. Cooke of National Review captures even better the forced and contrived, “cornpone” appeal of the man who will be vying to stand as the Republican’s nominee for the presidency. While I reject the writer’s crass, almost bereft of principle pragmatism; and although unable to tell whether Cooke prefers Mark Levin’s worldview to that of Calvin Coolidge—perhaps our only libertarian president—I liked his depiction of The Huckster:

Among the panoply of rightward-leaning politicians who are currently flirting with running for the presidency is one Mike Huckabee, a former pastor, governor, television host, and author who has of late been preparing for office by converting himself into Larry the Cable Guy. Huckabee is touring the breadth and width of the country in support of his new book — the alliteratively titled God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy — the purpose of which seems to be to establish its author as the unparalleled down-home candidate within the 2016 primary. Unlike so many in Washington, Huckabee claims, he is firmly on the side of “Bubbaville” rather than “Bubbleville”; of the “catfish and cornbread crowd” rather than “the crepes and caviar set”; and of those who “come home tired at the end of the day” rather than those who “burn tires in the street.” Are you tired of the incumbent set? he seems to ask. Then you know what to do.

By taking this approach, Huckabee is essentially attempting to become to the Right what the likes of Neil deGrasse Tyson have become to the Left: namely, a proxy figure who can be used as shorthand by the lazy and the lost to signify their allegiance to a set of cherished cultural values. “We like the simple life,” Huckabee announces in his book. “Status is a Ford 150 truck; luxury is crawfish étouffée and slaw on your pulled-pork sandwich; and privilege is front-row seats at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.” And unlike those “misfortunate” souls in “Manhattan, the Washington Beltway, or in Beverly Hills,” we know the joy that one can get from wading “in chest-deep water to hunt mallards.” Insofar as it goes, there is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, I like many of these things too. But the self-conscious spinning of local tradition into a national political aesthetic is invariably irritating, and, typically, electorally counterproductive. There are many wonderful things about the world Huckabee is attempting to represent. But surely, just surely, it is possible for a southerner to run for high office without dressing up as Forrest Gump? …

… Whatever cultural renaissance Mike Huckabee might believe is necessary in the United States, it will be up to civil society and not to the political classes to bring it about. Unless conservatives wish to join the Left in its Wilsonian quest to glue politics to absolutely everything, our would-be emissaries really need to make up their minds …

MORE.

Too Earnest, Too Attractive, Too Macho, Too Moneyed, Too White, Too Christian

Elections, Ethics, Republicans

“Romney’s repeal-and-replace statism was irreconcilable with this writer’s libertarianism. … Romney was wrong on China. Wrong on Iran. Wrong on Russia. Wrong on Foreign policy, in general. Wrong on almost everything. Yet as incongruous as this may seem, Mitt Romney is a fine man—a man with great personal virtues, if profound flaws in political philosophy. Ann Romney, herself a delightful lady, is a lucky woman. Romney is a great provider, is fabulously devoted to family and faith, is consistently generous and charitable to all those around him, and brilliant in all endeavors, academic and entrepreneurial. … Unlike Obama’s university transcripts, Romney’s would have stood up to the scrutiny that never came.” (From “No Country For Old, White Men.”)

And whatever you think of him, Romney is still doing what he believes is best for the country he loves.

According to National Journal, despite bowing out of the 2016 race to rule, Mitt “Romney’s push forward had been his belief, … that other establishment candidates—Bush, Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio—aren’t up to snuff. But his Friday remarks indicate that he thinks his presence in the race would be more damaging to his goal of electing ‘a conservative leader to become our next president.'”

Romney is right about the rest of the Republicans in the 2016 race to rule; they’re a repulsive lot.

More about Romney the man:

… Money was Mitt’s Mark of Cain. So were his wicked work ethic and whiteness.

Romney was booed when he wooed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Enough to provoke the ire of blacks, Latinos, ladies of all hues, the halt and the lame was the mere hint that the too-white-to-like Romney would slow down the gravy train.

Lickspittle Republicans were as eager as the Democratic representatives of these identity groups to lambaste Mr. Romney for being too attractive, too macho, too white, too Christian, and too rich. No one could have failed to notice that Mitt Romney resembles the “Mad Man” played by Jon Hamm, in the eponymous AMC series. Both men are tall, dark and handsome, with the kind of picture-perfect, quintessential American good looks. Both hide their feelings and are spare with their emotions. When they show their softer side–it actually means something. Each is dutiful and dependable.

Such qualities, once considered desirable in a man, now offend the dominatrixes who run the nation’s newsrooms. “He’s a very private man; and that’s a liability.” “How can you get me to vote for him, if I don’t like him?” “He needs to humanize himself.” And, “Can he [even] be humanized?” demanded one CNN ghoul by the name of Gloria Borger on the eve of Halloween. Mitt Romney was inhuman: That, very plainly, was the premise of this harridan’s rhetorical question.

“Ann Romney’s job, and she’s been pushing for this in the campaign, is to kind of humanize him,” noodled the banal Ms. Borger over and over again, for the campaign’s duration.

This was the menstrually inspired miasma that emanated from TV studios countrywide.

Thus did Mitt Romney come to embody elements in Aristotle’s definition of a tragic figure:

* The “tragic hero is of noble birth and displays a nobility of spirit.” (Check)
* The character must be a person of stature. (Check)
* The protagonist is pitted against forces beyond their control. (Check)
* The character must be neither totally good nor totally evil.
* An error of judgment or a weakness in character causes the misfortune. (Check)
* The character must be responsible for tragic events. (Check: Romney’s failures ushered in four more years of epochal evil.)
* His action involves a change in fortune from happiness to misery. (Check)
* Subject is serious. (Check)
* He struggles courageously until his fall. (Check)
* Though defeated, he gains a measure of increased wisdom.

Mr. Romney’s pathos-filled election concession speech crystallized these tragic elements.

We “left everything on the field,” he said. “We have given our all to this campaign.”

Indeed, the prototypical Greek tragic figure “struggles courageously until his fall.” …

MORE.

Is Voting Democrat A Job ‘Americans’ Won’t Do?

Democrats, Elections, IMMIGRATION

This cartoon is funny (doff of the hat to Myron Pauli for much needed comic relief). But are poor immigrants solely responsible for Democratic electoral victories? It’s hard to tell from this recent Gallup poll breakdown by political affiliation, although it’s entirely possible.

An average 43% of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014, establishing a new high in Gallup telephone poll trends back to 1988. In terms of national identification with the two major parties, Democrats continued to hold a modest edge over Republicans, 30% to 26%.