Updated: Mitt before (Moldy) McCain

Elections 2008, John McCain

If you’re not a “Paulbearer,” as you should be, and are entertaining a vote for Mummy McCain, reconsider. 
Today the media, some MSNBC kid with cool specs, added this to its fixed narrative about Mitt Romney: he’s unlikable. I can understand if MSM had a libertarian bent, then they’d have an ideological bone to pick with Romney. But what on earth do these statists have against him other than he’s not liberal and ugly?
A self-made man, Mitt is so obviously appealing–tall, clean-cut, handsome, reserved, polite to a fault, and faithful to his equally lovely wife. That’s unlikable?
Neither is Romney a mindless maniac like McCain. (Nor does he sound remotely like the uncouth, bombastic Donald Trump, the Hue Hefner of American business). Any fool ought to be able to tell that. He’s impressively educated, having “received his B.A., with Highest Honors, from Brigham Young University in 1971; awarded an MBA in 1975 from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.”
Romney’s beautiful wife isn’t a trophy wife; hasn’t been frozen in the botox time warp, and has never nicked pain killers to palliate multiple sclerosis from which she suffers (I’m told it’s a very painful disease.). Cindy McCain is guilty of the aforementioned, except that the downers she pilfered from some charity she “managed” were meant for her pain in the back (or backside, I forget).
Governor Romney made it in the private sector, a sphere into which McCain didn’t even venture, and for good reason. George Bush also sought shelter in the dynastic privileges politics afforded him. Politics is a form of sheltered employment.
I note too that, quite uniquely, Romney’s bias in tweaking the public school system in Massachusetts was toward core curriculum, math, science, and merit pay for teachers. Libertarians would obviously prefer that a plank in the conservative political platform be resurrected, and that the department of education be eliminated. However, if the system is to remain, it has to ditch “progressive” education and reinstate a strict core curriculum and literary canon. (Breaking the teachers unions would also help.) 
Another manufactured complaint against Romney by the McCain mediacrats was that he doesn’t get angry (I thought that was a good thing). And before that it was the flip-flopping, and in particular, Romney had expressed the need to plan for a withdrawal from Iraq, to which the rabid McCain and his minders in the media responded with new flip-flopping charges.
Look, Mitt Romney is not my candidate. I’ve endorsed Ron Paul; he comes closest to my beliefs. But if your toss up is between Romney and McCain, the former is classier, more regal, and much more intelligent. Most importantly, Mitt is more conservative and doesn’t talk about “reaching across the aisle to get things done,” McCain’s euphemism for relinquishing principles in favor of political expediency.

Update: Mitt ought to have just increased his media likeability quotient by getting hot under that well-starched collar of his. Let’s rewind: Rush Limbaugh, who’s been campaigning vigorously and admirably against McCain, got a letter from that old scold Bob Dole telling him how lovable McCain truly is. Mitt responded defiantly:

“Well, it’s probably the last person I would have wanted [to] write a letter for me. I think there are a lot of folks who tend to think that maybe John McCain’s race is a bit like Bob Dole’s race. That it’s the guy who’s next in line, the inevitable choice.”

Call me anti-authoritarian (I’ll concede), but I like this. Bob Dole is the political living dead. What a shame Romney is so inexperienced as to back down and waver anytime he’s attacked for becoming animated. But then again, the fear of being called “unlikable” overwhelms the man.

Wait a sec, Mercer, don’t media malpractitioners apply the “unlikable” adjectival to Mitt’s failure to show emotion?

McCain’s retort makes it clear that if this nudnik is anointed to go up against Hillary or Hussein, we’ll be getting an incontinent stream of pieties every time an ex-military man is criticized (with the exception of Ron Paul; his service doesn’t count).

Cut to the Mummy:

“Gov. Romney’s attack on Bob Dole is disgraceful, and Governor Romney should apologize. Bob Dole is a war hero who has spent his life in service to this nation and nobody has worked harder to build the Republican Party. Bob Dole deserves the respect of every American and certainly every Republican.” Blah, blah, blah.

As John Stossel would say, Give Me a Break. Mitt ought to have told moldy McCain to put a sock in it.

CNN GOP Debate: The Meta-Perspective

Elections 2008, Journalism, Media, Republicans

From a journalistic perspective, the last CNN GOP debate was an especially corrupted and corrupting process.
What do I mean? The best to date was the ABC debate moderated by Old School journalist, Charles Gibson. Evenhanded, tough, fare, no favorites—he and his colleague were there to get answers for the viewers, not to choose the frontrunners or make celebrity appearances. Which is what Anderson Vanderbilt Cooper is all about. 
The less said about he and Jim VandeHei, the blogger cognoscente from “Politico,” and Janet Hook of the Los Angeles Times—moderators all—the better.
There were four candidates present, not two. Tasked with the assignment, journalists with a modicum of integrity and intellectual curiosity would have made sure that by the end of the evening, viewers had a good idea of the positions all four held. Instead, Cooper and his colleagues zeroed in on Romney and McCain and remained there. On the few occasions Cooper and Company turned to them, Paul and Huckabee were granted very little time to respond—Paul even less than Huckabee. Moreover, because four contenders were present and two were ignored, the meta-message was that of contempt—and arrogance on the part of the moderators.
 
Rush Limbaugh has offered a coruscating critique of McCain as the anti-conservative, yet Huckabee was framed by Cooper as the main object of Limbaugh’s attack. This was a sort of Straw Man Argument. Huckabee is not the frontrunner. If Limbaugh’s renunciation of any candidate ought to have been brought up for the benefit of the voters, it is his root-and-branch rejection of McCain. But that bit of dreck, Cooper, wanted to spare his man McCain, who is lionized by liberals.
The debate has stuck in my mind as richly revealing of the workings of the media, content and process alike.  
To be continued.

Update (February 3): Readers have pointed to other solid interviews conducted over the months with the candidates, such as at the dank corner of MTV cable, of all places. I would add the Google or Yahoo executive’s interview with Paul—and the others. Fine, informed, intelligent stuff. This demonstrates, once again, that if in search for genius, always look outside what I call the Media-Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, sycophants and parasites all.
This is also why you ought to never blindly follow the media’s constant abuse of Mitt Romney, clearly of a far superior mind and mien than the miserable, mummified McCain. I say this as a “Paulbearer.” But more about Romney—a tremendously accomplished man in his own right—latter. A run outdoors, eating, ironing, and book writing will keep us apart for the next few hours.

The Measure Of McCain

Elections 2008, Intelligence, John McCain, Republicans

Steve Sailer has IQ on his mind, and so should we:
“Will McCain, who finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy and who lost five jets, return competence to the White House? To paraphrase Oscar Wilde (and, no, Oscar was never a fighter pilot), to lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness.
More seriously, what’s the largest organization that McCain has ever managed? And how did he do at it? And is he suddenly going to learn how to be an excellent manager at age 72?
I’m not looking forward to having to choose between one politician who can’t be criticized because he was a POW and to question him is to not support the troops and another candidate who can’t be criticized because he’s black and the perpetually fragile self-esteems of 40 million African-Americans are assumed to depend upon everybody saying nice things about him. The point is not that McCain and Obama aren’t fine fellows, it’s that in a country of 300,000,000, we ought to expect the Presidential candidates to be worthy individuals and that yet they still must undergo corrosive analysis.”
posted by Ilana Mercer on 02.03.08 @ 1:30 am

Update: Readers have pointed to other solid interviews conducted over the months with the candidates, such as MTV’s, of all places. I would add the Google or Yahoo’s executive’s interview with Paul—and the others. Fine stuff. This demonstrates, once again, that if in search for genius, always look outside what I call the Media-Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Sycophants and parasites all.

Updated: Pat Buchanan’s Pat Observation

America, Conservatism, Critique, Energy, Free Markets, Reason, Republicans, The Zeitgeist

“We are an unserious people in a serious time.”
The column is “Tapped Out Nation.”
Pat’s right, with the exception of the economy, and in particular, energy “dependence” (it’s called trade) and trade deficits (it’s called buying more from certain sources than we sell to them).
Unlike most commentators (other than yours truly), Pat, at least, is a passionate writer.

Update: I didn’t know Rush Limbaugh once, “In the 1992 primaries… helped boost conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan against the incumbent, George H.W. Bush.”
“Respek,” as Ali G. would say.
Alas, there’s nothing an overnight stay in the Lincoln bedroom won’t “cure”; Rush’s tenure as a Bush apologist began shortly after such a restful night: “When Bush secured the nomination, the president mended fences by inviting the talk-show host for an overnight stay in” said Bedroom.”