Updated: Grammar Tutorial For Malkin

America, English, Human Accomplishment, Judaism & Jews, The West, The Zeitgeist

I know most of you don’t share my apparently anachronistic devotion to syntax and grammar—English, not Spanish. But I couldn’t help sharing with you one of Ms. Malkin’s grammatical infelicity:

“There are a new generation of combat veterans running for office who haven’t made a career of trashing the base.” So Ms. Malkin wrote.

Let me do the schoolmarm’s dues: the subject of the sentence is “a new generation of combat veterans running for office.” It is singular, not plural. Therefore: “There is a new generation of combat veterans running for office that hasn’t made a career of trashing the base.” 

Grammarians: Is it “that” or “which”–that’s my dilemma here.

(I was not particualrly enamored of these tortured sentences.)

Those of you who’re interested in staying faithful to English may appreciate this post: “Conjugate The Verb, Dammit!”
Of course, I always welcome corrections.

Update: Wouldn’t you know it; we got a few letters from the new kind of conservative. Who is he? He is the ultimate social leveler. An egalitarian. He views exceptional abilities as a threat to the banality he feels so comfortable around. He loves that English has been debased and no one is the wiser. Why? It makes him feel good about himself. He considers it the height of meanness for the knowledgeable to impart a lesson to the less knowledgeable. Teaching to him is “elitism.” He is the parent who charges headlong into class if a teacher dares to correct his crappy kid. “What are you doing to little Johnny’s self-esteem,” he’ll bleat. He is the reason good teachers are scarce and kids are as high on themselves as they are pig-ignorant.
Self-esteem, not objective knowledge and standards, is his catechism. Pointing out errors–teaching–hurts feelings, so it must be shunned. “I don’t want to learn, I want to feel good” is his credo. Far better to wallow in ignorance than point out the god-awful error of a seasoned “writer.” (This was not a typo or a spelling error—mere trifles—but a serious grammatical error, one that indicates the writer hasn’t a clue about syntax and grammar.)  He’s the creep who wants to invade every “Aayrab” country–that he considers a proper defense of the West; defending the English language; not so much. (And yes, he still pronounces it Eyeraq instead of Eeraq.)
Russell Kirk, a brilliant writer, would be sick to his stomach on reading what passes for an op-ed these days (to say nothing of what passes for books).
Do me a favor; go slum it elsewhere.

Update # II: An example of this despicable mindset: a reader writes, on the one hand, that my “abilities as a writer…are exquisite.” This is a good thing, right? Not to the “Idiocracy“. He quickly qualifies that this skill I have, which I’ve honed with is evidence not of passion, hard work and wicked self-scrutiny (the last column was written in one sitting), but of a “snippy or smug, uppity aura.” Get it? If you can use the language to convey so much, as I do, you’re not to be praised or appreciated, but picked upon.
Shall I begin to write like Billo to please this standard bearer? Wait a sec, Ilana; you already know that had you agreed to become a political Ho, your syndication would not have fallen through.
Sing along with me y’all to the tune of “Aquarius” from that great piece of art, “Hair”: this is the age of the idiot, the age of the idiot, the idiot…

(Another reason to love Malkin: she made internment chic again.)

Update # I: NEOCONS MAD ABOUT MCCAIN

Elections 2008, Neoconservatism

The “Fairness Doctrine” is a wicked, illiberal effort to limit speech—a no-brainer for principled individuals on both the left and the right. Yet Michael Medved attempts here to frame McCain’s apparent opposition to this FCC instrument as a sign of his man McCain’s principled conservatism. This is indeed a very poor argument, as even bad liberals will—and have—reject such abuse of power.
More material, Medved, whose ideological trajectory has taken him from the left to the neoconservative left, is mad about McCain. Need I say more?
In the dust-up between Talk radio and the Republican Party establishment, I’m beginning to detect a trend: The neoconservative whey is separating from the conservative curd. What remains is not the best concoction, but it’s an improvement. McCain is the curdling bacteria.
 
McCain can run but cannot hide from the pollution he has dropped along his political path:
* McCain-Kennedy illegal-alien amnesty bill
* McCain’s opposition to a defensive, passive barrier on the border with Mexico
* McCain’s vote for radical lefties Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer for the Supreme Court
* McCain’s collusion with 7 Democrats and other bottom-feeding Republicans to sabotage conservative SC nominee
* McCain-Feingold: self-explanatory
* McCain’s 100 year-war in Iraq, and the promise of more wars
* McCain’s opposition to tax cuts—twice
* McCain-Lieberman’s legislation of Al Gore’s Malthusian hatred of humanity and progress, including to reject drilling in Alaska
 
If I’ve forgotten anything, please remind me and BAB readers.
posted by Ilana Mercer on 02.05.08 @ 8:19 pm

Update # I (Feb. 6): As usual, BAB readers and posters have filled in the blanks, pointing out by way of examples that McCain is guilty of major philosophical infractions:

* He puts “patriotism,” by which he means allegiance to the state, ahead of the thing that makes the world go around, profit. The last he maligns, which show an utter lack of grasp of the natural laws of human action.
* He departed from conservatives and sided with Democrat neocons in prosecuting the one war conservatives opposed: the war on Serbia. Lesson: McCain loves war so dearly, he’ll cross party lines in the off chance his pepes are not behind the war du jour.
* We’re waiting confirmation (URL anyone?), but it seems that McCain didn’t miss out on the biggest business shakedown in history—the prosecution of cigarette manufacturers under the “scientific” guise that free will is null and void and that smokers believed they were inhaling water vapor.
* I’m not sure what the “Keating Affair was about, but I see in the URL provided hereunder that McCain likes to move in packs of Democrats.

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.