Who’s a what now?
Was there ever any reason at all to refer to Kathleen Parker as a “conservative?”
You want Ward Cleaver? Meet Barack Obama. Michelle is June Cleaver with a law degree. Family values don’t get more traditional than those of the Obamas, who ooze marital bliss and whose adorable daughters make feminist cynics want to bake cookies and learn to smock.
Though we may perish of boredom, the Obamas may do more to elevate the American family than all the pro-marriage initiatives conceived by those who claim to speak for the deity. As a family unit, they’re not significantly different from the Bushes, but they can be an inspiration in particular to African Americans.
Uh huh. Funny, I don’t remember Ward or June Cleaver hanging out with guys like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn; having a spiritual mentor like Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright; indirectly siccing government agencies on those with differing views about “spreading the wealth around;” and advocating holding talks with the likes of those who just turned Mumbai into an abattoir without precondition, and making statements about their murderous brethren like the following:
We must also engage, however, in the far more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
But hey, I could be remembering it wrong. Then again, Kathleen Parker could be a damned idiot.
And…”learning to smock?” I ain’t exactly the most traditional, middle-American family guy on the block by any stretch — unless the block you’re talking about is a cell block — but I have no idea what that even means.
- Entries
IIRC, it's time consuming and now that we have elastic fabrics, just not that necessary. (I'm a guy but I remember a friend of my father who had a garment business discussing smocking oh-so many years ago.)
What do domestic skills have to do with politics anyway?
Fixed it for you.
Not that I have any intention of saying, "I told you so," or anything like that. . .
It's amazing how well the Obama campaign and the compliant media have concealed just how poor an extemporaneous speaker Obama is. He's no better than Bush, and possibly worse. Both do well when reading from a teleprompter; Bush's speech after the 9/11 attacks was very well delivered for example. I have no doubt that, if Obama were simply a poor public speaker, it would not be characterized as a negative quality. Just take a look at how Joe "The Gaffmester" Biden was portrayed.
My proof is any court transcript. When lawyers get off their notes and have to speak extemporaneously there are a lot of uhhs and umms. The only cure I have found is to speak a little slower, so that the mind can get ahead of the mouth, and to address the parties formally by name. It provides time to marshall thoughts and get them into order. "Your honor, I would like to reply to Mr. Anderson's objection to exclude the testimony of Mr. Jones on the basis of relevance... etc. etc."
I saw a good movie example on Thanksgiving Day when the old 'Miracle on 34th Street' was played. The attorney for Kris Kringle began to lay the foundation for authoritative opinion by reciting facts about the US Postal Department, and the prosecutor challenged the relevance. The first had a line of attack that had to have court acknowledgment that a government agency is an authoritative source so far as its operations, and the second was trying to derail the laying of the foundation by citing relevance to the commitment proceedings. That was the crux of the proceedings. If the judge had ruled that the US Postal Department was not relevant to the proceedings, then Kris Kringle would have been committed. But the judge ruled that the first attorney could lay his foundation and get a ruling that the US Postal Department was an authority on delivering mail, and that the US Postal Department by law had to deliver the mail to the correct addressee, no matter how difficult - that delivery was imposed on it by statute, and that failure to do so would violate the law, and any third party interference with that duty faced grievous sanction. This is not an unusal thing, asking a court to acknowledge a government department and its duties, to legally acknowledge them, much like the court recognizing that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
That ruling then opened the door for the uniformed postmen to bring the bags of mail for Santa Claus to the courtroom and present them to the judge. There really was nothing for the prosecutor to do, no matter how well he ad-libbed, no matter if he had the Postmaster for the Main Post Office on the stand, once he lost the fight for relevance, he lost the case.
The defense attorney could have put the Postmaster on the stand and laid a foundation regarding his duties and then asked if the defendant was Santa Claus. "He is Kris Kringle, and Kris Kringle is Santa Claus. This is his mail, and it has been delivered to him. All I request is a forwarding address."
Identification had been made by an authoritative source, a department whose mission is identifying people in order to carry out its duty. Kris Kringle is Santa Claus. Case dismissed.
Ad-libbing is hard to do. Thinking on your feet, wheeling to face an attack not expected. I do not denigrate any person for being weak on this.