* I’m worried about a Sirhan Sirhan mysteriously getting close to him in our security state — or mechanical failure in his perfectly maintained helicopter — or a sudden illness in this robust, energetic fellow.
Let them be on notice — that we notice.
(Whoever “they” are, if “they” even exist.)
As for the usual MSM character assassinations, hooker videos and whatnot, the guy is immune to that. He has pre-disastered himself by being the character they would want to accuse him of being — and lo and behold, the public likes it.
This is the glass house approach to life I think we all might want to consider adopting in the post-privacy world. Maybe we all can move our personal Overton Windows over a little bit, in what we say and do publicly.
Speaking of being pre-disastered, there is a wonderful scene in the Robin Williams movie, The World According to Garp:
Looking for a home to buy, Garp is about to walk into a house with a real estate agent, when a small plane crashes into the roof. Garp tells the agent, “I’ll take this house.” The agent incredulously asks him why. Garp says, “It’s been pre-disastered. Just think, what are the odds of that ever happening again?”
(I know this scene isn’t an exact analogy to what I am talking about, but I think the concept of a pre-disastered candidate is valid.)
* Christian Lives don’t matter.
From Bill Donohue:
The following media outlets were among those that reported on this story but never mentioned that Christians were singled out:
ABC World News Tonight
CBS Evening News
NBC Nightly News
PBS News Hour
New York Times
USA Today
Slate
Salon
Gawker
Daily Beast
Yahoo
Huffington Post
Associated Press [This accounts for why so many papers across the nation made no mention of Christians.]
If African Americans or Muslims had been singled out, President Obama would have gone ballistic, Al Sharpton would be calling for street rallies, and CAIR would be asking for congressional investigations. But because Christians are being cherry picked for murder, there is no call to arms. Indeed, many major media outlets aren’t even telling the truth. It’s obvious—”Christian Lives Don’t Matter”—either here or abroad.
* Steve, have you looked at how many of the mass shootings have a racial motivation? The few I can think of that don’t are the Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Aurora, CO shootings.
Otherwise we have the half-moroccan killer of blonde sorority girls in Santa Barbara, the radical muslim targeting white military men at Fort Hood, the hispanic american targeting (again) white military men at Fort Hood (2014), the black muslim snipers attacking whites in Washington DC, the black newsman murdering white colleagues in Roanoake, the half-black student targeting white Christians in Roseburg, and the white student targeting black church members in South Carolina. I’m sure to be missing a few, as I’m often not up on mainstream news.
As usual, racial strife is essential to understanding American dysfunction. European countries with gun culture and widespread ownership (Switzerland, Finland) don’t have these problems.
I should add how perverse media reporting is, that while whites are disproportionately victims, not shooters, the media narrative whitewashes biracial shooters, ignores the race of clearly black/non-white killers, and emphasizes six ways to Sunday the few racially motivated white-on-x killings. There was also I believe a “disgruntled black employee” in the northeast who murdered nine or so white colleagues — this story is so down the memory hole I can’t even find it with basic search terms.
* I wonder if the GOP is like those other parties in the past that are now extinct—it’s leaders become entrenched in power, lose connection with the people, ignore the issues outside of what their lobbyists tell them are the issues, and then—-shockingly—the party gets replaced, out of no where.
Immigration is proving to be more and more a cross-the-aisles kind of uniting issue that left and right regular folk agree on. It’s an elite v. prole issue, but as Charlie Daniels once sang, “there’s a whole lot more of us common folk/than there ever will be of you.”
* Romney was the toughest candidate on immigration last time around.
Only until he got the nomination, and then he dropped it like a hot rock, along with Kris Kobach, his border-control adviser. I feel that one of the pivotal points when Romney lost the election was during one of the debates when Obama accused him of calling for self-deportation, as if that was the most appalling thing he had ever heard of, and Romney just stood there with that sickly half smile on his lips. If he would have said, “You bet I support self-deportation! Why shouldn’t the people who sneaked in here illegally leave the same way,” he would have gotten the surge that Trump has.
* I agree, but bear in mind that he also vetoed benefits for illegals when he was gov. of MA. It was clearly something he’d been more conservative about in the past, perhaps because his own ancestors were run out of Mexico.
I think 2012 may turn out to be the moment when a significant chunk of right wingers realized, “it just does not matter what we do or say, they will call us racist, even if we’re as mild and inoffensive as Mitt Romney. Might as well embrace the hatred.” Hence Trump.
