Well I'm back in the US - all exhausted and jet-lagged and with my sausage contraband unconfiscated. Sometime the system fails us.

"Haircut" by Ring Lardner

This is a classic short story that I had forgotten all about until logprof mentioned it a week or two back.

I got another barber that comes over from Carterville and helps me out Saturdays, but the rest of the time I can get along all right alone. You can see for yourself that this ain't no New York: City and besides that, the most of the boys works all day and don't have no leisure to drop in here and get themselves prettied up.

You're a newcomer, ain't you? I thought I hadn't seen you round before. I hope you like it good enough to stay. As I say, we ain't no New York City or Chicago, but we have pretty good times. Not as good, though, since Jim Kendall got killed. When he was alive, him and Hod Meyers used to keep this town in an uproar. I bet they was more laughin' done here than any town its size in America.

...

It's only a few pages long - so just go read the whole thing here.

By the end you should have caught on to the sub-text. If not, read it again or cheat and go here for a quick analysis.

What does it say about human nature and how does this apply to our modern politics? Discuss.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:11 PM | Comments (569)
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I've taken Veterans Day off, obviously. But if you want to comment...

Posted by: Ace at 04:06 PM | Comments (693)
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I don't believe they didn't inform Obama. This seems to me, then, to be an explanation of how such a nondisclosure to the president would be borderline plausible.

But I still find it implausible.

The FBI withheld its findings about Gen. David Petreaus' affair from the White House and congressional leaders because the agency considered them the result of a criminal investigation that never reached the threshold of an intelligence probe, law enforcement sources said today.

The sources said agents followed department guidelines that generally bar sharing information about developing criminal investigations. The FBI is also aware of its history under former director J. Edgar Hoover of playing politics and digging into the lives of public figures. As one official said, the rules are designed to protect people (both private and elected officials) when negative information about them arises in the course of a criminal investigation that is not a crime.

The FBI's focus was on whether laws were broken, in this case whether federal cyber-harassment statutes were violated. The sources emphasized that Petraeus himself was never the focus of the investigation, nor did it turn up evidence he broke any law.

So no one ever told the president because the rules, allegedly, said that people couldn't share the information.

Meanwhile, everyone is leaking all over the place on this story, and to reporters, not the president. So we're to believe that "key sources" don't mind a little bit of leaking to reporters, but they observed their obligation to keep criminal probes strictly secret when it came to letting the President know?

Posted by: Ace at 02:49 PM | Comments (337)
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Some thoughts from Zero Hedge, via Instapundit, on what it all means.

“Obama’s winning tactic was to do what any respectable man does when he wishes to have something; he bought it. From cell phones and contraceptives to food stamps and unemployment benefits, the Obama administration kept the money flowing to ensure a steady turnout on Election Day. The coup de grâce was painting his opponent as a second coming of Dickens’ Scrooge that was ready to cut the voters from their trust funds. The campaign made no attempt to hide this tactic.”

I just heard an anecdote about a conservative who voted for Obama. He'd voted conservative in every past election. The difference this year was that he was out of work and had not made a mortgage payment on his house for two years. He was still able to live in the house, without foreclosure and eviction, because, he thought, of Obama. And Mitt Romney would wind up speeding up the process of foreclosure.

It is difficult to understand how a President could be reelected having presided over such a disastrous economy, but there it is: Because the economy is so weak, and people are so miserable and just holding on to their fingernails, the Catastrophic President becomes the only lifeline available to many. They wind up caring less about the economy as a general matter, because their survival instincts are just to keep themselves sheltered and fed. They are looking at the current moment, scared as hell of the next.

Which is a bit like welfare addiction, generally: It keeps you dependent on it so you don't search for alternatives which are better for you, both financially and spiritually. And you'll fight like hell to keep on it, because, at the moment, it's what's putting food in your mouth.

It could be that Obama has failed himself into victory. It just might be that he's created such a nightmare of circumstances that far too few people will even listen to persuasion.

Related Thought: I think the entire movement is depressed -- almost suicidally -- and it's never a good time to make important decisions with far-reaching consequences when you're in such a state. I think we need to get some perspective on things before committing ourselves to wholesale changes. We need some data, and we need some thinking.

It strikes me that the public made a similar impulsive decision under emotional stress.

Maybe we shouldn't be as hasty.

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (945)
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I must object to this.

It's a standard trope of argument to take an opponent's statement -- even if it doesn't seem true -- as true, and then make arguments based on that.

In this case, Peter King is saying if it's true the FBI and Eric Holder never told Obama that Petraeus was compromised, that speaks poorly of them.

This is often a useful form of argument.

But not here. I realize people don't feel comfortable lodging the term "liar" at every step but it must be said here.

It is simply untrue that Holder and Mueller didn't tell Obama. I do not need a cite for this. It is simply impossible to imagine otherwise.

What did everyone here do when they first read this? Why, you probably told someone else. It's juicy, it's interesting. It's both cloak-and-dagger and slap-and-tickle. It's also, of course, important.

Most sex scandals are not truly important. This one is.

So Holder and Mueller had official reasons for telling Obama that Petraeus was compromised. They also had unofficial reasons-- it's an interesting bit of dirt on someone once touted as a possible Republican presidential candidate (and then later as a possible vice presidential candidate).

But the story they're putting out is that they ignored both the requirements of their positions as top advisers (officially, they were required to tell the chief foreign policy and national security executive in the country) and also ignored the purely human urge to tell tales out of school?

It's not plausible, it's not credible. It's a lie. Plain and simple. Let's not dance around with the if they're telling the truth... formulation in this case. They're not telling the truth. There is no need to entertain a possibility if it's not a possibility.

They're lying, and they're obviously lying, and they're lying in a patently ridiculous way.

The only question is, Why are they lying?

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (455)
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It seems like everyone and their mother have found the cure for what ails the Republican Party. From amnesty to abandoning our largest and most dependable constituency in the hopes of attracting one of the least dependable.

Sure we lost the election by 400,000 votes spread over four states, but why let reason get in the way of making panicked decisions? So with that, I ask you to put forth your ideas to fix the Republican party. Remember, like professional writers putting forth ideas in the past week, these aren't meant to be serious or well thought out.

I'll start with a few:

We should legalize the felon vote and then try felon outreach.

Ways we can decrease our losses with female voters:
- Place voting machines on the top shelf in the kitchen.
- Place the voting machine on the inside of a tightly sealed mason jar.
- Voting machines should roughly have the complexity of a home theater remote. (Andy)
- Enforced parallel parking at the polling place. (Damned Dirty Rino)

Have at it in the comments, and don't forget the John E. interview on the Laura Ingraham Show at 1:30 Eastern.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:45 AM | Comments (705)
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Blogger @johnekdahl: On social media, "Republicans are still rubbing sticks together".

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) November 12, 2012

It's already aired on the east coast because RINO!

But John found this west coast stream and said his segment should air around 1:30pm Eastern. more...

Posted by: andy at 08:25 AM | Comments (117)
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And the rush to adopt the Democratic agenda by "conservatives" continues apace.

"The leadership of the Republican Party and the leadership of the conservative movement has to pull back, let people float new ideas. Let's have a serious debate," Kristol said on "Fox News Sunday." "Don't scream and yell if one person says 'You know what? It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.' It really won't, I don't think."

...

"I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000, make it $500,000, make it $1 million," Kristol said. "Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood?"

Hey, I have an idea, why don't we throw card check in to sweeten the pot?

A few problems with this:

1- It's idiotic.

2- It's moronic.

3- It's atrocious economics. We wouldn't be conceding simply a political point but a major economic one....increasing taxes hurts the economy. Why in the world would sign on to that? What votes are we suddenly getting?

4- The federal government has more than enough revenue (assuming tax hikes raise revenue for the purpose of this discussion). What it has is a spending problem. If you think you can trade tax hikes for spending cuts with Democrats, you probably think you can trade amnesty for Hispanic votes or that Pennsylvania is in play for the GOP. History shows...otherwise.

5- It's a moronic idea.

Can we wait just a little longer before we decide to throw every conservative principle overboard?

Here's my suggestion as to what we should do...talk to average people. We spent a lot of time talking to and about "job creators". Well, not everyone is going to start their own business or even wants to. We need to speak directly to the Dirty Jobs people and not just the people who own businesses that do dirty jobs.

Yes, the people who do those jobs benefit from the impact of job creation friendly policy for "job creators" but it's a secondary effect. We should be the party that not only stands for the Joe the Plumbers of the world but also the guys he hires. Talk directly to them about what conservatism means for them. Right now we're reaching them indirectly, through a double bank-shot approach We should talk about how energy from the ground is the manufacturing of the 21st century. Not everyone wants a high tech job and people don't want to hear about how helping their boss will someday help them, talk directly to these people. Hell, we might even manage to connect with some Hispanic and even black voters in the process without sell our souls in the process.

I hate appeal to Reagan "arguments" but that's how he won the "Reagan Democrats" over.

It's important that we focus on the disaster that the Romney campaign was in every way but this election shouldn't have come down to Orca working or not on election day. People should have been camping out to vote against Obama. Clearly they weren't.

We have a lot of problems selling conservatism (policy, technical proficiency and message emphasis) but being more like the Democrats isn't one of them.

In the meantime, I remain "For Sequestration". The people voted for irresponsibility last week, let them have it.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:48 AM | Comments (322)
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Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:57 AM | Comments (505)
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Content-free like the ONT.

Posted by: andy at 02:41 AM | Comments (316)
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