"People ask me where I get my jokes. I just watch Congress and report the facts." - Will Rogers
A perspective slightly broader than Congress is good for a few laughs, too. And just now we have one unfolding before our eyes.
Barack Hussein Obama recently decided to assail his putative opponent in November by making disparaging references and ads about Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital, a private-equity firm at which Romney was a principal for some years. Those thrusts have backfired on Obama; indeed, dramatically so. The extent of the self-inflicted damage has caused The Won to backpedal in a uniquely humiliating way. Now he's insisting that his beef with Romney and Bain is that the claim that they created jobs is deceitful – that they’re solely about profit.
It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to see through that fallacy. In a capitalist economy, you can’t make a profit without selling a product that people find valuable and want to buy -- and that's impossible unless you first contrive to make that product. But who will make it? Either you, or others you employ for the purpose. Ergo: jobs!
Obama's Ubergaffe calls to mind an anecdote from the career of the late, great Milton Friedman. He was in China, observing some State-mandated project, and noted that hundreds of workers were laboring away with shovels when there was a powered backhoe available. The official supervising him replied that the workers had been instructed to use shovels to "maximize the number of jobs." In that case, Friedman replied, "why not have them use spoons?"
It gets worse: Two modestly prominent black Democrats -- unusually sensible for black Democrats -- have castigated Obama for his ads! Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ, and Harold Ford Jr., formerly a Congressman from Tennessee, have both defended private capital and its role in our economy, in direct rebukes to Obama. GAHH! Rebellion in the ranks! Democrats differing with The Won -- and black Democrats at that! Sound the general alarm!
It's not unusual for persons within the same party to differ on something like this...but it is unusual for two black Democrats of modest stature to court the wrath of the Obamunist machine. Chicago tactics didn't get their reputation for being conciliatory, you know.
"I never met a man I didn't like," said Will Rogers. I wonder what he'd think of Barack Hussein Obama.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has been demonstrating impressive campaign chops. It appears that he's managed to placate a substantial fraction of the "conservative base" of the GOP, which for a long time was cool or worse toward him. He's also rising in general polling about personal likability, which, though it might not have a direct influence on the balloting, can't be a bad thing. The contest in November won't be a runaway for either contender.
But the truly interesting developments are taking place on the Left. Obama and his lieutenants are struggling to distance themselves from the Occupy crowd. They're having their own troubles with the party's far-left "base," which is unhappy that the regime hasn't pressed for even more nationalizations and redistributive programs. There's some contention over Joseph Biden as the VP candidate for November; his many verbal missteps have a few prominent Democrats openly talking about bumping him from the ticket. And now there are rumbles from American Negroes, who are overwhelmingly Christian and serious about it, and who are baffled by The Won's embrace of same-sex marriage. That's 13% of the voting public -- a bloc which has gone 90% or further for the Democrats in recent elections.
Heh, heh, heh!
"I belong to no organized political party...I'm a Democrat." -- Will Rogers
5 comments:
I agree with Rogers on the likability thing. It especially applies to politicians. Like salespeople and others seeking to influence others, politicians take as their first lessons how to be -- or appear to be -- a likable person.
But please to note the sleight of hand there. The thing on which one should focus is the seeking to influence, NOT the likability thing. In focusing on the personality and not the motive, one is fetishizing what is at best a secondary factor and at worst utterly irrelevant.
This is of a piece with other leftist fetishes. The purpose of a light bulb is illumination. The amount of energy it takes, so long as it is affordable (NOT sustainable: affordable), is at best a secondary matter.
The purpose of a vehicle is to convey persons and materiel from point A to point B. The quality of that service matters a great deal more than its fuel efficiency, and the former is not improved by fetishizing the latter.
Leftist wheezes engage in this distractive tactic so often one is almost forced to conclude that it is deliberate -- that the mendacity is intended.
Which, to bring it back to Rogers, it seems to me that one should be wary of those who are deliberately -- almost desperately -- likable.
M
Years ago there was a bumper sticker making the rounds that said "Will Rogers Never Met Howard Cosell". I think one stating he never met Obama would be even more priceless.
While I generally agree with Mr. Alger concerning the cult of personality, making the statement that the quality of transportation is more significant than its efficiency seems a bit unrealistic, a poor choice of analogies. Efficiency is indeed important, otherwise Obama's method of running our economy into the ground would be more acceptable than it obviously proves to be.
Reg;
Fuel efficiency certainly is a factor, although I would argue one of far less import than nearly any other to be considered in the design and engineering of vehicles.
The point is that, when you fetishize a single factor all out of proportion to its true weight in the situation, you pervert the end product. Thus, the relentless drive for CAFE standards has resulted in lighter, flimsier cars, with -- by some estimates -- more additional deaths per annum than all deaths in toto from, e.g., firearms.
And, make no mistake about it, fetishizing is exactly what the Left has done. And done on the most specious grounds.
M
"Obama's Ubergaffe calls to mind an anecdote from the career of the late, great Milton Friedman. He was in China, observing some State-mandated project, and noted that hundreds of workers were laboring away with shovels when there was a powered backhoe available. The official supervising him replied that the workers had been instructed to use shovels to "maximize the number of jobs." In that case, Friedman replied, "why not have them use spoons?" "
At which point one of the Chinese workers promptly shanked Friedman and told him not to give the overseers any more ideas.
By Monday, Cory Booker was backtracking. He'd been, "spoken to."
By Monday, the NAACP was backing gay marriage, despite the polling of their members.
Fran and the others are right. There is a "vast them" out there and I'd rather not face that truth, because I'm craven, comfortable and confused.
But I still know it's there.
So you've got us 30 or 40 percent zombiefied whackos who are too scared to do anything. You've got maybe as many as 25% real communist-idiot-statist jerks who are willing to fight.
MAYBE. . . MAYBE there are 25% of you guys who are willing to stand up to tyranny and can recognize it. Have you watched reality-TV, lately? The guys who seem to understand Waco or Ruby Ridge or the latest TSA abomination or whatever seem to be "very strange people" to me.
The people that the media portray as "ready for armageddon" are sort of odd to me.
We have a media. And they are not the Thomas Paine's of out past. They are in the bag for statist, multi-culture, go-along-to-get-along wusses who will let the Bilderbergers roll over the rest of us because we don't believe anybody could be that cynical, powerful, evil or . . . think honestly that could have such hubris as to believe they know what's best.
When I was 20 I never believed there were people that were just trying to manipulate me. I thought there were people who believed honestly in something.
Now, I believe there are MANY more people trying to manipulate me than honestly believe in anything I would possibly believe in.
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