Ruminating on Romney

John Hawkins has a good piece against Romney for GOP nominee. Polls suggest that many Americans, especially Christians, especially Christians who'd vote Republican, will not vote for a Mormon. Mick's thoughts are here and I don't buy this poll just as I don't buy polls which suggest that Americans want to surrender in Iraq. It's contextually-manipulated polling, asking questions in a setting which suggests the preferred answer and then headlining that answer at the expense of other answers which would severely modify the policy takeaway from the poll.

Anyway the GOP nomination process is a narrow-mesh filter for the religious-test proposition that Mormonism disqualifies Romney from winning the general election. My instinct is that almost no-one who isn't a locked-in liberal has a problem with a man who follows his parents' religion, doesn't bring its specifics into his campaign, acts on general Christian principles, is personally tolerant, refuses to disavow his faith and has a great family. All religious sects have their cultish aspects, The Church of Liberalism most of all.

Hawkins is right that the MSM will love to mock Mormonism's absurdities, but they'll lash Giuliani's love-life. I bet if a distinguished US general were running for the GOP, they'd call him traitor. A non-RINO needs a rhino's hide whatever his background.

Hawkins deals fairly fairly with Romney's supposed flipfloppery. He concludes that Romney is probably a conservative but

The idea, I suppose, is that conservatives should get him into the White House and then we'll find out where he really stands.

Well Romney's policy statements are clearly conservative, his personal life is clearly conservative, his record as governor of a liberal state is clearly conservative. I don't really have a problem with a President who has evolved into conservatism - isn't that normal?

Hawkins notes that Romney trails in national polls:

Once you get outside of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has been spending much of his time and campaign war chest, Mitt's numbers are frighteningly bad.

Another way to say that is that Romney appears to be the candidate who can campaign most effectively. If Romney is nominated he'll get the national exposure. If you believe like Hawkins that Romney's a great campaigner, you have to believe that's a winning combination with exposure.

My imaginary vote still goes to Romney over Giuliani because of his competence and stability, tho Giuliani as President sounds dandy too. I'd change my mind if Romney started to trim left.

An afterthought is that Giuliani is far more likely to have secrets in his personal life which are being hoarded by the media. This is a critical election (they all seem to be now that the Democrats have become so treacherous) and should be the dirtiest on record. Romney may have an important edge if you believe that a candidate's personal life can translate to votes. Tho I have many daughters, I'm a dunderhead on female psychology, but I'd have thought Romney's looks and demeanour would appeal to women more than Giuliani's and far,far more than Hillary Clinton's and without the preponderance of the female vote the Dems are sunk. I imagine I'm an expert on male psychology and I can't imagine any man, anywhere, ever voting for Hillary Clinton over Romney (or Giuliani) unless he's a member of some liberal group (government employee, racial identity group, lawyer, academic, student...), but that may be my wishful thinking.

PJ Harvey

Having seen Prince, I found that another music hero was giving a single concert in London, so I coughed up for PJ Harvey. This little genius has been a star for about 14 years. I prefer her early albums, especially 4-Track Demos, but she is a knockout live act. Here's an early clip from the Tonight Show...can't imagine what the Leno audience made of her but they seemed to like it.

Bollingers' bollocks redux

This is a comment on Dave's comment - "the invite should never have occurred" - on my comment on Mick's post 'Bollinger Bollixes his Brief' to the effect that confronting A'jad was a decent deed performed by a hypocrite who should not have invited this A'hole to speak. It's a post so as to include the video:

Reasonable men (and we too) can disagree whether Bollinger got his multiculti knickers in a twist with the invite. I do agree he's a hypocrite because he opposed the ROTC at Columbia, but I'm glad that he invited A'jad and I'm glad at his take-down which was wholly effective. Suppose Hitler, Stalin or Mao, with the world watching, had been confronted to their faces with a similarly levelheaded summary of their scumminess. That would have brought them into ridicule and consolidated resistance. It would also be an inspiration in history. No invite, no takedown, no autobeclowning, no inspiration.

"I am only a professor who is also a university president. Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilised world yearning to express its revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better."

Let right and wrong confront each other in public. Christ said "the truth shall make you free." He didn't add "but the truth is reserved for courteous non-hypocrites in private."

The practical upshot of Bollinger's invite has been to break the liberal meme that BigBad Bush must be deterred from attacking the tolerant, Islamic, more-sinned-against-than-sinning resistance-fighters in Iran so as to steal their oil (tho I would be happy to steal their oil). By speaking against homosexuality in PoliticallyCorrect-i-bad U, NYC, A'jad committed a mortal sin on liberal soil and that's cooked his goose with the bien pissants far worse than his implied threats to nuke Israel.

Bollix (American); Bollocks (English); Cojones (Spanish).

Dwarf, poison, antidote

A'jad's speech at Columbia U had these good outcomes.

1. President of Columbia, Lee Bollinger's policy of banning the ROTC (because of Clinton's dont-ask-don't-tell ordinance re gays in the military), but inviting to campus the guy who murders American soldiers who volunteered to protect America (even the bit which is Columbia U) - that policy is brought into acute focus.

2. A'jad made himself ridiculous as well.

I suggest that Bollinger now take his ROTC banning credentials to Tehran U and there devote a speech to the glory of overt homosexuality in the military.

More seriously, I suggest that Bush himself propose a visit to Tehran for the sole purpose of speaking about freedom and democracy versus an obscene theocracy. A town hall type event would be fine.

Rudy v Fred v McCain v Mitt - the issue

John Hawkins emphasizes national polls. Mick emphasizes early primaries. Powerline hops about. Hugh Hewitt's in love.

Comment is free, but facts are sacred:

to find a clearly bald candidate beating a rival who was not so afflicted, you have to go back to the 1880 election, when James Abram Garfield beat the retired Civil War general Winfield Scott Hancock by fewer than 10,000 votes.

Columbia U is right, Bush is wrong

I have no problem with a New York college giving a platform to a fascist like A'jad or Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Sure the academics' motives are treacherous, but I credit the American crowd with the wisdom to see diabolism for what it is - laughable.

I have a problem with the US government allowing free movement in NYC to a murderer of US troops.

A'jad is right

This from the Iranian news agency:

International rules require the United States, as the host to the UN headquarters, to issue visa for other countries' envoys to the United Nations and to refrain from disrupting the operations of the world body.

Due to similar incidents in the past, Iran has called on the UN member states to change the UN headquarters from New York to Geneva or a more convenient and impartial place.

Actually move the UN to Tehran. Ok it might inconvenience the next Australian PM when he wants to get sloshed in a strip club while on an official visit to the UN, but what's that compared to the sheer appositeness of the world's foremost forum for hypocrisy and anti-Americanism re-locating to Iran.

A slasher

Sweeney Todd is a great role for Johnny Depp in the forthcoming movie of Sondheim's classic, but I don't think he's interesting enough to pull it off. The overall cast looks good with Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford and Borat as Aldolfo Pirelli, 'the king of barbers and barber of kings'. The greatest weight should fall on Helena Bonham Carter who plays Mrs Lovett, purveyor of meat-pies. Isn't she a Johnny Depp lookalike?

I saw Sweeney in London 26 years ago, but was mesmerized by the recent lean, mean revival in London in which the cast of 9 played the instruments and replaced the orchestra. It was so thrilling that I saw it again when it transferred to New York. To die for.

Idiot, yes. Useful, no.

This just in: you can't trust Syria, you can't trust Iran, you can't trust N.Korea. It appears that the Israelis just destroyed Syrian materials for nuclear warheads stored 50 miles from the Iraqi border.

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

Also

As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.

A pox on Nancy Pelosi. A pox on James Baker.

Advice to a Prince

I'm pro-Prince. 'Pink Cashmere' will play at my funeral. Last night a Polish Princess took me to a Prince concert at the Dome in London. I'll skip the superlatives and give the boy some tips:

* Look, a lot of the concert was over-orchestrated. Can a wall of sound swamp out detail? If so, it did that.
* You can play guitar. Did you know? Just stand there and pump that thing.
* The light show is past passé...no impact. Minimalism rocks.
* Boudoir colour schemes evoke, well, nothing much. They're not even suggestive as kitsch.
* Your live act subtracts melody, adds rhythm. then plays with the rhythms virtuosoifically. I want to damn well hear it.

You may not know it, but you have a real talent hidden there. Lose the layers.

Slimy yet satisfying

The "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times brings all this War on Terror stuff into perspective. Could any conservative invent a more satisfying branding iron for the Democrats? Alright the liberal congress only called Petraeus a liar not a traitor, but I think the job's done. Thankyou, God.

As for the Times, see Thomas Lifson:

Even Pinch Sulzberger must, by this time, understand that the newspaper industry is dying. But a canny strategist could, as Rupert Murdoch is doing, leverage assets like a famous name and a national distribution platform into a multi-media platform that could thrive in the new technological environment of news. Despite the ineptness of the company's diversification strategy, the venerable brand name and worldwide reputation of the paper, a legacy he inherited from his ancestors, remains the company's most valuable asset. But this sort of cheapening of the company's standing, publishing scandalously scurrilous ads and devoting its diminishing supply of space to redundant stories with attitude, is undermining the remaining value of that brand.

Unless members of the Sulzberger/Ochs family decide to protect their patrimony by removing their incompetent cousin, something of a Greek tragedy will play itself out at the company, and it will be devoured by Pinch's lethal combination of hubris, youthful political obsessions, and lack of business acumen.