Showing posts with label mona charen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mona charen. Show all posts

Thursday, June 18, 2015

CHARLESTON 2015: WE HAVE A WINNER.

Feeling bad about what happened in Charleston yesterday? Spare some sympathy for Mona Charen at National Review:
The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable. Even more depressing, if that’s possible, is my suspicion – and I truly hope I’m wrong – that this event will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign.
This was treated with appropriate contempt on Twitter and elsewhere, and Charen roared back:
Some people, determined to see bad faith in those with whom they disagree, are seizing upon my post earlier today...
("Seizing upon" means "accurately quoting," in this case.)
Am I someone who’s more upset about politics than murder, hatred, and death? Um, no.
She said "um," that settles it. Wait, Charen has more:
I should have put it more precisely. The feelings of grief, rage, and horror at an atrocity such as we saw last night should be taken for granted among all civilized people. One doesn’t feel “depressed” about an event like a mass shooting. One does get depressed at the cynical uses to which such outrages have lately been put.
She didn't mean what she said, and we're monsters to think she did. Context doesn't redeem her, though. I've read quite a bit of Mona Charen's work. Here she's beating up on unwed mothers ("Of course some women want babies the way others crave shoes..."). Here she's tying thwarted attacks on the White House to Obama's "divisiveness"  ("his death at the hands of an assassin could still well be more pain and stress than our republic could stand. It’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down..."). Here's "Democrats do tend to be less patriotic than Republicans. There, I've said it out loud." I could go on, but if there's one thing covering these guys for years has taught me, it's that with someone like Charen there's no reason to interpret anything she says charitably.

Nine dead and she and the Republican Party are the victims. Sheesh.

UPDATE. Now Ian Tuttle is over there defending the Confederate flag:
But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful. Elected leaders make this distinction constantly when it comes to Islamic terrorism, after all: The teachings of Muhammad, the Koran, the black flag with the Shahada (the flag of ISIS) — they have been “hijacked” and “perverted.” Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely “hijacked” or “perverted” the main symbol of the Confederacy?
Interesting approach -- if you think Islam is different from Islamic terror, you must accept that those who fly the Battle Flag aren't necessarily endorsing the Peculiar Institution. But apparently it doesn't work the other way around: Here's Tuttle last year with a post called "No, Pointing Out Muslims Have Been Beheading People for Centuries Isn’t Islamophobic":
The larger question is whether Islam qua Islam sanctions beheading — or if jihadists pervert a religion that, in its orthodox form, is peaceful.

That debate can be left to religious scholars. What is evident is that, as Tantaros observes, the masked men in our age who delight in chopping off heads are typically Muslim, and they believe that they have the sanction of their religion. Furthermore, that religious fervor has made them less than amenable to reasoned, dispassionate negotiation.
If you tried this approach on the Charleston killer -- "the question is whether racism is a perversion of the neo-Confederate cause," for example, "but what is evident is that racists are typically neo-Confederates..." I expect Tuttle would be grievously offended on behalf of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the rest of his heroes.

Friday, April 24, 2015

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.


Good day for this. Never a bad one, really.

•   At National Review, Mona Charen snarls in "Racial Milestones and a Corrupt Press":
You can do this all day, I know, play “What if a Republican had done...” But the contrast is so galling, it simply must be noted. Today’s Washington Post carries a story about the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general. The inside headline, on page A7, proclaims “Lynch Will Be First Black Woman to Head the Justice Department.” A glance back at the coverage of Condoleeza Rice’s confirmation as the first black woman Secretary of State? The headline was “Rice Confirmed Amid Criticism.” The story accompanying that headline featured Democrats’ slams against attorney general-nominee Alberto Gonzalez, but not a word about the history-making moment of confirming the first black woman secretary of state.

This tears the veil off the “first blah blahs” the press and Democrats make such a fuss over. It’s completely partisan. It has nothing to do with true pride in the accomplishments of once oppressed peoples. Conservative women’s accomplishments are illegitimate. Black conservatives are invisible...
The Washington Post is only one hydra-head of the Liberal Media, so I went to see what other treasonous news orgs had reported on Rice's milestone. The New York Times:
Condoleezza Rice, a scholar of the cold war who was President Bush's closest foreign policy adviser during his 2000 campaign and throughout his first term, was sworn in as secretary of state Wednesday evening, hours after the Senate confirmed her by a vote of 85 to 13.
Ms. Rice, who is the second woman, and the first black woman, to become secretary of state...
Talk about burying the lede! Worse, CNN didn't get to Rice's race/gender qualifications till the third paragraph. And NPR, well, you can imagine, the first line was probably about how she was a fascist or something --
The Senate votes 85-13 to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, making her the first black woman to serve as the nation's top diplomat.
-- okay, well then surely those commies at the Associated Press --
WASHINGTON (AP) — America's first black woman secretary of state took the ceremonial oath of office Friday surrounded by family and friends...
Look, it's no fair, that Democrat bitch got a headline! Elsewhere at National Review, you can read Mona Charen's racial opinions about Obama's Secret Service protection: namely, that Obama has torn the races apart, so now if someone sic-semper-tyrannises him "it’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down." Yeesh. Maybe cook gave her some runny eggs this morning.

•   Rod Dreher's blog remains a mix of persecution mania and book peddling, but I have to to tell you he surprised me in his latest sermon on how the gays are persecuting Christians:
We must try, anyway, because if we are going to hold on to the orthodox Christian faith in this increasingly anti-Christian culture, we are going to have to learn how to endure, and to endure joyfully.
I ran out of time this morning on the stage, but I wanted to talk briefly about how we will have much to learn from the African-American experience. A black friend’s grandmother, encouraging her children in the 1940s not to let their spirits and their dignity be broken by white hatred, counseled, “Don’t be the kind of person they think you are.” That’s great advice for Christians going forward.
Sure, they experienced slavery, segregation, and lynchings. but Big Gummint made us bake a cake. Now for a rousing rendition of that old cracker spiritual, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Gay."

•   Speaking of whiners, here's Mollie Hemingway claiming we're heading toward a joyless Orwellian dystopia of "comedy speakeasies" where "people will have to have the password. But they’ll also have to be patted down for recording equipment," etc., because comedians are ascared someone will hear their jokes outside the club and some tattletale will get them sent to PC Jail. What's her evidence for this? 1.) The New York Post said David Letterman's audience was "'stunned' by his 'sexist' joke"; 2.) "Jamie Foxx was accused of transphobia"; 3.) Trevor Noah lost his Daily Show gig -- no wait, that didn't happen; rather, he "received criticism." And... Michael Richards. No, really. If a white guy can't yell "nigger" over and over onstage without getting a hard time for it 12 fucking goddamn years ago, we're headed for totalitarianism. Maybe if Hemingway keeps this up, the conservative movement will gain strength from all the shitty comics who finally have an excuse for nobody liking them.