Saul Steinberg, Call Your Office
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Lousy Debate, Great Debate Performances
By Gregory Taggart, January 26, 2012 8:38 pm
Romney had to stare down Gingrich in the last Florida debate, and he did a wonderful job of it. Very strong debate for him tonight. Santorum was even stronger, but unfortunately for him, he’s too far behind in Florida for it to matter (or is he? Remember Iowa). The three most recent polls (Thursday, January 26) out of Florida give Romney a lead over Gingrich of an average +7.67 points. His lead over Santorum averages out at +29. Doubtful he can make that ground up.
How Do You Do This and Blog?
By Gregory Taggart, January 26, 2012 11:15 am
By the way, the star of this show is Rick Reilly’s son.
Taxes, Schmaxes
By Gregory Taggart, January 25, 2012 10:43 am
Mitt’s true tax rate is 44.75%. And then there’s all that giving stuff.
Krauthammer is Wrong about Mitch Daniels
By Gregory Taggart, January 25, 2012 9:58 am
Charles Krauthammer praised Mitch Daniels’s speech in the GOP response to the SOTU as being “one of the best” and as one “best presentations of the Conservative idea against the larger government of Obama.”
It was a good speech, but there’s nothing in it–nothing–that hasn’t been said by Mitt Romney. Nothing. Watch it here or, better, read it yourself. Do you see anything that hasn’t been said before–and as well?
I have nothing against Daniels. I hardly know the guy. But this pining for him or for Jeb Bush, for what might have been if only they had entered the race, for all that green grass on the other side of the fence, has to stop. We have some good men (at one time, women) who took up the challenge and entered the race. That because of the insane debate schedule they have endured and the resultant overwhelming scrutiny they’ve received, of course that other grass looks greener. But as we all know in our heart of hearts, it’s not.
Unfortunately, Krauthammer is not the only one pining for Daniels. Michael Uhlmann, for example, said that “Mitch Daniels, in reply, sounded exactly the right note — one that has been almost entirely lost in the childish cacophony of the Republican primaries to date. He sounded like a grown-up.” Mona Charen sounded a similar note, calling the candidates “second rate.”
And the candidates are childish? Please.
The SOTU — Painful
By Gregory Taggart, January 24, 2012 8:25 pm
Hillary called it “the best speech.” She needs to get out more. A federal law against dropping out of high school? Government should only do what can’t do for ourselves? Doesn’t compute.
I’m Baaaaack!
By Gregory Taggart, January 24, 2012 5:23 pm
Hey, I’ve been posting irregularly and with little enthusiasm because some twit had compromised my blog so that every time I opened a page, popups would appear and/or my anti-virus software would announce that it had stumbled upon some malware. I’ve been so busy that last four months that I’ve not had the time to figure out and fix the problem.
Well, no more. My wife worked tirelessly yesterday and cleaned up our blogs–or most of them–including updating the the WordPress software to 3.3.1. And just in time, too! We’re in the middle of a hot race for the Repulican nomination for president, and now I have another stage from which to talk about that race and the one to follow.
Go Mitt!
I Think Therefore I’m Newt
By Gregory Taggart, January 21, 2012 3:20 pm
What if Newt decides the Presidency is beneath him?
Two Thoughts to End the Year On
By Gregory Taggart, January 1, 2012 12:36 am
As per my usual routine, I went into my office to shut down my computer. It was 11:00 PM, and Janet and I were going to bed before the New Year. For one, Janet followed me in to see if her print job was finished. It wasn’t, and so here I sat, waiting for it to begin, let alone finish. And because I was sitting at my computer, I began to surf. My surfing was rewarded.
First, by a link on Instapundit that led me to a post on Chicago Boyz of an excerpt of a Tennyson poem, The Passing of the King:
The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn
Amazed him, and he groaned, ‘The King is gone.’
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
‘From the great deep to the great deep he goes.’***
Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars.Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.
The second was a post by Michael Potemra on The Corner about Father Baron’s comments about the late Christopher Hitchens. I’ve posted the Father Baron video below, but I first want to quote Potemra,
I had my problems with Christopher Hitchens — who didn’t? — and Barron mentions some of these issues in the video. But he puts those disagreements in a very realistic context, in what I think is an attempt to see our brother Christopher with God’s eyes. That is what we are called to do even with our outright enemies, never mind people who might say an unkind word about (or to) us now and again. Now there’s a resolution for the New Year: Try to be as charitable with people who disagree with me as Father Barron is in his comments on Hitchens. (One hell of a challenge; but then, so, of course, is Christianity. In fact, it’s the same challenge.)
Poterma’s thoughts compliment those of Chicago Boy Lexington Green, who posted the Tennyson poem:
The strifes and sadnesses and laughter and joy and work and play and songs and silences of another year are now sealed up and put aside and stored away in the attic of memory. And now the new year with its prospects and menaces, its and tediums and discoveries, its old friends and new ones, comes faintly into view.
2012 will be a contentious and eventful year. Be good to each other. Keep your sense of humor. Don’t personalize the political, and correct or avoid those who do. The personal is too valuable to be debased in that way. Be hopeful. Have gratitude. Fear God and dread nought.
Thus my surfing paid off in a challenge to be a better person in 2012. May you feel so challenged as well. And now, as promised, is Barron on Hitchens:
There Are Flash Mobs . . .
By Gregory Taggart, August 22, 2011 11:18 am
And then there are flash mobs.
Themocracy