Thursday, June 09, 2005

Thursday Roundup

A few other bits today:

1. OpinionJournal argues that the filibuster deal has divided the heretofore solid Senate Democrats by analyzing the votes for cloture. I am not sure about this analysis but we'll know I think once Owen, Brown and Pryor are through and we get a candidate other than Henry Saad or William Myers.

2. Steven Spielberg doesn't get it. Spielberg, who is a brilliant director, scolds Hollywood for not backing Kerry enough. His ability to direct, though, doesn't translate into an ability to analyze politics. I rather think Hollywood helped him a bit much (see Streisand, Michael Moore and Whoopi) and that turned off a lot of folks not on the Left Coast and the Northeast.

3. Peggy Noonan points out why you would never see Bush or senior Republicans rant like Hillary or Howard Dean. She has a clever thought exercise but the point is this:

There is a tradition of political generosity that prevails among the normal people of America, a certain live-and-let-live-ness. That is why Little League games don't break out in fistfights, at least over politics. You don't shun people in the neighborhood because they're Democrats, and you don't inform the Republican in the next cubicle that he is evil, lazy and racist. That just doesn't play in America. There are breaches, exceptions, incidents. We are not angels. But by and large even though we disagree with each other, and even if we come to dislike each other, we maintain, for reasons both moral and practical, decorum. Civility. We keep a lid on it. We don't lower it to the level of invective. We don't by nature seek to divide.

When you have been in Washington long enough and have become consumed by your place in the political struggle, you can lose sight of the American arrangement. You can become harsh and shrill...

The comportment of Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean is actually not worthy of America. Their statements suggest they are in no way equal to the country they seek to lead.

No comments: