1. For one reason or another, beginning with the "technical difficulties," I haven’t time to ramble about nothing.
2. Assuming Obama loses in PA, what’s most noteworthy about the result would be his lack of momentum. He caught up several weeks ago, after all. The MSM has been toughly pro-Barack and pushing the Hillary is mean and can’t be trusted line. The pressure on her to drop out is understandable. At this point the inevitable nominee is being hurt significantly by her prolonged campaign. But why should she drop out after winning a primary? That she can stay in until she loses somewhere else is just good manners.
3. Obama is gone from inspirational to boring, in my book. That doesn’t mean he can’t retool and come out with some new material during the down time after he secures the nomination.
4. Let me say one more thing about David Brooks’ character analysis of the candidates at Berry: He really got me to feel the like he has for McCain. Mac, it turns out, is really, really sloppy and disorganized. He can’t even dress himself presentably unless handlers take over, and his office and living spaces would be utter disasters without similar expert help. Not only that, he instinctively rebels against any and all authority: So he was a jerk in prep school, a big-time underachiever at the Naval Academy, a hero as a POW, and the very opposite of a team player as a senator. I don’t mean any of this as personal criticism: When listening to David recite these facts, my gut response was "Now, there’s a real man."
5. It might well be the case that both Obama and McCain are more than a cut above the usual presidential candidate as human beings, but neither obviously possesses executive competence.
6. One ambiguous sign of McCain’s possible success is Jonathan’s Rauch puff piece on him in THE ATLANTIC. Mac isn’t an ideological or revolutionary conservative, but a true or Burkean conservative. I would flesh out the distinction in Rauch’s mind, but you could do it as well I could. The MSM may end up hearting Mac more than Barack by October.
7. And I haven’t been able to thank Rob Jeffrey and various other professors and students at Wofford for treating Pat Deneen and myself with such attentive respect. Dr. Pat and I pretty much agreed about the many downsides of our techno-nihilism or Lockeanism run amok. But I’m a bit more positive on the upsides of living today (as a naturally sloppy and incompetent guy), and to some extent we disagree about what free and virtuous men and women should do now.
McCain never entirely grew up. He is also intellectually hostage to his Democratic colleagues and the liberal media on many issues. To need the help of handlers to the extent described by Brooks is in no way manly, but merely dysfunctional. To rebel against "any and all authority" is equally unmanly.
Masculine, no doubt, but only in a perverted way. McCain does have courage and integrity, as well as a far better understanding of the world around us. Next to Obama, he's much the better man as well as much the better president. Whether he will prove to be the better candidate is an open question.
Obama, like McCain, "more than a cut above" most presidential candidates? Wrong. He's violating his pledge to obey the campaign-finance rules with the ridiculous excuse that he has de facto public funding now due to his broad contributor base. He has also wiggled away from real responses to extremely serious questions about the terrorist Ayers and the hate preacher Wright. It is clear that he hates to be challenged and that he doesn't know how to handle real disagreement. He has been the beneficiary of rigged rules -- diversity rules -- his entire adult life. Liberals (the only people he's really known or dealt with) have cooed over him since he was a college boy. He is in no way comparable to McCain -- despite the latter's serious shortcomings.
The media are most unlikely to sympathize publicly with McCain over Obama come October. They are Democrats and they want a Democratic president.
When you write about Obama, I can only assume you use "boring" in one of its British uses -- someone who is truly annoying.
Obama is a lefty soap opera; the more that is uncovered, the more interesting it gets.
The whole Democratic primary looks more and more like a Greek tragedy, one in which everyone loses. We the American people, especially, will lose if this amateur gets into the White House.
I'm rooting for Hillary, only because she is a little more boring than Obama. Boring, in the American sense -- we know what we'll get with her. With him, who knows what nastiness will come to light?
Peter, Obama became a crashing bore some time ago, and you were simply being too generous and charitable to publicly observe as much. But I'm privately confident that you noticed that Obama was closely courting stultifying boredom status months and months ago.
I haven't forgotten that you were way ahead of the curve in noting that Rudy was going to crash and burn, and that was long prior to Florida. So it stands to reason that you closely observed Obama's trajectory as well.
When listening to David recite these facts, my gut response was "Now, there’s a real man."
Then you have a feminist understanding of what it is to be a man. Being an ill-tempered jerk ain't it.
Mac isn’t an ideological or revolutionary conservative, but a true or Burkean conservative.
I'm looking out my window for the flying pigs right now...