Our elected officials and punditocracy are engaging in an orgy of nostalgia over the late Ted Kennedy, in part because he embodied their ideal: the Public-Figure-for-Life.
Teddy was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace his brother when he was 29 and then spent almost 47 years in the Senate. You know the old joke about how the only thing that could cost Senator So-and-so reelection is being found with a dead girl or a live boy? Well, Senator Ted wound up with the blood of a dead girl on his hands ... and still got over 40 more years in the U.S. Senate. And to a lot of important people, that makes him an inspiration.
On a lesser note, how badly do you have to screw up to lose your job as a celebrity pundit? For example, here's a video of the New York Times's Tom Friedman explaining why he supported the Iraq Attaq. The last three words are particularly amusing. Perhaps the Pentagon could send a DVD of this interview home with the coffin to every dead enlistee's mom.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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41 comments:
Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson, DJ AM, Ryan Jenkins (reality show personality who murdered his fiancee' and stuffed her in a suitcase), Muriel Duckworth.
Its getting crowded "somewhere".
If you are really in a purple mood, consider this:
If they dont hurry up and get Michael Jackson buried, he is gonna turn black.
"Well, Senator Ted wound up with the blood of a dead girl on his hands ... and still got over 40 more years in the U.S. Senate."
It's amazing how Ted Kennedy managed to get such a giant, sloppy, smelly mess on his chest and was still able to have such a long career in the Senate.
Frank Rich doesn't know what bubble means does he?
-Steve Johnson
Who do you think finds princes, princesses, aristocracies, and family dynasties exciting and wonderful? Hint, it's not Joe Average. Kennedy being a total waste of space and leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown MADE him. By being such a total (but dynastic) A-hole women voters loved him more.
Kennedy got elected BECAUSE of his bad behavior, not despite it. Heck he behaved abysmally at Palm Beach during the William Kennedy Smith fiasco, and got re-elected thereafter.
Men generally abhor dynasties and hereditary aristocracies because it freezes them out, women find them entrancing because entry to even ordinarily pretty women is always open. Yes it's as simple as that.
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As for Friedman, even a broken clock (like Ron Paul) can be right sometimes. He's dumb as a box of rocks about "the world is flat" but I'll see your dead (volunteer enlistee) with 3,000 dead Americans on 9/11. And likely 3 million dead in NYC in a few years.
Given the political impossibility of either closing the borders, or kicking angry Muslim Jihadis off flights, or waterboarding hard core terrorists who sawed the head off an American, to get info, we will have attack after attack after attack, with no one willing to even lie (the Army Field Manual in fact forbids it in interrogations) to prisoners, for fear of going to jail. We won't have any warning of plots hatching, which will kill even more than 9/11, it's certain.
We could have millions dead (and probably will) and no one is going to volunteer for prison not even ten years later for waterboarding a Jihadi scumbag.
So get ready for "Iraq plus" "big Time" as Cheney would say, with that the only tool left in the bag. We can't nuke anyone back (elites/left will veto it). We can't play Defense (elites/left already vetoed that). There's nothing left. After we lose NYC and impeach/convict Obama, we will have nothing in our toolbox left BUT Iraq style stuff "plus."
How is it that Tom Friedman has a perch at the NY Times, is somehow a best-selling author, and lives on an estate the size of Liechtenstein? The guy is easily the worst writer in America, hands down. Here's a couple articles holding up Tom and his "work" to the withering mockery they so richly deserve.
Ted Kennedy was 30 when he was elected to the Senate in November 1962. He was born on George Washington's 200 birthday, February 22, 1932 (old style).
The family had JFK's Harvard roommate, Benjamin Smith, appointed as the seat warmer from 1960 to 1962.
Joe Biden was elected to the Senate when he was 29. He turned 30 between the election and when Congress convened in January 1973. Interestingly, the new senator from Delaware, Ted Kaufman, may also serve as a seat-warmer for Biden's son, Beau.
how badly do you have to screw up to lose your job as a celebrity pundit?
Rather than view the existence -- and even growth -- of screw-up pundits as a market failure, we just have to re-analyze what they're being paid for.
It is not "figuring stuff out," but instead "being charismatic cheerleaders." Add to this that the audience size (demand) for having someone tell them what they've figured out is puny compared to the audience size for having someone make them feel good by cheering on their side.
Then punditry makes perfect sense.
"in part because he embodied their ideal: the Public-Figure-for-Life."
...and then they want Public-Figure-for-Life status to go down to the children of said figures. They really do want some sort of aristocracy to rule. Of course, if white, blue collar firemen have children who do really well on the firemen's test, well, that's racism...somehow.
Friedman's chief legacy:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2884
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_(unit)
"As for Friedman, even a broken clock (like Ron Paul) can be right sometimes. He's dumb as a box of rocks about "the world is flat" but I'll see your dead (volunteer enlistee) with 3,000 dead Americans on 9/11. And likely 3 million dead in NYC in a few years."
You really are quite amazing.
"My name in Evil Neocon. The world is ending. No one can find mates, women have emasculated all men. Affirmative action ensures we can't get jobs. Our society is falling apart. WHITE WOMEN. We must struggle for democracy in Iraq."
What part of that doesn't fit in with the rest?
I'd just like to add that after watching Friedman's disgusting and blood thirsty idiocy I wasn't in the mood to read Testing's.
'He's dumb as a box of rocks about "the world is flat" but I'll see your dead (volunteer enlistee) with 3,000 dead Americans on 9/11. And likely 3 million dead in NYC in a few years.'
How has destabilizing the Middle East led to a safer America?
Rational inhabitants of the Middle East were at least scared of Bush/Cheney America; the kind of fear that leads them to think twice.
BO, and Gordon Brown, are doing their best to project an image of weakness; and to disable the capacity of the West to defend itself. Perhaps Afghanistan is the sole exception to this. But overall the perception in the Middle East is that the USA is winding down as a world power and ultimately will do little to prevent the Islamification of Europe; as such, the last real obstacle will be out of the way, since the Europeans themselves clearly do not have the capacity to resist. In fact many do not even comprehend they have a problem.
Today, Belgium; tomorrow, the world.
Anon.
Being found with a live boy would be a boost to a politician's career these days. (Unless the politician's a Republican, or from the South.) It would add to a pol's SWPL bona fides.
Most people just aren't interested in being told the truth. If they were, you'd have Tom Friedman's job.
"Being found with a live boy would be a boost to a politician's career these days. (Unless the politician's a Republican, or from the South.) It would add to a pol's SWPL bona fides."
Look at Jim McGreevey. Even though I'm totally pro-gay, I had to say, "Wait a minute, you married a woman for the _second_ time in the 21st century." The contrast with Barney Frank is instructive. Frank announced that he was gay during a string of other scandals, I think around the time Gary Hart was caught. The reaction at the time was "Who asked him?" But he managed that way to immunize himself against the Steve Gobie scandal.
"BO, and Gordon Brown, are doing their best to project an image of weakness; and to disable the capacity of the West to defend itself. Perhaps Afghanistan is the sole exception to this. But overall the perception in the Middle East is that the USA is winding down as a world power and ultimately will do little to prevent the Islamification of Europe; as such, the last real obstacle will be out of the way, since the Europeans themselves clearly do not have the capacity to resist. In fact many do not even comprehend they have a problem. "
Dude, you live in a fantasy world if you think that Americans would ever resist the Islamization of Europe. It's actually the other way around. America wants Turkey to join the EU, the French are resisting. When Haider was brought into the cabinet in Austria it was the US that went nuts. It was America that took the side of the Muslim Bosnians and bombed the Christian Serbs.
You've inadvertently brought up another problem that the Bush/Cheney regime had. Because it was willing to bomb Muslims, the naive amongst you got the impression that they gave a damn about saving Western civilization. The Republican elite are active destroyers of it. At least a weak America would have more hesitation about screwing everything up with its empire of multiculturalism.
"the last real obstacle will be out of the way, since the Europeans themselves clearly do not have the capacity to resist"
The US as an obstacle to the destruction of the West! HAHA.
Dude cheats on his wife with another woman, he's being selfish and immature.
Dude cheats on his wife with another man, he's being authentic.
But overall the perception in the Middle East is that the USA is winding down as a world power
So how many people have we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Twin Towers attacks? I'd want to know those figures before I weighed your assertion.
The US as an obstacle to the destruction of the West! HAHA.
Convincing people that the USA is the magnetic pole that aligns Europe to demographic invasion (inter alia) isn't easy.
-Dude, you live in a fantasy world if you think that Americans would ever resist the Islamization of Europe. It's actually the other way around. America wants Turkey to join the EU, the French are resisting. When Haider was brought into the cabinet in Austria it was the US that went nuts. It was America that took the side of the Muslim Bosnians and bombed the Christian Serbs.-
Don't get the fucked up morons who run the US mixed up with regular people.
The US has no impact whatsoever on the real roots of the demographic realignment in Europe, which is the massive fall in births. That demographic change makes immigration have *way* more impact, because it's not adding more people to a big population (who will assimilate after a few generations), but rather bringing in a replacement people.
This (like most of what happens in the world) is neither America's fault nor within our power to change.
At least Friedman's wife's family was wiped out when General Growth went bankrupt.
"Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson, DJ AM, Ryan Jenkins (reality show personality who murdered his fiancee' and stuffed her in a suitcase), Muriel Duckworth.
Its getting crowded "somewhere".
You have exactly what against Muriel Duckworth?
In grade school, the late Michael Kelly & I were best friends. We lost touch after going to different high schools, however.
When Michael published his 1990 article in GQ, "A Sober Look at Ted Kennedy," I remember thinking, "Wow. Here I am writing brochure copy for clients too poor to hire a real ad agency, while Michael's just written an expose that will bring down one of the most powerful politicians in America!"
Of course, his article did not even dent Kennedy's career.
It was certainly a big boost for Michael's personal career, but it was that same career that got him killed in Iraq.
There's some kind of meaning to this story, but I'm still trying to figure it out!
Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson, DJ AM, Ryan Jenkins (reality show personality who murdered his fiancee' and stuffed her in a suitcase), Muriel Duckworth.
Its getting crowded "somewhere".
Why the hell are you lumping DJ AM with the rest of these people? He didn't do anything nefarious. He was just a DJ for chrissakes.
even a broken clock (like Ron Paul) can be right sometimes
errr, explain to me how wanting to audit the Fed and unearth all the mismanagement and outright fraud which must have been going on there since 1913 is a bad idea, exactly? what's bad about transparency?
On Friedman, Iraq and War For Democracy:
At this point these "wars for democracy" are the endgame stage of an intellectually bankrupt totalitarian empire. Thinking people in Iraq ought to be asking some questions by now. What the hell is in store for us?
Here is a list of questions about a possible future of Iraq. But it's a future that is only attainable in the best case scenario (meaning akin to the utopia we experience here in modern America, of course!)
Q: How long until the State of Iraq is reconceptualized not as a sovereign nation but as a commercial component of the future Middle East Union (so-called "economic cooperation zone")?
Q: How long until Iraq's borders are opened to any and all immigrants?
Q: How long until the Iraq government is forced to adopt "free trade" policies and the country is flooded with cheap labor?
Q: How long until the Iraqi taxpayers are saddled with a "federal reserve system" (non-transparent central banking scheme that debases the currency and stealthily skims untold wealth from the national treasury)?
Q: How long until a culture-cracking PC media regime is installed in Iraq nationwide that continually bashes and marginalizes the "nativist" and "bigoted" ethnic Iraqi people?
Q: How long until abortion and birth control are readily available across Iraq?
Q: How long until the Iraq population birthrate crashes far below replacement levels and the media demands mass immigration as a solution to save the natives' social security system?
Q: How long until Iraqi women are protected by special laws and earn more college degrees than Iraqi men and hold the power in divorce court and child custody disputes?
Q: How long until Iraq government surveillance cameras are installed throughout every Iraqi city and town?
Q: How long until the entire Iraq phone system software architecture is controlled by foreign intelligence agency contractor fronts?
Q: How long until Iraqi schools are saturated in slick anti-Iraq propaganda designed to distort and defame Iraq's historical figures, which demoralizes patriots and energizes alien immigrants harboring grudges?
Q: How long until the religion of the vast majority of Iraq citizens is relentlessly ridiculed by politicians, writers, journalists, celebrities and entertainers, and the Islamic crescent is displayed submerged in a glass of urine at big city art museums?
Q: How long until the Iraq Armed Forces are sent off to far corners of the globe to participate in other Wars for Democracy?
Q: In other words, how long until Iraq is transitioned into New World Order police state society - uh, a modern Western-style democracy?
etc.
I bet Ted served longer in the US Senate than any party member ever served in the Politburo.
Tenure: nope, not quite, you missed it.
Tenure isn't near and dear to leftists. This is just another aspect of the First and Only Commandment of the Left:
Who? Whom?
Get it? If their enemies were in charge, tenure would be EEEVVVIIILLL wherever it supported same. Once they get the throne, tenure is GOOOOOOD.
Dude cheats on his wife with another woman, he's being selfish and immature.
Dude cheats on his wife with another man, he's being authentic.
"I" probably gets it. Same deal. W?W?
Friedman missed the real trouble bubble, the Zionist Bubble that's been injected into America's body politic by slimy lobbyists and is now raising hell with our moral compass.
I'm insulted to hear this coward, who hasn't a clue of what it's like to wage war, or to mourn a loved one lost in combat, speak of "hitting" something as would a warrior dressed for battle. Tough talk from a guy whose only experience with night ops occurred during summer camp in the Catskills.
I don't know if Friedman realizes this, but to a world that has been asked to eschew WMDs, and has been repeatedly told that America's military power is governed with the best of intentions, to hear its anointed, insider know-it-all justify the brutal invasion of a sovereign country with "because we could" should be enough to get business booming for the world's arms dealers. What a moron.
As others have pointed out, while Michael Vick got 2 years for killing a dog, Teddy got a slap on the wrist for killing a beautiful young woman.
The Kennedy show is a sad spectacle of baby boomer narcissism at it's worst. Camelot? The crusading and glamorous family from Mass that's done so much.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
There is a love of dynasty out there. You pointed it out with the Bush clan. The MSM doesn't have the appropriately sceptical consideration you do.
Tel Aviv Scots Irish,
LOL man. Love you guys. Funny stuff and good questions.
Tel Aviv Scots-Irish:
There is not the slightest chance that any Islamic country will ever accept the type of PC culture that you describe.
And, for that matter, when they take over in Europe, the PC culture will be toast, about 3 nanoseconds later.
Anon.
Friedman provides us another wonderful demonstration of the neoconservatives' chronic inability to disentangle U.S. interests from Israeli interests. An attack on Israel is to be taken as an attack on America. I'm not sure if the reverse is true.
Who do you think finds princes, princesses, aristocracies, and family dynasties exciting and wonderful? Hint, it's not Joe Average. Kennedy being a total waste of space and leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown MADE him. By being such a total (but dynastic) A-hole women voters loved him more.
Uh, it's democracy you got a problem with, jack, not hierarchy. Men do just fine in a hierarchical environment. That's why they sign up for the military, or to be deckhands on an Alaskan fishing boat, or apprentice electricians, etc. Human beings are hierarchical animals. That's what we do.
It is the social democratic state that crushes organic society into a strictly two tier who-whom structure. Otherwise, everybody can be a fish in their own little pond with a bunch of little brood peasants via your peasant-wife to lift your bloodline up by its bootstraps down the road.
http://www.anorak.co.uk/politicians/221262.html
Good article
Caroline Kennedy thought she was fit for the Senate just cause of her last name. Now they are talking about Ted's wife taking his seat.
Wonder why liberals love aristocracy so much.
Wonder why liberals love aristocracy so much.
Not to beat a dead horse, but again, they don't. It's just who-whom again.
Ask the Romanovs.
"I'm insulted to hear this coward, who hasn't a clue of what it's like to wage war, or to mourn a loved one lost in combat, speak of "hitting" something as would a warrior dressed for battle. Tough talk from a guy whose only experience with night ops occurred during summer camp in the Catskills."
Friedman may be a dick, but
1) He grew up in Minnesota, so I doubt he went to camp in the Catskills.
2) He got a Pulitzer for covering the civil war in Lebanon, and Israel's invasion of that country in the early 80s. He's probably faced more danger as a war correspondent than you have as an internet commentator.
Fred,
Friedman, who chose not to serve during Vietnam, won a Pulitzer for writing a piece about the horrible things other people told him they saw, heard, and experienced in Sabra and Shatila. That he typed-up these horrors hardly qualifies him as a warrior, any more than would writing a news piece on a fire acquaint one with the blistering heat of the inferno. Had he really experienced anything in Lebanon he would never, ever have uttered the smug stupidity that we waged war, "Because we could."
The essence of my point was that in addressing the Iraq war, "Hit 'em Today" Tom revealed a belief that was widespread amongst the desktop commandos of the Bush administration and all but nonexistent amongst the ranks of combat-experienced military commanders, that being that in making the decision to wage war, the certainty of victory diminishes the gravity of the decision. That is a mistake born of inexperience, naivete, and wishful thinking; a mistake that grows up to be a nightmare -- endured by others.
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