Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts
July 20, 2011
Michelle Bachmann's migraines
From the front page of the Washington Post website:
Questions that surfaced about her migraines come at a critical juncture for her presidential campaign.
By the way, did you know that Michelle Bachmann suffers from migraines? Just checking ...
Cough migraines Cough.
Look, I'm all in favor of the intimate health details of anybody who wants to be President being blared everywhere.
Not that I think the President's health is all that important anymore. It's not like the early 1960s and JFK shows up for a summit conference with Khrushchev all doped up for one of his many ailments and so Khrushchev thinks JFK is a weakling and sets the Cuban Missile Crisis in motion. Thank God we don't live in that world anymore. I think we live in a world more like that of James Garfield. The poor man lingered on his deathbed after being shot on July 2, 1881 until his death on September 19. And we all know the many disastrous consequences that almost ensued from that, such as ... Well, I can't think of any off hand, but there was probably something important involving bimetalism.
Anyway, my point is that if you want to be President and thus be famous forever (like, say, James Garfield, who had less than 4 months in office before getting shot, but we still all know his name), we, the voters ought to get to know about you. So, I'm all for the press inquiring into every candidate's health.
But, that mean's every candidate -- not just the ones the media doesn't like -- all the candidates, like JFK and Barack Obama. As you may recall, John McCain released 1100 pages of his medical records, while Barack Obama released a one-page summary. It appears to me from reading Obama's memoirs that the President suffered some sort of mental health problems in the early 1980s and in 2000. Did he seek medical attention?
Answering those kind of questions is exactly the kind of awareness-raising that running for President ought to entail. My experience going through life is that a whole lot more people than you might think run into mental health problems at various points, and that seeking help sometimes helps.
For example, one of my readers pointed out to me a few years ago that Obama's account of his depressed mood after losing the 2000 House primary included a phrase common in cognitive behavioral therapy. I found his observation interesting, in part because I had never heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. So, I read up on CBT, a very level-headed form of talk therapy that tries to talk people out of the mental ruts they're stuck in, and it sounds like a good thing, something that could help some number of people, if they ever heard of it (which I, a relatively well-informed 48-year-old, hadn't ... until somebody brought in up in the context of a candidate for the White House)
I have no idea if Obama tried CBT, but, if he did, who better a spokesman for how it can change your life than the President?
But all that sort of thing is off-limits, because he's Obama.
July 16, 2011
Time to show off that pimp's knife, T-Paw
From an interview in Business Insider with Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen (via Jonathan V. Last):
4. Everyone's sort of surprised by the inability of Tim Pawlenty to get traction -- so far -- with GOP primary voters and caucus attenders? Why isn't he connecting?
JVL: He is utterly lacking in charisma. I usually avoid these, but I agreed to speak at a regional organizing meeting for the party in Minnesota just to see him speak: he was utterly boring and I decided not to pitch his campaign. At a cocktail reception for the event, attended by 125+ activists, he and his wife were standing by themselves – no one was interested in talking to him and he made no effort to work the crowd. The first presidential campaign, I worked for John Connally’s; at an event like this one 120 of 125 attendees would have been all over him and he would have found the remaining 5. And Connally got 1 delegate, but in fairness he was running against Ronald Reagan.
The general implication of van Lohuizen's remarks is that nobody will win the GOP nomination.
June 11, 2011
Politicos on 'roids
I've decorously avoided all mention of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), but a few commenters have been suggesting that steroids might have played a role in his self-inflicted travails. Here's a PG-rated picture of his shaven chest the skinny 46-year-old Congressman took of himself in the mirror for his Internet admirers.
The impact of steroids on behavior has a fair degree of randomness in it, but it does seem to increase the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time factor. In general, when ambitious men take male hormones, it makes them more ambitious but also increases the odds that they'll feel powerful urges to do things that might undermine their ambitions. In particular, muscle-building drugs seem to increase feelings of vanity and invulnerability.
The impact of steroids on political figures has been curiously underexamined in the press. At least two governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, were professional musclemen before entering politics. Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's running amok that led to a big scandal during the Bush Administration obviously had something to do with performance-enhancing drug use (President Bush greeted him, "Hey, Buff Guy, what are you benching?"), but as far as I can tell, I'm just about the only one who ever mentioned it in public. Andrew Sullivan wrote at vast length in the New York Times in 2000 about the fluctuating impact of his prescription testosterone cycle on his judgment, but practically nobody seems to have noticed.
I'll leave it to others to look for a picture of Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his shirt off to see if we can create a General Theory of Self-Destructing 2011 Politicians. But I wouldn't be too surprised. Run for President of France? Of course! Rape the maid? What could possibly go wrong?
I'll leave it to others to look for a picture of Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his shirt off to see if we can create a General Theory of Self-Destructing 2011 Politicians. But I wouldn't be too surprised. Run for President of France? Of course! Rape the maid? What could possibly go wrong?
By the way, here's a perfectly reasonable letter Weiner sent to the FBI in 2008 suggesting that investigating pitching ace Roger Clemens for perjury over steroids should not be a high priority. So, steroids were at least on his radar.
June 9, 2011
Gingrich campaign staff resigns en masse
From the Washington Post:
Among the issues, according to knowledgeable sources, was the two-week vacation that Gingrich and his wife, Callista, insisted upon taking against the advice of his top political staff. Coming as it did after one of the most diastrous campaign launches in recent memory, it raised questions as to whether Gingrich would be willing to “commit time to the grassroots,” said Tyler.
Gingrich had returned earlier this week and visited New Hampshire but remained largely off the campaign trail.
Carney and Johnson are longtime aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry who has said in recent days that he is contemplating a run for president himself in 2012. The Carney and Johnson resignations will fuel speculation that Perry is moving toward the race.
I've always kind of liked Newt, but he's a flake. I remember listening to a dinner table conversation in the 1990s about Newt between two people who were much more insiders than me, so I kept my mouth shut and paid attention. The first, who I won't name, was a woman who attained some prominence in politics in the 1990s, but struck me as a flake. She was highly enthusiastic about Newt running for President.
The other person was General William Odom, who had been Zbig's assistant for military intelligence in the Carter Administration, then head of the National Security Administration in the Reagan Administration. He was not a flake. Odom rolled his eyes at the idea of President Newt, and replied that when Gingrich had first obtained a leadership position in Congress in the 1980s, Odom had invited Gingrich over to get the two-hour NSA briefing reserved for the top few officials in Congress. When Newt showed up, however, he talked for two hours straight, giving Odom's staff Newt's two-hour tour d'horizon. Nobody left the room better informed than they had entered, except in terms of awareness of Newt's chief liability: Americans want leaders who give the impression that they know more than they are saying, but nobody could possibly know more than Newt says.
May 31, 2011
Bibi and Barack
A reader sends photos of Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Obama as young men, with the implication that these might shed light on why the head of a country of 6 million treated the head of a country of 300 million like his personal dogwalker.
May 25, 2011
The Next Best Thing to Bibi 2012
The Democrats have their We Shall Overcome Mythopoetic Narrative Candidate locked in. Maybe, in the GOP's struggle to have the press less in the tank for Obama in 2012 than in 2008, the Republicans need their equivalent of comparable Media Narrative Firepower. With legalistic technicalities slowing the potential candidacy of the GOP leadership's current favorite, Bibi Netanyahu, attention will likely turn toward the next best thing. From Wikipedia:
Eric Ivan Cantor (born June 6, 1963) is the U.S. Representative for Virginia's 7th congressional district, serving since 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he became House Majority Leader when the 112th Congress convened on January 3, 2011. He previously served as House Minority Whip from 2009 to 2011.
... Cantor is the only Jewish Republican currently serving in Congress.
Cantor was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father owned a real estate firm and was the state treasurer for Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. .. Cantor was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity while at [George Washington] and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1985. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from William & Mary Law School in 1988, and received a Master of Science degree from Columbia University in 1989. ...
In 2002–only a few weeks after winning a second term–Roy Blunt appointed Cantor Chief Deputy Republican Whip, the highest appointed position in the Republican caucus.
.... On November 19, 2008, Cantor was unanimously elected Republican Whip for the 111th Congress, after serving as deputy whip for six years under Blunt. ... Cantor became the Majority Leader when the 112th Congress took office on January 3, 2011. ...
Cantor is a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Republican National Committee. He is one of the Republican Party's top fundraisers, having raised over $30 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). He is also one of the three founding members of the GOP Young Guns Program. ...
... He supports strong United States-Israel relations. ... He opposed a Congressionally-approved three-year package of US$400 million in aid for the Palestinian Authority in 2000 and has also introduced legislation to end aid to Palestinians.
In May 2008, Cantor said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a "constant sore" but rather "a constant reminder of the greatness of America", and following Barack Obama's election as President in November 2008, Cantor stated that a “stronger U.S.-Israel relationship” remains a top priority for him and that he would be “very outspoken” if Obama "did anything to undermine those ties." Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, Cantor met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just before Netanyahu was to meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to Cantor's office, he "stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration" and "made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States." Cantor was criticized for engaging in foreign policy; one basis for the criticism was that in 2007, after Nancy Pelosi met with the President of Syria, Cantor himself had raised the possibility "that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American 'without authority of the United States' to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States." ...
In August 2008 news reports surfaced that Cantor was being considered as John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate, with McCain's representatives seeking documents from Cantor as part of its vetting process. However, in May 2009, a source who claimed affiliation with the McCain campaign denied those reports, calling them "a complete and total joke", and blaming "Cantor’s PR people" for being responsible for the false reports.
Cantor met his wife, Diana Marcy Fine, on a blind date; they were married in 1989. They have three children: Evan, Jenna, and Michael.
Diana Cantor is a lawyer and certified public accountant. She founded, and from 1996 until 2008 was executive director of, the Virginia College Savings Plan (an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia). She was also chairman of the board of the College Savings Plans Network. Mrs. Cantor is a Managing Director in a division of Emigrant Bank, a subsidiary of New York Private Bank & Trust Corp.
It's hard to see how Eric Cantor is any less qualified to be the First Jewish President than Barack Obama was to be the First Black President.
Steele on Obama
Shelby Steele writes in the WSJ on the central issue of the 2012 election:
What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.
Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it.
He is also an extraordinary personification of the American Dream: Even someone from a race associated with slavery can rise to the presidency.
The Obama lineage was associated with slavery in the sense that they sold slaves to the Arabs, but who cares about details?
Whatever disenchantment may surround the man, there is a distinct national pride in having elected him.
All of this adds up to a powerful racial impressionism that works against today's field of Republican candidates. This is the impressionism that framed Sen. John McCain in 2008 as a political and cultural redundancy—yet another older white male presuming to lead the nation.
The point is that anyone who runs against Mr. Obama will be seen through the filter of this racial impressionism, in which white skin is redundant and dark skin is fresh and exceptional.
This is the new cultural charisma that the president has introduced into American politics. Today this charisma is not as strong for Mr. Obama. The mere man and the actual president has not lived up to his billing as a historical breakthrough. Still, the Republican field is framed and—as the polls show—diminished by his mere presence in office, which makes America the most socially evolved nation in the world. Moreover, the mainstream media coddle Mr. Obama—the man—out of its identification with his exceptionalism.
Conversely, the media hold the president's exceptionalism against Republicans. Here is Barack Obama, evidence of a new and progressive America. Here are the Republicans, a cast of largely white males, looking peculiarly unevolved. ...
How can the GOP combat the president's cultural charisma? It will have to make vivid the yawning gulf between Obama the flattering icon and Obama the confused and often overwhelmed president. Applaud the exceptionalism he represents, but deny him the right to ride on it as a kind of affirmative action.
A president who is both Democratic and black effectively gives the infamous race card to the entire left: Attack our president and you are a racist. To thwart this, Republicans will have to break through the barrier of political correctness.
Mr. McCain let himself be intimidated by Obama's cultural charisma, threatening to fire any staff member who even used the candidate's middle name.
Okay, but for America to not re-elect Obama would be tantamount to recognizing him as a guy who rode affirmative action to the top, with a massive push from the press, then proved inadequate. That's not a narrative the media is going to like. The media will actively work to prevent that from happening.
Let's look back in history for examples of one-term black leaders. The most obvious is David Dinkins, first black mayor of the media capital of New York. His election was of some symbolic importance, too.
Yet, why did Dinkins fail of re-election? There were a number of reasons, but the key, almost certainly, was the black anti-Semitic riot in Crown Heights that Dinkins didn't seem to take seriously. Since then, New York voters haven't elected a Democratic candidate mayor in the last five mayoral elections. Dinkins' term has largely been dropped down the media memory hole. You almost never read in the press about how white racism stole a second term from Dinkins. This major historical event in the recent past of the capital of the world is just not the kind of thing it's appropriate to mention in New York media circles. They are in favor of blacks succeeding in politics in general, but not as mayor of where they live.
This can help explain the Republican enthusiasm this week for the notion they can somehow ride Bibi Netanyahu's coattails in 2012 and thus turn Obama into Dinkins.
How exactly would that work in a world where Bibi really can't run for President?
I dunno.
I noticed that two days ago, Rep. Eric Cantor was telling Rep. Paul Ryan to get into the Presidential race:
But after yesterday's disastrous special election defeat for Republicans in upstate New York fought in large part over Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, Ryan's luster has dimmed. So, why not reverse the polarity and have Ryan tell Cantor to jump in the race?
How exactly would that work in a world where Bibi really can't run for President?
I dunno.
I noticed that two days ago, Rep. Eric Cantor was telling Rep. Paul Ryan to get into the Presidential race:
Count House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) as one top Republican who’d like to see Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) jump into the presidential race.
But after yesterday's disastrous special election defeat for Republicans in upstate New York fought in large part over Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, Ryan's luster has dimmed. So, why not reverse the polarity and have Ryan tell Cantor to jump in the race?
A proposal to Bibi
Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:
Congratulations on your triumphal tour of Washington D.C. You have emerged as the de facto leader of anti-Obama sentiment in America.
In return for all that America has done for you, may I ask, in all seriousness, that you do a favor for America?
Namely, please come to America again and deliver a high profile speech and slide show explaining the rapid construction and strong success of Israel's border security fence. Point out that a properly made border fence has been shown to deter not only drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, but even suicide bombers. Then, compare Israel's success at rapidly securing its borders to the American government's dithering and ineffectualness at constructing its own border security fence. Please point out that this kind of defeatism and corruption is unworthy of Israel's ally. You could conclude by offering to send Israeli experts to the American border to advise Americans on how to build the American fence.
Thank you very much.
Steve Sailer
2012 Bibi Bandwagon gains momentum
Akiva Eldar writes in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Bibi Netanyahu's triumphant address (two dozen standing ovations) to the U.S. Congress:
Sara Netanyahu once said during a family gathering that if her husband had run for president of the United States, he would easily be elected (assuming, of course, that he were legally allowed to run). Indeed, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address before both houses of Congress on Tuesday, he made impressive use of all the gimmicks of an experienced and sharp-tongued American politician. ...
Netanyahu proved that he has no Israeli equal when it comes to plucking the strings of American patriotism, of guilt feelings over the Holocaust, and most of all, of the wish of Congress members to preserve their close ties with the large Jewish organizations.
Old joke:
Q: Why doesn’t Israel apply to become the 51st state?
A: Because then they’d have only two senators.
Poor Obama figured he could take a gentle swipe at Bibi, thought he could articulate American policy without clearing every jot and tittle with Bibi beforehand, because Bibi is the equivalent of a Republican in Israel, so the President would at least have the Democrats in America on his side out of sheer partisanship. He didn't realize that in the U.S. Congress, "Politics stops at the border (of Israel)."
In The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan feels sorry for his President:
Not since Nikita Khrushchev berated Dwight Eisenhower over Gary Powers’ U-2 spy flight over Russia only weeks earlier has an American president been subjected to a dressing down like the one Barack Obama received from Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.
With this crucial difference. Khrushchev ranted behind closed doors... Obama, however, was lectured like some schoolboy in the Oval Office in front of the national press and a worldwide TV audience.
And two days later, he trooped over to the Israeli lobby AIPAC to walk back what he had said that had so infuriated Netanyahu. “Bibi” then purred that he was “pleased” with the clarification. Diplomatic oil is now being poured over the troubled waters, but this humiliation will not be forgotten.
What did Obama do to draw this public rebuke? In his Thursday speech on the Arab Spring and Middle East peace, Obama declared: “We believe the borders of Israel should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. … Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat.”
Ignoring Obama’s call for “mutually agreed swaps” of land to guarantee secure and defensible borders for Israel, Netanyahu, warning the president against a peace “based on illusions,” acted as though Obama had called for an Israel withdrawal to the armistice line of 1967.
This was absurd. All Obama was saying was what three Israeli prime ministers — Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert — have all recognized. ...
Undeniably, Netanyahu won the smack-down. The president was humiliated in the Oval Office, and in his trip to AIPAC’s woodshed he spoke of the future peace negotiations ending just as Israelis desire and demand. ...
The one explanation that makes sense is that Netanyahu sees Obama as more sympathetic to the Palestinians and less so to Israel than any president since Jimmy Carter, and he, Netanyahu, would like to see Obama replaced by someone more like the born-again pro-Israel Christian George W. Bush.
And indeed, the Republicans and the right, Mitt Romney in the lead, accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus,” seized on the issue and, almost universally, have taken Netanyahu’s side.
Personally, I don't think the West Bank is very important. I received this great gift a number of Christmases ago, an extra-large free-standing globe for my office. But even on this globe, I can barely find the West Bank. If the Israelis want to push around the Palestinians, well, I don't really care much. I roused myself enough to write a two part review of Jimmy Carter's book Palestine Peace not Apartheid for Taki's Magazine in 2007 (Part 1 and Part 2), but I haven't had much to say since then because it's not my country.
What I do care about is what all this says about my own country.
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. … Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite [foreign nation] are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests."
—George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Here's the irony. The GOP is, more or less, the party of WGPs -- White Gentile People, the heart of the nation. But, normal, natural national feelings among WGPs have been so demonized over the years that they've adopted a foreign nationalist politician, Bibi Netanyahu, as their proxy so they can enjoy nationalism by proxy.
Bibi's quite a guy. He just isn't my guy.
But what are the Democrats in Congress' excuses?
May 23, 2011
The ideal GOP Presidential candidate
I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk yet about the one man who is the most obvious Republican nominee for the 2012 Presidential election.
Just as Barack Obama's nomination was the result of trends brewing in the Democratic Party since 1964, this man's nomination would be the logical end point of trends brewing within the GOP since the first Nixon Administration. He's:
- smart
- energetic
- articulate
- an MIT grad
- has a long track record of experience in high office
- he's on the right side of the issues that big GOP donors like Sheldon Adelson and the big conservative media care about most
- and, as he's showed over the last week, he always dominates Barack Obama in head to head confrontations.
Just as Barack Obama's nomination was the result of trends brewing in the Democratic Party since 1964, this man's nomination would be the logical end point of trends brewing within the GOP since the first Nixon Administration. He's:
- smart
- energetic
- articulate
- an MIT grad
- has a long track record of experience in high office
- he's on the right side of the issues that big GOP donors like Sheldon Adelson and the big conservative media care about most
- and, as he's showed over the last week, he always dominates Barack Obama in head to head confrontations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present you your 2012 Republican Presidential nominee ... Bibi Netanyahu!
Granted, the Wall Street Journal will demand assurances that his past insensitive rhetoric on the illegal immigration issue will not continue in his new job. And, of course, some "birthers" will try to raise doubts, will claim that his birth certificate shows him having been born in Tel Aviv, but conspiracy theorists can be safely ignored.
May 22, 2011
Mitch Daniels too sane to be President
So, I won't be able to say I had dinner with a Presidential candidate: Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has announced he won't run, citing the opposition of wife and four daughters. Back in 1993, his wife ran off, but then they got remarried in 1997. Plus, there was the drug dealing in college, which didn't get much attention, but would have if he'd run. Kind of a lot of laundry to air in public for your kids if you're a pretty okay guy like Daniels is.
In contrast, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was full speed ahead for running for president of France until his recent rape arrest. You gotta have the fire in the belly.
In other gossip, a California legal / political heavyweight told a friend that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver had better reconcile. If not, Arnold's business deals are so complicated to unravel (kind of like the McCourts, the divorcing owners of the L.A. Dodgers), that a divorce would be the equivalent of a California Lawyers Full Employment Act.
I've been following Arnold's bizarre career at least since the mid-1970s, so even when I don't have anything interesting to say about him, I'm still interested.
In other gossip, a California legal / political heavyweight told a friend that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver had better reconcile. If not, Arnold's business deals are so complicated to unravel (kind of like the McCourts, the divorcing owners of the L.A. Dodgers), that a divorce would be the equivalent of a California Lawyers Full Employment Act.
I've been following Arnold's bizarre career at least since the mid-1970s, so even when I don't have anything interesting to say about him, I'm still interested.
May 20, 2011
Reconquista founding father: Jeb, Arnold, or Mel?
Consider three family names that are somewhat tarnished at present: Bush, Schwarzenegger, and Gibson. Yet, they all have a chance to return to fame and power in the next generation due to the ongoing changes in the electorate. We live in an age in which surnames serve as brand names in politics, and that will likely only increase as the voters become less sophisticated due to demographic trends.
It's widely assumed by the press that the onrushing tsunami of Latino voters that will slam home real soon now will lead to a Hispanic Obama, but that simplistic logic overlooks the widespread lack of charisma found among Mexican-Americans. Just as the first African-American President is of unusual background, so might be the first Mexican-American President.
Thus, there exists the odd but not implausible chance that a glamorous non-Hispanic will father a Latino political dynasty.
It's widely assumed by the press that the onrushing tsunami of Latino voters that will slam home real soon now will lead to a Hispanic Obama, but that simplistic logic overlooks the widespread lack of charisma found among Mexican-Americans. Just as the first African-American President is of unusual background, so might be the first Mexican-American President.
Thus, there exists the odd but not implausible chance that a glamorous non-Hispanic will father a Latino political dynasty.
As I may have mentioned over the years, the Bush dynasty looks to Jeb Bush's handsome half-Mexican son George P. Bush as the most likely member of the next generation to return the Bush name to the White House in a demographically altered America.
As a commenter suggested, this week's confirmation that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger really likes chicas suggests a potential competitor for the Bushes in a Hispanicized America. Arnold is rich enough and will soon be single enough to remarry and produce a brood of half-Latino legitimate heirs to someday battle the Bushes.
And then there's the dark horse: Mel Gibson, whose The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto are the most aesthetically impressive responses yet to the Hispanicization of America. Granted, his personal tastes seem to run toward Slavic adventuresses, but he is also rich enough and single enough to find a nice Mexican girl and have a half dozen kids who might challenge the Bush and Schwarzenegger Latino dynasties in a Mexicanized America.
You read it here first.
You read it here first.
May 19, 2011
Conan the Barbarian's Secret Philosophy of Life
All these years, we've been led to believe by the Hollywood publicity machine that Arnold Schwarzenegger espouses some epic philosophy of life, such as: True happiness is "to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
It turns out, however, that Arnold's considered judgment actually is (with thanks to a commenter):
It turns out, however, that Arnold's considered judgment actually is (with thanks to a commenter):
Good-looking fades, but good-cooking's forever!
By the way, you gotta say that Arnold's maid appears a lot happier than DSK's maid.
May 18, 2011
Arnold's Negative Maintenance Mistress
Rich, powerful men often acquire High Maintenance Mistresses, who are always threatening to commit suicide unless their boyfriends divorce their wives immediately and marry them, only to eventually be placated for the time being with diamond tennis bracelets. That can really chew up a lot of time.
Others, such as Mark Zuckerberg, prefer a Low Maintenance Girlfriend or Wife who will afford them the concentration to put in 16 hour days at the office.
You have to give Arnold Schwarzenegger some credit for creativity in pioneering the concept of the Negative Maintenance Mistress. Sure, she might not be much in the looks department, but she not only didn't expect to become the second Mrs. S., but she kept the living room spotless. A no drama mama, ideal for a busy superstar.
Actually, I think Stalin beat Arnold to this concept. As far as historians can tell, after his second wife committed suicide, Stalin, a busy man with a Great Terror and a World War to run, simply slept with his housekeeper.
Pawlenty for President!
Many people think former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will be elected President in 2012 because they can't remember ever hearing anything bad about him. Others think he won't be elected President because they can't remember ever hearing anything good about him. Most people, however, can't remember ever hearing anything about him.
I therefore challenged my readers to tell me something interesting about Tim Pawlenty so I could remember who he is.
Bruce Lewis replied:
One time back in the '80s the Paw (we called him "the Paw") was sitting around in this bar in Olangapo with us, you know, having a few beers and whatnot, when suddenly we hear this ruckus from up front and we're all like "what the f--k?" We look up and there's this Flip pimp and he's got this thirteen-year-old whore by the hair and he was just, like, whaling on her. He's trying to do her some damage but he's about 98 pounds sopping wet and she's whaling him back. She was one of those strong street whores and she was giving him back, punch for punch, screaming, and so forth. It went on like this for a minute or two, when suddenly that whore draws back and nails him right in the eye with one of those scary Filipino fingernails, and, man, the blood went everywhere. That pimp like fell back and then reached down and pulled out a knife.
Paw puts his beer down and walks over and grabs that pimp by his knife hand, and that pimp jerked back and turned around and said "Man, I cut you, I got a knife." Paw, man, he doesn't move, he just says "F--k you and f--k your knife" in that Minnesota accent. That pimp starts to jab at him, then Paw just reaches out and slaps him in the face. Right in the face, like you'd slap a bitch! Well, we all jump up and get ready to rock, but nobody moves, then, I sh--t you not, that little Flip falls on the floor of that bar and starts crying! Crying, like a girl! Paw reaches down, takes the knife, and walks back to the table, like nothing, picks up his San Miguel and finishes it. Man, we busted a gut laughing.
About that time, though, that thirteen year old whore had gotten up and picked up a beer stein off the bar, one of those big, heavy glass steins. She comes over to where that pimp is crying on the floor and lifts that stein as high as she could and then busts that stein right over the top of that pimp's head.
Bam! Blood and glass flying everywhere! That pimp went down like a column of wet s--t. The whore screaming in Tagalog, that pimp laying on the floor in his own blood, and here come the Shore Patrols.
They ask us what happened. Paw just says "Nothin', man," and walks out of there with that pimp's knife, laughing his ass off.
He still has that knife. True f--king story, no s--t.
Okay, that's interesting.
Granted, the Paw was never in the Navy, much less on shore leave in the Philippines, but that doesn't really matter, because from now on I'll at least be able to remember who he is. He's the Presidential candidate who still has that pimp's knife.
May 17, 2011
The Unified Field Theory of This Week
Update: Mickey Kaus points to a 2004 Los Angeles article by Ann Louise Bardach suggesting the mother of ex-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's love child is not the family maid, as a naive reading of today's news accounts would suggest.
If you are Arnold Schwarzenegger, you employ lots of people besides a cleaning lady. This 2004 article points to a stewardess on Arnold's Gulfstream jet. (Assuming there's only one such family retainer Arnold got in a family way.)
Okay, now the story makes more sense. Arnold has his foibles, but he isn't Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Mounting the maid while she's vacuuming might be standard operating procedure in International Monetary Fund circles, but Hollywood action heroes are expected to show more discretion and stick to the Gulfstream.
UPDATE: According the Brit Daily Mail, there are two love children and the second mother is indeed the maid.
UPDATE: According the Brit Daily Mail, there are two love children and the second mother is indeed the maid.
By the way, speaking of antitrust, that 2004 article raises some interesting points about the broad political effect of the fairly recent monopolization of supermarket tabloids by AMI.
The tabs will pay for stories and hire private investigators, so they get juicier stories about important people than does the prestige press (e.g., Gennifer Flowers). However, in the 1990s, they were all consolidated under the ownership of AMI (the first victims of the anthrax mad scientist, by the way), because nobody much cares about enforcing antitrust laws anymore.
Then, in the early 2000s, AMI bought the Weider magazines for muscleheads, like Men's Fitness.
The tabs will pay for stories and hire private investigators, so they get juicier stories about important people than does the prestige press (e.g., Gennifer Flowers). However, in the 1990s, they were all consolidated under the ownership of AMI (the first victims of the anthrax mad scientist, by the way), because nobody much cares about enforcing antitrust laws anymore.
Then, in the early 2000s, AMI bought the Weider magazines for muscleheads, like Men's Fitness.
This provided a lot of synergy. For example, when AMI's National Enquirer obtained a photo a number of years ago of Tiger Woods in a parking lot with a local waitress, they spiked publication in return for Tiger flexing his new performance-enhanced bicep on the cover of AMI's Men's Fitness magazine and allowing an interview with his musclehead trainer. This 2007 story may have offered us our first clue into the ongoing physical collapse of America's most famous athlete. (Notice the lattice of coincidence?)
On the other hand, Arnold had a long relationship with the Weider interests, which apparently got transferred over to AMI. With the tabloids now financially in bed with Arnold, he was free to run for governor of California in 2003 without the tabs doing much snooping about his ever-interesting life story.
By the way, what are the chances that M. Strauss-Kahn, a 62-year-old with more energy than a frat boy on spring break, might have a prescription for some kind of chemical enhancement, like Arnold, Tiger, and Joe Weider?
By the way, what are the chances that M. Strauss-Kahn, a 62-year-old with more energy than a frat boy on spring break, might have a prescription for some kind of chemical enhancement, like Arnold, Tiger, and Joe Weider?
Best week of news ever
I know you come here to get my insights into the looming federal debt ceiling crisis, but ... I keep getting distracted.
It was surprising when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that they were separating after 25 years of marriage, but luckily Arnold has a back-up familia already in place.
The LA Times, who broke the story last night, says Arnold had a relationship with a woman who worked for Arnold and Maria as a member of their household staff for 20 years. About 10 years ago they had a child, but the woman, who was also married at the time and whom the LA Times won’t name, kept working for the couple until this past January.
[From the LA Times:]
Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago with a longtime member of their household staff. ...
In an interview Monday before Schwarzenegger issued his statement, the former staffer said another man — her then-husband — was the child’s father. ...
She said she voluntarily left her position with the couple earlier this year after reaching a longstanding goal of working for them for two decades. “I wanted to achieve my 20 years, then I asked to retire,” she said, adding she received a severance payment and “left on good terms with them.”
Schwarzenegger took financial responsibility for the child from the start and continued to provide support, according to a source.
Due to my awesome level of racism, I’m gonna assume this woman is Latin because it sounds like she was a maid. So if her husband was also Latin, he had to have a few questions. Like, why is our infant 4-feet tall with veins in his biceps?
Good question. I wonder why California's First Lady didn't ask it, either. (Actually, I would guess she had guessed, but like her in-law, Jackie Kennedy, Maria Shriver kept up a dignified front. That's old-fashioned classy. In the future, we'll probably see political wives going on the Maury Povich Show with their maids to find out the results of a DNA test in front of a studio audience.)
One of these days, I'll have to tell you the Maria Shriver-related story of the trick Arnold Schwarzenegger played on Sylvester Stallone one night in the mid 1980s that went on to derail Sly's career and make Arnold's.
T-Paw should leak some dirt on himself so I can remember who he is.
In other debt ceiling-related news, old iSteve philosophy phavorite Bernard Henri-Levy defends Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which, trust me, you owe it to yourself to read. Make sure to read it using an accent that's a cross between Pepe Le Pew and Daffy Duck.
Tim Pawlenty
Back in 2009, I looked up the frontrunners for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination on one of those betting sites. There was a three-way tie between Sarah Palin (whom I had heard of), Mitt Romney (whom I had heard of), and Tim Pawlenty (uh ...). Presumably, the smart money figured that nobody else could win, so through process of elimination, Pawlenty would be the last man standing. This theory remains popular today.
Since then, I've tried to read the long Wikipedia article on Pawlenty several times. Each time I get through the identity politics basics: he was governor of Minnesota, a nice, respectable Canadian-border state; he's half German and half Polish (which gets me musing on how that would be nice for Poles who seem like quiet people who don't make much of a fuss and it would be nice if they got part of a President to claim); so that sounds like he'd be Catholic but he's actually an evangelical Protestant, which should appeal to Southerners even though he's from the far North.
So, I get the theory of Tim Pawlenty, but as soon as I start reading about the individual, my eyes glaze over. I've never come close to finishing anything about Pawlenty. In contrast, with potential candidate Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, maybe just because I've had dinner with him a couple of times, but I can observe themes emerging from the biographical minutiae: like, what a huge role selling drugs has played throughout his life. That's interesting. But with Pawlenty, I can't force myself to pay attention long enough to notice patterns.
So, tell me something interesting about Tim Pawlenty.
April 4, 2011
Closing the trade deficit
This MSNBC article by Michael Isikoff was pretty ho-hum for awhile:
As he prepares to launch a campaign for president, Newt Gingrich is counting on the backing of an unusually powerful behind-the-scenes donor: a billionaire casino mogul whose business empire stretches from the Palazzo on Las Vegas’s famous Strip to the Chinese gambling hub of Macau.
Gingrich’s financial angel is the publicity-shy Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and the fifth wealthiest man in America as recently ranked by Forbes Magazine.
Adelson, who has an estimated net worth of over $23 billion, has personally pumped $7 million over the past five years into Gingrich’s main political advocacy organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future. His contributions account for more than 10 percent of all the organization's funds and have helped the former speaker promote his conservative causes and stay in the public eye.
But while Adelson’s backing could prove a big asset for Gingrich in his presidential bid, it could also create fresh problems for the former House speaker — especially among the constituents he is courting the hardest these days, evangelical Christians.
Eh, a little gambling ... Gingrich will just tell the evangelicals that Adelson is also Bibi Netanyahu's financial angel, so he's helping bring the End Times, and everything will be all right.
Adelson and his gambling company have been plagued by legal troubles in recent months. The Sands recently disclosed that it is being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Nevada and Hong Kong regulators have opened their own probes, according to company disclosures.
The inquiries grow out of a wrongful termination lawsuit filed last fall by Steven Jacobs, the former top Sands executive in Macau where Adelson’s Venetian casino has become a major profit center for his company. Jacobs alleged in court papers he was fired because he objected to Adelson's “repeated and outrageous” demands that he use “improper leverage” with Chinese officials to obtain valuable government concessions and that he retain the services of a Macau lawyer who was also a local government official.
(The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which has been vigorously enforced by the Justice Department in recent years, bars U.S. companies from making payments to foreign officials to obtain favorable treatment.)
Huh? I'd forgotten all about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act from the 1970s. Wow, is that still around? Of course Sheldon Adelson had to bribe a bunch of people in Beijing to get his huge Macau gambling concession that made him the third richest man in America for awhile. But I'd forgotten that paying bribes / getting shaken down in China is illegal in America. It's not like Sheldon is the snake in the Garden of Eden corrupting the poor, innocent Chinese of Macau. Forget it, Jake. It's Macautown.
So, how much does the FCPA add to America's trade deficit? Does Japan or Germany have their own FCPA?
So, how much does the FCPA add to America's trade deficit? Does Japan or Germany have their own FCPA?
February 25, 2011
Mitch Daniels in 2012?
Mitch Daniels, the two-term Republican governor of Indiana is, as far as I can recall, the only potential President I've had dinner with a couple of times. (Note to future opposition researchers: I wasn't me back then, so don't bother.)
Nice guy. Didn't instantly come across as Presidential Timber. David Brooks writes in "Run, Mitch, Run:"
In manner, Daniels is not classically presidential. Some say he is short (though others do not regard 5 feet 7 inches as freakishly diminutive). He does not dominate every room he enters. But he is not without political skills, in an offbeat sort of way. If you have some time, Google “Mitch TV” and you can watch a few episodes of the reality show his campaign produced during his gubernatorial races.
Seemed like a bright corporate executive type, which I guess he was at the time. Andrew Ferguson writes: "He favors pressed sport shirts and sharply creased Dockers, public-golf-course casual," and that seems about how I recall him: like the kind of marketing research executive I used to play golf with. An impressive guy, but it's interesting to hat met somebody before they become a really big deal.
Interesting facts about Mitch Daniels:
- He's had two marriages and one wife. He and his wife, by whom he has four daughters, divorced in 1993 and remarried in 1997. In 1930s, remarriages were the favorite happy endings to screwball comedies, but they usually strike me as evidence of interesting internal passions not wholly consistent with his image of chipper blandness.
- He's Hillbilly/Arab-American. His mother was born Daisy Wilkes, while his paternal grandparents were born in Syria.
- Drugs form a continuing theme in his life. His father was a pharmaceutical salesman, he was arrested at Princeton in 1971 for LSD, and then he was, between government gigs, an Eli Lilly executive. When I mentioned to my wife that he was being mentioned as a Presidential candidate, she recalled how interested he'd been in her tale of one of her relatives' medical problem and how enthusiastically he had recommended a Lilly drug then in trial. (It turned out to be a bust, with some nasty side effects, but she appreciated his concern.)
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