Thoughts on the current New York City crises: hatchet man, and ebola doctor

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t read much speculation about this, but isn’t it likely that the man who attacked two NYC policemen with a hatchet was trying to behead them, and missed? And then was shot by the other police before he got a chance to take better aim?

As for Dr. Craig Spencer, I fault the CDC primarily for not requiring strict quarantine on medical personnel returning from Africa, and on Doctors Without Borders as well, even more than I fault the doctor himself. He was doing what he was told, monitoring his temperature. Until his temperature elevated, according to the guidelines, he was allowed to go about his business.

I’ve said many times I think that people should act with more caution and quarantine themselves for 21 days, and I also blame Dr. Spencer for not doing that. But until the CDC makes them do it, they’re not going to for the most part. Because ebola patients are only considered contagious when they develop symptoms, and because the first symptom is usually temperature elevation, there is probably a very low chance of anyone (including his girlfriend) actually having caught ebola from Dr. Spencer.

But why on earth take the chance? Because the chance is not zero, and the stakes are very very high. Low probability, but high risk in that sense. It does not seem that much of a hardship to quarantine, and certainly health care professionals ought to understand. If a person is willing to take the time and make the effort to go work in Africa during this epidemic, why wouldn’t he/she be willing to relax in relative seclusion for 21 days afterward, to avoid any risk to his/her own country, the expense of contact tracing, and the anxiety to millions of people?

It also occurs to me that, as Nina Pham and Amber Vinson recover, they will be able to donate plasma too, if they wish. Pham has the same blood type as Dr. Brantly, but Amber Vinson has a different blood type (if I recall correctly, she was unable to get a transfusion from him, unlike Pham), and that will expand the possibilities for transfusion for future cases. And, as more and more survivors emerge from this mess, more transfusions will be possible. (Trying to look on the bright side, here; I know there’s a pony somewhere.)

Next, we have some New York City humor. This one’s not a joke; it’s a real quote:

Meanwhile, Robert Cedano, the super in Spencer’s building, said firefighters took the doctor’s door off its hinges when they removed him.

“Oh, lovely,” said Brooke Christensen, who lives in the building, after learning about her neighbor.

“I’m not concerned,” she said. “I’ve had no fluid exchanges with my neighbors.”

Also:

The CDC and the politicians keep reassuring us that there’s no danger. But with their track record, why would anyone believe a thing they say about ebola at this point?

As I’ve already written, I actually don’t think anyone will catch ebola from Dr. Spencer. But I don’t believe that because Frieden or the Mayor or the Governor of New York told me so. Yes, I actually believe that health authorities around the world are most likely correct that ebola is hard to catch except through direct contact with body fluids in the later stages of disease. But I also am encouraged to believe it because I have observed the pattern of contagion in this country so far, and the only people who have caught it here have been health care workers who attended patients in later stages (even though those workers were wearing protective gear). No one else—even family members of Thomas Eric Duncan, who were exposed without protection when he was far sicker than Dr. Spencer is—has gotten it. That indicates to me that the disease’s contagiousness starts very low and rises quickly and exponentially but certainly not immediately.

I realize, of course, that we’re dealing with a very small “n” here, but it’s a very encouraging trend that backs up the idea that casual contact in early stages is not going to spread the disease.

We’re getting a chance to see, I guess. A real-world experiment, one I wish we were not experiencing.

[See UPDATES] Hope…

The New Neo Posted on by

…this turns out to be a false alarm.

But it’s apparent that more and more of these suspicious cases are occurring on our soil, and sooner or later it stands to reason some of them will turn out to be ebola.

It’s also been apparent for quite some time that caring for an ebola patient is a very dangerous activity, even with what we regard as full protection.

UPDATE 9 PM: The patient has tested positive. Press conference pending.

That is very bad news. The only silver lining would be if this new case spurred the government to institute more commonsense rules about travel and quarantine.

In further dreadful news, a man in NY attacked a group of NYC policemen with a hatchet. Two are wounded, one in critical condition. The man was shot dead, and a woman bystander injured.

Not much has been said about the attacker yet, including his name. But we can certainly guess at his motives, although there are enough garden-variety lunatics to go around, too.

UPDATE 9:07: Very preliminary reports are that his Facebook page supports jihad.

UPDATE 9:15: I have long expected smaller attacks like this in the US. I was puzzled right after 9/11 that there were not more of them. Al Qaeda seems to have preferred the grand gesture. Now the idea is many small gestures to sow seeds of widespread fear, and to use anyone as a vehicle for it—crazy freelancers are just fine.

Republicans vs. Democrats: does it even matter?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “George Pal” started a discussion yesterday with this remark in the “voter fraud” thread:

Reason #1016 NOT to vote: a corrupt government with gin trap election procedures. Participating in pretense legitimates the pretense. The system, the procedures, become more dishonest than the simple ways of voter fraud such as stuffing ballot boxes. Ultimately, people get not what they vote for but what they will stand for ”“ Brave New America.

I replied rather briefly:

That makes zero sense for a conservative. Zero.

All not voting does is allow the fraud more chance of working, and empower and elect those who would perpetuate and extend it.

Others joined in, such as commenter “parker:

Not every gop candidate will be a Palin, Cruz, or a Gowdy. And yes, there are many big government gops. However, you need to consider SCOTUS appointments and treaties, plus allowing house legislation to come up for debate in the senate. I agree the country is destined for a big fall. I am concerned with the height of the fall. I’ll take 20 feet over 200 any day.

To which George Pal replied:

I have considered SCOTUS and recall Bush appointed the reprehensible John Roberts. Taking into consideration all the other disastrous appointments made by Republican presidents I don’t consider such considerations as worthwhile. As to the House, have they not, by and large, talked like Patton but rubber stamped like good commissars ”“ even if only by silent acquiescence? And finally, 20 feet or 200 ”“ makes no difference to once fine crystal.

There was quite a bit of additional back-and-forth around this, although I didn’t participate except for that single short comment. One of the reasons is that I’ve had this argument already so many times with so many people going back so many years. It’s not only tedious and repetitive, but those taking the George Pal position usually seem quite unpersuadable. They are nothing if not confident of the rightness of their position.

But why do I bother? It’s not because I have some special beef with George Pal, it’s because attitudes such as his seem widespread among so many on the right (at least, among those who comment on right-wing blogs), and I think they represent a profoundly destructive and also illogical point of view.

So here I go again. And although these comments take off from what George Pal wrote, they’re not meant to refer exclusively or even primarily to him.

It’s an old, old battle, older even than our country. Let’s just say (at the risk of going all literary on you) that I think this argument is a subset of the dichotomy represented in Don Quixote by the Don and Sancho Panza. Lest you wonder, I consider my side the Sancho side.

However, the GP world is as much a fantasy world as the one the Don lived in. My questions about the actual real-world consequences of such attitudes and the actions based on them have never been answered except for some version of “because the parties are not different enough for my tastes, they’re exactly the same and so it doesn’t matter who you vote for,” and/or “if we let liberals be elected, eventually it will drive people towards conservatism.”

I’ve already responded to that second claim at some length here as well as here. I’m not going to recap in this post, but suffice to say that my opinion is that it’s not the most likely result at all, and that people espousing that point of view (and I have no idea whether that’s George Pal’s reasoning, although it’s the reasoning of many) gravely underestimate the way the left operates with power, and how easy it would be to fight and defeat them once they are even more entrenched in power. Such a viewpoint, to me, is just another version of what Orwell once said about left-wing thought: that it’s a “kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”

But let’s get back to some of the specifics of George Pal’s point of view. He cannot forget that “Bush appointed the reprehensible John Roberts,” and goes on to say “Taking into consideration all the other disastrous appointments made by Republican presidents I don’t consider such considerations [the notion that SCOTUS appointments by Republicans would be better than those by Democrats] as worthwhile.”

What an extraordinary statement, and one which is all too typical. GP takes into consideration all the other “disastrous” appointments made by all Republican presidents. What about the good ones? What is the ratio of the first group to the second? Because without that, the argument is meaningless or absurd.

I would imagine that GP would have included Earl Warren and David Souter in the “disastrous” camp. Perhaps there are others—oh, no doubt there are others—but the numbers pale in comparison to the conservative justices that have been appointed by Republican presidents.

So, we have had a few justices who were originally thought to be more conservative than they actually have later revealed themselves to be. Some (Warren, for example) even turned into outright—and quite influential—liberals. We’re all disappointed; I get that. And it seems (although I haven’t done an exhaustive study on this) that it doesn’t happen that way with liberal appointments all that much; they remain reliably liberal, and don’t turn conservative. But because a few Republican appointments haven’t worked out (although Roberts, by the way, certainly has voted with the conservatives on many occasions), here’s a great idea: let’s have none! Let’s have 100% liberal judges—because that’s what you’ll get if you go the GP route.

Ah, how wonderfully principled. That will get us where we want to go. And people defend themselves by saying that this is not some sort of self-indulgent, unrealistic perfectionism? I beg to differ.

To go into a bit more detail—right now the composition of SCOTUS is such that many important votes are decided 5-4, sometimes for the liberal side and sometimes for the conservative side. I haven’t done a study of how often it’s one way or the other, but for the purposes of this discussion it’s irrelevant, because my other point is that some of those justices are getting old and will probably retire soon. If just one of the liberals retires, the next president gets to choose his/her successor. If the next president is a Republican, the chance of that justice voting with the conservatives to create a conservative majority is very high (not 100%, but very high indeed), and the Court becomes a reliably conservative one. And if two liberal justices retire under a Republican president, so much the better.

However there is almost no doubt that if a conservative justice retires under a Democratic president, his/her replacement is just about 100% certain to be liberal, and the Court becomes reliably liberal. They would preside over the unleashing of the power of the left to a much greater degree. A conservative Court would at least hold the line against the tsunami of the left (and by the way, this doesn’t just affect SCOTUS, it affects all the federal courts and appointments to them). It might even actually reverse some trends in that direction, and protect our liberties to fight another day.

Now, the George Pals of the world may say they don’t care. They may say (and I know I’m putting words in his mouth, but I’m speaking of the group in general rather than him in particular) that even with a conservative court it wouldn’t matter enough to stop anything important, and that they don’t even care about slowing it down. They say it’s best (or the same) to just let the whole thing go to pieces quickly, and they usually assume that nothing but the rise of a conservative third party is good enough. They are ready to dismiss any idea of incremental change in favor of the grand gesture that makes them feel good, oh-so-superior to the rest of us compromising fools.

It’s a grandiose vision they have, in which they are the principled vanguard of a better world to come. And if not that, they’re at least the ones who saw the coming disaster clearly and weren’t fooled by the hypocritical Republicans who have disappointed them so many times before, and whom they wish to punish.

The unguarded government

The New Neo Posted on by

Something about the fact that Canada’s national government buildings had surprisingly lax security rang a bell.

This was the sound of the bell:

The commission said key public buildings had to be better secured and that the Norwegian National Security Authority should start supervising these measures. It noted the need [after the Breivik attack] for a more-robust helicopter service and called for the introduction of better communication systems for emergency services.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the government would launch a thorough review of the police, adding that the commission had uncovered significant weaknesses.

A debate about Norway’s security has until now largely been postponed in anticipation of the commission’s investigation. More than a year after the attack, key buildings such as the Norwegian Parliament have no car bomb protection, despite repeated complaints from several members of Parliament.

In contrast to the Parliament building, the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, about 800 meters away, is a heavily fortified structure with steel fences and armed guards on the outside.

The Norwegian Parliament had been choosing a softer strategy, with security personnel chasing away illegally parked cars.

What is it about countries that think if they don’t prepare, if they project a kinder, gentler face, it won’t happen there? I’d love to still live in the 1950s in that respect, too. But it just isn’t appropriate any more, unless you want to be sitting ducks.

[NOTE: Also, see this article I wrote about Norway’s lack of preparedness for violence in general.]

More on the Canadian Parliament shooting

The New Neo Posted on by

Facts I’ve either read or heard today:

(1) A friend of the shooter reports that a few years ago:

“We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don’t know how he worded it. He said the devil is after him,” Bathurst told the CBC. “I think he must have been mentally ill.”

That seems extremely weak evidence, however, especially in a person who has recently converted to or is considering converting to a religion such as Islam. In Islam the devil, whose “primary characteristic…[is] hubris,…has no power other than the power to cast evil suggestions into humans and jinn, although the Quran mentions appointing jinn to assist those who are far from God in a general context.” So the shooter’s speaking the way Bathurst reports would not necessarily be a sign of mental illness.

(2) I repeat my question of yesterday: if Zehaf-Bibeau, the shooter, and Couture-Rouleau, a Quebec man who on Monday had run down two soldiers with his car, were both on watch lists and had had their passports revoked for planning trips to Muslim countries to join militant jihadists, why on earth were neither actually watched more carefully? It’s not as though blocking a jihadi from trips abroad is going to defuse his desire to fight you, it just will keep it local. And ISIS had called for attacks on the military. These two incidents should have been easy to predict, not just in general but in particular regarding both of these perpetrators.

(3) I haven’t seen an article about this, but I heard a Canadian commentator on Fox (unfortunately I didn’t catch his name) describe the shooting in more detail, particularly what occurred inside the building. He said that the way Zehaf-Bibeau entered the Parliament building was through a back door with lax security, although the front entrance has pretty good security. The back door is the way MPs usually exit. I imagine that Zehaf-Bibeau must have known about the lax security there and entered that way for that reason. There are guards at the exit but they are unarmed. So the shooter (much like the White House fence jumper who entered the White House not long ago) was able to get fairly far inside.

However (and this is where it gets really interesting, if this report is true), at the top of a staircase the shooter had to pass by two armed guards. Neither shot him, although they could clearly see he was armed and dangerous. The reason, according to the speaker, was that the hallway was full of schoolchildren finishing up a tour, and the guards were afraid of causing carnage among the schoolchildren (although it seems logical that they might have been even more afraid of the shooter causing carnage among either the schoolchildren or in Parliament itself). At any rate, making a split-second decision, one of the guards grabbed the end of the shooter’s rifle and jerked it downward (perhaps trying to get it away from him?) and was shot, although not fatally. The other doesn’t seem to have done anything; at least not anything effective, and the shooter kept going down the hall.

Zehaf-Bibeau had gotten very close to the entrance of Parliament when sergeant–at-arms Kevin Vickers shot and killed him. Vickers, a former member of the RCMP, has a largely ceremonial role now. He has an office towards the end of the hall near the entrance to the House of Commons, heard the commotion and violence, “grabbed his sidearm” (that’s a quote from the guy being interviewed on Fox), stepped out into the hall, assessed the situation rapidly, and shot Zehaf-Bibeau dead. If not for Vickers and his sidearm (which may have been something he carried as a private citizen rather than in his official capacity?), I am almost certain we’d be reading a different, and much more dreadful, story today.

It is pretty clear that Zehaf-Bibeau wasn’t intent on killing random people; he didn’t fire at the schoolchildren or other visitors. He targeted the soldier at the tomb, and he was going for the government officials. Only Vickers and his sidearm stood in his way.

Terrorist attack in Canadian Parliament

The New Neo Posted on by

I was waiting for more information about the terrorist attack in Canada today before writing about it, but I thought I’d offer a quick post so you can comment on it if you like.

It seems to me the new pattern is for Muslims—perhaps especially home-grown Muslim converts—to take up the glorious call of ISIS and free-lance in Western countries and go on a killing spree. This was a bold one:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in an evening address that Canada would not be intimidated by Wednesday’s “brutal and violent attack” in Ottawa, in which an armed attacker shot and fatally wounded a Canadian Forces member at the National War Memorial before being shot dead in Parliament’s Centre Block.

The slain soldier is Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, 24, a reservist from Hamilton.

Moments after Cirillo was shot at his post by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, MPs and other witnesses reported 30 to 50 shots fired inside the main Parliament building.

It was confirmed later the gunman was shot dead inside the building, felled by the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms and RCMP, according to MPs’ accounts.

A few thoughts: the soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was apparently unarmed and therefore a sitting duck (although with a surprise attack, being armed would not necessarily have made a difference). The sergeant-at-arms in the House oF Commons, however, whose role I would have thought merely colorful and ceremonial, was apparently armed, as befitting his title.

I just heard on the news that the suspect, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, had a criminal record. I’m wondering whether this might have been another case of a prison conversion to Islam.

UPDATE:

Bibeau, who was born in 1982, was a convert to Islam and had a history of drug use before he converted, two sources said.

His passport had been confiscated by Canadian authorities when they learned he planned to go fight overseas, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN’s Susan Candiotti. The official said it was not clear when that happened.

So, did they know he was planning to fight with ISIS or a similar group? And did they just let him go after taking away the passport? Was he not under surveillance?

My prediction is that the left will call this another lone-wolf operation. Certain people such as Zehaf-Bibeau may be acting solo in the actual murders they commit (although there are some reports that Zehaf-Bibeau may have had an accomplice), but they are not alone. They are part of a global movement, and are inspired and encouraged by that movement.

UPDATE 11:04: I’m hearing on Bill O’Reilly from Mark Sutcliffe, a Canadian talk show host, that the Canadian government has almost no security. I find that shocking.

UPDATE 11:17: Several photos of the soldier who was murdered, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, 24. Heartbreaking, RIP.

A little travel interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

I bet you’d like a little respite from the news and angst. I certainly would; New England is currently caught in a patch of nasty gloomy weather.

But I was in Portland, Maine on a sunny day last week.

You should go some time; it’s a beautiful city, with great restaurants.

To whet your appetite (for the scenery, not the restaurants):

008

gullrock.jgp

The case against Darren Wilson unravels

The New Neo Posted on by

Leaks from the grand jury testimony indicate that Darren Wilson was probably well within his rights to shoot Michael Brown in self-defense.

See this in the WaPo, of all places:

…[M]ore than a half-dozen unnamed black witnesses have provided testimony to a St. Louis County grand jury that largely supports Wilson’s account of events of Aug. 9, according to several people familiar with the investigation who spoke with The Washington Post.

Some of the physical evidence ”” including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests ”” also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, The Post’s sources said, which cast Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer’s life. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they are prohibited from publicly discussing the case…

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch late Tuesday night published Brown’s official county autopsy report, an analysis of which also suggests the 18-year-old may not have had his hands raised when he was fatally shot, as has been the contention of protesters who have demanded Wilson’s arrest.

Experts told the newspaper that Brown was first shot at close range and may have been reaching for Wilson’s weapon while the officer was still in his vehicle and Brown was standing at the driver’s side window. The autopsy found material “consistent with products that are discharged from the barrel of a firearm” in a wound on Brown’s thumb, the autopsy says.

I have yet to see any forensic evidence that supports the contentions of the anti-Wilson camp.

But that probably won’t be enough to stop the furor if Wilson isn’t indicted. Here’s an interesting theory, though, on why so much of this information is being allowed to be leaked now:

…[F]ormer St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it’s no accident the feds are allowing the information.

…Fitch calls the information from the investigation coming out as phase two ”“ to “coordinate leaks to the media, and to start getting some of the facts out there to kind of let people down slowly,” he says. “When I say this is phase two ”“ phase one was really Eric Holder’s announcement how they were going to basically do a complete review and take over the Ferguson Police Department.”

Fitch says he thinks the feds recognize that it’s “probably very unlikely” that there’s going to be charges against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

…Fitch believes the New York Times story is just a preview of what’s to come over the next few weeks.

In other words, he believes the press and the feds are trying to soothe the anger—anger they had a role in encouraging by their initial coverage—in order to avoid a scene like the 1992 riots in LA after the Rodney King verdict.

Fan the flames of rage for sensationalistic coverage, and then try to put out the fire? I’m not even sure that’s what the MSM is trying to do here, but if so, it’s like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

What do women want?

The New Neo Posted on by

The answer to that age-old question?:

Republicans.

At least, that’s the answer at the moment, 44% to 42%.

[NOTE: The title of this post is a riff on Freud’s Freud’s famous question to Marie Bonaparte:

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?”

How could there possibly be a single answer?]

[ADDENDUM: And here’s an interesting article proposing that the answer to Freud’s question, at least in the sexual arena, is “to be desired.”]

Voter fraud: nothing much to see here, move along

The New Neo Posted on by

This caper by James O’Keefe doesn’t prove voter fraud exists, of course. But it certainly proves how easy it would be in a state like Colorado, and that there are plenty of people willing and eager to commit it. So, what are the chances it doesn’t happen? Very small, in my opinion.

And I’ve never understood the argument that not having a lot of proven cases of voter fraud is some sort of proof that it’s not already happening. If the fraud is good, the perps wouldn’t be caught, or there wouldn’t be enough proof to convict even it caught. It reminds me a bit of people saying they can always detect a false hairpiece; it’s false reasoning, because if a hairpiece were very good they wouldn’t know they’d failed to detect it.

This is what O’Keefe did:

Today, he is releasing some new undercover footage that raises disturbing questions about ballot integrity in Colorado, the site of fiercely contested races for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the governorship. When he raised the issue of filling out some of the unused ballots that are mailed to every household in the state this month, he was told by Meredith Hicks, the director of Work for Progress, a liberal group funded by Democratic Super PACS.: “That is not even like lying or something, if someone throws out a ballot, like if you want to fill it out you should do it.” She then brazenly offered O’Keefe, disguised as a middle-aged college instructor, a job with her group.

Actually, what’s even more shocking than that incident (and there were other similar ones that O’Keefe documented as well) is the incredibly lax election law passed in Colorado. It facilitates cheating, and was sponsored by Democrats. So far the protests against it have not been effective. Here’s the way it works:

Colorado secretary of state Scott Gessler, along with several county election clerks, have raised warning flags that a new state law that automatically mails a ballot to everyone is an engraved invitation to commit fraud. “Sending ballots to people who did not even ask for them or have moved out of state is asking for trouble” he told me. For example, little can stop someone who collects discarded ballots from trash cans, fills out the ballots, and mails them in. Election workers are supposed to compare signatures on registration records with signed ballots. But if a person has a “witness” who signs the ballot on the witness line, then the signatures do not have to match and the vote is counted.

Secretary of State Gessler had futile arguments with Democratic state legislators last year who insisted on ramming a bill through that mandated Colorado become the only state in the nation with both all-mail balloting and same-day registration. Under same-day registration someone can register to vote online, have a mail ballot sent to them, and never physically show up to register or vote. Other places that use same-day registration treat the vote as a provisional ballot pending verification. Colorado immediately counts the vote and there is no way to separate it out if the person who votes is later found ineligible.

I haven’t been able to find a record of any court challenges, but these laws seem outrageous to me.

A stirring letter from Judea Pearl

The New Neo Posted on by

Judea Pearl is the father of Daniel Pearl, and he has written a stirring letter of protest about the Klinghoffer opera. It’s well worth reading in its entirety, but here’s an excerpt:

There is nothing more enticing to a would-be terrorist than the prospect of broadcasting his “grievences” in Lincoln Center, the icon of American culture

Yet civilized society, from the time of our caveman ancestors, has learned to protect itself by codifying right from wrong, separating the holy from the profane, distinguishing that which deserves the sound of orchestras from that which deserves our unconditional revulsion. The Met has smeared this distinction and thus betrayed their contract with society.

I submit to you that choreographing an operatic drama around criminal pathology is not an artistic prerogative, but a blatant betrayal of public trust.

We do not stage operas for rapists and child molesters, and we do not compose symphonies for penetrating the minds of ISIS executioners.

No! Composer John Adams, some sides do not have two sides, and what was done to Leon Klinghoffer has one side only.

By the way, people often criticize the opera protestors as being for “censorship.” You can see it in the comments to Pearl’s letter. But that argument is a strawman. There is nothing in Pearl’s letter that advocates banning the opera. He is saying that people who compose operas and their libretti, and opera directors, have choices, and that they are making very poor choices here in deciding to present the case of these terrorists and to give a beautiful musical expression to their grievances—a morally bankrupt choice.

And Judea Pearl and others have every right to condemn and protest it, and to ask the Met not to give such evil an artistic expression on their stage. The decision, of course, is up to the Met.

It’s not censorship to protest something. It’s not censorship to suggest that people not attend, or to say an opera should not be produced by a certain group. It’s censorship to ban it, and censorship is ordinarily done by the government.

Obama and the Democratic candidates: with a friend like this…

The New Neo Posted on by

…who needs an enemy?

Ouch, this must hurt:

President Obama delivered a blow to Democratic Senate candidates looking to distance themselves from his flagging approval ratings Monday…

“The bottom line is though, these are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress; they are on the right side of minimum wage; they are on the right side of fair pay; they are on the right side of rebuilding our infrastructure; they’re on the right side of early childhood education.”

Obama went on to say that his feelings weren’t hurt by Democrats who were reluctant to campaign with him.

“These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me, and I tell them, I said, ”˜You know what, you do what you need to do to win. I will be responsible for making sure our voters turn out.’”

The president’s remarks appear tailor-made for Republican attack ads in states like Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and Alaska, where GOP candidates have painted their Democratic opponents as rubber stamps for the administration’s policies.

What’s going on here? Does Obama want those Democrats to lose?

There are two possibilities. The first is that he doesn’t realize how toxic he’s become. He’s isolated in the White House with his fawning sycophants, and that and the depth of his narcissism protect him. So he actually thinks these sorts of statements are helpful.

The second is that he doesn’t care if these people win or not, and that he’s sticking it to them in his narcissistic rage at their desertion. His message is that, if they think they can run away from him, they’ve got another think coming. Take that!

But why wouldn’t he care if they lose? Doesn’t he need them to be effective in his last two years as president? There’s a good chance that Obama doesn’t think so. He’s got this imperial presidency thing down pretty well by now. If he loses the Senate, he’s still got the veto, his pen, and his phone—and the excuse that he has to use them because the Republicans just won’t cooperate.

[ADDENDUM: This piece by Ace suggests to me a third possibility: that Obama’s just trying to rally his base and get them to vote, saying (wink, wink) that these candidates’ distancing from him is just a pose, and that they’ll be good and loyal liberals once they’re safely elected.

And the three possibilities are not mutually exlusive, either.]