Orwell on unhinged intellectuals

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As Norman Podhoretz points out in his essay “If Orwell Were Alive Today” (written in 1983), the highly regarded political writer George Orwell was often misguided in his specific predictions about the future. He also was wedded to socialism his entire life, once he converted to it at the age of thirty, although his life didn’t last that much longer (he died at forty-six).

Orwell was, however, such a keen observer of the political side of humankind and especially the danger of totalitarianism, that many other “isms” (including Podhoretz’s own neoconservatism) believe that, had Orwell lived long enough, he surely would have come round to their point of view. Continue reading →

Vice-Presidential picks

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Joe Lieberman is poised to be this year’s Zell Miller.

I loved Zell’s fiery speech at the 2004 Republican convention. Lieberman is considerably less colorful (as are most people). But I’m looking forward to his address anyway. However, I’m going to go out on a limb right now to say that LIeberman won’t be McCain’s VP choice, although I haven’t a clue who it will be. Continue reading →

Mountain-climbing for dummies

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Used to be people stayed put and didn’t venture onto mountains unless they were an especially hardy breed of adventurer—or goatherders or sherpas or Heidi.

But somewhere during the 80s and 90s, perhaps due in part to the growing popularity of indoor rock climbing gyms, more and more daytrippers began venturing unprepared where they should be fearing to tread.

New England has its share of peaks, and although it lacks an Everest it does have one that calls most seductively to the foolish: Mt. Washington. The weather down below can seem benign, and the mountain doesn’t look all that high or dangerous—after all, it’s only 6288 feet, and there’s an auto road, for goodness’ sake. How bad could it be?

Very, very bad. Continue reading →

On the Saddleback interviews—whose simplistic world is it, anyway?

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I watched about twenty-five minutes of the Saddleback interviews with Obama and McCain, and although I’m hardly an objective viewer, and it was only a “snippet” (to use one of Obama’s favorite words) of the whole, my perception is that McCain came across better than Obama.

It seemed that McCain was believable, direct, understandable and intelligent, whereas Obama was rambling and confusing, slick and wordy. McCain’s answers—whether one agrees with him or not—dealt with weightier issues than Obama, whose responses appeared to evaporate almost on hearing.

Obama sounded almost as airy as a Miss America contestant when he named his wife and grandmother as two of the three wise people whose counsel he would seek as Chief Executive (the third was his very typically “nuanced” refusal to choose a third). Continue reading →

Back after the weekend

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It’s official: neo-neocon is taking a vacation!

A short one; I plan to return to blogging either this Sunday or Monday. But I’m going away today, and get this: I will not be taking my computer with me! I intend to have a relaxing time, and maybe I won’t even look at the news for a while, who knows?

So the two essays for today that are posted below will have to do you for the next couple of days. And then there’s always the voluminous archives. Have a good weekend, everybody.

Political disagreement: can these marriages be saved?

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The other day I was at the house of some friends who have a mixed marriage.

It’s not the type of mix you might think. This is a case of a woman who’s a diehard Obama supporter married to a McCain guy. This sort of split isn’t unusual for them; they nearly always disagree on politics.

One way they deal with the situation is that they hardly ever discuss the topic. Continue reading →

Obama and McCain: it turns out they’re both lefties

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It’s an odd fact that in recent decades a startling proportion of Presidents have been left-handed, and no one really has a clue why, although guesses abound. The list includes Truman, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II—as well as our next President, whomever he might be, because both McCain and Obama are southpaws. Even more surprising, in 1992 all three major candidates—Bush I, Clinton, and Ross Perot—were left-handed. Continue reading →

Swiftboating Obama—and swiftboating the swiftboaters who swiftboat…

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The NY Times has a dismissive article about the new Corsi book on Obama entitled Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, which to the chagrin of the Times editors, “is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday—at No. 1.”

A bit difficult to ignore, I guess. Continue reading →

Russia and Georgia, and wars cold and hot: the Kingdom of Earth

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For those of us old enough to remember the most frigid days of the long Cold War, the recent Russian military action in Georgia has a familiar ring.

Not exactly, of course; history never repeats itself, it merely rhymes—and sometimes the rhyme is only near-rhyme. But I agree with pundits who write that this latest action of Russia (I keep wanting to write “the Soviet Union,” an urge I haven’t had in many years) is a naked power play to reassert its dominance over nearby countries that used to be its territories and/or satellites. Continue reading →

Tango: by a horse’s head

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You may recall my disastrous efforts to learn to tango, chronicled here. But I still enjoy the dance as spectator, and the other evening I had the good fortune to attend a thrilling tango performance.

Which made me think of one of my favorite movie scenes (for those of you unfamiliar with “Scent of a Woman,” in this clip Al Pacino is supposed to be blind, and to have managed to persuade a lovely young woman to allow him to teach her to tango):

From my previous tango experiences, I will say that either the Pacino character is the best leader on earth or else this is not this lady’s first tango. Perhaps both. Continue reading →