Hitchens versus Maher

I've always loved to read Christopher Hitchens' stuff although I do tune him out when he talks about religion. And Henry Kissinger. Here's a link to a YouTube video taken from the execrable Bill Maher's show: Bill Unthrilled. (Hat tip to NRO). Hitchens is exactly right in this case and he's been right on Iraq and al Qaeda from the beginning.

And on a not-unrelated note, I just finished reading a terrific book called They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, by Jacob Heilbrunn. (It's largely critical of the them, by the way.) I was gratified to see that, contrary to the sometimes anti-semitic sallies by their enemies, you don't have to be Jewish to be a neocon!

"... not all neocons are Jewish ... Catholics, as the late Michael Joyce -- a moving force behind the Olin and Bradley foundations and a friend of Irving Kristol's -- pointed out, are attracted to neoconservatism. Part of it may be the emphasis on traditional values and even, in the case of the political philosopher Leo Strauss, premodern ones. Leading Catholic neoconservatives like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Michael Novak, and William J. Bennett shared a critical view of liberalism, or at least liberal complacency when it came to social issues and a number of foreign policy ones."

So there! And here and here, too: Now I feel justified in self-identifying as one! :-)

Palin's Personal Baggage

Oh for crying out loud. The mother of the really cool 18-year-old twerp who knocked up Sarah Palin's really smart 17-year-old daughter has been arrested on drug charges. John McCain, whose campaign got a severe case of anemia after locking up the nomination, apparently also did a really shitty job vetting his "vice" presidential pick. It also missed the fun fact that Palin's really cool husband was a member of party filled, at least to some extent, by supporters of independence of Alaska from the United States! (But at least he won snow mobile races, right?) Pay no attention to my enthusiastic blog posts about Palin in the August-September time frame. One might be excused for proceeding on the not-unreasonable assumption that McCain was smart enough and wanted to actually be elected badly enough to do his frigging job! Do I sound pissed? We've been saddled with a leftist surrounded by crowds of awestruck socialists and other scary social policy creeps because John McCain pooped out and took a nap instead of running for president.