I didn’t shed many tears for Pat Buchanan in the wake of his firing from MSNBC. The sales for his book—a pedestrian work that merely recycles 20 years worth of his diatribes—are about to surge, and he is mildly more familiar and relevant to Americans today than he was 72 hours ago. If he desires it, it’s a certainty that he is headed to Fox News Channel, and probably with a prominent platform.
The lack of sympathy shouldn’t be confused with an affinity for censorship. It should have been no wonder to MSNBC’s hierarchy that Buchanan’s demographic theories are overheated, and that he sounds alarm bells that are alarms primarily if you have a certain crabbed view of the country or a trace of zenophobia. To penalize those views now, when they have been the Buchanan brand for over two decades, has an arbitrary, unfair quality.
The problem with each side of this saga is that I always suspected that MSNBC was using Buchanan in a distasteful kind of way, and that he played along to the detriment of the conservatives whom he supposedly embraces. Buchanan’s on-air role had the feel of a caricature; it was the elevation of a conservatism that is exactly what many liberals imagine conservatives to be—smugly intolerant of the left, cantankerous, narrow-minded. Every time Buchanan chided modern conservatives for waywardness, it was exactly the kind of claim that the left expects the hard right to make—one that seemed unacquainted with the new hues in our culture, and one that yearned to reconstitute America along pre-sixties lines.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: No Tears for Buchanan and MSNBC
Yesterday, the RP appeared on “The Craig Fahle Show” on WDET in Detroit, to discuss “No Budget, No Pay,” the important new legislation supported by No Labels that would withdraw the pay of Congress if they fail to pass a budget on time.
It appears as though they should consult with someone who has an online accounting degree because it looks as though they can’t do it on their own!
JFK revisionism is always jarring, but no longer surprises. The disdain toward John Kennedy in conservative intellectual circles seems borne out of contempt that he was what the right suspects about Barack Obama – unaccomplished, stylistic rather than substantive, a media darling who rose on the wings of a star-struck press.
In my college years, it was the left-wing that was just as fierce – to them, Kennedy was a cold warrior who dug our grave in Vietnam and almost postured and bluffed into a nuclear war. To younger African American intellectuals, he was too passive on civil rights, too much of a follower to deserve the spot on the wall next to Dr. King in the grandparent’s living room.
There is something that is meaner, though, in this week’s round of coverage of Mimi Alford’s tell-all regarding an affair between herself and Kennedy during her stint as a White House intern. Timothy Noah, at the New Republic, tops it off with a headline, “JFK: Monster”. But he only goes where others have gone this week: a condemnation of Kennedy as a psychological torturer, a crude user of a 19-year-old, and a voyeur.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Covering the JFK Affair
At 10:45 AM on “The Craig Fahle Show” on WDET in Detroit, The RP will be discussing “No Budget, No Pay,” the important new legislation supported by No Labels that would withdraw the pay of Congress if they fail to pass a budget on time.
This morning at 8:50 AM ET/7:50AM CT on KMOX radio in St. Louis, the RP will be discussing “No Budget, No Pay,” the important new legislation supported by No Labels that would withdraw the pay of Congress if they fail to pass a budget on time.
These days, when people speak abstractly about the kind of President the country needs, they usually say that it should be someone with legislative experience, who can reach across the aisle to compromise with the other party, who can make difficult decisions, and who enjoys the respect, even friendship of other world leaders, thus improving the international standing of the United States.
In my lifetime, we had just such a President, and no one appreciated him much. He still receives only occasional credit from history and policy geeks, and makes little impression on the public memory, never showing up on anyone’s list of the greatest Presidents. And yet, the closer you look at the actual record, the more of a gem he appears to have been.
I am talking of course about Gerald R. Ford.
I can hear the gasps now. Wait, you say, you mean the guy who fell down the stairs of Air Force One and helped launch the career of Chevy Chase and “Saturday Night Live?” The guy whose name graces the title of one of John Updike’s lamer late novels? The guy who pardoned Richard Nixon? That Gerald Ford?
Read the rest of… The RPs Debate Presidential Greatness: Ron Granieri Rebuts
Hoekstra needs to spend three minutes watching the Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad. It captures, much more powerfully and far more honestly, the real Chinese challenge.
The long-term China threat is not that they finance our debt – we should blame our lack of fiscal discipline and our aversion toward hard choices on spending for that–but the fact that we’re losing ground to a country that is poorer and much less equitable than we are. They are still out performing us and out strategizing us in the fields of advanced manufacturing and engineering, and their top-heavy, command and control economy is proving more supple than our own capital markets. That ought to be a gut-check that Democrats and Republicans should run ads about.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: Is Pete Hoekstra’s Ad Racist?
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 4:30 PM ET
My all-time favorite job interview story.
About a decade ago I heard this story from a colleague in NJ, a manager I admired greatly. He was speaking about how he hired people and used this story as a reference to make his point.
A large corporation was hiring for an executive management position and had narrowed the field to two. The executive team would now take each finalist to dinner at a nice restaurant to get “a feel” for the person and if they fit in with the company’s culture.
The first dinner was with a male, we’ll call him Candidate Jones.
Dinner with the execs could not have gone smoother….Jones was warm, witty, engaging and smart. When he ordered he felt he ordered appropriately, had impeccable manners and fit in seamlessly with the other execs. As Jones himself put it to a friend afterward, “I knocked it out of the park!” Adding “The job is mine.”
Except Jones didn’t get the job.
Why? The executive team explained that although Jones ingratiated himself to them, they noticed that when it came to the coat check lady, the waitress, waiter and bus boy, he was condescending —even rude.
The exec team explained, “We are hiring a manager for people under him or her and not someone who will be engaging with us all day each day. We just don’t feel you are a good fit for that position.”
And that, as they say, was that.
Does this really matter? I can attest that since hearing that story I watch closely how each person I deal with treats the wait staff when at a restaurant. It’s a powerfully effective gauge.
So, want to move up in the world? Treat the waitress and busboy with the same respect you are showing your boss (or future boss), and you just may receive the respect from your boss that you are seeking.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Feb 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
A11 is the one must-read page in today’s copy of The New York Times. That’s because No Labels’ full-page ad on The No Budget, No Pay Act is there, front and center.
The ad coincides with the release of the President’s budget this coming Monday, and to drive the message home No Labels also sent a letter to congressional leadership calling on Congress to pass the bipartisan No Budget, No Pay Act (H.R. 3643 / S. 1981), sponsored by Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) and Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN). The Senate bill will receive a hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in March. The press release is here and the complete ad copy is here.
I didn’t shed many tears for Pat Buchanan in the wake of his firing from MSNBC. The sales for his book—a pedestrian work that merely recycles 20 years worth of his diatribes—are about to surge, and he is mildly more familiar and relevant to Americans today than he was 72 hours ago. If he desires it, it’s a certainty that he is headed to Fox News Channel, and probably with a prominent platform.
The problem with each side of this saga is that I always suspected that MSNBC was using Buchanan in a distasteful kind of way, and that he played along to the detriment of the conservatives whom he supposedly embraces. Buchanan’s on-air role had the feel of a caricature; it was the elevation of a conservatism that is exactly what many liberals imagine conservatives to be—smugly intolerant of the left, cantankerous, narrow-minded. Every time Buchanan chided modern conservatives for waywardness, it was exactly the kind of claim that the left expects the hard right to make—one that seemed unacquainted with the new hues in our culture, and one that yearned to reconstitute America along pre-sixties lines. 
