Dear Reader (and your Sprockets monkey),
Readers laughing,
Editors gassing,
Meeting G-file after G-File,
And in every e-mail “news”letter you’ll hear . . .
Okay, I couldn’t finish that. But I leave it up to you folks to suggest a G-File- or NRO-related Christmas-song parody! What fun! Best entry will appear in the Corner next week. Must be relatively safe for work. And, since me and the Couch are the only judges, you can guess what happens to entries that either mock me too uncharitably or might get me in Dutch with the suits.
When Is Your Quantum Moment?
Imagine you can go back in time. How much useful knowledge could you really bring with you? By that I mean, how much actual constructive knowledge could you deliver to the folks in, say, 1800 or 1500?
Imagine I was immediately transported back to the year 1750. Let’s assume that I could even get a hearing from people who mattered (a big assumption). What could I bring to temporal show-and-tell that would move things along rapidly? Ninety-eight percent of my knowledge would be useless (“You’re not exactly like a cognitive MacGyver, now” – the Couch). I couldn’t tell them how to make life-saving drugs, or how to make an electric transistor, or how the internal-combustion engine works. I’m sure I could give some helpful tips about the importance of hygiene and some general tidbits about nutrition. I could take a stab at explaining CPR – but that’d be a real crapshoot if my credibility was on the line.
Now, of course, ideally if I were to go back to, say, the year 1200, I’d bring a lot of guns, the complete Time-Life series of how-to books, and a whole bunch of chemistry and medical textbooks, before commencing my plan to become the Kemal Ataturk of humanity.
And I know there are some readers out there who churn their own butter and solder their own personal electronics (“Wanna see my MyPhone?”). But many of us pretty thoroughly rely on the accumulated wisdom of others. As I’ve written before, nobody in the world even knows how to make a pencil – and even that idea came from someone else!
The vast bulk of knowledge we have is dependent on stuff we know little or nothing about. I can drive a car and make a computer work, but I am barely better equipped to build a car or put together a computer than a Viking.
Why do I bring this up? Well, partly because I’m always daydreaming about time travel (and someday, when I write my novel, graphic or otherwise, that daydreaming will really pay off!). But also because I think it illustrates a fundamental – the fundamental – conservative point. Civilization has a memory cache we dare not erase. Because it is our collective wisdom, or intangible capital, that makes us rich, that makes us anything at all.
They’ll Always Disappoint You
My column on the GOP field elicited a vast array of feedback, much of it expressing exasperation with the “limited” choices we have in a field of more than a dozen candidates.
Personally, I think you guys are being too hard on our roster. We could do a lot worse than most of these contenders.
But I think what a lot of conservatives want is to love the nominee. It’s only natural. When you talk about finding that special someone, you don’t like the idea of settling right out of the block, particularly when the Right has been doing a lot of settling for a very long time. Most conservatives I know felt that John McCain was at best a compromise, and for many that’s putting it way too charitably.
That’s certainly how I felt. It’s also, truth be told, how I felt about George Bush, not only in 2004 but also in 2000. I’ve yet to meet anyone who was really stoked to vote for Bob Dole, and I voted for the Libertarian candidate in 1992.
So yeah, I understand the emotion.
But I don’t think it’s necessarily a good or healthy one. Love, as they say, is blind. And blindness to the foibles and shortcomings of politicians is a recipe for disaster. In 2000, a lot of folks on the right fell in love with Bush. He was a beneficiary of a right-wing version of identity politics. He was, to put it succinctly, authentic – the indispensable quality of all identity-politics appeals. Everything about him cried out “I’m one of you” to evangelicals and other Red State voters. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold any of that against Bush. I think his religious convictions, his gut instincts, his Americanness, were – and are – all appealing attributes. But for some folks, they seemed to swamp any consideration of his downsides.
You can tell when someone is in love with a candidate when they fall back on arguments like “You just don’t get it.”
I remember the huge boom for Fred Thompson. I’d tell people, “I like Thompson, he might be good. We’ll see.” And the responses I’d get would have nothing to do with his substantive positions and all about his Chuck Norris-like abilities to have his cake and eat it too. If you said you liked candidate X, they’d say, but candidate X believes in position Y. When you responded that Thompson believes in Y as well, they’d say “That’s different!” or “You just don’t get it!”
All that changed, of course, when Thompson actually got into the race and thought he could win it by conducting a months-long audition for a Bartles & Jaymes commercial.
But that’s sort of the point. When he was unobtainable, he was perfect. When he joined the fray, he was human. I suspect the same thing would happen pretty quickly if Chris Christie jumped into the race. Christie seems like the most awesome candidate ever, precisely because he’s playing so hard to get. Now, for the record, I think Thompson would make a fine president, and from what I can tell, Christie would be great. But that’s not my point.
My point is that love is overrated in politics. Bill Rusher, the longtime publisher of National Review, always used to give new staffers at NR this simple piece of advice: “Politicians will always disappoint you.”
They’ll disappoint you because A) they are politicians, and politicians have to disappoint their biggest fans in order to get reelected or get things done, and because B) they are human beings built from the crooked timber of humanity. I don’t want any more cults of personality for a while. I want a reliably and philosophically conservative candidate who will be able to get things done and who feels like he’s got to dance with the conservatives who brought him. If that person is Sarah Palin, I’m for Sarah Palin. If it’s Mitch Daniels, I’m for Mitch Daniels. And so on. I haven’t made up my mind about who that person is, yet. But I would like to make that call as unemotionally as possible. Let’s save the emotion for what is good in life: crushing our enemies, seeing them driven before us, and hearing the lamentations of the women.
About Jeb
No potential candidate generated more excitement than Jeb, though not all of the excitement was positive. Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for Jeb. I’ve always thought he was the more impressive guy of the Bush brothers. He did a fantastic job as governor – substantively and politically. But fate dealt him a rough hand, presidency-seeking-wise (in the broader picture, Jeb is obviously an incredibly fortunate guy compared to what most of humanity is dealt).
What makes Bush’s plight so literary is that, overwhelmingly, his biggest problem is his family name and all that comes with it. So many readers have a simple and clear cut position: No more Bushes. I have to say, I’m sympathetic. I don’t like dynasties and I don’t like gambling that the third one will be a charm. But it just seems unfortunate.
It reminds me of the Hill Street Blues with “Vic Hitler the Narcoleptic Comic.” Well, if you don’t remember, it’s not worth getting into.
E-mail!
This is going around. Some of you may find it amusing. Other may find it terribly insensitive. I will let you sort yourselves out:
Since more and more Seniors are texting and tweeting, there appears to be a need for a STC (Senior Texting Code).
ATD: At The Doctor’s
BTW: Bring The Wheelchair
BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth
CBM: Covered By Medicare
CUATSC: See You At The Senior Center
DWI: Driving While Incontinent
FWB: Friend With Beta Blockers
FWIW: Forgot Where I Was
FYI: Found Your Insulin
GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!
GHA: Got Heartburn Again
IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On?
LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out
LOL: Living On Lipitor
LWO: Lawrence Welk’s On
OMMR: On My Massage Recliner
OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas.
ROFL . . . CGU: Rolling On The Floor Laughing . . . And Can’t Get Up
TTYL: Talk To You Louder
WAITT: Who Am I Talking To?
WTFA: Wet The Furniture Again
WTP: Where’s The Prunes?
WWNO: Walker Wheels Need Oil
Announcements! And Debby Stuff!
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Can you believe the New Goldberg File is coming up on its first anniversary? (I think that’s right, but since I can’t check the archives, I can’t be sure. Oh, right. That’s actually the point of this announcement, but I’ll stay inside the parentheses because it’s warmer in here. (I thought these things smelled bad on the outside!) We are actively pondering how to create an online archive of G-Files for those of you who want them. I’m constantly getting asked to leave the public library if I’m going to keep making those sounds, but that’s not important right now. I’m also asked how new readers can read old G-Files, how folks can access them to link to, etc. Our team of web monkeys will be working around the clock over Christmas throwing feces at each other, but in their spare time they’ll noodle this issue even more.)
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There will be no G-File next week for the holiday break. I will be like Rocky in Rocky I, II, III, but especially IV (since it’s so cold out), training for my triumphant return.
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In last week’s G-File, I made an offhand reference to a friendly contest between Forrest Tucker and Milton Berle. Some of you got that it was also an off-color reference as well. Most of you didn’t.
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I am still on Twitter (@JonahNRO), and it’s taking up way too much of my time, particularly since I have no idea why I’m doing it.
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Debby’s Wednesday Stuff on Thursday!
The Platypus: Nature’s Swiss Army Knife.
How Mariah Carey makes goats produce more milk.
Why the other line likely is moving faster.
Top Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010.
A Serbian man reportedly has become a hero in Egypt by accidentally killing a shark with his butt while drunk.
Anatomically related: Buttock-cupping: A New Form of Alternative Medicine. [BROKEN LINK]
Snow Crystals Under a Microscope.
Laurel and Hardy meet Santana. [BROKEN LINK]
Strange Foreign Pick-up Lines.
The camel beauty contest.
Roadrunner vs. Coyote: In Live Action!
2004 Dave Barry column: Who named these guys wise men?
Flowchart: Explain the Internet to a 19th-Century Street Urchin.