Sunday, February 5, 2012

Urban Legend: Walter Williams didn't write "No Matter What"

Snopes   This article improperly attributed to Dr. Walter E. Williams (pictured at right). The retraction and apology from RiteOn.org  is quoted at the link and here: 
 We published an article that we thought was written by him and we have subsequently found out it was not. The title of the article we published was "No Matter What" and it was published on April1. Please be informed that this article was mistakenly attributed to Dr Williams.We admire Dr. Williams work and the article we published was not written by him and was, in fact, a "phony" that fooled us also. We hope, by way of this explanation, to inform those who took the article as genuine to know that it was bogus and that Dr Williams had nothing to do with thewriting of the article entitled "No Matter What" that appeared under the column entitled "A Bad Dream" published on the RiteOn web site on April 1.We erred in not researching the real source of the article prior to publication and we erred in publishing it. We try within our means to avoid publishing phony material of the sort represented by this article and we are sorry we failed to catch the mistake prior to publication.  Chuck MacNab, Editor and Publisher, RiteOn.org
This TEA Party site also publishes both the purported Williams article and the retraction.


We searched the web but couldn't find who the author of this piece is. It is regrettable that some of the ideas expressed in the article are lost in the turmoil over its authorship. TD

The Obama Doctrine

Elliott Abrams   "Since President Obama arrived in the Oval Office three years ago there have been many efforts to explain his foreign and defense policy succinctly. Is there an Obama Doctrine? While many theories have been propounded, the recent State of the Union speech settles the matter."
....
"...here is what it would look like: “I will undertake any military attack against our enemies, regardless of the risks and collateral damage, so long as it is over by the time I have to announce it.” "
"...divulging the secrets is at the very heart of the Obama Doctrine. Secret operations gain the president no credit. Revelation of the completed operations is the whole point, demonstrating Obama’s courage and his commitment to yesterday’s deeds. The trouble with wars like Iraq and Afghanistan is that they commit you to doing risky things tomorrow, when you may wish to give a speech about health care or jobs. Thus the beauty of the Obama Doctrine." (Emphases added)
http://theweek.com/section/cartoon/65/223312/us-military

The Nevada Caucuses and Mitt Romney. Plus a message to Obama from Victor Davis Hanson

CBS   Newt takes second over Paul, 23% to 19%.


Rick Moran: Romney wins big in NV: Still can't crack 50%
"All the entrance poll mumbo jumbo comes down to the fact that your increased tea party and conservative support came largely from the outsized Mormon vote."
http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/02/03/96006
Romney to Obama: "Not so fast" ;  Then this: DECONSTRUCTING ROMNEY, PART 1


Stephen Hayes: Romney in Context; The candidate’s rhetoric needs a safety net.  "But in many respects Romney’s words are more problematic because of their context. He seemed to consign the poor to a station in life. He suggested that society has done its duty because of the fact that “we have a safety net.” 
"In so doing, Romney seemed utterly unaware of a long strain of conservative thought on the morality of capitalism. He seemed oblivious to the argument​—​central to the conservative movement​—​that free markets allow the poor to transcend their position, that poverty is not destiny."   (Emphasis added). Hayes quotes Arthur Brooks :
Welfare programs rely on the idea that poverty is simply a problem of a lack of money. As W. C. Fields put it, “A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.” But the problem is that giving the poor money does not alleviate poverty in the long (or even the short) run. Instead, it masks cultural conditions by treating the symptoms.
Big Government: For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative  "The completion of the takeover of the Democrat Party by progressives was shown to have come to completion 4 years ago and today I think it’s clear that the Neo-Cons and moderate conservatives now control the vast majority of the GOP. That includes all the Tea Party’ers that walked out their doors November of 2010 and voted establishment beltway insiders back into office. Shame on you.


"The GOP cries for another Reagan but it will never find him. Because the party of Reagan and Goldwater is dead. The tides have shifted. The Democrats will represent modern socialism. The GOP will represent wafflers, flip floppers, moderates, former Democrats, fiscal liberals that claim to be fiscal conservatives and social conservatives."
But can't we at least find a candidate who can explain and defend with conviction the greatness that is capitalism and free enterprise?
The bitter, conservative-hating, leftist Pat Oliphant does have a point here.
Finally, this message is for you, Mr. Obama:
Victor Davis Hanson:  What We Do Not Want to Hear Anymore
The State of the Union could have been written [1] by a computer program. All the now familiar Obama furniture was in the room: the mock outrage at “them,” the psychodramatic first-person boasting (as in, “I will oppose..,” “I will not work with…,” “I will decline…,” “I will not stand by …,” I will not cede…,” “I will not walk away…,” “I will not back down…,” “I will not go back…”); the now customary rear-view-mirror jab at his fading predecessor; the monotonous promising that something is so bad that we must have a new program for it (each year the same threat, the same solution, the same failure); and the silence about the Obama legacy of stimulus, debt, and ObamaCare.
But the people are tired and simply by now shut their ears [2]. Here are five things in the current age that exhaust us. Keep reading... 

Alan Caruba: The Looney Tunes Version of the GOP Campaigns

Warning Signs

My favorite Looney Tunes Characters (c) Warner Brothers
"I have begun to think of the Republican campaign as a series of Looney Tunes cartoons being replayed again and again. They are filled with a combination of laughs and the fantastical, self-defeating violence of Wily Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner...."
...."Rolling over for the worst President of the modern era because our candidate is not “perfect” is not an option. 
"Voting for a third party candidate is not an option. 
"Staying home on Election Day because “your guy” didn’t get the nomination is not an option.
"The Republican compass has to point in only one direction and that is the resounding defeat of Barack Obama."  (Emphasis added)


This video would agree: