October 12, 2010

‘Hitch’ on Why All Politicians are Whack-Jobs

October 12, 2010 Buck Banks

Want to know how we ended up with the current slate of uninspiring persons and loonies running for political office? Professional gadfly Christopher Hitchens nails it:

What normal person would consider risking their career and their family life in order to undergo the incessant barrage of intrusive questioning about every aspect of their lives since well before college? To face the constant pettifogging and chatter of Facebook and Twitter and have to boast of how many false friends they had made in a weird cyberland? And if only that was the least of it. Then comes the treadmill of fundraising and the unending tyranny of the opinion polls, which many media systems now use as a substitute for news and as a means of creating stories rather than reporting them. And, even if it ‘works,’ most of your time in Washington would be spent raising the dough to hang on to your job. No wonder that the best lack all conviction.

Verbatim

October 12, 2010 Buck Banks

The tactic of making female politicians into whores is nothing new … It’s part of this whole idea that female sexuality and serious work are incompatible.

— Virginia congressional candidate Krystal Ball (D), in a statement, after racy photos of her were made available on the Internet.

A Closeted Carl?

October 12, 2010October 12, 2010 Buck Banks

That Carl Paladino has a heavy touch —
He thinks a soft-peddle is just a crutch.
But if you listen to what he says
About “dysfunctional gays,”
Methinks he doth protest too much!

Verbatim

October 12, 2010 Buck Banks

I believe in my heart, my people have nothing to do with other candidates.

— Rep. John Adler (D-NJ), quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, going Reaganesque on allegations Democrats planted a Tea Party candidate to siphon off votes from his Republican challenger.

Day: October 12, 2010

‘Hitch’ on Why All Politicians are Whack-Jobs

Verbatim

The tactic of making female politicians into whores is nothing new … It’s part of this whole idea that female sexuality and serious work are incompatible.

— Virginia congressional candidate Krystal Ball (D), in a statement, after racy photos of her were made available on the Internet.

A Closeted Carl?

Verbatim

I believe in my heart, my people have nothing to do with other candidates.

— Rep. John Adler (D-NJ), quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, going Reaganesque on allegations Democrats planted a Tea Party candidate to siphon off votes from his Republican challenger.

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”

— Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), on CNN.

44%

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.

Numerati

$4,600

11

30%

A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.

61% to 35%

81

A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.