O’REILLY: …Let me be very bold and fresh again. Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world [President of the United States]?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, today promised to wage “holy war” against health care reform, and urged Americans to “rebel” against the U.S. Congress if health care reform passes the Senate.
This is what pases for the mainstream Republican “alternative” to the Democratic health care legislation?
Senator Hatch should take heart, though, that if his plans for holy war and rebellion do materialize, he is likely to be tried in an American court, and won’t be subject to special rendition or indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo.
It wasn’t about “radical Islam.” It was about Palestine.
Americans have often pondered how we would respond if we were subjected to the types of low-grade terrorist attacks Israelis face on a daily basis. When we wake up from the 24-hour news cycle brain-numbing that always takes place in the immediate aftermath of this type of incident, we will begin to have an answer.
Heaven knows, I don’t mean to be provocative or radical when I set out on my bike, my backside a brightly colored billboard, my nebbish noggin rocking a hopeful helmet.
I’m just a middle-aged guy who, having ceded the basketball court to younger, fitter men (the President! sigh!), is looking for some age-appropriate fun and exercise. But from the suburban soccer mom, late to corral her better-than-average but shockingly fragile offspring, to the rural teenager succinctly expressing himself with a well-aimed beer bottle, the response is the same: “Get off the d*mn road!” More threat than suggestion, two trials opening this week spell out how deadly a threat it can be.
Dr. Thompson's rear windshield after cyclist crashed through it. Photo by Chris Roberts
Ron Peterson in the hospital after Mandeville Canyon incident.
In car-crazy Los Angeles, a successful doctor is charged with two counts of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, having exchanged heated words and then “brake-checked” a group of cyclists on the popular Mandeville Canyon Road, where he lives. Dr. Christopher Thompson, an emergency-room physician, did nothing to aid one cyclist who severed his nose crashing through the car’s rear window, or another who suffered a grade 3 shoulder separation and lay bleeding in the road. Thompson allegedly told responding officers he was “tired of” cyclists and wanted to “teach them a lesson.”
Former Attorney General Michael Bryant. Photo by Daniel Fox via Creative Commons.
In bike-loving Toronto, the former Ontario District Attorney, Harvard Law School grad and rising star of Canada’s Liberal Party, Michael Bryant, faces trial for “criminal negligence causing death” and “dangerous driving causing death.” Bryant had a minor collision with a cyclist as he and his wife drove home from a dinner party. Words were exchanged. Bryant tried to drive away, but the cyclist, Darcy Allan Sheppard, clung to the side of the car. Bryant accelerated to what witnesses described as a very high rate of speed, and steering to the opposite curb, crashed Sheppard’s dangling body into a small tree, and then head first into a mailbox, killing him.
Who knew a simple bicycle ride could occasion such violence and anger? But then, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is, after all, the era of the town hall crier, of the second Brooks Brothers riot, the death throes of a decrepit political order upon us certain as $5 gasoline. Rage is all the rage. And whether we like it or not, bikes are suddenly a symbol, provocative as a liberal president. Still, I plan to ride again tomorrow.
[Note: This article was written for the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Pundit” contest.]
Enhanced surveillance video of the Toronto incident:
For those who still can’t get the connection between the tea-baggers and those, like the Little Rock “race-mixing” protestors here, this woman makes the connection for you. It’s the language — “anti-christ socialism” “G*d says so”, etc. — and, as any linguist will tell you, the consonant thought processes that give rise to this familiar language.
I especially love the comment, “it’s only the politicians that make these issues political.” Because taxes are a – uh – religious, not a political issue, I guess.
And this was at a rally protesting Lindsey Graham, of all people, organized in part by “RINO (that’s “Republicans in Name Only” for the uninitiated) Hunt.” The sin that makes Graham a “socialist anti-christ” now? Voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor. ‘Cause we all know Jeebus don’t speak no stinking Spanish.
It’s almost enough to make you sympathetic to Graham. But only almost enough. He played this crowd to his advantage throughout the 2008 campaign. So he reaps what he sows. Maybe if these lunatics continue to attack Republican elected officials more Repubs will grow some cojones and start calling them as they see them. A dangerous, armed, out-of-control rabble.
A Pennsylvania mother who became famous for open carrying her 9mm to an elementary school soccer game — guess you never know when those refs need a little reminder, eh? — was shot to death by her husband, with one of her own guns, live on the Internet, this past Friday night. CNN’s coverage is here.
Revocation of Hains’ carry permit was controversial among other 2nd Amendment absolutists. The post at Dustin’s Gun Blog is typical:
I guess that Sheriff DeLeo just doesn’t like soccer moms to be armed for the defense of themselves or their children so he abused his authority in an illegal fashion. I hope she sues & wins enough to buy herself a case of her favorite lipstick & a couple of extra firearms of her own choosing paid for courtesy of the citizens who elected DeLeo. Perhaps in the next election they’ll choose more wisely.
Seems the sheriff found she might act in a “manner dangerous to the public safety.” Well, he doesn’t seem to have been far from the truth after all, eh?
Can’t figure out the difference between warehousing weapons to avoid “government tyranny” and total crazy carry-anywhere, anytime madness? Can’t rest until you can carry in national parks, bars, restaurants and college classrooms? Well, here’s a little glimpse of some 2nd Amendment happiness you too can enjoy on your next night out:
Does this stuff — and all the college and high school shootings, the guy who “shot the intruder, but the intruder was my wife,” this past weekend — make me reflexively and unapologetically call for systematic handgun control? You bet it does. And the reason you know I’ll have this response is: It’s the only response that makes any sense.
First Amendment? We don’t need no stinking First Amendment!
This is also what going to work on West 34th Street felt like during the Republican National Convention in 2004, having to pass a phalanx of armored personnel carriers and military-equipped police, carry and present identification and be subject to interrogation for going out for a sandwich.
Where are the tea-baggers when you really need them?
Inspirations and Aspirations 
