NRO Newsletters . . . Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty
September 26, 2012
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| Here's your Wednesday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! |
| 1. Endorsing Romney in Ohio May Be Hard Work, but Don't Call It a Dirty Job I don't know if I want to say "game changer," but this certainly seems like an endorsement with the sort of blue-collar resonance that is worth more than most of the television commercials, mailers, robocalls, and so on. Politics can be a muddy business. Enter "Dirty Jobs" host Mike Rowe. The Discovery Channel personality and Ford Motor Co. pitchman will offer his support Wednesday to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney at a public event in Bedford Heights. Romney's campaign announced the Rowe endorsement late Monday when confirming Romney's Cleveland-area itinerary for the final day of a two-day bus tour through battleground Ohio. Rowe made headlines this month for an open letter he wrote to Romney, seeking a "national conversation" on skilled labor and "about what we value in the workforce." Rowe opened the letter by pledging to vote for Romney if he read the whole thing. A campaign aide later Tweeted a photo of Romney reading the letter. (Rowe closed the letter by saying he wrote to President Barack Obama four years ago but received no response.) Rowe's open letter, by the way, was brilliant: Most of [our economic] "problems" were in fact symptoms of something more fundamental -- a change in the way Americans viewed hard work and skilled labor. That's the essence of what I've heard from the hundreds of men and women I've worked with on Dirty Jobs. Pig farmers, electricians, plumbers, bridge painters, jam makers, blacksmiths, brewers, coal miners, carpenters, crab fisherman, oil drillers . . . they all tell me the same thing over and over, again and again -- our country has become emotionally disconnected from an essential part of our workforce. We are no longer impressed with cheap electricity, paved roads, and indoor plumbing. We take our infrastructure for granted, and the people who build it. Today, we can see the consequences of this disconnect in any number of areas, but none is more obvious than the growing skills gap. Even as unemployment remains sky high, a whole category of vital occupations has fallen out of favor, and companies struggle to find workers with the necessary skills. The causes seem clear. We have embraced a ridiculously narrow view of education. Any kind of training or study that does not come with a four-year degree is now deemed "alternative." Many viable careers once aspired to are now seen as "vocational consolation prizes," and many of the jobs this current administration has tried to "create" over the last four years are the same jobs that parents and teachers actively discourage kids from pursuing. (I always thought there something ill-fated about the promise of three million "shovel ready jobs" made to a society that no longer encourages people to pick up a shovel.) But I'm sure the President, as the de facto CEO of Government General Motors, can get one of their pitchmen to endorse him. |
2. President Obama: If You Slander Islam's Prophet, You Forfeit Your Ownership of the Future
So, what are we to make of the president of the United States speaking before the United Nations and declaring: The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shia pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: "Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit." Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies. That's the vision we will support. First, notice the trademark Obama passive voice. What does it mean, "the future must not belong to" a particular group? Does it mean these people won't be around in the future? That in the future, their viewpoint will be marginalized? Out of style? Unpopular? Suppressed? That sometime between now and "the future," they will have changed their mind? That at some point in the future, no one will feel like slandering the prophet of Islam? Is the First Amendment still in effect in this envisioned future, or has it been rewritten or modified on this topic? How does "the future" belong to one group instead of another? Maybe I have too much of a background in musical theater by non-Mark Steyn pundit standards, but anytime I hear somebody declaring, with great emphasis, that tomorrow belongs to them, I start muttering, "I've got a bad feeling about this." (Another helpful hint: In a Hollywood movie, if you see a character who emphasizes that he and his kind are the future, and those who are different no longer matter, that character is probably the villain.) I think Matt Welch, over at Reason, speaks for a lot of us here: [Obama's speech] deteriorates rapidly from there: I believe [the video's] message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. So many things wrong in so few words. Why this video, and not Theo Van Gogh'sSubmission, or Lars Vilks' animation of Mohammed wanting to go to a gay bar, the "Super Best Friends" episode of South Park, or Funny or Die's "How to Pick a Pocket"? Is it the degree of the insult, the craptasticness of the production values, the size of the release, or the vociferousness of the outrage expressed? Given the track record of ourpast two administrations, I think we know the answer to that question, which suggests another thing terrible about this sentence: As Eugene Volokh recently pointed out, "Behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated." If all it takes to earn a White House call for global condemnation of a single piece of expression is some violent protests outside a dozen or two diplomatic missions, then the perpetually aggrieved know exactly what to do the next time they pluck out some bit of cultural detritus to be offended by. It is not any politician's job, and certainly not any American politician's job, to instruct the entire world on which films to criticize. Also, how much of the above remarks are going to flow out through the corners of the Muslim world? How many accounts will just quote the first sentence, that "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam"? (So, with the president going before the world and declaring that Mohammed-mockers have no future, is it a bad time for me to remind everyone that Obama's favorite television show is Showtime's Homeland, in which a captured POW is revealed to be a sleeper agent for al-Qaeda? This year's storyline? The captured POW is now in American politics, and appears to be on a fast-track to the highest levels of power.) No, no. Obama's not a Muslim, no matter what Madonna might say. I suppose we should give credit for very best part of Obama's speech: I know there are some who ask why we don't just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. Moreover, as President of our country, and commander-in-chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views -- even views that we disagree with. Of course, it's unlikely that Obama changed any minds at the United Nations; even when Obama gets it right, it's pearls before swine with the motley crew of dictatorships, oppressive regimes, craven opportunists, and other regimes assembled before him. (Remember, it is more accurately described as the United Governments than the United Nations.) |
3. Next They'll Claim Scott Brown Shouldn't Drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee Hey, if you're going to pull the how-dare-you-mock-my-Native-American-heritage card, don't you have to be, you know, an actual Native American? Staffers for Senator Scott Brown chanted Indian "war whoops" and made "tomahawk chops" during a rally for the Republican senator this week in Boston. . . .presumably in reference to Elizabeth Warren's claims of Cherokee heritage. Jack Richard, Brown's Constituent Service Counsel is also seen making tomahawk chop motions. Jerry McDermott, Brown's State Director and Jennifer Franks, Special Assistant to Senator Scott Brown were also shown in the video at the rally, NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu confirmed. "It is certainly something that I don't condone," said Brown when asked about the video. "The real offense is that (Warren) said she was white and then checked the box saying she is Native American, and then she changed her profile in the law directory once she made her tenure." Because it's pretty clear that the Scott Brown supporters don't actually have any animus against actual Native Americans. They're mocking Warren for her implausible claim to minority status. The bigger issue is doing an Atlanta Braves chant in a state where most voters are Red Sox fans. Ann Althouse: "Anyway, these fake Indians, the staffers, are pretending to be real Indians, miming an attack on Elizabeth Warren on the ground that she's a fake Indian. There's a lot of fakery in there, but no one is expressing the view that it's bad to be Indian. That's all I wanted to say, and I do understand how real Indians might prefer not to be represented as stereotypical characters. And maybe they'd object even more if a non-Indian got a great job from an employer who was practicing affirmative action in hiring or self-promoting by claiming diversity." |
4. Could The NFL Referees' Strike Influence the National Mood this November?
Jeff Greenfield wrote the following, seemingly tongue-in-cheek, and I'm not so sure he should be joking. In the fall of 1994, I was, for some unfathomable reason, invited to schmooze with the president in the Rose Garden. It was a week or so after a labor dispute had shut down Major League Baseball, threatening the post-season. In a whimsical mood, I asked him whether he would consider invoking the Taft-Hartley Act -- which restricted the power of labor unions -- and order the games to resume. After all, the 80-day, cooling-off period mandated by the law would take baseball safely through the playoffs and the World Series. The president looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses (which may account for the fact that this was the last time I was invited to exchange ideas with the president). He took no action, and the rest of the baseball season was cancelled. What happened that November? An avalanche of votes, cast by what was described as a cohort of "angry white men," turned both houses of the Congress over to the Republicans, and set the stage for all that followed -- from a government shutdown to impeachment. And why were these white men so angry? Was it just a coincidence that, for the first time in 90 years, the World Series had not taken place? I would not underestimate that event as a signal to millions of Americans that the world had spun off its axis and no one could be counted on anymore. An event like that can only be bad for the "right track/wrong direction" question. Greenfield turns his attention to the National Football League's replacement referees, and the fact that a blown call gave the Seattle Seahawks an undeserved win over the Green Bay Packers Monday night. First, it could further sour the national mood, posing a clear and present danger to Obama. The pessimism about our condition -- a large majority believes the country is on the wrong track -- is rarely good news for an incumbent. And, in this case, the unhappiness with the state of football cuts across lines of race, age and gender. (Paul Ryan has already attempted to exploit this possibility by comparing Obama's performance to that of a replacement ref.) The second possibility is that it will help the president by underscoring the "one-percent vs. the 99 percent" argument. The National Football League is awash with money, resembling nothing so much as Scrooge McDuck taking his ease in a swimming pool full of cash. Its TV contract alone brings it-- I may be a bit off with the exact figure here -- 10 gazillion dollars a year. And the monetary dispute with the league's officials -- who have ben locked out since June -- is less than the players' budget for bottled water. Look, we all know that if President Romney suddenly becomes ill or incapacitated, that once the immediate crisis passes, one of the first acts of President Paul Ryan will be a national effort to overturn that call. |
4. Addendum
Latest controversy: "a new federal rule that sets calorie maximums for school lunches -- 650 calories for elementary-schoolers, 700 for middle-schoolers and 850 for high-schoolers." Seriously, we've solved every other problem in this country, huh? Federal government's got nothing better to do, huh? |
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