The Nine Lost Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

" Soon as we finish hacking up these Square Heads, I'm gonna have me a solid lie down, some snacks and then write some more of my Meditations. . . . . Hey, you hear about the German barber?  He charges only 4 Aureii ( $1) - an Aureus a side!!!    That's a knee slapper, Q!  Ain't it? Hey, .  .  .   What - am I boring you, Quintilius?   Hey, pay attention to me, Tribune, I can still have your 'nads shredded by wild hogs.  Good battle, huh?  We got any cold Falerian left or did my kid drink the last of it?  How about the red with a little less lead in it."

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy. Wikipedia

The Meditations is a series of twelve books by the Roman Emperor, who would become most famous for his role as Russel Crowe's patron and Joaquin Phoenix's Dad in the great gladiator movie Gladiator.  Irish actor Richard Harris plays the geezer Imperator, who gets snuffed by his kid.  

Marcus Aurelius spent most of his life as a soldier-Emperor on the German frontiers of the Empire.  He was a Stoic* in his philosophy.  Americans are no allowed to be stoics. It is believed that baseball great, Korean War hero and sportsman Ted Williams was the last American male stoic. Sarah Palin is the last stoic.

Recently, I learned that nine lost meditations had been discovered by dumpster divers in Saudi Arabia.  Finding the ancient manuscript wrapping uneaten lobsters.  I immediately obtained a copy of the find and set about translating these pearls of wisdom. 


I -Si aliquid est natum esse in ientaculum?

II -Ego sum adeo eger haedis cutem, diebus, post horas, cera cum stylo scribere.

III- Aliquam felis non haerent inter dentes arida dies tenent phone.

IV -Donec in metus congressu eruit.

V- Sed non deserit, nisi sunt tumidi,

VI -Et tamen ego me omni tempore quo libri bibliotheca eam oblitus pulvinar dui.

VII- Quis est, qui magna est frigidissima est quid? Locutusque est ieiunium, tardus incessus, quo bonum Mohair Sam.Sapiens erit semper amor Sam Mohair

VIII- Denique, ut in vino decocta Beer puteum spiritus frumenti et jugibus a forsit, Matey.

IX- Qui relicto in latrina paper volumen vacuum, et non ex necessitate moventur, ut domus. Et ego eum in provincia anus quatere canum fera fame sues senatus! Stoicorum sum, sed non finem;


( Translations)

1. Have we got anything to snack on?

2. I am so sick of these kids always smoothing the wax after I take hours writing with my stylus.

3. Fresh Dates will not stick between your teeth; dried dates hold the phone.

4. I like girls who put out on the first meeting.

5. We ain't leaving until we are heaving!

6. I had the book with me all the time and nevertheless forgot to put it in the library drop box.

7. Who is the coolest guy who is what am?  Fast Talking, slow walking, good looking Mohair Sam. ( video) Cats always dig Mohair Sam!

8. Beer on  wine; mighty fine; beer on distilled spirits of grain and you hae a problem, Matey.

9. Who left the latrine paper roll empty  and did not replenish that household necessity?   I will toss his anus and him with it in an arena of starving wild dogs, pigs members of the Senate!  I am a stoic, but there are limits!

*

Stoicism

First published Mon Apr 15, 1996; substantive revision Mon Oct 4, 2010

Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period. The name derives from the porch (stoa poikilê) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage—a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection—would not undergo them. The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Our phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It does not, however, hint at the even more radical ethical views which the Stoics defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that all those who are morally vicious are equally so. Though it seems clear that some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at odds with common sense, they did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed down to them from Plato and Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics and physics, the flesh and the soul respectively (another version reverses this assignment, making ethics the soul). Their views in logic and physics are no less distinctive and interesting than those in ethics itself.

McCain Goats Palin: McCain Lost the Election Because He Quit

I went bollocks to the bulwark for John McCain starting in the Spring of 2007, through his summer of discontent, into the Primaries and all the way to the election of Barack Obama. Barack Obama ran a disciplined and masterful campaign and really wanted to win.

Barack Obama won the Presidency and John McCain quit the race on Sept 19th 2008. He quit on TV. He was being asked about the collapse of the American Economy, when all the Maverick wanted to talk about was "Service before Self."

Sarah Palin was fighting to win. John McCain, the man that Commies could not torture and make him go home early and abandon his Mates in the Hanoi Hilton, spit out the bit.

My daughter won the race in the 3rd Congressional District as a McCain Delegate. I wrote many articles and hundreds of Blog posts. I made Speeches for John McCain. Rang doorbells; stuffed mailboxes in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. I was glad to do so - until the last few days.

John McCain has allowed his Campaign to smear Sarah Palin.

If John McCain's Campaign ( Steve Schmidt et al) had done one tenth of the Black Bag work on Barack Obama that they have been doing on Sarah Palin and with one one thousandth of the energy - John McCain would have been POTUS.

Schmidt cited an ethics report on the then-Alaska governor from her home state on an investigation into whether she had improperly used her government position.

I read this in Politco.com the other day. McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt ( a bald guy who puts his glasses on his forehead like he was William Kunstler - Hey, There's that Billy Ayers Magic! McCain tossed that one too.) is helping water-eyed Mark Halperin - a genuine weenie - sell is loathsome book. It is a tell-all Reality TV epic about the Campaign - I read some excerpts. Not much. This sparrow hearted turd Halperin is no Ted White, let me tell you.

Schmidt tossed out this crappy and gutless charge against Sarah Palin.

“She went out and said, you know, ‘This report completely exonerates me,’” Schmidt said. “And in fact, it — it didn’t. You know it’s the equivalent of saying down is up and up is down. It was provably, demonstrably untrue.”

That is pure unadulterated bullshit. An Alaskan Ethics report is the Up from Down?

I expect Sarah Palin to be spit at by the clowns, louses and losers - John McCain joined them.

Schmidt is a paid political sneak and doing his job. John McCain is a disgrace. I am sorry I voted for him.

I worked very hard for John McCain. I'm a Democrat. I knew that on Sept. 19th 2008 John McCain no longer cared to win the nomination - it was all over his face. The Economy tanked as did McCain's 'fire' and his campaign decided to make Sarah Palin the goat.

Jonathon Martin is one of the barbecue journalists who love the Maverick they created and play out of both sides of their mouths.

I voted early for and against Democrats here in Chicago, Illinois, yesterday. I will vote for Sarah Palin. McCain is no different from John Kerry - two men who never really wanted to win -it seems to me.

John McCain keeps lousy company, as far as I can tell. Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Martin and Mr. Halperin are indistinguishable and while I honor John McCain's military service I am disgusted by his crawfish political style.

I genuinely like and admire Sarah Palin. She is a happy, centered and good person.

I will work for and possibly even vote for Sarah Palin, if she runs for President - I rather doubt that she will do so.

I turn the channel when John McCain shows up. He is now as appalling to me as MSNBC - The Tool Shed.

Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin - Cammy You are My Kind of Gal! Well, Gal Pal Anyway. . .Look, I'm with Sappho Too. . .

Camille Paglia is great teacher of literature. I was OK. Ms. Paglia is a common sense Feminist; I am a devout sexist. Ms. Paglia is a devotee of Sappho (attracted to women) and so am I!

I'd buy her a beer the size of Connecticut

Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.

I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

Cammy, when and if you hit Chicago, I'll spring for steak that would gag Keith Olbermann and shut-up Chris Matthews . . .for a moment. We'll double! We can even take in some South American tunes.

Vote McCain/Palin - Read Pat Guest and Understand Why!

Pat Guest is a young husband, father, Queen of Martyr's parishioner, small businessman, and until recently a Chicago Democrat and voting for John McCain. Pat and I had a gentlemanly disagreement during the 19th Ward Aldermanic election last year and proved himself to be an articulate, thoughtful and witty counterpoint to my more splenetic and tribally coded voicings.

Pat Guest established a wonderful Website 19th Ward Blog and today articulates the very powerful principles underlying a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin on Tuesday. Here's Pat Guest:

American Principles Under Attack

Surfing through the cable news channels last night I was struck by what I heard. There has been a steady escalation of attacks on fundamental American political institutions and principles. But recently, the liberal press (MSNBC predominately, followed by CNN, and excluding Fox which everyone understands to be a right-leaning network) has become increasingly bold and overt in attacking Capitalism and Conservatism. Rachel Maddow took the opportunity to declare the failure of Capitalism when Alan Greenspan testified before Congress and admitted that perhaps he had made mistakes. Socialism and Egalitarianism have become popular topics for the likes of Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermann. Of course, they don’t use the word Socialism, but they are almost giddy when they proclaim the death of Free Market Capitalism, Federalism, and Conservatism. Our liberal friends have used the current capital crisis to promote extreme left-wing, anti-American philosophies. And, ashamedly, the current President is asleep at the wheel.

However, our current financial situation is not a result of the failure of an economic or political philosophy. At the root of the crisis is greed and criminal behavior on the part of CEOs and politicians of both political persuasions. People should be going to jail for lying to investors and manipulating financial figures. Where is the Congressional outrage? This is the same Congress that spent millions on investigating steroids in baseball. They even considered perjury charges against some of the baseball players that allegedly lied to Congress; how about investigating the criminals who lied to the American people and ignited the biggest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression. We have to remember that the two institutions in the eye of the financial hurricane are Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – quasi governmental organizations. This is not a failure of Conservatism. Nor is it a failure of Capitalism, or as Barack Obama refers to it,”…a failed economic philosophy”.

Nationalization and Socialism are not the solution. We can only hope, that if Obama is elected, and the Congress is controlled by a Democratic super-majority, that the American people will see what lies beneath the left-wing liberal rhetoric and reject it.

Patrick D. Guest

Vote John McCain/Sarah Palin - for the reasons articulated by a very fine American - Pat Guest!

Wendy Button: Obama Speechwriter Serves Notice and Supports John McCain -In Full!

Wendy Button talking to the Haircut Mac Daddy

So Long, Democratsby Wendy Button

Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.

A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”

When I entered this campaign, it was at the 2006 Edwards staff Christmas party. My nametag read “Millie Worker.” When former Senator John Edwards read it, he laughed and said, “That makes you like my parent.” He went on to say, “Would you please come down to Chapel Hill so we can talk about what’s coming up.” I sat in John and Elizabeth’s living room for two and half hours. I left North Carolina, energized about politics for the first time in months.

Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates.

I didn’t hear from anyone for three weeks.

When I finally received the official offer, it was the kind of political offer that said, “Go away.” That happens. It’s their campaign and I just assumed that I had been pushed out. The problem was that I had canceled a number of freelance writing jobs because I had assumed that when John said, “Start right away” I would. I needed a job right away and so I took the one in front of me with Senator Barack Obama.

When we first met, Obama and I had a nice conversation about speeches and writing, and at the end of the meeting I handed him a pocket-sized bottle of Grey Poupon mustard so he wouldn’t have to ask staff if it was okay to put it on his hamburger. At the bottom of the bottle was the logo for “The South Beach Diet” and he snapped, “Oh so you read People magazine.” He seemed to think that I was commenting on his bathing suit picture.

I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

See campaigns get complicated when you’ve written for so many Democrats. Not only had I written for Senator Edwards, but I had also been Senator Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter. Senator Joe Biden is a “good looking” man and his care after my father almost died from an aneurysm is the kind of kindness you never forget. When I saw Edwards at a traffic light in D.C. about a year after our meeting, he asked for help and I did and it was an honor to help him with his concession speech. And when the primary ended, it was a privilege to help Michelle Obama with a stump speech, be considered as a speechwriter for the V.P. nominee again, and send friends in Chicago ideas until the financial crisis hit. This is what the Democratic Party has been for me; it’s family. Now, it doesn’t even feel like a distant cousin.This drift started on a personal level with the fall of former Senator John Edwards. It got stronger during the Democratic National Convention when I counted the substantive mentions of poverty on one hand and a whole bunch of bad canned partisan lines against Senator John McCain. Some faith was lifted after Senator Hillary Clinton’s grace during a difficult hour. But that faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?
Info RSS Wendy Button is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for Senators John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston as well as other national and international leaders. She received her MFA in writing from Bennington College and is currently writing the CNN Heroes Award Show to air Thanksgiving night.

X Close
Oh right, this story goes to the sincerity of her Hockey Mom persona. What planet am I living on? Everyone knows that when it comes to appearance, there’s a double standard for women politicians. Remember the speech Speaker Pelosi gave on the floor the day of the bailout vote? Check out how many stories commented on her hair that day and how many mentioned Congressman Barney Frank’s.

Here we are discussing Governor Palin’s clothes—oh wait, now we’re on to the make-up—not what either man is going to do to save our economy. This isn’t an accident. It is part of a manufactured narrative that she is stupid.

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Before I cast my vote, I will correct my party affiliation and change it to No Party or Independent. Then, in the spirit of election 2008, I’ll get a manicure, pedicure, and my hair done. Might as well look pretty when I am unemployed in a city swimming with “D’s.”

Whatever inspiration I had in Chapel Hill two years ago is gone. When people say how excited they are about this election, I can now say, “Maybe for you. But I lost my home.”

Joe Epstein - Progressive Feminist Screamers -The Loathing of Sarah Palin

My career in teaching high school English is a lunch-bucket version of academics. Real teachers rarely become community activists, much less political polemicists. They are far too busy.

They get shuffled off to 'workshops' by the very people who could not hack it in the classroom and became Administrators with degrees in Education from the community college at best or mail-in diploma mills in order to hear Academics from the Colleges of Education who never once set foot in a classroom.

Teachers toss the hand outs and get in forty-winks, or grade papers while some tweedy jerk struts the stage and lights up the video.

Real teachers teach English, History, Business, Physical Education, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Languages. They are Jim the Physics Teacher; Donna the Volleyball Coach.

Seth the Fourth Vice Principal for Curriculum Development sets up Workshops and is paid seven times what real teachers make per year.

A Real Teacher from Northwestern University, Joe Epstein*, has recently scaled down his teaching load and written another book - this one on Fred Astair The Hoofer!

Today, Joe the Writer, presents an essay on the great shout-down: Joe The Plumber is being assaulted by the American Media, because he asked a question of Sen. Barack Obama and managed to pin Obama to the mat on his Redistribution of Wealth Agenda.

Joe Epstein concentrates on the Progressive pile-on by Progressive Feminist of Sarah Palin. The Progressive Feminists loath Sarah Palin, because the Governor of Alaska is a happy person. She is beautiful, successful, active, healthy, married, centered and powerful. Most of all they hate her because Sarah Palin is very happy. Most Americans are happy- beset by troubles, heartbreak, worry to be sure, but essentially happy. Progressive Feminists like Salon's Joan Walsh demand their Female Icons be as battle-damaged as she herself seems to be, but Sarah Palin, Doggoneit, is too happy!

Here is the nub of the rub from Joe the Writer:

Strongly liberal women get most agitated over the issue--though of course to them it is no issue but a long since resolved matter--of abortion. Abortion, to be sure, is the great third-rail subject in American politics. But when a male politician is against abortion, these women can write that off as the ignorance of a standard politician, if not himself a Christian fundamentalist, then another Republican cynically going after the fundamentalist vote. A woman not in favor of abortion is something quite different.

And it is all the more strikingly different when the same woman not only holds this opinion on abortion but acts on it and knowingly bears a child with Down syndrome, a child that most liberal women would have thought reason required aborting. What else, after all, is abortion for?

A few months ago Vanity Fair ran an article about the discovery that the playwright Arthur Miller, with his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, 40 or so years ago had a Down syndrome son. Miller promptly clapped the boy into an institution--according to the article, not a first class one either--and never saw the child again. Most people would have taken this for a heartless act, one should have thought, especially on the part of a man known for excoriating the putative cruelties of capitalism and the endless barbarities of his own country's governments, whether Democratic or Republican. Yet, so far as one can tell, Arthur Miller's treatment of his own child has not put the least dent in his reputation, while Sarah Palin's having, keeping, and loving her Down syndrome child is somehow, by the standard of the liberal woman of our day, not so secretly thought the act of an obviously backward and ignorant woman, an affront to womanhood. "Her greatest hypocrisy," proclaimed Wendy Doniger, one of the leading feminist lights at the University of Chicago, "is her pretense that she is a woman."

*Joseph Epstein (born January 9, 1937) is a Chicagoan essayist, short story writer, and editor, best known as a former editor of the Phi Beta Kappa Society's The American Scholar magazine and for his recent essay collection, Snobbery: The American Version. He was also a lecturer at Northwestern University from 1974 - 2002. He is a Contributing Editor at The Weekly Standard and a long-time contributor of essays and short stories to The New Criterion and Commentary. The late William F. Buckley, Jr. in his review of Snobbery called Epstein the wittiest writer alive.
Essay collections and books
Divorced in America: Marriage in an age of possibility (1974)
Familiar Territory: Observations on American Life (1979)
Ambition: The Secret Passion (1980)
Middle of My Tether: Familiar Essays (1983)
Plausible Prejudices: Essays on American Writing (1985)
Once More Around the Block: Familiar Essays (1987)
Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives (1988)
A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays (1991)
Pertinent Players: Essays on the Literary Life (1993)
With My Trousers Rolled: Familiar Essays (1995)
Life Sentences: Literary Essays (1997)
Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familiar Essays (1999, paperback 2007)
Snobbery: The American Version (2002)
Envy (2003)
Friendship: An Exposé (2006)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide (2006)
In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (2007)
Fred Astaire (2008)

[edit] Short story collections
The Goldin Boys: Stories (1991)
Fabulous Small Jews (2003)

[edit] Short Stories
My Brother Eli appearing in The Best American Short Stories 2007 pp. 85-112.

[edit] External links
"The Culture of Celebrity: Let us now praise famous airheads" in The Weekly Standard
"Friends Aren't What They Used to Be: The New Ethos of Intimacy" a review of Friendship: An Exposé, in Slate
"Kid Turns 70: And Nobody Cares" in The Weekly Standard
"Golden Juggler" a review of In a Cardboard Belt! by Joseph Tartakovsky, in the Claremont Review of Books

From the Good Folks at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Epstein_(writer)

Chris Buckley Explains What HE Meant by His Snub of McCain and Rub up on Obama

Heavens, Houlihan! How in the name of Hyrcania did House . . . Oh, hello. Dabbling in Geopolitical gamesmanship with estimable film maker Mike Houlihan - whose production of Tapioca premieres at the Gene Siskel Theatre on November 20th, 2008. Click my Post Title, Do! Oh, Do so attend. We were discussing the defection of dandified dabbler Christopher Buckley to the Redistribution of Wealth Syndicate of Camp Obama. Most dyspeptic over this. Salts, Please, Willingham! Now where was I, this certainly not Kansas - Ah yes Illinois -Bold Blue. Buckley, yes.

I could not get Chris Buckley to explain himself per his recent endorsement of Senator Barack Obama, as I did not try.

He is as top-hole a writer, wit, gad-about and nuanced parser as Kid Hope could ever dream of finding in his Redistribution of Wealth library - or as Sarah Palin might say - along with so many of us helots -Lie Barry. Hmmmmm.

Damme! I tried to recall, as best I could, exactly whom Chris Buckley most sounds like - there is a shiney new dime for whoever guesses the literary source for my imaginary journalism ( an homage to Huffington Post):

Chris Buckley, Poison Squirrels! Let's have it!

Hickey -'Mr. Buckley why did you eschew McCain for Obama?'

"You will agree with me that he is not everybody's money."

"There may be something in what you say, sir."
"Cleopatra wouldn't have liked him."
"Possibly not, sir."


You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower.
Scarcely had I entered the sitting-room when I found ... what appeared at first sight to be the Devil, A closer scrutiny informed me that it was Gussie Fink-Nottle, dressed as Mephistopheles.
We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.
Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.
The female in question was a sloppy pest
There is enough sadness in life without having fellows like Gussie Fink-Nottle going about in sea boots.
A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.
I consider that of all the dashed silly, drivelling ideas I ever heard in my puff this is the most blithering and futile. It won't work. Not a chance.
And a moment later there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and the relative had crossed the threshold at fifty m.p.h. under her own steam.



My Aunt Agatha, the curse of the Home Counties and a menace to one and all.
she cried in a voice that hit me between the eyebrows and went out at the back of my head.
"Have you ever heard of Market Snodsbury Grammar School?"

"Never."
"It's a grammar school at Market Snodsbury."
I told her a little frigidly that I had divined as much.

I goggled. Her words did not appear to make sense. They seemed the mere aimless vapouring of an aunt who has been sitting out in the sun without a hat.
"You're pulling my leg."

"I am not pulling your leg. Nothing would induce me to touch your beastly leg."

"But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask yourself that."

"I often have."
"I'm hopeless at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about the time I got lugged in to address a girls' school. I made the most colossal ass of myself."
"And I confidently anticipate that you will make an equally colossal ass of yourself on the thirty-first of this month. That's why I want you. The way I look at it is that, as the thing is bound to be a frost, anyway,one may as well get a hearty laugh out of it."

He had been looking like a dead fish. He now looked like a deader fish, one of last year's, cast up on some lonely beach and left there at the mercy of the wind and tides.
It's only about once in a lifetime that anything sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you don't want people taking all the colour out of it. I remember at school having to read that stuff where that chap, Othello, tells the girl what a hell of a time he'd been having among the cannibals and what not. Well, imagine his feelings if, after he had described some particularly sticky passage with a cannibal chief and was waiting for the awestruck "Oh-h! Not really?", she had said that the whole thing had no doubt been greatly exaggerated and that the man had probably really been a prominent local vegetarian.
"It's the sort of thing you would do."
"My scheme is far more subtle. Let me outline it for you."
"No, thanks."
"I say to myself----"
"But not to me."
"Do listen for a second."
"I won't."
"Right ho, then. I am dumb."
"And have been from a child."

"And, anyway, no matter how much you may behave like the deaf adder of Scripture which, as you are doubtless aware, the more one piped, the less it danced, or words to that effect, I shall carry on as planned. "
In build and appearance, Tuppy somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now was that of one of these fine animals who has just been refused a slice of cake.
The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn't played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.
"I don't want to seem always to be criticizing your methods of voice production, Jeeves," I said, "but I must inform you that that 'Well, sir' of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your 'Indeed, sir?' Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words 'Says you!'"
"Oh? I didn't know that."
"There isn't much you do know."

"Tut!" I said.
"What did you say?"
"I said 'Tut!'"
"Say it once again, and I'll biff you where you stand. I've enough to endure without being tutted at."
"Quite."
"Any tutting that's required, I'll attend to myself. And the same applies to clicking the tongue, if you were thinking of doing that."
"Far from it."
"Good."

And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming him on sight.
I remember when I was a kid at school having to learn a poem of sorts about a fellow named Pig-something--a sculptor he would have been, no doubt--who made a statue of a girl, and what should happen one morning but that the bally thing suddenly came to life. A pretty nasty shock for the chap, of course.
"Oh, look," she said. She was a confirmed Oh-looker. I had noticed this at Cannes, where she had drawn my attention in this manner on various occasions to such diverse objects as a French actress, a Provençal filling station, the sunset over the Estorels, Michael Arlen, a man selling coloured spectacles, the deep velvet blue of the Mediterranean, and the late mayor of New York in a striped one-piece bathing suit.
When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.". Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the point.
Though never for an instant faltering in my opinion that Augustus Fink-Nottle was Nature's final word in cloth-headed guffins, I liked the man, wished him well.
Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won't forget him in the general distribution.
Contenting myself, accordingly, with a gesture of loving sympathy, I left the room. Whether she did or did not throw a handsomely bound volume of the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, at me, I am not in a position to say. I had seen it lying on the table beside her, and as I closed the door I remember receiving the impression that some blunt instrument had crashed against the woodwork, but I was feeling too pre-occupied to note and observe.
"Goodbye, Bertie," he said, rising.
I seemed to spot an error.
"You mean 'Hullo,' don't you?"
"No, I don't. I mean goodbye. I'm off."
"Off where?"
"To the kitchen garden. To drown myself."
"Don't be an ass."
"I'm not an ass.... Am I an ass, Jeeves?"
"Possibly a little injudicious, sir."
"Drowning myself, you mean?"
"Yes, sir."
"You think, on the whole, not drown myself?"
"I should not advocate it, sir."
"Very well, Jeeves. I accept your ruling. After all, it would be unpleasant for Mrs. Travers to find a swollen body floating in her pond."


"Jeeves," I said, and I am free to admit that in my emotion I bleated like a lamb drawing itself to the attention of the parent sheep, "what the dickens is all this?"
I wouldn't have said off-hand that I had a subconscious mind, but I suppose I must without knowing it, and no doubt it was there, sweating away diligently at the old stand, all the while the corporeal Wooster was getting his eight hours.
If you can visualize a bulldog which has just been kicked in the ribs and had its dinner sneaked by the cat, you will have Hildebrand Glossop as he now stood before me.
"I've been through hell, Bertie."
"Through where?"
"Hell."
"Oh, hell? And what took you there?"

"Beginning with a _critique_ of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum."
"The boy is the father of the man."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about this Glossop."
"I thought you said something about somebody's father."
"I said the boy was the father of the man."
"What boy?"
"The boy Glossop."
"He hasn't got a father."
"I never said he had. I said he was the father of the boy--or, rather, of the man."
"What man?"

Besides, isn't there something in the book of rules about a man may not marry his cousin? Or am I thinking of grandmothers?

"My dear Tuppy, does one bandy a woman's name?"
"One does if one doesn't want one's ruddy head pulled off."
I saw that it was a special case.

I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.
He expressed the opinion that the world was in a deplorable state. I said, 'Don't talk rot, old Tom Travers.' 'I am not accustomed to talk rot,' he said. 'Then, for a beginner,' I said, 'you do it dashed well.' And I think you will admit, boys and ladies and gentlemen, that that was telling him."
"The fellow with a face rather like a walnut."
Nature, when planning this sterling fellow, shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and made the eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an Empire builder nor a traffic policeman.
"She loves this newt-nuzzling blister."

Newt Nuzzling,Sir? Why I never . . .well, rarely. Dear Old Pup, now, what Wode he say? Tah!

McCain/Palin: Palin Will Be Great and So Will Joe Biden

This will be a politcal event unmatched in viewership. The Debate between Senator Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin will be a study in two political agenda's. Palin* will will excite her audience with direct and intelligent appeals to common sense public service and Biden will display a mastery of issues with sparkle of wit and charm.

Katie Couric will continue to scratch for her political life at CBS; Gwen Ifill will cash-in her credentials as a 'career journalist' for a book deal; the Debate Commission will have revealed itself as hack-dominated clown opera; the Obama propaganda organ ( MSNBC, CNN, ABC,CBS, and NBC as well as the brokered print corporations) will whirl dervishily to cloud what everyone in America already understands about the Presidential Race; Hollywood will continue to act as if it matters; American voters will act according to the dictates of their hopes and commitment to their country.

Tonight's debate will be a great study of two dedicated public servants.


* Click my post title for a nice account of Palin's debating skills

McCain/Palin: Thompson on Palin and What Most Americans Know; The Media Will Not Allow It To Be So

Senator Fred Thompson states the case for Governor Sarah Palin. Most people I know feel the same way; yet, turn on the Tube, glance at the paper, or listen to the Radio and one might think otherwise. Sarah Palin scares the hell out of kooks and phonies - the power structure of my Party - the Democratic Party -is controlled by kooks and phonies.

Corporate NBC, CBS,ABC, most newspaper conglomerates like Tribune Company, Time/Warner, CNN, and affiliated DNC propaganda organs have done a pile-on of Sarah Palin and John McCain unknown hitherto in American politics.

This morning Senator Fred Thompson offers the view shared by most of the people I know - I know many people. I raise money from fabulously wealthy folks, drink coffee in the morning at Kean Gas Station with ComEd workers, Peoples Gas workers, County, State and City of Chicago workers and live among cops, firefighters, school teachers and a few community activists. I work at a Catholic high school ( Leo High School) that serves the poorest black families in Chicago. Two Leo Graduates were McCain Delegates - BTW. Here is how we feel.

When John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin, as his running mate, the Democrats and their far-left constituency let out a primal scream that could be heard from sea to shining sea. How dare he choose someone that they and their pals in the media had not had a chance to vet (i.e. libel, slander, and otherwise and otherwise eviscerate). Ah, but it was not too late. These seekers of “a new kind of politics” poured torrents of malicious abuse upon her and her family.

Plane loads of scandal mongers, lawyers and other truth seekers became more numerous in Alaska than the polar bear, as they rallied local Democrats and disgruntled Republicans to their cause.

Here was a woman who chose to have children and a career. Aging Washington socialites weighed in with newly discovered sensitivity for mothers with careers outside the home. Here was a woman who became upset because her ex-brother-in-law had tasered her nephew and threatened her father. The Democrats and their friends had to save the country from a woman like this.

Governor Palin’s every comment was scrutinized by the media and judged against what Jefferson or Lincoln might have said. Never mind that her counterpart, the 30-year-Washington-veteran Joe Biden, apparently is unaware that America relies upon coal for a lot of it’s electricity or that he recently referred to a top level U.S. official’s visit to Iran that never happened. That’s just Joe being Joe – protected by the sheer number of his gaffes and the fact that he is Barack Obama’s running mate.

For a while there it seems the fact that so many uninformed yahoos (average people) love her was going to drive the main stream media nuts. They had a hard time grasping the fact that people like her because she is precisely the kind of politician that everyone has been saying they’ve wanted: Independent, not a captive of the Beltway including a Congress with a 9% approval rating, who will take on hacks of either party; who has the tenacity to win and the courage to fight for the long-term benefit of those she represents.

Apparently what no one counted on was that a politician like this would actually show up on the national scene. The media was caught by surprise. The media doesn’t like surprises.

Naturally, there was a backlash to the treatment of Governor Palin and cooler-headed critics have largely concentrated on what they claim is her lack of qualifications. Of course much of the criticism of her qualifications reveals the application of the same old double standard. Less accomplished governors in times past have been considered to be perfectly “well-qualified” as VP picks.

However, it is a legitimate issue and should be taken seriously. I especially take seriously the criticism of people such as New York Times columnist David Brooks who I consider to be an insightful analyst of the political scene. He recently wrote that governance is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all it requires prudence. What is prudence? Among other things, it is the ability to absorb information and discern the essential current of events – the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and to understand which arguments have the most weight. How is prudence acquired? Through experience. Experience allows a leader to judge what is important and what is not. He added, “Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter.”

One can hardly disagree with the desirability of our leaders having the qualities that Brooks describes (putting aside the question of how many of our leaders who are not Sarah Palin have demonstrated these qualities). But there are other important qualifications, such as will, courage, and determination. Frankly, an infusion of these qualities into our body politic is desperately needed – not just to raise hell with the establishment, but to speak the hard truth about unpleasant choices facing our country. To push for choices that will, in the long term, benefit our country, our children and our grandchildren. In other words, things which “prudent” leaders are all too often reluctant to do.

For many years we have failed to address looming problems that will prove catastrophic to our nation. It’s not because we are bereft of leaders with great experience. And it is not because they do not understand the “essential current of events.” They know these things all too well. It is because they do not have the political courage to do anything about it.

Recently, a Washington Post editorial pointed out that even before the recent financial crisis on Wall Street, the Government Accountability Office issued a report declaring the federal government on an “unsustainable long term fiscal path.” This was primarily due to the projected cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, brought on by an aging population. We will be spending $41 trillion dollars more on these entitlements in the next 75 years than we will receive in payroll taxes and premiums, although the crunch will actually begin much sooner than that. And we already owe Japan and China about $500 billion each.

David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States calls this problem much larger than the recent financial rescue plan. In fact he calls it the “super sub-prime crisis.” Which bring me to the current sub-prime crisis.

Wall Street and Washington were full of people who were “qualified and experienced” in the field of finance. Sen. Barack Obama, for one, has a great deal of experience in the housing field. So do many of his closest advisers. I would have traded some of that experience for a few more leaders with less experience and more courage to buck the establishment and tell the truth about what was happening.

This brings me back to Governor Sarah Palin, and why I say that courage and political will are at the very top of the “qualification” requirements for today’s leaders. So the question is, how does Sarah Palin compare on that score with Biden and Obama, for that matter? Very well, I’d say.

Sarah Palin - Palin is Ready to Lead and Meet Her Critics - I Do Not Believe that They Will Care to Meet The Governor on a Level Playing Field

The front page of the Chicago Tribune features a nude painting done by a 69 year old artist - who employed his daughter as a model for Governor Palin. The Chicago Tribune editorial geeks are solidly behind Senator Obama. Along with the cork-screwing Sun Times, the Tribune engages in a daily beatdown of McCain or Palin. No big deal really as no one in Chicago seems to pay much attention to the Chicago editorial dweebs and pencil-necks who tend to live in lily-white suburbs while celebrating diversity.

With all the news that the Chicago Tribune is not covering - Tony Rezko, Willliam Ayers and their long and close associations with Senator Obama; another murdered Chicago Police Officer; multiple killings and shootings on the south and west sides; a moronic Governor bankrupting the State; Public Schools looting the budget and world wide terrorism; the editorial snobs decided to be edgy.

The painting is in no way offensive - its is badly done art, by what appears. It might be to Gov. Palin's father or her husband, but then again the 'artist' would cower behind freedom of speech and artistic expression to avoid a sound beating by either or both gentleman.

What is offensive is the 'nuanced' editorial gigglers. Nuanced means bullshit these days - Obama is 'nuanced.' Obama is using 'Middle Class' more than TV sit coms use 'Dude!' - when in fact, Obama committed to Trinity United Church of Christ which demanded that members 'disavow' the American Middle Class. That's Nuanced. The editorial Board at the Chicago Tribune is Nuanced.

The Chicago Tribune long ago shred its dignity along with editorial intelligence. No matter, people will stop buying the paper product and more hard working and effective people with the Tribune will be laid off - and the talentless and smugly mediocrities will soldier on.

The painting is of no consequence and even of less consequence is the Chicago Tribune.

A Chicago Police Officer was murdered by a drug-dealing thug - every day occurrence; the greatest financial catastrophe in decades brought on by Progressive nitwits and scam mortgage pirates; a simpleton Governor is bankrupting Illinois - but Chicago Tribune needs to mock the Governor of a solvent State running for Vice President.

Eric Zorn says that expectations for Gov. Palin are on the floor.

It is always great to hear someone display contempt and low-regard before a contest. Generally, it comes from someone who has never been in a fight, much less won one.

People who have actually acted in the interests of other people or been placed in a situation that requires dignity and courage from them never sneer at any combatant.

Most people, and Sarah Palin is like most people not Tina Fey, or Bill Maher or Sean Hannity, face life and the occasional opponent as if they were playing Notre Dame every day.

Then there are the nuanced - those who avoid the fights, the struggles, the commitments - and sneer.

On Thursday night Governor Palin will face a great Democratic foe in Senator Biden. She had best pack a big Lunch. She will do fine.

Then, Governor Palin and turn to chat with Salon, MSNBC, CNN, and the dweebs at Chicago Tribune. Pack a big energy bar cupcakes.

Sarah Palin - Change is Coming! Joe Biden will Limp Off Stage!

Tell the morons - Those Heights just past the water? That's Russia as seen from Alaska.

Sarah Palin has had to endure the contemptuous idiocies of likes Of Couric, Olbermann, Maddow, Maher, Matthews, Letterman, Fey and their Progressive print stooges and commenting lemmings in the blogosphere.

Wednesday night, the leash comes off the 'pitbull with lipstick.' Thursday Night - Hold the Phone, Joe!

Joe Biden, who massages his toncils with his Florsheims on a daily basis, will meet Sarah Palin for the first time and limp off the stage.

There will be no 'gottcha moments' orchestrated by sneaks like Couric who play on the good manners of Americans in order to serve up a victim. Couric and CBS have been a National Joke since the days of Gunga Dan Rather.

Sarah Palin was vetted by the McCain Campaign and the Media hate the fact that a genuine person in now poised to be a 'heart-beat away' from another genuine person.

Townhall's Bill Dwyer makes a nice bit of perspective.

I'm not saying that these photos and maps, by themselves, are any proof that Sarah Palin is ready to be a heartbeat from the presidency. I am saying that these photos and maps, by themselves, are indeed proof that she and others were telling the literal truth when they described Russia as sharing a border with, and being visible from, Alaska.


As for Gov. Palin's foreign affairs and national defense qualifications, however:

No job fully prepares anyone for the foreign policy and national defense responsibilities that attend the office of POTUS because no job shares more than a fraction of those responsibilities — including jobs like "Secretary of State" or "Secretary of Defense" or "U.S. Senator."

No new occupant of the office of POTUS has to undertake those responsibilities alone. Each is surrounded by advisers, including career professionals from the State and Defense Departments. In particular, any vice presidents who is suddenly elevated to the presidency is surrounded by advisers originally selected by their immediate predecessor, which would mean in the case of a hypothetical ascension by Sarah Palin to the presidency, advisers chosen by John McCain. As a former naval aviator and, then, commander of the Navy's largest air wing, and as a long-time senator with oversight responsibilities, active participation on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, and — extraordinarily even for Senators — direct involvement in international negotiations (as when he led the United States' efforts to negotiate the resumption of diplomatic relations with the same regime that once tortured him as a POW) — John McCain's own foreign affairs and national defense credentials are among the most impressive held by anyone ever to run for president. He will put a sound system into place that would benefit a sudden successor, and he would also be a superb tutor of a co-executive in his administration whose own credentials on foreign affairs and national security are less deep than his own.

Although border state governors have more interaction with foreign affairs and border security matters than other governors, in our federal system that commits overall commander-in-chief responsibility and foreign affairs (head of state) primacy to the federal Executive, no state governor has executive experience on these matters comparable to that which must be exercised by the POTUS. State governors are, however, executives, with experience running large organizations of a sort that mere legislators at any level — including U.S. Congressmen and Senators — don't acquire. That's part of the explanation for why America has so often elected state chief executive officers (governors) to become the federal chief executive officer (POTUS), often with salutary results (see, e.g., Ronald Reagan's victory in the Cold War).

Even with the limited role that our system apportions to state governors as commanders-in-chief of their state national guards and the state executives ultimately responsible for law enforcement within their jurisdictions, those governors still have and wield executive authority that includes putting guard members' and law enforcement officers' lives on the line — in enforcement of criminal law, in handling civil disorders and riots, and in emergencies like forest fires and floods. They send them into harms' way; they direct their activities while there; and sometimes, they have go to the funerals and hand flags to grieving relatives. And among all state governors, the governor of Alaska — as the state leader with closest continual proximity to a hostile foreign state — does indeed have responsibilities and obtain defense briefings beyond those received by, for example, the governor of Arkansas (which need not fear hostile bomber overflights from Missouri). No one can seriously argue that this compares to actually being the POTUS. But it's not nothing, either. And of executive experience in general, or experience personally making decisions that have put anyone's lives on the line in particular, "nothing" is the exactly appropriate description for both Sens. Obama and Biden, because neither member of the Democratic Party's ticket can match Gov. Palin's experience of that sort (or any other state governor's, for that matter).

Obviously, Gov. Palin was selected not to augment McCain's own strengths, but to balance the ticket: A governor to complement a senator, someone with executive experience in government to complement an experienced federal legislator, youth and energy to complement age and experience. (The conspicuous exception is that they both share strong credentials as vigorous reformers.)

Sen. McCain did a great deal at last night's debate to dispel doubts about his age and mental crispness, and those who vote for him may do so with the full and reasonable expectation that he'll ably serve out at least one term. Gov. Palin's own record of accomplishments in office, along with her electoral appeal and the prospect that she will join him as a crusading reformer in Washington, amply justify her selection, and her gubernatorial experience will match that of another young and dynamic GOP vice presidential nominee upon assuming office — one T.R. Roosevelt of New York. And when he suddenly ascended to the top job, he only did well enough to get his face on Mt. Rushmore.

“Bad manners make a journalist.” Oscar Wilde on Sarah Palin

“A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude”

Allow me, Governor.

Sarah Palin, though a resident of Alaska lives in my neighborhood. Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, Chris Rock, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Campbell Brown, Chris Matthews and all of your critics do not.

Sarah Palin, like my neighbors, Democrats largely, white and black, Catholic and Protestant,. . . Danny Levi who owned the Irish Temple Pub died last year, so Jews are scarce immediately - alot of Muslims near by.

They are great people with wonderful manners, even during Little League . . .not so much during softball, or Catholic League Games - can get contentious.

People in my neighborhood, like in Kankakee, IL, Elyria, OH, Bettendorf, IA or Moscow, WI are unfamiliar with creepy people. We pay Cable, Satellite and DISH companies for that. That is the only way boors get in our homes.

The gottcha game on TV is understood. Like I said Sarah Palin, is unfamiliar with jerks. People in the media capitalize on the good nature and manners of people. The more off-putting or ridiculous statement or lie tossed in the face of good person like Sarah Palin, stuns and is meant to stun. Good manners and propriety in a social setting, like an interview keep good people from responding to a stupid, misleading or offensive question.

The more stupid, misleading and offensive the jerk happens to be, the bigger the geek ( once freaks in side-shows who performed disgusting acts for pay) the bigger the network cache.

There will be plenty of time for Vice President Sarah Palin to let Katie, Keith, Rachel, Chris, Charlie and the others in on 'what makes her tick.' That will be must see TV.

In the mean time allow me to offer a sound byte you may wish to employ in the mean time:

Katie: 'Governor what makes you think . . .'

Sarah: 'Why, We call that a thought muscle up in Wasilla Katie.'

Keith: ' William Howard Taft . . .'

Sarah: 'The poor guy is dead, Keith. He left an empty space in many hearts. And in his environment. Really. Are you still biting the bubbles in the bathtub, Keith?'


Charlie: 'What is the Bush Doctrine?'

Sarah: ' It is the codification of beliefs, attributed to George W. Bush our 43rd President that holds that pussies in pinz nez glasses acting like Rex Harrison after a sponge bath by Paul Begala have about three seconds before my husband Todd reenacts Sonny kicking Carlo's ass from Godfather - that's a film Charley . . .here's Todd now!'

Rachel: 'With . . .'

Sarah: 'Not even With an Act of God Rachel. But bless you for asking!'

Chris Matthews: 'How . . .'

Sarah: 'Answer the Question Chris this is Hardball! This isn't Funny! Answer! "What Are You Stupid? My God ! "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” Winston Churchill said that about You Chris!'

McCain Palin: Obama is Dull, But He is Really Shrill

There's Atheists and then there's atheists. The other day I read a piece in Newsweek, an organ of Camp Obama, by Sam Harris. Sam Harris is the leader of the Reason Project dedicated 'to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy. It will convene conferences, produce films, sponsor scientific research and opinion polls, award grants to other non-profit organizations, and offer material support to religious dissidents and public intellectuals — with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition and bigotry in the world.'

Harris and HBO bigot Bill Maher a key player in the Reason Project smear and assault any and all religion. Harris attacked Sarah Palin as an icon of all Harris and Maher consider to betoo stupid to live. We are breathing their rarefied air it seems.

Harris is a punk philosopher, born in the age of 'don't hit him, he's weak.'

“Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/09/sam_harris_on_s.html

Theocracy? What manner of coinage does Brother Harris Use? Still says 'In God We Trust' behind George Washington's neck on all the U.S. Minted quarters that I toss into theparking meters. Sam Harris and Bill Maher hate religion like the Inquisistion hated heresy. 'Bastinado, for you Mrs. Murphy!'

Well Sam Harris is an atheist. Thene there's Chris Hitchens, the British wit and critic of religion. Christopher Hitchens has no truck for Church-going, Psalm-singing Rubes, but he genuinely loves them.

Where Harris and Maher have entered the lists as God Mocking Knights of the Woeful Countenance, Christopher Hitchens observes the battle from the grandstands of intellectual inquiry.

He is not 'unnerved' by Governor Palin, but he is bored by Barack Obama, who is not a Muslim, but a devout Christian without a Church, until after the election.

Why is Obama so vapid and hesitant and gutless? Why, to put it another way, does he risk going into political history as a dusky Dukakis? Well, after the self-imposed Jeremiah Wright nightmare, he can't afford any more militancy, or militant-sounding stuff, even if it might be justified. His other problems are self-inflicted or party-inflicted as well. He couldn't have picked a gifted Democratic woman as his running mate, because he couldn't have chosen a female who wasn't the ever-present Sen. Clinton, and so he handed the free gift of doing so to his Republican opponent (whose own choice has set up a screech from the liberals like nothing I have heard since the nomination of Clarence Thomas). So the unquantifiable yet important "atmospherics" of politics, with all their little X factors, belong at present to the other team.

The Dukakis comparison is, of course, a cruel one, but it raises a couple more questions that must be faced. We are told by outraged Democrats that many voters still believe, thanks to some smear job, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Yet who is the most famous source of this supposedly appalling libel (as if an American candidate cannot be of any religion or none)? Absent any anonymous whispering campaign, the person who did most to insinuate the idea in public—"There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know"—was Obama's fellow Democrat and the junior senator from New York. It was much the same in 1988, when Al Gore brought up the Dukakis furlough program, later to be made infamous by the name Willie Horton, against the hapless governor of Massachusetts who was then his rival for the nomination.

By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose—or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.

Look at the record, and at Obama's replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I'll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton's economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups?

Yep, Barack Obama is dull, but he is also shrill. Obama is negative - The Surge Can't Work! The Economy is Doomed! Americans Cling! Americans are Bitter! Americans Are Racist! Americans Are Not Elite!

Dull, but Shrill. There's Atheists and then ther's atheists.

McCain/Palin; Media Leading McCain to a Landslide Over Obama

MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post and every paper in Chicago wants Obama to President so badly that they making every effort to enusre that John McCain wins by a landslide. You see - most news readers and keypunchers in the Media have absolutely no idea about Americans - you and me. Most keypunchers with bylines are fed their stories by political stooges - let's say a dwarfish Cook County Commissioner wants Abner Nimblefinger to write an edgy expose on systemic corruption. Abner is treated to university think-tankers and professors who printout pages of gobble-dee-gook which Abner pees his britches to print. That is the state of news papers.

The TV readers skwak out whatever is put in front of them and then participate in political round-tables redacting exactly what they had read.

Obama has it made. Example, Steve Hayes writes,

According to the press, in recent weeks, the McCain campaign has so distorted Obama's record and campaign proposals that the young senator has had no choice but to fight back with old-school tactics. "McCain's tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns," wrote Politico's Jonathan Martin. "In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical."

And so while McCain's every utterance is factchecked and factchecked again in an attempt to shame him from challenging Obama too aggressively, Obama gets a pass.

Consider two examples.

On August 16, Pastor Rick Warren asked John McCain how much money someone would have to make to be considered rich. McCain didn't answer directly. "I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited," he said.

Then he made a joke: "So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?"

The audience laughed, immediately understanding that McCain was being facetious. Just in case there were any doubts McCain started his next comment by saying "seriously," to underscore the joke. Then he made a prediction.

"I'm sure that comment will be distorted," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
And it has been. "It should come as no surprise that John McCain believes the cutoff for the rich begins at $5 million," Barack Obama's campaign said in a statement. "It may explain why his tax plan gives a $600,000 tax cut to the richest 0.1 percent of earners." At a campaign appearance two days after McCain made the comments, Obama himself mocked McCain. "I guess if you're making $3 million a year, you're middle class," Obama said.

Some news accounts noted that McCain was joking and others even reported that McCain predicted his words would be twisted and used against him. In an August 18 article in the Los Angeles Times, Greg Miller actually did both and noted that McCain aides had made clear their boss was joking. "Even so," Miller wrote, "the remark highlighted the candidates' disparate outlooks. Analysts who study income distribution said the answers appeared to reflect shifting political calculations more than economic reality."

So Miller, writing under the headline, "Who's Rich? McCain and Obama have very different definitions," used McCain's facetious answer as if he had meant it. (Miller also speculated that Cindy McCain's family money may have shaped McCain's views of what constitutes rich.) Not only was Obama not called on his misuse of McCain's comment, reporters piled on. Is it any wonder that the line has made regular appearances in Obama speeches over the past month?

"Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans," Obama said in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. "I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year?"

Then there are the absurd lengths to which some reporters are willing to go to protect Obama and attack McCain. Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad accusing Obama of being too close to Fannie Mae executives. In particular, it claims Obama took advice on housing and finance issues from former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. The Obama campaign protested, saying that Raines was not an adviser and had not given Obama counsel in any capacity. The McCain campaign defended the claim by citing an article that ran in the Washington Post on July 16, 2008. That article noted that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Last Friday, the Washington Post "factchecked" the McCain ad and concluded that the campaign had been "clearly exaggerating wildly" in order to link Obama to Raines and that the "latest McCain attack is particularly dubious."

Factchecker Michael Dobbs wrote that McCain's evidence that Raines had advised Obama was "pretty flimsy"--not a description that probably endeared him to Anita Huslin, the reporter who wrote the story this summer. But Dobbs did talk to Huslin. Here is his account of their conversation:


Since this has now become a campaign issue, I asked Huslin to provide the exact circumstances of the quote. She explained that she was chatting with Raines during the photo shoot, and asked "if he was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. He said that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said 'oh, general housing, economy issues.' ('Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific,' I asked, and he said 'no.')"


By Raines's own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues.

Got that? Huslin stands by her reporting--that Raines had given advice to the Obama campaign about mortgage and housing policy matters--and yet the McCain campaign is faulted by the Washington Post for relying on information that comes from the Washington Post.

More amusing, though, is that in the rush to accuse the McCain campaign of lying, Dobbs glosses over a major discrepancy between the story that appeared in his paper and that of the Obama campaign. Obama spokesman Bill Burton claims that the campaign "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter." It is possible, of course, that Raines simply made up the conversations he described to the Post reporter. But it seems more likely, given the toxicity of Raines, that the Obama campaign would simply prefer that those conversations had never taken place.

Dobbs concludes: "I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls and will let you know if I receive a reply."

That's reassuring, since Dobbs has already decided that the McCain campaign has been dishonest. Two things are clear with six weeks left in the presidential race. Barack Obama will practice the old-style politics that he lamented throughout the Democratic primary. And the media will give him a pass.

Now, Americans read, remember and react. We remember that Obama was our State Senator and was a nice unaffected empty suit. Now he bills himself as the Rail-Splitter? Nope. That Don't Sell. Hoss.

Then along comes a genuine person - not a War Hero or Maverick, but a Hockey Mom with five kids and genuine talent. The Media recoils at authenticity.

Thus:

The media, though, has done more than simply subject Palin to questions not given to the other candidates. More importantly, it has been running interference for the Obama campaign, questioning McCain’s attacks on Obama while frequently reinforcing Obama’s on McCain.

Take a couple of examples from last week. McCain ran an ad criticizing Obama’s support for sex education for kindergartners. Seventy percent of the 2,774 news stories on McCain’s ad mentioned that the ad was a “lie” or “inaccurate.” The stories’ headlines indicate that if other ways of disparaging the McCain ad were included, this percentage would probably be much higher.

Obama’s supporter defend the legislation, saying that its purpose was to protect children from sexual abuse. True, the bill proposed teaching children not to talk to strangers, but one wonders if reporters actually read the entire bill. For example, the legislation also included this: “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.” How can you teach how to prevent these different sexually transmitted diseases without getting into some details about sex?

By the way, a grand total of 22 out of 2,774 stories that mention the bill include this discussion of HIV transmission, and many of those stories were still negative about McCain.

For a more direct comparison regarding Palin, look at how the media discussed the whole lipstick-on-a-pig story. The majority of media coverage again questioned the accuracy of the ad that the McCain campaign used to strike back at Obama (using words such as “inaccurate,” “false,” “misleading,” “untrue,” and “lie”). Obama says that he was surprised that anyone could think he was referring to Palin when he said: “you can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig," that the direct reference was to Bush’s policies.

But there are a few problems with Obama’s response. First, his audience thought he was referring to Palin. They started laughing and shouting after he said, "You can put lipstick on a pig," before he even got to the punch line. The AP wrote: Obama's "audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke." ABC’s Jake Tapper wrote that audience members told “reporters that they thought Obama had been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s” lipstick line. Politico noted: "Though on a day when Obama's surrogates were joking that Palin's record can't be concealed with lipstick, it was hard for those following the campaign not to hear the echo." The crowd also started chanting “No more pit bull,” indicating that the crowd got the reference to Palin’s quip at the Republican convention.

A Google news search found only 20 stories out of 6,074 mentioned the crowding laughing or shouting, and only two of those mentioned that they laughed or shouted before the punch line was given. Another search found only one single news story by US News & World Report that even mentioned both Obama’s lipstick joke and the crowd chanting “no more pit bull!”

Whatever Obama’s original intent, it would have been hard for him to claim that he was surprised that the McCain campaign would also draw the connection between his joke and Palin. Nor is it clear why he didn’t make a statement given the crowd’s reaction.

In Palin’s case, far from trying to protect her, the press frequently doesn’t even acknowledge that there might be arguments to be made in her favor.

-- The Bridge to Nowhere. The Alaska Democratic Party posted a Web page in which it declared that “State of Alaska killed bridge” -- that is the “Bridge to Nowhere.” However, after Palin’s vice presidential nomination the party took down the Web page. Yet, out of 7,556 news stories on the Bridge to Nowhere this month, a Google news search produces no hits on the phrase “State of Alaska killed bridge.”

Similarly, Sen. Ted Stevens, who was the king of the earmarks for Alaska and who had a “frosty” relationship with Palin because of her opposition to those earmarks, noted that “I don’t remember her ever campaigning for it. She was very critical of it at the time.” With all the news stories on this question, one would think that Stevens’ comment would be newsworthy, since it was his pork-barrel project. But there were only three news stories that mention his statements.

-- Cutting Earmarks. The media on this question has definitely been a bunch of “the glass is half empty” types. Instead of noting what Palin had accomplished, the game was identifying any earmarks that Alaska still received. Palin “cut nearly 10% of Alaska’s budget this year” and reduced the number of federal grants from 54 in 2007 to 31 in 2008 -- a $350 million, 64 percent cut in requests. Among the cuts in Alaska budget were a $30,000 van for Campfire USA and $200,000 for a tennis court irrigation system. Further cuts in future years were also promised.

But those changes weren’t the standard by which the media wanted to judge Palin. For example, Charles Gibson thought that he had gotten Palin in his interview when he noted that Alaska still got “$3.2 million for researching the genetics of harbor seals, money to study the mating habits of crabs” from the federal government.

Again, a simple Google news search shows how incredibly lopsided this coverage has gotten. From September 1 to September 15 there were 9,222 news stories that discuss Palin and earmarks. By contrast, a search that looked at Palin and her attempts to cut earmarks (using the terms "cut earmarks," "reduce earmarks," "trim earmarks," "slash earmarks" or "eliminate earmarks") produced incredibly only 50 news stories -- about 0.5 percent of the total stories. Even many of those 50 stories were critical and claimed that McCain had overstated Palin’s opposition to earmarks.

I spent some time looking at questions of whether Palin was properly vetted or the taxes that she imposed on oil companies, but the results were similar. Palin just doesn’t seem to get an even break, let alone the extremely protective news coverage offered Obama.

Groups such as FactCheck.org have helped put down many false rumors on everything from Palin supposedly cutting funds for special needs children to banning books, but the coverage that corrects these false claims never seems to be as heavy as the coverage making the claims to begin with.

Possibly there is a good explanation for why the media so selectively covers the two campaigns so differently. But whatever the reasons, Sarah Palin continues to receive significantly less positive coverage than the Democrats.

The Media is making sure that McCain/Palin wins the largest landslide victory in American Presdential History. With rehab and has-been Hollywood persons and the media against you, how can you fail?


E.G. Steve Hayes writes,

Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author of Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (HarperCollins).


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423443,00.html