Kennedy Challenged Him For a Reason

Jimmy Carter is a good and decent man. And, no, not everything bad that happened during his time in office was totally his fault. But the facts are the facts, folks. Jimmy Carter's Presidency was NOT a successful one. I mean, just take a look at the economic numbers, for Christ. By January, 1980, the unemployment rate was 7.1%, the inflation rate was 13.9%, and the prime interest rate was pushing 16% (and, please, keep in mind, this is only the rate that the "good" customers get and even this went up to 20% by April of 1980). Add to that the long gas lines, the Iranian hostage situation, the botched attempt to free the hostages and, yeah, you can really see why Mr. Carter's face will never, ever, EVER, appear on Mount Rushmore..........................................................................................P.S. Obviously Mr. Carter deserves a lot of credit for his brokering of a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. That, folks, was probably his greatest accomplishment as President. That, and he also deserves a lot of credit for some of his post Presidential initiatives; Habitat for Humanity, in particular.

Two More Divisive Little "Gems" From Ann Coulter

1) On Herman Cain - "Our blacks are better than your blacks." 2) On Mayor Bloomberg (and the fact that he opted against dispersing the OWS protesters in New York City) - "Mayor Bloomberg has never been a very manly man."................................................................................................Look, I get it, people. She's trying to be provocative and get people to buy her books, pay more attention to her, etc.. Hell, I can even relate to it a little - being a provocateur myself. But, I ask you here, is there even an envelope for her to push any longer? I mean, really.

Pundits on the Far-Right that I Loathe

Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter (she actually kind of amuses me but, whatever), Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Levin (kind of a shame 'cause he's smart), Ollie North, Tracy Byrnes (some nasty chick on the Fox Business channel), Brent Bozell, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Mike Huckabee (and, no, I don't care how affable he is), Karl Rove, John Bolton, Monica Crowley, Melanie Morgan, Neil Boortz, Janet Parshall

Pundits on the Far-Left that I Loathe

Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Michael Moore, Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes, Markos Moulitsas, Chris Hayes, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Eric Alterman, Naomi Klein, Cornell Belcher, Paul Begala (he's borderline - more of a weasel than anything), Joan Walsh, Amy Goodman

Dean Wormer's (Free) Advice to Alan Keyes

"Yo, bra (yes, I did spice it up a little), spouting polysyllabic gibberish, feigning outrage, and foaming at the mouth is no way to go through life, son.".......................................................................................P.S. Needless to say, this advice of Mr. Wormer's wasn't heeded.

Thomas E. Woods on the Idiocy of "War-Time Prosperity"

"If spending on munitions really makes a country wealthy, the United States and Japan should do the following: Each should seek to build the most spectacular naval fleet in history, an enormous armada of gigantic, powerful, technologically advanced ships. The two fleets should then meet in the Pacific. Naturally, since they would want to avoid the loss of life that accompanies war, all naval personnel would be evacuated from the ships. At that point the U.S. and Japan would sink each other's fleets. They could then celebrate how much richer they had made themselves by devoting labor, steel, and countless other inputs to the production of things that would wind up at the bottom of the ocean."................................................................................................P.S. I would also add a question to this wonderful piece of irreverence. If in fact it WAS WW2 that got us out of the Great Depression, why then isn't it the case that the two conflicts (three, if you count Libya, four, if you count Pakistan, five, if you count Yemen, six, if you......) of today haven't produced a similar miracle? It's like, what, the sons a' bitches aren't big enough?

The "Devil" is in the Details

One of my main issues with extremists is their penchant to oversimplify. These individuals are constantly taking complex social, political, economic, and historical topics and reducing them; good versus evil, right versus wrong, effective versus ineffective (this one via the shameless utilization of cherry-picking), etc...............................................................................................Take, for example, the hard-core progressives' assessment of Ronald Reagan. Instead of simply saying that Mr. Reagan was a flawed man/President and/or holding the fellow responsible for specific events/problems (ballooning deficits, the Iran-Contra affair, Lebanon, etc.), these individuals have transformed the former President into this most monstrously evil of dark villains. It's absolutely ludicrous..........................................................................................................I mean, yes, Reagan DID make mistakes. Nobody of even a remotely fair mind would argue that. But the fellow also markedly reduced a) interest rates, b) inflation, and c) unemployment. That, I'm saying, and the fellow also brokered a landmark arms-control agreement with Gorbachev. The left, in my opinion, should at least be able to recognize this....................................................................................................P.S. And, yes, to be fair and balanced here, the same could also be said about what the right often does to FDR. Instead of giving the dude credit for things such as the bank holiday, his loosening up of international trade, the fact that some of the public works projects were actually useful, and, especially, his leadership during WW2, they're constantly demonizing him as some sort of pinko (this by focusing only on such boneheaded things as the NRA, etc.). This probably needs to stop, too.