A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: What a Coincidence

Wow. I guess my blog has a lot more clout than I thought. Major Garrett of Fox News sat down with President Obama in China. The interview was featured on tonight's episode of Special Report with Bret Baier. This is, to my knowledge, the first time Obama has appeared on a Fox News program since his election.

There's not much on the Fox News website right now, but there's a page here.

The Portly Politico strikes again!

***UPDATE: Video clip available here: http://video.foxnews.com/11711018/ ***

***UPDATE 2: You can find a transcript of the interview here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/18/transcript-fox-news-interviews-president-obama/ ***

A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: President Obama Should Go On Fox News

By now this is old news, but President Obama steadfastly refuses to appear on Fox News. In fact, his administration is waging war on the network, arguing that it is unpatriotic and accusing it of disseminating false information, primarily about government-run healthcare.

Of course, the network itself has covered and discussed and debated the President's unprecedented stance toward the network at length. Commentators like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, both harsh critics of Obama's plan for universal healthcare, point out the difference between legitimate news coverage--the bulk of Fox's daytime material--and opinion shows, which make up most of Fox's primetime programming. Besides, it's common knowledge that Fox's coverage tends to the right and other networks, especially MSNBC, tend leftward. Perfect objectivity is impossible, especially when covering politics and government. Reporters can't perfectly stifle their viewpoints and ideals.

Regardless, the Obama administration shouldn't wage war on any legitimate news outlet. A great article from The Root summarizes why perfectly, as well as giving reasons the President should seriously consider going on the network (as he did several times during his campaign, including his famous interview with Bill O'Reilly). You can find the article here: "Top 5 Reasons Why President Obama Should Go on Fox" by Sophia Nelson.

More updates to come. Check out Sean Hannity's interview with Sarah Palin tonight at 9 PM Eastern on Fox News. Should be interesting, although we're going to get all of the usual questions: "are you running for President in 2012?" as well as the usual coy responses: "I'm just going to do what's best for America." Still, I'm looking forward to what Palin has to say and how rigorously Hannity grills her.

A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: Personal Responsibility in the African-American Community

As some of you may know, radio talk show personality Rush Limbaugh has been under more scrutiny than usual from the Left lately because of his bid to buy the St. Louis Rams with a group of other investors. Race-baiters of all stripes are coming out of the woodworks to criticize Limbaugh for past statements that are allegedly racist.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not Limbaugh has or has not said racist things. Instead, I want to share a great article by LZ Granderson in which he argues that, regardless of whether or not Limbaugh is racist, the African-American community has to take stock of its own failures.

Here's a key passage from the article:

Limbaugh may be a racist, but he is not the reason there are more black men in prison than in college. We are.

Our issues did not germinate in a vacuum, but I believe the best way to get out of our socioeconomical malaise is to spend less time looking at what white people like Limbaugh are supposedly doing to us and more time looking at what we're definitely doing to ourselves. More time charting a new course based on personal responsibility, not victimhood and the retelling of stories, because let me tell you, some of those stories have been touched up so many times it's hard to know what's true anyway.

You can read Granderson's article here: "Commentary: Don't blame Limbaugh for our faults."

A Portly Politico Video Update: Glenn Beck blames godlessness for America

I found this video on a website called www.personalliberty.com. The site itself can be a bit overboard sometimes (when I took a poll on the site, I was sent e-mails about a book giving tips for surviving the downfall of civilization after an EMP terrorist attack), but this video is incredible. I recently read Glenn Beck's Common Sense (see another recent post for more--and be on the lookout for a review in the near future) and I am now convinced that, despite his occasional emotional breakdowns and outbursts, he has one of the clearest, most powerful visions for what Americans need to be doing right now to rally against an out-of-control, increasingly totalitarian government.

You can find the video here: Glenn Beck blames godlessness for America’s problems

Posted using ShareThis

A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: The Nobel Piece of Crap Prize

Shock and awe isn't just a term that applies to Iraq anymore. Now that phrase, minus the "awe" part, works for today's announcement that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I thought it was bad when Al Gore won the signature prize for "raising awareness" about global warming/cooling/climate change/lack of climate change, but now this? Evidently Obama was nominated after being President for only two weeks. Heck, I didn't even know that he had been nominated. Now he's walking home with what once was the greatest honor in the Nobel pantheon. Nobody has cared about the Nobel Physics winner since Einstein. Everyone, however, loves a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The stated reason that Obama won the prize is that he has set a new tenor for global cooperation and is attempting to ease tensions between the United States and the Islamic world. I'm willing to concede that he has a set a new tone for foreign relations, albeit an unrealistically idealist one, but "setting the tone" and actually doing something are entirely different things.

Another point--how are we gauging this "new tenor" of international relations, anyway? Maybe Europeans don't automatically think that we're all imperialistic pigs who love to spend money and watch television anymore, but so what? None of Obama's foreign policy initiatives have borne fruit yet. They may very well in time, although I find that unlikely except in a few instances. If nothing else, awarding a rookie president with less than a year of experience in office with the most distinguished prize in the Nobel family is premature. And that's the best case scenario. At worst, this smacks of just another feather in the cap of the Obama ego machine. Fortunately, we've all come to our senses, even if we did a year too late.

Even readers on MSNBC.com, who tend to be more liberal than not, are overwhelmingly outraged, or at least perplexed, by Obama's win. An unofficial MSNBC poll with comments demonstrates these feelings. You can see it here: Poll: "Is President Obama deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize?"

Source: "Obama: Nobel Peace Prize 'a call to action'"

The Portly Politico Returns!

Hello loyal readers (meaning my girlfriend and my old roommate from college)!

After a hiatus of slightly over two months, The Portly Politico is back! I just finished Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, which blew all of my preconceived notions of what a book by a conservative pundit can be. In conjunction with that reading, I will be writing an entry in the next few days concerning the potential for a viable third party to arise, which is something Beck devotes a significant amount of space discussing.

I have also started work as the Cultural Coordinator for the City of Sumter, South Carolina, where I manage the Sumter Opera House. Working in local government is a great experience. I know I talk a lot here about the problems with government spending and expansion, but local government is forced to think like a business: it has to be lean and efficient, and it must provide quality service to the public, and we do that everyday in Sumter. We avoid the sluggishness of the federal government and we don't go around raising taxes willy-nilly (and, of course, we can't print more money, either). In fact, the only rate increase instituted since the recession began last year was charging $8 a month for garbage pickup, a service that was provided free-of-charge previously.

One last update: Nikki Haley tore up the competition at the first Republican gubernatorial debate that was held recently at the Newberry Opera House. You can see a great clip here (be sure to turn up the volume--it's a very quiet clip): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqa4w-NUq1k

It's great to be back!

--The P. P.

A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: Talk Radio

I neglected to mention in my last post that, despite having listened to very little talk radio lately, I recently called in to a talk radio program for the first time ever. I was very tempted to say, "Hey, Keven, first time caller, long-time listener." The program was hosted by Keven Cohen and the topic was space exploration because it was the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing. I just happened to be driving through Columbia when the show began and I knew I had to call in.

My main point was that the United States should attempt to establish lunar colonies--or at the very least another moon landing--before China has a chance to get to the moon, mainly because the United States will make sure that the moon remains open for the whole world to visit, to enjoy, and to business upon. I also argued that the moon is a possession of humanity and should therefore be treated unilaterally.

One point I wish I had made was that the future of lunar exploration might lie with private enterprise. Space exploration requires huge resources and coordination, but if commercial value could be demonstrated on the moon, on Mars, or beyond, private corporations might pick up some of the slack for the government. In times like these it might seem questionable to spend money on the space program, so projects like the Google Lunar X Prize might hold the key to future private ventures into space.

Corporations aren't the only entities that can get involved. Non-profit organizations could make substantial contributions to additional research.

Regardless, I have written an essay on lunar exploration that I have never published, so I might run it as a four-part series over the next few days. Stay tuned for more.

Vacation Time (Part II)!

Well, I have been fairly deficient the past few weeks in updating this little blog. Even my last blog entry on the Fourth was pretty much a cop-out. Speaking of which, here are my reasons for being so delinquent in my updating duties:

1.) The week after Independence Day I was in Fripp Island, South Carolina, for a few days before heading up to Banaslam in Cornelius, North Carolina at D. Rowland's place. My girlfriend and I stopped in Beaufort, South Carolina on our way to the beach where I picked up the twice-monthly The Lowcountry, which included a fantastic article about the recent Mark Sanford affair. The author, Margaret Evans, places Sanford in a very tragic--and very human--aspect, pointing out his honesty, however belated, during his unusually sincere press conference. You can find it here: "The Bigger They Are..."

2.) I've had three interviews at two different employers, both in Sumter, South Carolina. I have had two interviews with the City of Sumter for a position there as their Cultural Coordinator (more on that later) and had a second interview with Thomas Sumter Academy, a private school, for a teaching position in English and History. Therefore, I've been spending a good bit of time traveling to and from Aiken, Florence, and Sumter, as well as doing research for these positions (these days, you can never be too prepared).

3.) I've been playing a lot of games on Steam, especially Half-Life 2 and some unique, five dollar games that I have ordered from Steam--Chains, a pretty colorful, highly-original puzzle game, and Blueberry Garden, a whimsical but subtly sinister game about a living and temporarily breathing garden suffering from a mysterious peril.

4.) I am exercising! My girlfriend and I walk three miles a day and we have--over my objections--started to jog lightly. Weight loss, here I come! Maybe I'll have to change the name of this blog....

5.) Despite all of my traveling, I actually haven't been able to listen to news talk radio that often. I only really listen in the car alone, so for about a week or a week-and-a-half I didn't get hardly any news from my usual source; ergo, I have fallen woefully behind on the current events of the day.

All that being the case, I do have a quick topic to discuss. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested the other day for ambiguous reasons. He arrived back from a trip and basically had to break into his own house. The issue is that Professor Gates is black, and he and others are saying that the Cambridge police department is racist.

Yeah, yeah--this is the same old song and dance. The arresting officer probably was motivated by race when he (allegedly) treated the professor roughly. Of course, the professor was probably being a smug, elitist punk when he (allegedly) talked down to the officer. They were probably both at fault.

I'm no big fan of cops, although one of them was very nice to let me off with a warning on my way to the beach the other week (and I was going fifteen over--thank you Officer DeLoach of Allendale). I recognize that they are necessary in our society to maintain order--the thin blue line and what-not--but police organizations can harbor some fairly dangerous and even racist contempt for the people they are charged to protect. I suppose this is the eternal problem facing police, who must constantly protect citizens that don't entirely appreciate them and who they don't entirely respect.

In fact, I don't even care if this arrest was racially motivated or not. Here's what upsets me: the way AP writer Jesse Washington covers the arrest in this piece: "Scholar's arrest is a signpost on the road to equality." Read the opening paragraphs: Washington is essentially arguing that because Professor Gates is well-educated and distinguished, he should be treated better than others who commit crimes. On the surface his argument is that because Professor Gates, a well-known African-American scholar, is treated poorly by the police, it just goes to show how much more poorly regular African-American men are treated by police.

That's not the point I see at all. I am enraged at the assumption that a Harvard professor deserves better treatment than others. Yeah, a lot of cops are probably anti-intellectual as well as racist. That doesn't matter. Professors contribute a great deal to society; they also sit on their butts quite a bit, too, especially the established ones. And honorary degrees, of which Professor Gates has over fifty, Washington tells us (probably due some extent to the fact that Professor Gates is a pioneering black scholar) are purely symbolic.

I'm not the only one. Dr. Boyce Watkins, an African-American, expresses some similar sentiments. I encourage you to read his article here: "Consider this before crying 'racial profiling.'" Maybe he has more cache than I since, in this color-blind society of ours, he's black.

Yes, there are plenty of white people who do despicable things to blacks and other minorities. Yes, there are a lot of elitist, ivory tower types in our universities. There are also tons of race-baiters out there who are all too ready to play the race card. In this instance, Professor Gates is probably right to do so, but he shouldn't expect better treatment because he's a distinguished professor at Harvard.

And, c'mon--how many skin-headed cops are really going to know a professor by sight? I don't know what Bernard Bailyn looks like, and I studied history at the graduate level and read several of his books.

So, yeah--welcome back.

Happy Independence Day!

Hey everyone!

Happy Independence Day! The Fourth of July really is a time for celebration. It's a time to gather with friends and family, eat some barbecue, and--if you're in my family--debate politics. I know, I know--in polite (read: Southern) society you're supposed to avoid three topics at the dinner table: sex, politics, and religion. Well, we somehow manage to break the rule as it pertains to the second of those three items.

Of course, this holiday probably won't be so contentious since my left-leaning brother and sister-in-law will not be present, which also means it won't be as fun. My younger brother's ultra-conservatism and my socially conservative pseudo-conservatism usually butt heads with them, and while things can get a little heated, it's all in good fun. We might leave the table without having changed any minds, but there's still a vigorous, if occasionally heated, exchange of ideas.

Debate is one of the things that makes this country so great. It's also something that we as Americans need to be careful about. My family debates politics a great deal, but sometimes we might cross the line in our passionate defenses of our viewpoints. So in the spirit of magnanimity and reasonable discourse, let me issue an apology to my older brother and sister-in-law, in the event that I have ever offended you while defending any of my positions. I am not apologizing for what I believe, but instead for those times when I may have gone overboard.

And we all go overboard sometimes. That's okay every now and then, but we need to maintain a civil level of discourse as often as possible. Getting into arguments around the dinner table with close friends and family is one thing; doing it on national television is another. Conservatives and liberals alike are guilty of incivility in our national discourse. While conservatives tend to get a bad rap because of talk radio and confrontational interviewers like Bill O'Reilly, I would dare say that the most vicious, unfounded attacks come from the Left. Bill O'Reilly might yell at and talk over his guests, but it's usually because he's frustrated with liberal double-speak and the unwillingness of his guest to say what they really mean. Sometimes you have to get a little rough to get to the truth.

I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives out there who call President Barack Obama names or who wish aloud that Michael Moore was dead, but the shrill, non-stop hatred coming from liberals is staggering. It's also extremely hypocritical. Hate speech legislation and university hate speech codes are almost exclusively leftist measures that, ironically, limit free speech. I'll admit--conservatives and Republicans take a pretty unpopular stance on these kinds of things. We tend to believe that people should be able to say what they think and and believe, even if it is repulsive. That's why we let liberals get away with so much. Ever wondered why liberal college kids weren't tossed in prisons in droves for saying such asinine things as "Bush lied, kids died"? It's because their right to say those things, regardless of how slanderous or treasonous they were, is protected in the First Amendment.

What about when the shoe is on the foot? Everyone hates the Ku Klux Klan and their message. It's morally reprehensible and offensive--much like anti-Bush protestors (I'm not trying to imply moral equivalency--the KKK is far worse than a handful of misguided New York Times columnists). But just because we disagree with what they say does not mean they lose their rights to say it. Liberals, for all of their fawning over the ACLU and the First Amendment, have a hard time grasping that simple constitutional truth.

Free speech is for everyone. Our Founding Fathers intended it that way. Also, I'm pretty Thomas Jefferson would have loved blogging.

Happy Independence Day!

A Portly Politico Two-Minute Update: A Message from Mark Sanford

Governor Mark Sanford regularly sends out an e-mail to those who are on a mailing list, I believe as part of www.sanfordforgovernor.net. The governor writes short e-mails to his supporters on a regular basis, informing them about certain issues being debated in the General Assembly or about up-and-coming politicians (I found out about Nikki Haley because Sanford sent out an e-mail linking to another blogger's post about her).

For those of you that do not receive these messages, or in case you missed the governor's speech last week about his marital indisgressions, I am including the full text of Governor Sanford's e-mail here. You can also find it at www.governorsanford.com. More commentary to come.

A Message from Mark

Dear Friends,

I write to apologize and ask for your forgiveness.

Well beyond the personal consequences within my own family, I know that at so many different levels my actions have upset, offended and disappointed friends and supporters and for this I am most sorry. As I mentioned in last week's press conference, I've always believed God's laws were there to protect us from ourselves, and what has transpired over this last week vividly illustrates the damage that comes personally, and to those you love and respect, in doing otherwise.

So in the aftermath of this failure I want to not only apologize, but to commit to growing personally and spiritually. Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride. They contended that in many instances I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes - but that if my spirit wasn't right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders.

Their belief was that if I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm.

They have also made the point that a good part of life is about scripts - that the idea of redemption isn't something that Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake should just read about, it's something they should see. Accordingly, they suggested that there was a very different life script that would be lived and learned by our boys, and thousands like them, if this story simply ended with scandal and then the end of office - versus a fall from grace and then renewal and rebuilding and growth in its aftermath.

I won't belabor all these points, but I did want to write as expressed earlier to say that I'm sorry and that more than anything I personally ask for your prayers for me, Jenny, the boys and so many others who have been impacted by what I have done.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Take care.

Mark