Patterico's Pontifications

He saw what they tried to do to him v. Ahnold, and decided being a Congressman from a relatively safe district wasn’t such a bad gig.

Tom is the Libertarian/Conservative that Ron Paul wishes he could be, but can’t until he loses that isolationist idiocy he’s tied to.

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 1:47 pm

Sean Hannity made quite a splash earlier this week when he played video of Ann Coulter’s CPAC speech in which she said Chris Christie must be drafted to run against Obama “or Mitt Romney will be the candidate, and we’ll lose.” Of course, now Coulter is all for Romney (probably largely due to Christie’s endorsement of him), and attacking Newt Gingrich as if he was Jerry Sandusky. However, I will never forget how Hannity laughed off the idea of choosing Tom McClintock over Ahnuld, even having Schwarzenegger on the air to state that he was a disciple of Milton Friedman (nonsense), he was for spending cuts in California (he didn’t), and supported civil unions but not gay marriage (he opposed Prop 8).

The GOP also rushed toward R-nold, insisting that he was the only one who could defeat Dem hack Cruz Bustamante, and dismissed McClintock. They also chose Dede Scozzafava in New York, and worst of all IMHO, Linda McMahon in Connecticut, whom they backed over investor Peter Schiff, who was laughed at when he warned about the ’08 crash in ’07.

L.N. Smithee (ac6f3c) — 12/17/2011 @ 1:52 pm

That’s a great way to describe him. Ron Paul without the RON PAUL.

He’s also well spoken, like Mitch Daniels and Paul Ryan.

He’s also too good to run for President. Everyone who runs for President must accept a certain amount of destruction to their family and their own life.

Mitch Daniels was also too good to run for President.

It’s time to fix the GOP so that it selects leadership a lot differently, starting with fixing primaries and the party leadership rejecting MSNBC et al to ‘moderate’ our internal disagreements. We also need to kick out (primary) those who endorse progressives at this late stage in the game of progressive policy bankrupting the nation.

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/17/2011 @ 1:53 pm

Dustin, you can’t ignore that the American People will always elect the government that they deserve.
So far, they’ve been lucky in that mid-course corrections have always been possible.
Whether that good fortune continues…

Wasn’t it Bismark who said that God protects Fools, Children, and the United States of America?

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 1:57 pm

I use to think that was true, AD, but seriously lets
look at the evidence.

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:07 pm

evidence?
That we elect the govt we deserve?
Or, that Bismark said that?
Or that God has been protected us?

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:41 pm

start with the last, and work backwards

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:42 pm

I voted for McClintock in the recall, too, even though he’s more socially conservative than I’d like. But he’s also a green-eyeshade kind of fiscal conservative and we need more of those. I had hopes of him being governor and line-item vetoing half the state budget.

Maybe he’d make a good VP, put in charge of the downsizing.

Kevin M (563f77) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:50 pm

Well, some have said that we stopped having the benefit of that protection when we allowed SCOTUS to boot God out of the classroom, and consign Him to the edge of the Public Square.

Whether or not Otto actually uttered those words…who cares?
Someone did, and they were meant IMO to say that we occupied an “exceptional” place in the world, which is completely denied by the post-modernists, who seem more apropos to the witch-doctors of old who cast about a lot of curses, but little of any good.

deserves…
When you allow yourselves to be conned, even when being warned that it is a con, you get what you deserve.
But, sometimes it’s like William Munny said:
Deserves got nothin’ to do with it!

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:54 pm

Weren’t both AlGore and Sloe-Joe detailed to bring efficiencies to government?
How did that work out?

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 2:55 pm

The only way you can make a given bureaucracy efficient is to ~~eliminate~~ eradicate it.

Kevin M (563f77) — 12/17/2011 @ 3:06 pm

Culling the herd is a key to genetic improvement.

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 3:18 pm

The government we deserve…

From a link at Instapundit on the hearings on SOPA, a comment:

“…Mel Watt (D-NC) said “i dont know anything about these technologies…”
then continued to say “when i was on the financial committee i didnt know what a dividend was either”
so he passed a bill that caused the crash of 2008 and now he’s passing a bill that will create another cataclysm.
moron.”

AD-RtR/OS! (75a477) — 12/17/2011 @ 3:34 pm

the American People will always elect the government that they deserve.`

Then we’ve been very very naughty.

Dustin (cb3719) — 12/17/2011 @ 4:37 pm

Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 12/17/2011 @ 1:57 pm

Wasn’t it Bismarck who said that God protects Fools, Children, and the United States of America?

No, it probably wasn’t Bismarck. If Bismarck ever said this, he wasn’t the first. It wasn’t attributed to him until about 1907.

Something like it apparently originated in France before 1849, and an early use is in the December 1856 issue of Harper’s Magazine:

Half of the people have been very sure that if he were elected the country would come to an end, if the world did not. But we are inclined to believe that the Union will last a little longer, and that we shall have some good times yet, in time to come. It has been said that a “special Providence watches over children, drunkards, and the United States.” They make so many blunders, and yet live through them, it must be that they are cared for, for they take very little care of themselves. So we are disposed to trust Providence, and not to worry.

– . “Editor’s Drawer” column in the December 1856 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Volume 14.

This was talking about the results of the 1856 election. Because it says the President has been elected but doesn’t mention his name, I would say that the column was evidently written before the election but was going to be read after the results were known. Half the country here means supporters of both major political parties. Half (not literally) thought Fremont would be a disaster, half thought James Buchanan. The article said not to worry.

(Now a free e-book)

http://books.google.com/books?id=dIQCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA135&dq=%22special+providence%22#v=onepage&q=%22special%20providence%22&f=false

It is a variation on a old French proverb of the 17th century:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Otto_von_Bismarck

Some early appearances in French:

* N’avez vous pas entendu dire, dit Guebron, que Dieu aide toûjours aux fous, aux amoureux, & aux ivrognes?

* Haven’t you heard, said Guebron, that God always helps fools, lovers, and drunkards?

o Marguerite (Queen, consort of Henry II, King of Navarre) (1708). Contes et nouvelles. p. 44.

* Dieu aide à trois sortes de personnes, aux fous, aux enfants, & aux ivrognes.

* God helps three kinds of people: fools, children, and drunkards.

o Berthelin, Pierre Charles (1762). Abrégé du Dictionnaire universel françois et latin: vulgairement appellé Dictionnaire de Trévoux. 2. p. 253.

This 1830 book has: http://books.google.com/books?id=LrfXzB4ZVFoC&pg=PA66&dq=proverb+providence+fools+drunkards#v=onepage&q=proverb%20providence%20fools%20drunkards&f=false

“That peculiar Providence which the French proverb truly says, always watches over fools and drunkards, brought him in safety to Rome”

Some post-Civil War American uses:

* I understand the saying that God takes care of children, drunken men and the United States.

o Curtis, George W (1882). “The leadership of educated men”. The Preacher and Homiletic Monthly (The Homiletic Review) 6: 695-703,696.

* There is a popular faith that “God takes care of children, fools and the United States.”
o Strong, Josiah (1885). Our country: its possible future and its present crisis. New York: Baker & Taylor for the American Home Missionary Society.

* We labor continuously against this seemingly popular American idea, that Providence takes care of children, fools and the United States.
o Brevet-Major Melville C. Wilkinson, “Relation of the regular army to the country in time of peace”, speech read March 13, 1893, Glimpses of the nation’s struggle (1898), 4th series, p. 57

* Why are the prosperous times for this country so largely due to the whimsical intervention of that Providence which our French friends say watches over fools, drunkards, and Americans?

o “Inverted protection”, New York Times, July 22, 1897, Page 4

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A00E6DD143CE433A25751C2A9619C94669ED7CF

sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 12/17/2011 @ 5:00 pm

__________________________________________

Why can’t we get a guy like this to run for President?

Because too many people have too much left-leaning impulse in the crevices of their brain, and they dominate blue states like California or blue areas like the Eastern seaboard, or too much of modern Western society in general.

In the “Mitt Romney, Mad Hatter” thread, some forumer who apparently is generally of the right said he doesn’t care for Rick Perry merely because he ran a campaign ad opposing the end of DADT in the military. That person said he doesn’t even support same-sex marriage, yet he was miffed by Perry’s stance. IOW, imagine how such a person would have responded to a conservative politician if he, as in your case, supported the idea of two guys or two women getting legally hitched.

If a large majority of people didn’t often go into the voting booth and think “jeez, this politician is too conservative for my tastes,” an ultra-liberal like Obama, even more so with his “goddamn America” background, would never have been elected in the first place.

If we can’t figure out why this nation has tilted so far to the left through the decades, or why people on the right are all too easily marginalized in so many instances, we need to look in the mirror.

Mark (411533) — 12/17/2011 @ 5:27 pm

Then we’ve been very very naughty.

Comment by Dustin

This cat can’t be from Texas. He’d have been shot by now.

Colonel Haiku (4664aa) — 12/17/2011 @ 6:03 pm

Hear hear.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 6:45 pm

Gun buybacks don’t target criminals.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 7:00 pm

Tom is my Congressman and he is a great one. He may, however, be too socially conservative to be elected to a State or Country-wide race.

But he is a great fit for Placer County.

CalFed (9551d3) — 12/17/2011 @ 7:01 pm

Repubs and Dems should agree with whatever is in front of them even if it is a bill making Obama president for life

/Sarc

Wall Street gave to Obama but it is the rich who line the republicans pocket.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 7:30 pm

Romney is undisciplined.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:08 pm

Obama has brains?

If Obama had brains he wouldn’t be supporting Michael Moore paying lower taxes after he said the rich need their fair share.

If Obama had brains he wouldn’t be endorsing the payroll tax cut after villifying the repubs as paid off by the rich.

If Obama had brains he wouldn’t be making gaffes after gaffes.

If Obama had brains he’d know his own daughters name.

But according to the useful idiot leftys Obama has brains Palin does not.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:11 pm

Why can’t we get a guy like this to run for President?

Because y’all have turned the GOP into what it is today and the current nomination clownshow is the inevitable result.

Enjoy.

B.Obama (e0fdd2) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:30 pm

Mark, you’re looking at this the wrong way, why has the left succeeded in part in ‘dissolving the people and electing another in it’s place’ as Brecht
counseled after the ’53 Berlin riots, it has to do with the preponderance of the left tilt in the cultural educational establishment, which the likes of Soros have dialed up to eleven,

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:31 pm

the payroll tax cut was a dumb idea …it’s just a welfare program for employed people is all it is

yes, America – while your once-proud little country is sinking into a morass of debt, your slut congress and your golf whore president have created a brand new entitlement for… PEOPLE WITH JOBS

*golf clap*

God bless America what an embarrassingly whorish and cowardly food stamp nation this little country has become

happyfeet (3c92a1) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:35 pm

Go eff reggie love B.Osuckma

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 8:35 pm

Isn’t it about time for the troll to be exposed & disposed?

Icy (a53963) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:01 pm

If they have to pass this FICA thing, they should split the difference and make it a 1 point cut instead of 2, so that when they get rid of it the next year it’s not so painful.

Kevin M (563f77) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:25 pm

I think #24 is fairly spot on Mr. Icy… there has to be an explanation for why the candidates are so sucky and third-stringy this year

but it’s probably complicated

happyfeet (3c92a1) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:32 pm

Maybe subcontracting so much authority to these MSM dominant debates wasn’t so swift.

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:36 pm

bingo

happyfeet (3c92a1) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:39 pm

If I remember correctly, Davis was going down and Tom McClintock was running against him. Davis had not chance of winning. Then out of nowhere, Arnold Schwarzenegger decides it’s time to run for Governator. Of course, he can’t run for President, and Tom McClintock could have. Some people think all of that was coincidence.

tyree (84087f) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:47 pm

I think Issa set up the machinery for the recall, then he stepped down, in favor of Arnold.

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:58 pm

The rich line the pocket of the dems which is why they don’t go to jail for tax evasion.

Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 12/17/2011 @ 9:59 pm

These debates show how fractured the gop has become.

sickofrinos (44de53) — 12/17/2011 @ 10:19 pm

At a loss why Rand Paul alloawed his dad to run instead of himself.

The best outcome we could hope for is a mess of a brokered convention, fraught with drama.And “Jerseu Shore”-viewing Americanslove a dramatic TV show much more than they give a shit about focus-grouped Luntz gibberish. And a really good candidate, like Paul the Younger or Ryan.

And despite that the GOP candidate among this cold doughy mess might still have a shot vs. The One, especially should he go to the matressses to stop the Keystone pipeline. As Ah-nold said in “Predator”-DO IT!

This could work out.

Bugg (ea1809) — 12/17/2011 @ 10:23 pm

a big part of the problem is you have three candidates – santorum, bachmann and perry – what are completely redundant

happyfeet (3c92a1) — 12/17/2011 @ 10:25 pm

Paul makes the whole party come across as F-Troop.

sickofrinos (44de53) — 12/17/2011 @ 10:31 pm

Well Paul was around last time, as was Romney, Bachmann is closer to Huckabee’s role, Huntsman is pinchhitting for McCain, and there’s no Guiliani
figure, no I don’t know where Perry fits in this role,

narciso (87e966) — 12/17/2011 @ 10:59 pm

the payroll tax cut was a dumb idea …it’s just a welfare program for employed people is all it is

Huh? How can a tax cut be a welfare program? I thought we were for tax cuts. (And yes, FICA is just another income tax.)

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/17/2011 @ 11:13 pm

Huntsman is pinchhitting for McCain

Except that McCain didn’t have all those wonderful policies. Huntsman’s policies are exactly what we here would be lapping up if they came from someone else. “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are Esau’s hands.”

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/17/2011 @ 11:16 pm

Paul makes the whole party come across as F-Troop.
Comment by sickofrinos — 12/17/2011 @ 10:31 pm

— Or Stalag 13

Icy (94b22d) — 12/18/2011 @ 1:03 am

FICA is an income tax but for many people it’s the ONLY income tax they ever pay

FICA is there to fund social security… but now its sole function is to win votes for America’s sad golf whore president

but social security is still being paid out – but cause these whores cut the payroll tax, pitiful America has to borrow money and redistribute it to the SS recipients

good luck with that

happyfeet (3c92a1) — 12/18/2011 @ 6:13 am

That is the perverse thing about it pikachu, it’s like setting off mines inside the Titanic, and saying you are salvaging it,

narciso (87e966) — 12/18/2011 @ 6:17 am

“Why can’t we get a guy like this to run for President”

Because he’d get 5% of the vote in the first primary.

glenn (877ee1) — 12/18/2011 @ 9:25 am

Paul makes the whole party come across as F-Troop.

Paul is a Libertarian.

Colonel Haiku (caa4c2) — 12/18/2011 @ 9:30 am

Paul is running as a Republican

CalFed (9551d3) — 12/18/2011 @ 12:05 pm

Again, Paul is a Libertarian.

Colonel Haiku (caa4c2) — 12/18/2011 @ 7:31 pm

FICA is an income tax but for many people it’s the ONLY income tax they ever pay

So what? The total income tax is split into two components, and one of them is given a different name; that doesn’t change anything. The total is still the true tax on income, and a cut in it is a cut in it, which we’re supposed to be all in favour of.

FICA is there to fund social security…

More hocus pocus. It’s one government, not two. FICA and the ordinary income tax both go to the same pocket, and SocSec is funded out of that pocket. They should have been combined decades ago, but FICA’s true function is to make the income tax rates look lower and more “progressive” than they are.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/19/2011 @ 12:00 am

Paul is a Libertarian.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. Libertarianism is what the modern “conservative” movement is about. It’s the only political philosophy that is morally defensible. And it’s the philosophy that motivated the founders of the USA.

Milhouse (ea66e3) — 12/19/2011 @ 12:02 am

Why do so many people oppose social conservatives anyway? If their entire agenda was enacted, it would affect only an insignificant minority of the population.

Natasha Jackson (64388b) — 12/19/2011 @ 1:13 am

I went for McClintock vs. Arnie too.

Why isn’t he running? I dunno – not a masochist, maybe?

mojo (8096f2) — 12/19/2011 @ 12:03 pm

And it’s one of the philosophy(‘s) that motivated the founders of the USA.

FTFY!

AD-RtR/OS! (dadeb3) — 12/19/2011 @ 12:10 pm

12/17/2011

Tom McClintock: The Best Candidate Is Not Running

54 Responses to “Tom McClintock: The Best Candidate Is Not Running”

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