We Andorians are fond of the term "pinkskins."
Posted on 07/11/2008 3:22:54 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The great danger in offering unqualified praise to another person is they could turn around, do / say something really stupid, and make you doubt your original judgment. That’s why the greatest praise for public officials comes when they are safely dead. From that position, they are unlikely to offer any new, public embarrassment.
Still, it’s important to climb out on a limb from time to time.
There are three people whose bylines I always follow. I have never ceased to be impressed by any column I’ve read from any of these three gentlemen (in alphabetical order): Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell, and Mark Steyn. The one I praise today is Krauthammer. By the way, I’ll save the public figure I am attacking, for last. Dessert first, liver and onions after.
Krauthammer’s latest column is “The Alter of Soft Power.” He begins with the incredible rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages from the hands of the FARC terrorists in Columbia. It was executed by the Columbian military without a shot being fired. American special forces played a critical role in the intelligence gathering that made the rescue work.
This was, he wrote, a classic example of “hard power.” That means using your military assets to get a result in a confrontation. “Soft power,” on the other hand, means negotiations, resolutions, mild sanctions, but nothing which would be called military or an act of war.
Krauthammer pointed out that in the six years that Betancourt was held in the jungle, all the governments of Europe repeatedly passed resolutions deploring the kidnappings, and urging Columbia to negotiate with the FARC captors. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez had offered to be a go-between. Only another use of “hard power,” a raid into Ecuador by the Columbia Army, revealed the truth.
In the Ecuador raid, Columbia killed a top official of FARC, but it also captured computers and their files which revealed that President Chavez was financially supporting FARC and working hand and glove with them. That use of “hard power” was attacked by European (and some American) supporters of talking with, rather than acting, against terrorists.
Krauthammer points out that “soft power” is the preferred action by many sources, including the UN and the G-8, against other groups of murderers including Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the Sudanese so-called leaders in Darfur, and the dictators in what used to be Burma, who allowed untold thousands of their citizens to die in the aftermath of floods, rather than let in foreigners bringing help (but also lifting the veil of secrecy in that benighted nation).
As usual, Krauthammer made a logical, penetrating analysis of a major public issue. He offered clear, supportable truth, which needs to be pounded into the mushy skulls of many leaders around the world. It is a pathetic commentary that the UN refused, this very day, to support any sanctions to get rid of the murderous Mugabe.
And now we turn to the opposite end of the scale, stupidity in public.
A Dallas County Commissioner in a public discussion of failures of the County’s Central Collections, referred to it as a “black hole.” Documents and money were going into the Bureau, and never being seen again. One black Commissioner demanded an apology, and another one, Commissioner John Wiley Price said that “that type of language is unacceptable.”
Warming to his task, Commissioner went on to condemn in the hearing other terms he considered racist, including the difference between “angel food cake and devil’s food cake.” He also objected to the use of the phrase, “black sheep.” And he used the phrase, “Jew you down,” as an example of a “racist” remark he deliberately would not use, because he is so sensitive to such matters.
To put no fine point on it, Commissioner Price is as dumb as a hoe handle. “Black hole” is an astronomical expression which means a collapsed star with such high gravity that not even light can escape. It was an excellent metaphor for a failed public agency. It is also a reasonable description of the quality of Commissioner Price’s brain, not because he is black, but because he shows world-class ignorance.
The more people we have in the public sphere like Krauthammer, the better off we will be. The more we have who are like Price, the worse off we will be. And, anyone thinking of attacking me as racially prejudiced, before doing so, find out the racial backgrounds of the three people I praised so highly at the beginning.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced law in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. He now lives in Highlands, NC, and is working on a book on Thomas Paine. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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John / Billybob
I respect Krauthammer more than any other pundit. Also I like saying the name Krouthammer.
Good choices, all.
How is the book coming along?? I am looking forward to obtaining a copy of it to read..
Think I'll stop and buy some devil's food cake on the way home. All in the spirit of race relations.
That'd be altar, John. =o)
We want both of them to keep talking.
John / Billybob
What has always drove me crazy, since I was a kid, is that “black people” are brown. Shouldn’t calling yourself an inaccurate color be corrected. We aren’t white. They aren’t black.
We are all a shade of brown (mostly).
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I was thinking about this today. The entire issue and classification system seem flawed. I don't call myself anything but an American. I never say I'm a white American, or an Irish American, and so on.
John / Billybob
Really, all sanctions are is a 'teeing-up' of the ball. The ball doesn't know when, but it's gonna be whacked.
What this world desperately needs is an Alpha male from the U.S. to keep these Beta boobs with bombs in line. Example: have we sent a dummy cruise missle to Mr. Dinnerjacket's compound, and if not, why not? He really needs to know who he's dealing with and his recent missle fireworks display demands a response.
Dinejad is no different than the dozen of other beta males who think they can replace us and then hump civilization and it's heirs into the straightjacket called Islam. Look, the Alpha male in a wolf pack would have already taken this punk's face off and made a point by now.
I figure, if you've got better plans than Mother Nature, produce 'em. Otherwise, you're just gonna piss her off.
Oh, as to these punk FARC in the jungle: if we have coordinates, we deliver some napalm and land a dud in Hugo's swimming pool, labeled "chlorine".
HA! I was just thinking if Sharpton saw the title his brain would be spinning trying to make a racial slur out of “hoe handle”.
Yep, right now in the summer with fishing and working in the yard, I’m more of a medium cream coffee color. Sorry to say that in the winter, I’m about the color of an aspirin, lol!
We Andorians are fond of the term "pinkskins."
Krauthamer, Sowell, and Steyn are excellent writers and I always enjoy reading them. However, there was one article by Krauthamer that really threw me - where he said he believed that higher gas prices were a good thing. I understand his logic, but emphatically disagree. But that is the only thing I can remember ever disagreeing with him on. He absolutely is one of the most intelligent and insightful men out there. I love Sowell for his wisdom and plainspoken manner; and Steyn’s wit is unmatched, in my view.
That commissioner sounds like he is just dumb as a box of rocks.
I guess I can’t write that book I was going to write about gardening: How To Handle A Hoe
What has always drove me crazy, since I was a kid, is that “black people” are brown. Shouldn’t calling yourself an inaccurate color be corrected. We aren’t white. They aren’t black.
Speaking of Thomas Sowell:Pink and Brown People and Other Controversial Essays (Paperback) by Thomas Sowell
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