Posted on 07/02/2009 3:01:44 AM PDT by Sarah
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Camp of Minneapolis-Saint Paul has made himself a wonderful career as a novelist under the pseudonym John Sandford. His best-selling Prey series features Minneapolis supercop Lucas Davenport. In one recent volume a character asks Davenport: "Why is it that Democrats are always having money scandals and Republicans are always caught in sex scandals?" Lucas replies: "My theory is that Democrats are guys who know how to get girls but not how to make money. Republicans are guys who know how to make money but not how to get girls. When they each encounter both readily available in politics, they fall for the one they're not used to." Within the space of a few days, two of the most powerful Republicans in the country, Senator Ensign of Nevada and Governor Sanford of South Carolina have confessed to extramarital affairs and resigned their honorary positions, although both still cling to their elected seats. They join names like Craig, Foley, Gingrich, Vitter, Livingston, Cunningham and Hyde as Republicans caught with their… er, guards down in recent years. It is not my place to moralize on the subject of adultery, but I do feel entitled to moralize about adulthood. This country is engaged in an epic battle between two starkly opposed ideologies. There is a group committed to the principle that individual lives should be subjugated to the collective will as expressed by government. It shifts tactics for convenience, sometimes saying the people will choose poorly, sometimes saying they will choose selfishly. Propelled by the hurtling momentum of an economic downturn, this cadre is within an ace of sweeping to a devastating victory. All that stands between us and tyranny -- quasi-beneficent tyranny, to be sure -- is a shrunken group of Republicans in Congress. To stop the deluge
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
OOps, where’s the auto-HTML?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
But if you dig a little, you find out (based on the totally flawed financial disclosure system that congress must comply with) that the top two NET worth levels go to: < drumroll>
< /drumroll>
Kerry and Harmon -- both Democrats. The top twenty are evenly split -- Democrat and Republican.
My humble theory -- Monetary scandals can get tied up in proving what money went where, who paid whom -- those long-term, tedious things which require attention spans beyond a 2nd-graders in order to unravel. By the time it's all sorted out, the congressthing has moved on, and can rely on the media's short attention span to move the public's attention to the next shiny thing.
Remember Pelosi's contention that the CIA lied? All it took to get her off the hook was a quick trip to China for a few days to let the relentlous news hounds (< /sarc> break off the chase.
No, Republicans and Democrats both have problems in both areas. It's just that Democrats are masters of managing public emotional issues -- after J.F.K. and Clinton philandering, Frank's home-based homosexual business, et al., what can be used to shame the party? Not much.
Amen. Since every fourth Democrat is an enfant terrible, could we have at least one party composed of responsible adults?
Everyone probably has the experience of working at a job where Employee A can show up late, break all the rules, piss everyone off and still gets treated as the golden boy/girl.
While Employee B just has to commit some hopelessly minor infraction and they’re called on the carpet and read the riot act.
No different here.
Has anyone read the novels the writer refers to,,SAndiford?
I love cop novels and wonder if this is a good series.
Now reading Jack Reacher novels and love them!
No, I’m so far behind in my reading it would take years to catch up :)
Tell me bout it. I am reading some good stuff,,classics,and workig my way through them but have to have cheap thrills too have a break now and then. I read the Reacher for the break but alternate it with Proust as I am determined to read In Search of Lost Time before I die!!!
THen modern novelists come along and you do have to sort of keep up.
Then there is Wodehouse,,cannot resist him. ANd Chekov for short stories.
Read Wodehouse a couple of summers ago - absolute magic.
Did Proust on an audio book driving down to FL - lasted about 6 hours or so and then had to quit. It started out kind of OK but I think he could have used a better editor LOL.
Read Count of Monte Cristo over the holidays this past year. Wow. There’s a book!
OMG! You haven’t read Sandford? And you like Jack Reacher? You’re in for a treat. Fasten your seatbelt and crack a Sandford novel. You’ll love them.
I love Wodehouse on golf,,every golfer should read his novella on that. I laughed the entire way.
Montecristo I read forty years ago but I may reread it.
Proust requires slow reading, reflection and an ability not to fall asleep. I am on vol 6 of In Search, I liked the old title Remembrance of things Past, and it is worth it. But vol i had 300 pages on Proust trying to fall asleep that almost unhinged me.
I will look up Sandiford,,I love that genre. Especially in the Reacher books when he talks weapons and tactics he uses learned from VN. Great reads.
Dickens and Faulkner are getting me. I think I am trying to read everything I never read before I die,,this all started with my cancer last year and continues. The kids are amused but it has been my great joy to read things I never had time to and especially in depth.
Woodhouse - read the compilation “Ask Jeeves” as my poolside reading last summer. Perfect pool reading IMHO - pure fun, and you just feel better about yourself and the world while reading it for some reason.
Count MonteCristo - Started it beforehand, but finished it while recovering from minor surgery around the 1st of the year. Magically transports you to another world that you just don’t want to leave. So sad when read the last of the 1400+ pages. Not as much a book as a mindset. Loved it.
Dickens - read Tale of Two Cities about a year ago and adored it and for some reason really liked the early parts in England - the carriage ride to the coast where the banker dude was going to head to France to get the ball rolling was particularly vivid. And this from someone who was forced to read David Copperfield in junior high school and hated every last word of it.
Also been reading the Maigret books in French and enjoying those immensely - don’t think they would be all that great in English however but not sure.
We should hang around at the pool. You can get all of Wodehouse on Kindle and I am reading his novellas, ordered the dv of the series on netflix for Jeeves. I think Wodehouse has nice characters.
I discovered ANgela Thirkell books,,touted as a 20th century Austin. Written from the thirties till she died, about 31 in all. ANd wonderful. Set in Britain in Bartetshire and the people and mores are delightful. I really love them.
My last Dickens was Bleak HOuse but I did Tale of Two cities before that. Got sidetracked but I saw Scalia in an interview sayng if he retired from the court he would spend the rest of his life reading Dickens. Again his complete works are free on Kindle.
Couldn’t get into Joyce but am going to try. Henry James was wonderful but got a little annoying with all his masochistic women characters.
I got a Kindle too - unfortunately now trying to wade my way through some non-pageturners on the kindle. As you can tell I’m on a French kid - loved Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education, and also The Red and the Black (all read in English).
My kindle is the best toy I ever had. I have a sony ereader and like it but th new Kindle two is great.
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