Posted on 01/15/2010 12:13:30 AM PST by Rummyfan
HH: I begin this Thursday with Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn, www.steynonline.com. Very few people have traveled as far around the globe as Mark. Mark, have you ever seen anything remotely approaching this Haiti thing?
MS: No, because I think Haiti is, certainly in the Western Hemisphere, as near as you can get to an entirely non-functioning state. By the standards of the Caribbean, its a failure and a disaster before the earthquake strikes. If an earthquake had happened to strike the Bahamas, or even the Turks And Caicos, it would not have looked like this. And thats why although earthquakes are indiscriminatory, and the earthquake certainly doesnt have any preferences to whether Haiti or the Dominican Republic, is either side of the border line, the impact of the earthquake is certainly very different according to what side of the line youre on.
HH: Mark Steyn, I know, I assume, and I think Im right about this that youll agree with me in rejecting Pat Robertsons analysis of why this happened. But why is it that Haiti is such a basket case?
MS: Well, for a start, it was a French colony rather than a British colony. I mean, we can make that comparison almost anywhere in the world. Im a bit of an old school British imperialist, and I know obviously the majority of your listeners for very good historical reasons will have a different view on that, but generally, and its a good guide in the world, even in the worst parts of the world, that if youre trying to do business, its easier to do business in Malaysia, say, than Indonesia. And if youre trying to do business, obviously, youre better off in Jamaica than Cuba, and youre certainly better off in Jamaica than in Haiti. And I think what it is, is that no nation was ever really built there. Its always very moving to me when you go to the British Caribbean, if you go to Barbados or the Bahamas, or wherever, and you go into those little parliaments, which are like little, mini Westminsters, you see the speaker with his wig, and the mace, and hansard, just like in London or Ottawa or Canberra, whatever one feels about imperialism, functioning societies were built there. There has never been a functioning civil society or public infrastructure in Haiti. And so when a natural phenomenon strikes, its devastating there, not just by comparison with an earthquake in California, but even by the standards of an earthquake in Iran, for example.
HH: I am hopeful that, when we come back, Ill talk more about the relief effort in Haiti, but Im hopeful maybe we can get the British imperialists to take over Chicago for a while, and introduce some semblance of civilized government there. Ive just finished reading the new book Game Change. Have you had a chance to read that yet, Mark Steyn?
MS: No, I only know these various juicy bits that have been leaked over the last few days.
HH: Well, I wrote a very long review of it for Townhall. Its up there today. But whats amazing is even though they set out not to hurt Obama, Heilmann and Halperin end up bruising him badly. He comes off as insecure and needing reassurance, self-important, cynical, megalomaniacal, petulant, spoiled, touchy, vain, hypocritical, over-weaning, deceptive, and those are the good parts.
MS: Yeah, and you know what I find interesting about that is that I think thats true of a lot of Obama boosters generally, that they dont realize, even when theyre trying to paint him in a good light, they dont realize that to a whole bunch of people, it comes over in a bad light. Its like a lot of those photographs they put up at the official White House website, that they think makes him look the coolest president ever, and which just make him look arrogant and disconnected to people who dont share that view. I mean, theres a lot of people who dont particularly want a cool president for a start, but who dont see it as something incredibly, fantastically cool, but just see a man who seems disconnected. And so I think that particularly has come into play since his disastrous performance after the Christmas Day attempt to take down that airliner.
HH: Yeah, whats remarkable, the people who come off the worst, though, is the media, because youve got Hillary and Bill wandering around obsessing about President Obamas past drug use and not being reported
MS: Right.
HH: Hillary muttering about Obamas mother being a communist. I mean, theres all sorts of stuff in this book.
MS: Right, right, right.
HH: None of it made it into the media.
MS: No, and I think that was a conscious, obviously that was a conscious decision. There was a great phalanx of protection around him. I remember the one time I saw him speak in New Hampshire, down in Southern New Hampshire somewhere, and he was, you know, he was ordinary. He was ordinary. And what was strange to me is that after the buildup in the press that he was this incredible being, this revolutionary being, this transformative being, that what struck me was just how sort of ordinary he was. And I made the mistake of, which I should know better of, of assuming that my colleagues in the press couldnt all be so misguided and deluded, and perhaps Id caught him on a bad day. But I think weve seen, actually, when we see him stagger through these listless, lifeless performances he gives, that in fact that is the real Obama, and the media invented a kind of alternative one out of their own kinky fantasies.
HH: Hillary at one point says, Am I the only one who sees the arrogance? Does it not bother other people? Bill says hes an, off the rack Chicago politician. Over and over again, theyre amazed hes an empty suit, and they cant touch him.
MS: Well, and the arrogance thing, and I think Hillary is right. I think there is, that you can certainly make the case, I mean, Im not someone who cares about sexism and mean-spiritedness, and all the other obsessions of the Democratic Party. But I think if you do, then I think that you can certainly make the case that Hillary was the victim of that, that in fact, hes in many ways a quite unpleasant man, this sort of curious habit he has of composing himself so that his hand on his face appears to be flipping the finger at you, which he has done a significant number of times, toward political opponents, that it doesnt seem like an accidental gesture. And I think this is the question .somebody said to me before the election, Obama isnt cool, hes cold, hes cold. And I think thats what America saw in the performances after Fort Hood and the Pantybomber.
HH: Im also beginning to think hes completely tin-eared politically. Theyve managed to take a terrible bill, the health care bill today, Mark Steyn, and make it even worse by unbelievably carving out a special deal for union members. If youre a union member, youre not going to have to pay the Cadillac tax. Thus if youre an automobile worker in Tennessee
MS: Yeah.
HH: Youre going to pay the Cadillac tax because youre not unionized. But if youre up in falling apart Michigan, youre not going to pay it. I think this is going to I think it may tip the Massachusetts Senate race to Scott Brown as people say to themselves, this is an out of control special interest Chicago meltdown.
MS: Yeah, and this is what it is. This is why I used to be a pessimist when I first started talking about this with you, Hugh. I thought we were heading for something as disastrous as Britain and Canada. But in fact, I think its going to be a disaster on a far worse scale than that, because if you take government health care, but you filter it through this corrupt and disgusting horse trading thats going on, the one thing you can say about the Canadian or British system is that there is an equality of awfulness. This idea of carving out special exemptions for favored clients of the Democratic Party, I mean, I hope Scott Brown wins in his special election, because I think that would be a huge, symbolic act to take what those arrogant Democrats in that decrepit one-party state of Massachusetts keep calling Ted Kennedys seat, and to reclaim it for the people, because of the disaster, the corrupt, disgusting disaster of health care, would be a huge, symbolic victory.
HH: Now whats your sense of your neighbors to the south, Mark Steyn? Theres some interesting polling out shows Coakley still has a couple of point edge in a few of these polls, larger in others, but there seems to be a lot of momentum for Scott Brown, www.brownforussenate.com. Whats your instinct tell you?
MS: Yeah, I think Martha Coakley, the question is whether Martha Coakley can recover to get herself a margin of victory. And she has no feeling for politics at all. Shes a classically stupid career politician. These half-wit observations that all the terrorists have gone from Afghanistan, so why do we need to be there now, this sort of insulated attitude that if you ask her a hostile question, youre stalking her, this woman is simply too stupid. I mean, I say this in a bipartisan spirit, because I thought it about that ridiculous Republican nominee in whatever New York Congressional district that was up by the Quebec border.
HH: Scozzafava, yeah.
MS: Scozzafave, yeah. I thought the same thing there. I think this woman is simply too stupid. 100 Americans out of 300 million get to be United States Senators. Even a decrepit one-party state like Massachusetts can do better than this pathetic husk, brain dead, non-functioning husk of a politician.
HH: On that note, Mark Steyn, thank you. Well talk next week, and hopefully, well be tipping glasses and celebrating Scott Browns ascension to the United States Senate www.brownforussenate.com. Thank you, Mark Steyn, www.steynonline.com.
End of interview.
BTTT
He's not a Nice Guy.
Even his wife tried to warn us about this, but she was shushed up.
I still think he will leave office early, on some pretext.
He won't be able to handle the vituperation which is headed his way.
Are you trying to say you have a slight crush on him?
'Bout time, too, what with all the guy Freepers and their crush on Ann Coulter...at least, those who haven't left her for Sarah Palin ;-)
Cheers!
But then that could describe so many American Presidents; if, by "so many," you mean, "exactly two."
Actually -- incredibly -- Jimmah comes off good in the comparison. In his picture he appears to at least be looking at someone else.
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