- Hardcover: 384 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.31 x 9.24 x 7.02
- Publisher: Random House; ; (January 7, 2003)
- ISBN: 0375509038
- Average Customer Review:
Based on 3 reviews. Write a review.
- Amazon.com Sales Rank: 13
Posted on 01/08/2003 10:24:48 AM PST by Jean S
This phrase once indicated a stoic ability to endure hardship and stay morally upright, a lá Job. Now it indicates a bland, dogmatically banal affability, a lack of intellectual ability, a disguised hostility to reason, and an enthusiastic surrender of one's right to make critical life affecting decisions to congregational group-think and group hypnosis. This was not always so.
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"One problem, and a failure, of religion has been that it has been founded exclusively on what is called faith. When that faith is challenged by differing assertions, adherents become defenseless and frightened in their absence of developed, reality-based intellect. In other cases, religious conversion and participation are based upon moving emotional experience. When something else subsequently moves people emotionally, or when the emotional glow wears thin, they are left abandoned and vulnerable. Even within their religion, they are left vulnerable. When their religious institutions become corrupt, they are too dependent or emotionally bound to resist that corruption. Too many among the religious are left desperately seizing on religion in terror to avoid their intellectual helplessness. That is not a healthy hold on a congregation. It is not an appealing condition to convert into. The clergy need to function as rational psychologists as well as guardians of faith. Any minister who does not devote as much time sermonizing the rational basis and need for morality, for ethics, for personal psychological honesty as he does sermonizing the Bible is guilty of betraying his congregation. There needs to be as much reality-thumping as Bible-thumping." From: My Quarrel With Religion in America
I know. Let 'em. More people will read the book as a result. Bush/(Rove's) masterful political jujitsu has convinced me, after years of bitterness, that liberal media bias has been a good thing for Republicans.
Because the media aggressively questions conservative policies, and because liberal ideas are not so stringently or relentlessly challenged, our ideas are more carefully honed and more effective than those of the libs (where they may charitably be said to have ideas). For the same reason conservatives have developed more articulate and direct explanations for why their policies are better. Libs get by on good intentions, or by impuging bad intentions to conservatives.
Because the media chronicles and trumpets each misstep by conservatives, they have become more sure footed. Because the media won't let us ignore them, real problems are dealt with. On the liberal side such problems are allowed to persist and fester.
As an example, contrast Senators Lott and Murray. Lott was forced to pay a price for his verbal gaff. He was seen to be punished, he was seen to agonize over the assumptions he held that led to the statement, and he was compelled to revise early and inadequate non-apology apologies. None of this is true in Murray's case, and the issue of her comments will have much more "bite" when inevitably revisisted by a challenger. Now Trent may lose and Patty may win, but if so this will be due to factors of demographics and the like within their respective states. I would still hold that the media double standard led Lott to do more mitigation (however bumbling) than he would otherwise have done, and has led Murray to do almost none. In the long run this will hurt Dims.
As an even better example, contrast Nixon and Clinton. There is no way in hell, even adjusting for all relevant differences in the historical contexts, that Republicans would have, or would have been allowed to, treat former President Nixon as Dims have treated Clinton. Sure Nixon hurt Republicans bad enough as it was, but can you imagine how much greater in magnitude and duration the effects would have been if Nixon had been hailed by rank and file Republicans as a beloved and important leader after he left office? What if Nixon had been allowed to hand pick the RNC chairman? What if he had been allowed to run the Party apparatus in a major state and edge out a primary contender in the gubenatorial race. What if he had been allowed to dictate the national distribution of Party campaign funds?
The effect would have been that Republican would have been branded with the stigma of Nixon for at least a decade. That could even have meant no Reagan. Imagine that, no Reagan. If the Dims have anything like a Reagan out there (sorry for the disgusting comparison) he or she has much less chance to emerge in a corrupt party that has willingly embraced its clintonization. And that's a good thing!
Based on 3 reviews. Write a review. I don't think so. I think he is on the offensive in domestic affairs, with his own blend of conservatism, which some don't, but I don't care about labels. He is not afraid to push in the domestic arena what he cares about, whether it is tax policy or education, or whatever. He is a moderate conservative overall (but not that moderate on certain issues), and of course disappoints those who are more to the right, but Bush never suggested he was otherwise. Bush may have flaws, but false advertising is not one of them.
I think that Frum knows how to market a White House book to get media attention. Why do I think he released excerpts early so that it would appear to be a book of discontent, but in the larger context paints Bush sympathetically.
And humble, don't forget humble.
Attention security! Another patient is impersonating the staff. Attention!
I'd add one more thing: since the liberal bias in the media is so pervasive and uniform, they are easy to predict. Hence, they can be played like a fiddle by a deft enough musician, such as Rove.
Before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want some books from the major players of this time in our history...Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Roce, and Laura and George Bush.
Frum is probably the closest we will get for a long time, so I am going to buy the book and read it. It HAS to be better than Woodward's, who has the writing skills of a high-school junior.
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