| Dear Reader (including those of you who deny reading this "news"letter but concede it might be something you do in one of your drunken stupors), First of all, I am sorry that some readers are finding themselves in a situation based upon assurances they got from me. But I should note that, unlike president Obama, I was not lying. He said that if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it no matter what. I said that a Mentos-and-Diet-Coke enema will "change your life" but that you can keep the bottle if you like it. That remains entirely true. Still, I'm sorry about the situation some of you are finding yourselves in. I am not sorry for the situation the president finds himself in, because he put himself there. Toronto mayor Rob Ford may have regrets about the fact he woke up in a motel room with an acrobatic Swedish midget troupe and a shaved dead mule in the Jell-O filled bathtub, but he has no one to blame but himself (though Dietrich probably deserves a little blame too. He was always a particularly bad seed, probably because he was really from Norway). One final point on his "apology." Last night, Obama said again that he and his administration could have been "more clear" about what would happen under Obamacare. This is a small obsession of mine. The White House didn't tell the truth unclearly, it told a lie very clearly. This is a huge distinction. It's the difference between mumbling "Don't drink that; it's poison" and "Drink up!" I like Chuck Todd, but I hope the next time Obama gives an interview he gets called out on this b.s. framing. Double Down: Game Change 2012! I haven't read Double Down: Game Change 2012, though I might. Honestly, it's the kind of book I count on my wife to read so she can just tell me the fun stuff. But as someone who has grappled with publishers about book titles more than you might think, I can't stop laughing about the title. I'm sure the publishers figured they couldn't let go of such a great brand name as "Game Change" -- after all they got a really crappy HBO movie out of it! (Note: This is not open to debate. Any movie that depicts Steve Schmidt as a latter-day Thomas More is by definition craptacular.) "Game Change" as a title was dangerously close to a ridiculous cliché to start. But after it became a bestseller/stoopid movie the term became absurdly trite. By keeping it in the subhead after "Double Down" it's like they're literally doubling down on the triteness. I can only hope they keep this party going for decades to come. Some ideas: Outside the Box: Double Down-Game Change 2016. This Sh*t Just Got Real: Outside the Box, Double Down-Game Change 2020. Don't Go There: This Sh*t Just Got Real Outside the Box, Double Down-Game Change 2024. Oh No She Didn't! Don't Go There: This Sh*t Just Got Real Outside the Box, Double Down-Game Change 2028. I've Fallen and I can't Get Up! Oh No She Didn't! . . . Oh, you get it. You can play along at home. Schadenfreudapalooza I mentioned last week in this "news"letter that I was going to write a piece for the magazine defending and celebrating the schadenfreudtastic nature of the Obamacare debacle (Here it is, behind the digital wall). The piece turned out a little differently than I planned, and Lowry only gave me 2,500 words for the piece, which is like asking me to show Rob Ford a good time but only giving me a six pack of Zima and a game of Chutes and Ladders. Schadenfreude, as you know, is the "safe word" in Roger Stone's sex dungeon. But it's also a term we got from the Germans meaning "joy at the misfortune or failure of others." And, yes, I realize it is a sin in normal circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances. For starters, enjoying the failure of an idea can't be a sin, even if it means that by extension you are enjoying the misery of those enamored with an idea. When the Berlin Wall fell, conservatives and other lovers of humanity were justifiably jubilant. The fact that tyrants and their useful-idiot cheerleaders in the West were weepy about it didn't dilute the joy, it merely confirmed the factual justification for it. Now, the bumpy debut of Obamacare isn't anywhere near as big an historic event as the end of European Communism. But that's like saying Cop Rock wasn't as big a disaster as the Hindenburg. But that's like saying the explosion at the end of A Good Day to Die Hard (a popular motto in gay necrophiliac porn movies) wasn't as big as Hiroshima. But that's like saying Ronald Reagan's election wasn't as important as the American Revolution. (Note to readers, the analogy-generating center of my brain is in spasm in the wake of my NR piece. Please bear with me.) It was still pretty darn important. And, of course, Obamacare still might make it out of all of this intact. For instance, millions of people have grabbed hold of Medicaid and it will be very hard to get them to let go down the road. But conservatives are winning a huge ideological battle right now and we shouldn't lose sight of that. As long-time readers of mine know, one of my biggest gripes is the myth that the Left is "socially liberal" or "libertarian." As I wrote last September: Alleged proof for this amusing myth (or pernicious lie; take your pick) comes in the form of liberal support for gay marriage and abortion rights, and opposition to a few things that smack of what some people call "traditional values." The evidence disproving this adorable story of live-and-let-live liberalism comes in the form of pretty much everything else liberals say, do, and believe. Social liberalism is the foremost, predominant, and in many instances sole impulse for zealous regulation in this country, particularly in big cities. I love it when liberals complain about a ridiculous bit of PC nanny-statism coming out of New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C., Seattle, etc. -- "What will they do next?" Uh, sorry to tell you, but you are "they." Outside of a Law and Order script -- or an equally implausible MSNBC diatribe about who ruined Detroit -- conservatives have as much influence on big-city liberalism as the Knights of Malta do. Seriously, who else do people think are behind efforts to ban big sodas or sue hairdressers for charging women more than men? Who harasses little kids for making toy guns out of sticks, Pop Tarts, or their own fingers? Who wants to regulate the air you breathe, the food you eat, and the beverages you drink? Who wants to control your thermostat? Take your guns? Your cigarettes? Heck, your candy cigarettes? Who's in favor of speech codes on campuses and "hate crime" laws everywhere? Who's in favor of free speech when it comes to taxpayer-subsidized "art" and pornography (so long as you use a condom, if liberals get their way) but then bang their spoons on their high chairs for strict regulations when it comes to political speech? Who loves meddling, finger-wagging billionaires like Michael Bloomberg when they use state power and taxpayer money to herd, bully, and nudge people but thinks billionaires like the Koch brothers who want to shrink government are the root of all tyranny? This is also the subject of my column today (click for the Ghostbusters reference, stay for the punditry). Literally tens of millions of people think that voting for Democrats is the way to express their "live-and-let-live" philosophy. This myth is so deeply held, millions of people think permitting abortions in the eighth month is proof they are "live and let live" people. Think about that irony. Now, thanks to the entirely deliberate and foreseeable consequences of Obamacare, many of these same people are now being told they can't have the health insurance they want to cover the risks they think apply to them. Instead, they are being told -- with the distinct sound of the IRS's proctological glove snapping in the background -- that they must pay more for things they do not want and that do not make sense for them. Worse, they are being told that if they disagree, it is because they're not smart enough to understand their own interests. That's awesome. I mean it's terrible, too. But as a teaching moment it's awesome. The Gate Is Closing On Wednesday, 15 Senate Democrats trekked up to the White House to express their dismay over the impending calamity before them. Not since I felt the first gastrointestinal rumblings after eating a burrito at Newark airport has bowel-stewing panic been so palpable. Whatever the bobbleheads at MSNBC may say, they saw Terry McAuliffe's double-digit lead evaporate like so much Mr. Pibb on the engine block on an overheated Chevy. Obama's weaselly apology last night was almost certainly the result of that meeting. And since German words are in vogue (entirely because I say they are) the sensation they are feeling is Torschlusspanik. Literally translated, Torschlusspanik is the fear you're not going to make it before the gate closes. We all feel it when racing for a plane. We all felt Torschlusspanik when Indiana Jones was fleeing the Aztec temple. But figuratively, the word describes the "sense of anxiety or fear that one's life is passing them by and that their future opportunities are diminishing." President Obama is undoubtedly experiencing a hefty bout of Torschlusspanik right now as he watches the curtain come down on his "transformative" presidency ("Wouldn't that be Vorhang-Schließungpanik?" -- Herr Couch). He must know that the Democrats who stunk up the Oval Office with their fear-musk will flee him like he's a urologist with hook-hands if the White House doesn't hit the new deadline for Healthcare.gov. If all that Torschlusspanik doesn't have you feeling just a little Schadenfreude, you're kaput inside. Or as I say in my opening sentence in the magazine: "To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the unraveling of Obamacare." Ah, Youth You can't talk about Torschlusspanik without mentioning those darn kids today (well, I suppose you could, but who wants to live that way?). Don't worry, I'm not going to get into one of my rants about the cult of youth (though if you want one, please do buy my book. No, really, please). But another of my peeves -- and it's fairly closely related to the myth of libertarian liberalism -- is the idea widely held on college campuses that being liberal is "rebellious." Whenever I go on a college campus these days I try to hammer home this point: Your professors are liberal, your textbooks are liberal, your administrators are liberal, Hollywood is liberal, the music industry is liberal, the publishing business is liberal, the mainstream media is liberal, your high-school teachers were liberal . . . and yet you somehow believe you're sticking it to the man by being . . . liberal! This is, quite easily, the cheapest rebelliousness in human history. I could go on (I once wrote a piece for the magazine about how the college campus has replaced the classless society as the preferred End of History for liberal eschaton immanentizers). Torschlusspanik, the fear that life is going by without you, is one of the great anxieties of youth in every generation. But under Obama it has become epidemic for millions of our best and brightest. And yet they vote for Democrats. Actually, when you think about it there's a Butterfield Effect at work, to borrow a phrase from James Taranto. (For those who don't know, Butterfield famously wrote a series of articles for the New York Times trying to grapple with the "paradox" of how crime could be falling but prisons could still be filling.) Young People Keep Voting for Democrats, Yet Their Prospects Keep Getting Worse. One hopeful result of Obamacare is that it may now dawn on some of them that they want to live in an iPhone world, but keep voting for a post-office party. Now, not only are they going to be asked to pay for it, but they're discovering it doesn't work very well. That's such a bummer given how Obama made everything seem so easy when he visited campus five years ago. That's the thing about liberalism: the promising is easy; it's the delivering that's hard. Republicans have failed utterly in making this point rhetorically. But, perhaps just in the nick of time, cold hard reality came riding in from over the horizon to the rescue. Reality doesn't always change minds, but it has a much better track record than Republicans do. I know I keep saying it, but Edmund Burke was right. Example is the school of mankind and he will learn at no other. Various & Sundry This was a very busy week for me. But it was also a good week, mostly because of a single -- ridiculous! -- tweet from Charles Murray. Yes, that Charles Murray. Last week he read his first Goldberg File while playing poker in Charlestown (yes, it's called Charlestown because he's that good at poker). He then tweeted: @JonahNRO is what happens if you put the genes of James Joyce, Charles Krauthammer, and Hunter Thompson into a blender and turn it on high. But that is not the tweet I have in mind, though it made my week last week. Then over the weekend I wrote this little diatribe about Cass Sunstein's ludicrous column about the Tea Party. To which he responded: Okay, this does it. Jonah Goldberg is the most brilliant conservative writer under 60. And he has good competition. My initial response to this is, "We are going to get Charles the best doctors." I don't think he's right, but I also think Charles is brilliant beyond words, so who am I to argue? But this does raise an issue for me. As I've written before, I basically write this thing for myself. That's why sometimes it's dry and eggheady like Yuval Levin's scalp. And sometimes it's ribald and jocular like a weekend in Vegas with Rob Ford. Anyway, I'm honestly a little embarrassed whenever I meet people in the real world who read this thing. It happens more and more. But I'm even more nervous that people are reading this thing and not telling me. So, do me a favor. If you meet me in public, or even see me at the grocery store, and you've read this G-File (whether you like it or not) just say to me "Carthage Must Be Destroyed" and then we'll discuss it no further. Why I Love Rob Ford Imagine you're the mayor of a fairly respectable large liberal city. Imagine you have to go to lots of events where lots of people say boring things. Typical politicians fake their sincerity and pretend to be interested. But on the inside they are dying. Not Rob Ford. Who among us hasn't felt like this but lacked the courage to express it so succinctly through our body language? Who knew that John Podhoretz had the power to ruin women for all other men? The latest Glop podcast. If you want even more awesome foreign words, here's a good place to start. If you think you're having a bad day think of this guy. Watch to the end or don't watch at all! The lost bathroom of gold! Father of the Year! Classical music on electric guitar! Scenic Star Wars painting! Eleven percent of Americans admit to sex while driving. Oh that Joe! Batman vs. Superman trailer! It's about time! Pensions for police dogs! Wild animals founds in airports! This week's cool map. My kind of traffic alert! Abandoned toy factories! Excellent Holiday shopping guide. Perverted Holiday shopping guide. Sesame Street, around the world. | 
Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
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