Dear Columnists, Especially on the Right:

It is not “a woman’s right to choose.” It is more properly called “a woman’s right to choose abortion.” Without abortion she still has a choice: Keep her child or give the child up for adoption, both perfectly viable if heart-rending alternatives.

I read the phrase, which is, after all, only what everybody calls it nowadays–the common cant on abortion–in a Pat Buchanan column about something else entirely and it made me realize the more we accept the phraseology of the opposition, the more we legitimize their semantic sleight-of-hand. Now you see the abortion; now you don’t, because it’s become a “right to choose.” No, it is the right to choose the abortion itself, nothing more or less.

What is the matter with this man, Barack Obama? Does he really believe the people he’s speaking to are this stupid (and bitter and xenophobic gun-lovin’ Christianists, lest we forget) or has he been thinking in these nebulous sorts of proto-terms of over-arching meta-narrative for so long that he no longer can separate them from reality?

“I mean, it is true that part of the job when you’re running for president is that anybody who is tangentially, you know, even remotely associated with you is somehow fair game and that’s unfortunate because most of us in our lives –- we meet people, we know people, some people we work with or we sit on a board with — we don’t really go vet them and find out all the terrible things they might have done because, you know, we don’t know or what they said to see if it’s politically correct,” Obama continued.

Does he even listen any more to the crap that is coming out of his mouth? It’s one thing to take a concrete instance of horrible crime, a student massacre, and use it as a jumping-off point to talk about violence in general, including the ludicrous, degrading comparison to verbal insults. It’s taking “narrative” to a whole new level to say in one paragraph that William Ayers the unremorseful terrorist bomber is “tangential” to him and that he had no idea what terrible things he “might have done”. Ayers was so tangential and his crimes so long ago that he had no idea because he didn’t vet him even though he’s an ambitious politican who held a fundraiser at Ayers’s house. It’s too stupid even to bother to call Bullshit on it, but apparently that still needs to be done. What is the matter with this man? He actively works at disconnecting himself from reality, because the reality–that he associates with a terrorist and took political and spiritual advice, marriage blessings, and his children’s baptisms from a raving lunatic–is becoming inconvenient as quickly as it becomes known. Run, Barack, run like the wind. Keep spitting out these twisted balloons of nonsense completely untethered to reality. God save the U.S.A., John McCain, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This might work, to a point, phrased correctly, with Jeremiah Wright: I didn’t know he was that bad, honest. But William Ayers? Wikipedia and Google are just for starters; plenty of people much older and smarter than I were actually around when he was planting his little puff-bangs. And as a matter of fact I guess Google is now sprouting with Wright references, but the difference is, dear Barry, that Ayers was notorious long before your names were linked in the press for a little canoodling in a Chicago nonprofit joint or whatever the hell it was. It doesn’t take much. People just aren’t as stupid as you think.

H/t Hot Air headlines.

Can we just drop the word “former” from descriptions of “Obama’s former pastor”? Find some other word, like the literally true “retired.” He’s only former because he retired from the church and not through any action of Obama’s. A small but telling detail in article after article.

You’re giving Indiana a bad smell.

Photo caption:

Indiana 2nd Congressional District candidate Tony Zirkle addresses a gathering of the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party on Sunday in Chicago. The group was celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday while Zirkle spoke of ridding society of prostitution, pornography and the trafficking of “young, white women.”

Believe it or not, the photo doesn’t quite say it all:

When asked if he was a Nazi or sympathized with Nazis or white supremacists, Zirkle replied he didn’t know enough about the group to either favor it or oppose it.

Stupidest. Politician. Evah. Believe it or not, it gets worse:

“This is just a great opportunity for me to witness,” he said, referring to his message and his Christian belief.

Stupidest. Person to Use Christianity as a Fig Leaf for Unconscionable Political Moves. Evah. The cringe goes on:

He also told WIMS radio in Michigan City that he didn’t believe the event he attended included people necessarily of the Nazi mindset, pointing out the name isn’t Nazi, but Nationalist Socialist Workers Party.

You ignorant buffoon, the Nazis weren’t named Nazis either. They were the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. You don’t even have to be able to understand German to parse those cognates. And the non-cognate, “arbeiter,” is German for “worker.”

Embarrassment to Hoosiers, Republicans, and Christians everywhere. I can’t believe this man could pull it together enough to run for federal office.

“I told (Channel 16, WNDU in South Bend) in the beginning that I’d speak to any group that wanted me to speak,” Zirkle said Monday. He said he’s also recently spoken on the subject to a pair of black journalists.

“I’m keeping my promise. I’ll speak to any group. (The National Socialist Workers Party) was interested in the targeting of white people for prostitution.”

…

“That’s the risk you have to take to get your point across,” Zirkle said. “If the Black Panthers or the Jewish Zionists want me to speak about these issues, I’ll do it.”

I’m positive the Black Panthers will sign right up to get a talk on how porn and pimps drag down white women. And of course everybody knows Zionists are as bad as these people who Aren’t Nazis! Unmitigated moron.

H/t Hot Air headlines.

Telling people what they really think, and how they really think, seems to be going around. Justice Stevens of the Supreme Court says:

…current decisions by state legislatures, by the Congress of the United States, and by this Court to retain the death penalty as part of our law are the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process…

Well! Now that you’ve pointed that out, Justice Stevens, perhaps you can tell us what exact line of thought and conclusion would be an “acceptable” deliberative process. Or, rather, tell it to your fellow Justices and to Congress so they can get it right next time.

H/t Pat Buchanan.

“Divorce and unwed parenthood” are costing the American taxpayers $112 billion.

Now let’s see that figure again without this part factored in:

Several factors contributed to the costs, including anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and lower taxes paid by adults “negatively affected by increased childhood poverty caused by family fragmentation,” said investigator Ben Scafidi, economics professor at Georgia College & State University.

People who pay lower taxes than others “cost” taxpayers? Only in a country where the government demands a fixed amount upon which to operate and if Sally Unwed Mother can’t pay her $20 but pays $16 instead, then Johnny Small Business Owner has to pay $24 to make up her share, instead of what we actually are supposed to have, which is that everybody making $10,000 per year pays 6 percent tax (numbers pulled out of my ear for analogy purposes) and everybody paying between $10K and $20K pays 8 percent. Obviously Sally Unwed Mother costs taxpayers if she is on welfare, but in that case she’s not likely to be in this group paying “lower taxes”–she’s not likely to be paying taxes at all.

Take that figure out of your scary-big total, researchers, unless you think you can change the meaning of the word “cost” just using the power of other words around it. Which of course you do.

H/t Hot Air headlines. Of course.

Seen on a bumper sticker.

Pro whose lives? Pro the lives of tyrants who rape, murder, and imprison at will? No, it is not. Pro the lives of those who serve such tyrants? No, it is not.

Pro the lives of those living under the tyrant’s boot-heel? Yes, it is. Pro the lives of those killed in gas chambers? Yes, it is. Pro the lives of those, including housewives, being trained to kill “even one American” as Japan prepared to accept invsasion rather than surrender? Yes, it is. Pro the lives of soldiers proud to give their lives, if need be, in support of other lives? Yes, it is. Pro lives lived in freedom, pro lives lived without fear, pro lives lived with a voice in how they’re governed? Yes, it is.

Update: Many thanks to Ace and Hot Air for the links. And don’t miss Ace taking me all the way back to square one and reminding me that in the first set of remarks, Obama didn’t say a damn thing about family; he said “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” and then tried to spin it into meaning dependence on family and the community (”community,” lest we forget, one of the nauseatingly repeated trend words of the left) … and it still comes out as a bad thing in his lexicon. Because it’s what he really thinks. Well done, Barack. But it’s all part and parcel of the new left idea that only the family you choose for yourself matters … thus it’s honorable and decent for Barack to stand by the pastor whose rhetoric is abhorred by so many millions of voters, but “cling” to your family? That’s only because you’re in distress and oh yeah, it’s also raaaaaaaaaacist.

There are two main things that allow you to get along with other people in life: Making sure that what you say and do publicly are acceptable to enough people and making sure that how you really believe and act are acceptable to people important to you. Obama just let voters know how he really believes.

***

Keep digging, Barack. Dig yourself all the way to China, where they already have communism, and see how you like it, jackass.

Original remarks:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Got that? You can’t be frustrated about illegal immigration or anything else that matters to your ideas about how this country should operate or who should have to obey the law, really, you know you can’t. You’re just pissed that a factory shut down and took your job away so you have to have some outlet for that anger. Whereas (presumably) if you vote for Barry he’ll have your factory job back in a heartbeat so that you never have to consider moving, consider going where times are more prosperous, consider how you might alter your life to adapt to changing circumstances, changes that might actually end up being for the better.

Spin in Indiana Friday night, insulting the intelligence of my fellow Hoosiers, though judging by the applause, those present were begging to have it insulted:

They don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s gonna help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns … issues like gay marriage … take refuge in their faith and their community and families, things they can count on … so here’s what’s rich. Senator Clinton says, “Well, I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania …” John McCain says, “Oh, how can he say that? How can he say people are bitter?”

No, jackass, “bitter” was not the damning epithet. I’m pretty disgusted and bitter my own self at having to choose between an open-borders guy and a couple of socialists, one with racism thrown in for good measure. Saying people only care about religion, the right to bear arms, their families and communities (code, by the way, for they embrace only their own and despise, perhaps even violently, all other comers, out of this same bitterness), that was the damning bit. And sensible people in Indiana and elsewhere are hearing it, reading it, and knowing it. Keep digging.

Spin in Indiana Saturday morning:

I said somethin’ that everybody knows is true … people don’t feel like they’re being listened to. So they pray, and they count on each other, and they count on their families … you know this in your own life. And what we need is a government that is actually paying attention … fighting for workin’ people, [blah blah blah blah socialist code words up to and including American Dream].”

Once again, you’re not supposed to count on your family or your faith, you’re supposed to count on your government. He simply cannot fathom the concept that people do not believe this is the proper role of government, that nobody in their right mind wants to count on government for their needs and wants. So he says “I could have said it better,” but then goes on to say the same damn thing in the same damn way because he simply cannot believe it couldn’t be the truth.

This is the real Barack Obama, believe it. People counting on their families and God is not appropriate; these things are merely the refuge of the bitter. This is why his chosen church and his mentor/married-him/baptized-his-kids pastor are not about God but about race and class–because that’s all he believes in. People don’t vote their class identity not because they don’t believe this is an appropriate basis for choosing a government, because they believe individual rights are a better foundation, but merely because they’re embittered and don’t believe voting on class would change the class structure. There is nothing in his world but class structure and how he can alter it so that we’re all supposedly on the same basis, which in his mind means lack of inequity but in reality will result in nothing but lack of opportunity, lack of will, lack of ambition, lack of work, lack of achievement.

Keep digging, Barry. Hey, maybe there’s a silver lining: If you need to count on God and your family if your government doesn’t make your life turn out the way you want it to, then perhaps we’ll have a lot of converts to Christianity and family trust after you pull down the life edifaces of America’s wealthy.

And PS–if all the people you talk to are “bitter,” did it ever occur to you that these might be the only ones (not all of the populace or, it is to be hoped, even a majority) who want the government to put a bandaid on them and make it better, who might think it’s a swell idea to whine to a politician about how bad they have it (really, often, not that bad at all)? Seek out some ordinary folks without an axe to grind and then see how well your vision holds up.

Instead they want to be Tom Cruise in Minority Report:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

For once, I am on the side of people warning of the coming of the police state if this occurs in Britain. Also for once, I am on the side of their educational establishment, which is, thank God, horrified by the idea. Looks like there are some who want the idea of probable cause to be just as brief a flicker over there as freedom of religion is turning out to be. Here’s a free tip to those agitating for school vouchers in the U.S., or in places where they actually already have them: Stop calling them vouchers and don’t let anybody, ever, say they are state money. They aren’t. They’re your own taxes being returned to you so that you can support your child in the school of your choice rather than support other people’s children in schools of the government’s choice. The moment you concede the semantics that it’s state money being “given” to you for a voucher, you open the door to the kind of nonsense they’re saying in Britain over the Catholic school:

“A lot of taxpayers’ money is going into church schools and I think we should tease out what is happening here,” said Mr Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield.

The only taxpayers whose money it is (or should be; nobody should get more back for programs like this than what they paid into the educational system to begin with) is yours. It’s your money. Take it back and don’t let them call it state money, or pretty soon your private or religious school will come under state control as well.

Both links via AoSHQ, where Gabriel has some pithy comments.

Xrlq on Obama/Wright:

The silliest angle of all, I think, is that Obama should get a pass on Wright because he engaged him as a spiritual adviser, not a political one. That’s like saying “Don’t judge me by Mr. God-Damn-America, voters, I only look to that guy to find out what I’m supposed to really believe, not what I’m supposed to say to you to get elected.”

Seen frequently on the blogs of incredibly smart people who shall not be linked: “…forbidden from [doing something here … whatever kind of something you wish, be it innocent, salacious, carefree, what have you]”. You can’t forbid people from doing something; you can only forbid them to do it and hope they listen and punish them markedly when they don’t.

Don’t these people remember their childhoods? “Little Jimmy Blogger, I absolutely FORBID YOU TO ride your bike in the irrigation canal … Little Sarah Blogger, I positively FORBID YOU TO unravel all of that doll’s hair … Little Tommy Blogger, your father has FORBIDDEN YOU TO speak to him that way …”

I couldn’t guess how this one got started. But it needs to end before it spreads farther. I forbid you to do it. So there.

I love to read Anne’s LifePundit blog, so I hope she won’t be upset that I’m picking on her a bit here. As Calvin and Hobbes once ruminated, “Verbing weirds language.” And although verbing words may be a clever shorthand and perfectly understandable, like many things that are at first new and cool, after a while it can seem affected and pretentious. Anne’s use is one of the oldest forms of verbing I’ve observed in my lifetime and has definitely passed over into the “pretentious” stage:

To stay on track, I will journal every day.

To stay on track, perhaps she should write in a journal every day or even keep a daily journal, but to journal every day sounds both mysterious and banal* at the same time, like it’s the current hot fad that she will do because everybody says it will be good for her (and, in fact, a hot trend in all the various levels of schooling plus psychological journeying was indeed, as far as I know, the origin of the verbing of the noun “journal,” at least in its current incarnation). Now Anne’s a writer and she’s not keeping a journal because it’s a fad, but because she understands that this is something that works for her personally, I suspect. So remove the trendy jargon usage from the word and it goes back to being more a serious, thoughtful act of reflection than something she’s doing because she read it in the Oprah magazine. (Yes, if you’re wondering, I crack myself up, even if nobody else laughs.)

There’s the $.02 Anwyn’s Note on verbing. Don’t do it, especially when it’s popular.

Maybe for Lent, I should give up pointing out people’s bad grammar habits.

*I frequently look up words I already understand just to double-check that I’m using them correctly before I throw them up here. I’m going to link definitions when I do that, in case you also want to make sure you know the word or just want to see what kinds of things I find myself having to look up. Fun, no?

“Transpire,” or “transpired.”

Meaning: To become known, as in “It did not transpire until the next day that McClellan had actually been defeated.”

Misuse: To happen, as in “What transpired there between Lee and McClellan is not yet known.”

True, Merriam-Webster, as with “comprise,” says that because the incorrect meaning has been in use since the 18th century, it’s all good. But why should meanings that come into use through misuse gain legitimacy solely on that basis, even if they are perpetrated by leading lights like Abigail Adams? On that basis, the apostrophe’s torturous misuse in phrases like “She went to see the Sheldon’s” will soon be completely okay. Which would be a multitude of shame’s.