[kellynla]

BTTT

[rightinthemiddle]

ping

[Savage Beast]

"Brooks...telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him 'dazzled'."

Did electricity shoot up his leg?

[Ann Archy]

Heard Victor Davis Hanson on Hugh Hewitt.....talk about WISDOM!! He;s SMART AND WISE! SEXY combo!

[petercooper]

bttt

[Savage Beast]

My parents, who were Democrats, adored Franklin Roosevelt, disliked Harry Truman, and considered Bess Truman a national embarrassment.

I am a Republican. We are still experiencing the ill-effects of Franklin Roosevelt's Administration and the bad judgment of people like my parents who elected him. Harry Truman was one of the greatest Presidents in U.S. history. I really like Bess Truman.

"Harry, I don't want to spend one minute longer in this place than I have to. Now we're going down there."
Bess Truman

(Speaking of Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, when newly elected Eisenhower and his wife--very rudely and breaking with precedent--waited in their car for the Trumans instead of calling for them--and Harry refused to join the Eisenhowers in their car unless they did.)

(Bess had her way. And she got out of D.C. fast.)

(She wasn't impressed with the Eisenhowers or anything in Washington.)

(I'm not either.)

I taught my children to think for themselves. They are ALL Republicans--I am VERY proud to say.

[puroresu]

Good candidate for the best column of the year!

[Savage Beast]

"...banalities do not suggest real wisdom at all, but a dazzling veneer that overlays a great deal of megalomania."

Yes. Very scary stuff.

Meanwhile millions of Americans--like Brooks and Mathews--are prepared to vote for the man who sends a tingle up their legs. Now that's REALLY SCARY!

[A_perfect_lady]

For liberals, it’s all about style. They don’t even have any concept of substance.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

But when they were through, Palin proved the more truthful and pragmatic, inasmuch as the glib Biden turned out to have misled in almost everything he professed, from our own Constitution to Hezbollah's presence in Lebanon. Even the folksy reference to his hometown diner was inaccurate. And that raises the age-old Euripidean question, "What is wisdom?" or maybe those general Hesiodic warnings about the dangers of moral regress that sometimes can accompany intellectual progress.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

sophist

1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments.

philosopher

O.E. philosophe, from L. philosophus, from Gk. philosophos "philosopher," lit. "lover of wisdom," from philos "loving" + sophos "wise, a sage."

"Pythagoras was the first who called himself philosophos, instead of sophos, 'wise man,' since this latter term was suggestive of immodesty." [Klein]

Modern form with -r appears c.1325, from an Anglo-Fr. or O.Fr. variant of philosophe, with an agent-noun ending. . . .

[mojito]

I find it interesting that David Brook's tingly leg moment with Obama came about because Obama was able to discuss Rienhold Niehbuhr.

I am not a theologian, by any stretch, but I do know that for much of his career Niehbuhr was both a socialist and a pacifist, although he later modified those positions somewhat.

That Obama should be able to talk at length about a theologian who was a socialist and pacifist does not surprise me in the least. Brooks, instead of getting all tingly, should perhaps ask himself what it might mean to this nation if we elect a man who shares the socialist and pacifist beliefs of a Reinhold Neihbuhr.

But Brooks, like the effete Eastern establishment tooshie that he is, is so very impressed by the fact that Obama can talk about ideas, that he can not spare a thought as to what holding those ideas might actually mean for the future of this country.

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

[Tax-chick]

And that raises the age-old Euripidean question, "What is wisdom?" or maybe those general Hesiodic warnings about the dangers of moral regress that sometimes can accompany intellectual progress.

I've been reading the Greek Classics for the last six months, so I know what he's talking about! I feel so smart!

[Blind Eye Jones]

"For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say."

You have to use power while it corrupts you? To what end? More corruption? An ignoble state if ever there was one. These people are sophisticated dunces. Worse, they have no common sense.

[TAdams8591]

"Yet those who once supported the decision to go to Iraq (many like Biden or Fukuyama dating back to the Clinton days), were among our most educated and brightest. But like a chorus of a Greek tragedy, almost all of them not merely abandoned their once zealous support, but (again, like Biden) at periodic intervals prepped their ongoing commentary on (always changing) perceptions about pulse of the battlefield."

They are remarkably inconsistent. I have noticed the above in many places in our society, perhaps because it is generally the polar opposite, of my own approach to people, situations and life.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"This is sad — since everything from the faux-seal with its vero possumus pretensions, the Greek temple backdrops, the efforts to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, the mantra "we are the change we've been waiting for," the messianic idea that the seas and planet will likewise heel to His wisdom, and the inane 'hope and change' banalities do not suggest real wisdom at all, but a dazzling veneer that overlays a great deal of megalomania."

But...but...he went to Harvard...and reads The Nation. He probably even has a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica and knows how to pronounce ennui.