Posted on 02/19/2014 6:18:09 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Watching Season 2 of “House of Cards.” Not to be a scold or humorless, but do Washington politicians understand how they make themselves look when they embrace the show and become part of its promotion by spouting its famous lines? Congressmen only work three days a week. Each shot must have taken two hours or so—the setup, the crew, the rehearsal, the learning the line. How do they have time for that? Why do they think it’s good for them?
“House of Cards” very famously does nothing to enhance Washington’s reputation. It reinforces the idea that the capital has no room for clean people. The earnest, the diligent, the idealistic, they have no place there. Why would powerful members of Congress align themselves with this message? Why do they become part of it? I guess they think they’re showing they’re in on the joke and hip to the culture. I guess they think they’re impressing people with their surprising groovelocity.
Or maybe they’re just stupid.
But it’s all vaguely decadent, no? Or maybe not vaguely. America sees Washington as the capital of vacant, empty souls, chattering among the pillars. Suggesting this perception is valid is helpful in what way?
I don’t understand why members of Congress, the White House and the media become cooperators in videos that sort of show that deep down they all see themselves as . . . actors. And good ones! In a phony drama. Meant I suppose to fool the rubes....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Thank you.
My thoughts exactly. When Peggy endorsed Obama in 2008, I’m afraid she’s lost any credibility with me. Poor dear, she can’t see the forest for the trees.
But all the cool kids were doing it at the time. Mustn’t miss out on those tony cocktail parties, banquets and junkets.
bump
If I could sense in any of them a genuine regard for liberty, for the freedom of the individual, for the throwing off of a smothering, oppressive, and totalitarian bureaucracy, then I might be a little more willing to listen. They'll have opportunities if I am not mistaken, because the real political dividing line in America will once again be drawn between those willing to die for freedom and those who will temporize for a set of lighter chains. I won't want to acknowledge them as countrymen any more than Patrick Henry did.
She worked for Reagan, and she thinks actors are bad? Or that pols don’t have to act all the time?
Terms to become familiar with:
Democratic Economic Populism
Populism is a political doctrine where one sides with “the people” against “the elite “.
Populism- noun 1. the political philosophy of the People’s party
She’s jealous she wasn’t invited to their party
You took the words right out of my post. Ms. Noonan has been an obama supporter and elitist for years. And she talks down to people just like obama.
We really do not have any elites any more. What poses as the elite are ignorant, incompetent, and boorish poseurs. Compare any one in Washington today with the giants of the 19th Century such as Clay, Webster, Calhoun, etc, it is pathetic. There is nobody today, and I mean nobody, including those we see as our champions, who can match those men in intellect and rhetoric. We are led by pygmies, both left and right. We live in the Age of Incompetence, the Age of Historical Ignorance. Schmaltz has replaced true intelligence. I can only laugh at what is called debate in today’s society. It is talking points, spin, and nonsense.
Excellent and important article, but as long as you’re interested in personalities, you won’t get ideas, and you should just watch Entertainment Tonight on the idiot box while you’re “reading” the pictures in InTouch magazine.
There are elites out there and there’ll always be, whether we think their members deserve their places or not, and as the author says they are laughing at us and hold us in contempt. It’s a sign of a mature system, all human systems rot as they mature.
Seriously?
Education
Cruz attended high school at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas,[26] and later graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston as valedictorian in 1988.[11] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group called the Free Market Education Foundation where Cruz learned about free-market economic philosophers such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises.[20] The program was run by Rolland Storey and Cruz entered the program at the age of 13.[18]
Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1992.[2][5] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society’s Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.[27] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and Team of the Year (with his debate partner, David Panton).[27] Cruz was also a semi-finalist at the 1995 World Universities Debating Championship, making him Princeton’s highest-ranked debater at the championship.[28][29] Princeton’s debate team later named their annual novice championship after Cruz.[28]
Cruz’s senior thesis on the separation of powers, titled “Clipping the Wings of Angels,” draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to President James Madison: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect the rights of their constituents, and the last two items in the Bill of Rights offered an explicit stop against an all-powerful state. Cruz wrote: “They simply do so from different directions. The Tenth stops new powers, and the Ninth fortifies all other rights, or non-powers.”[24][30]
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor.[2][31] While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[5] Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.”[12][32][33][34][35][36] At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.[37]
Cruz currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.[37][38]
Legal career
Clerkships
Cruz giving a speech to the Montgomery County Republican Party meeting held in Conroe, Texas, on August 19, 2013
Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995[4][37] and William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States in 1996.[2] Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.[39]
Private practice
After Cruz finished his clerkships, he took a position with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, which is now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, from 1997 to 1998.[40]
In 1998, Cruz served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.[41]
Bush Administration
Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.[40]
Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devise strategy, and draft pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court, the specific case being Bush v. Gore, during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, leading to two successful decisions for the Bush team.[37][42]
After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department[2][42] and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.[2][12][42]
Texas Solicitor General
Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,[4][43] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008.[20][37]
Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.[4][12][22] Cruz’s record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress.[44] Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: “We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights.”[44]
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[22][45] Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[22][46]
In addition to his success in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the constitutionality of Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in Van Orden v. Perry.[12][22][37]
In 2004, Cruz was involved in another high-profile case, which was Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.[12][37] In Newdow, Cruz wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of all 50 states which argued that a non-custodial parent does not have standing in court to sue to stop a public school from requiring its students to recite of the Pledge of Allegiance.[12][37] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief in a 9-0 decision.
Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.[37][47]
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.[4][12][22][37]
Cruz has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,[43][48] by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,[49][50] and by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[51][52]
Private practice
After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, he worked in a private law firm in Houston, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, often representing corporate clients, until he was sworn in a U.S. Senator from Texas in 2013.[24][37][53] At Morgan, Lewis, he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.[53]
In 2009, while working for Morgan, Lewis, Cruz formed and then abandoned a bid for state attorney general when the incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott, who hired Cruz as Solicitor General, decided to run for re-election.[11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz
Sorry Peggy but it takes more than wealth accumulated by 'insider' information given to them because of their office to impress us.
Most of these folks came to office without two nickles to rub together - and voila - in a few short years - sitting in positions of power - they become millionaires... All those folks 'in the know' who wouldn't give them the time of day before they had power - now give them 'tips'... And they think they're 'elite'? LOL - good one Peg.
When Ms Noonan has spent a couple of years living in Oklahoma City or Phoenix, and has worked at something other than giving her opinion, I’ll start listening to what she has to say. Until then?
When she was a married woman in the Reagan Admin, she was OK. But she divorced in 1989 and moved to NYC, where she is currently a 63 year old single woman living in a $5 million condo...and she thinks she is not one of the elites?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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