Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Homnick Does Elder

Reform Club contributor, American Spectator regular, and Jewish World Review columnist Jay Homnick was the featured guest today on the nationally syndicated Larry Elder Show. (Elder happens to be my favorite talker and his flagship station is here in Los Angeles, so it was a great kick to hear Brother Jay as I was driving home.)

The topic was Jay's recent AmSpec piece, where he reveals his eyewitness testimony about how Senator Chuck Schumer got his start in the politics biz with his plan to drive blacks out of a section of Brooklyn. After a 30-year silence, Jay says he decided to speak out only after Sen. Schumer's recent attempt to connect Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito with racist sentiments.

If Alito's casual membership in a group in 1972, whose magazine said some untoward things calls into question his fitness for the court, what does that say about Chuck Schumer, the mastermind of a political plot against blacks in 1974, and his fitness for the U.S. Senate?

We may never know. Elder found it remarkable (but par for the course) that so far, there has been zero interest in Jay's testimony (aside from a feeler from a cable opinion show and Elder's people themselves) from the American press. That is perhaps the most interesting angle: when Bob Livingston went after Clinton on adultery, it wasn't his own dirty laundry, but really his hypocrisy that cost him not only the Speakership of the House, but his entire congressional career.

Now, that was fair, I think. Whither Chuck Schumer? Surely in this day and age, active racism is more egregious than merely diddling the help or doing blow. Where is Katie Couric?


Jay was great, of course, and got in a line that broke the host up (and a subsequent caller)---that now that she's so tough on Iran, the other senator from New York, one Hillary Clinton, shall henceforth be known as The Battleaxis of Evil.

15 comments:

Pastorius said...

Isn't it amazing how, on the very same day, Clinton and Chirac, all of the sudden, became the unilateralists of the world?

Tom Van Dyke said...

On the show, Larry Elder threatened to steal "Battleaxis of Evil," Pastorius. I think Jay won't mind if you do the same.

(Yes, I noticed Chirac very subtly/Frenchly threatened to nuke their crazy asses, too. Bush multi-lateralism ascendant, and triumphant. Kewl.)

Hunter Baker said...

Wish I could have heard it. I've had the pleasure of talking to the good Homnick on the phone before, but I'll bet he warmed up to the radio very nicely.

James F. Elliott said...

There, libs, I've saved you the trouble, you can focus your outrage du jour on some other important issue.

Buzz, did you start drinking before you troll the internet? The ad homs and straw men have been rather more vitriolic and prevalent of late. Do you ever bother to actually read liberal writings, or just the conservative critiques?

Besides, we all know those French are atomic-bomb-testing-to-make-their-sexual-organs-feel-big bastards. Kind of like a certain president I can think of.

James F. Elliott said...

Yes. At least I acknowledge it. I don't pretend that the "argument" is substantive or even meaningful and then run away cackling in glee. Buzz is being flat out rude in a generally uncalled for fashion and making unsubstantiated assertions, and I'm calling him on it. Unlike you, JC, he's demonstrated an appalling lack of civility or the capacity to put his money where his keyboard is.

James F. Elliott said...

Please tell me which debate school techniques you have utilized in your last two posts to me, this one and your oh-so-knowledgeable rant on missile defense. I'd like to know. Really.

See, that's my point, Buzz. It's not a debate because you're tangentially fabricating assertions out of whole cloth, presenting straw men, or engaging in ad hominem attacks, and then crowing when people don't engage them since they have nothing substantive to do with the subject at hand. What you're engaged in is not debate, unless one happens to be Hugh Hewitt or Rush Limbaugh, and doesn't require "debate school" tactics. It requires someone calling you on it, which is what I'm doing.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Mercy.

I have found that if the word "you" is eschewed on the internet, things go smoother.

James F. Elliott said...

I fail to see how that would help in this situation, Tom. I'm not irked myself, so far as taking anything personally goes. I could care less what he, or anyone else, thinks of me. I just refuse to indulge that particular brand of sloppy thinking and sweeping generalization in a place that's been thoroughly stimulating, engaging, and relatively civil, such as the Reform Club.

Barry Vanhoff said...

James,

Please tell me how I am supposed to respond to this:

But don't worry, because the Republicans will return a culture of personal responsibility and the mines will start being concerned for the safety of their employees.

If that ain't a "sweeping generalization", then I guess I don't know what one is.

Frankly, I took time away from this blog over Chrsitmas because the "background noise" was on the increase.

After returning, I see more of the same. I've also noticed more post deletions by the authors.

If you (and others) REALLY like the discussions here, then it is up to you to avoid trading barbs; it takes two to tango.

Again, I would like to thank the authors here for their time and effort, especially when (IMHO) things seem to be getting a little uncivil.

Tom Van Dyke said...

James, I think the bankruptcy of sloppy thinking and sweeping generalizations speaks for itself. Such comments tend to hang in the air like passed gas in a place of worship. To engage them elevates them to a seriousness they do not earn.

Besides, sloppy thinking and sweeping generalizations are cool if they contain a grain of truth and are entertaining. That's certainly my own credo in writing.

I resubmit that the use of "you" creates a need to respond to emissions that would otherwise be politely ignored. It does with me, anyway.

Cheers.

James F. Elliott said...

CLA,

Mea culpa. Thanks for reminding me that if I'm going to cast some stones I should also save a few for myself. All that's really left is the rather childlike, "But he started it!" Doesn't seem to fly too well, does it? I'd like to think that I only engage in such generalizations in response to them, but, well, what I think and what is sometimes so aren't always the same thing.

That said, how is one supposed to turn the other cheek to crap like, "There, libs, I've saved you the trouble, you can focus your outrage du jour on some other important issue." in every thread? If this were a debate table instead of an online forum, I'd have asked Buzz to step outside by now. Of course, that's assuming Tom hadn't shot Tlaloc or myself by then.

Besides, sloppy thinking and sweeping generalizations are cool if they contain a grain of truth and are entertaining.

That's great, Tom. I don't particularly agree, but more power to you - it's usually relatively harmless, a rhetorical way of playing to the stands, and fine for certain writers. The particular utterances to which I've taken umbrage have neither of your criteria, so...

Tom Van Dyke said...

Just trying to set minimum standards for ranting. If you can't make 'em think, make 'em laugh. If you can't do either, don't post.

Oooops--Substitute "one" for "you."

;-)

James F. Elliott said...

That got a laugh, so you filled your criteria, Tom.

Barry Vanhoff said...

Mea culpa. Ditto ...

That said, how is one supposed to turn the other cheek to crap like ...

Thats the $64,000 question.

If you figure it out, please share it with us.

I LIKE the discussions here, thus I will TRY to keep it civil. If I fail, I can only hope that I will be shown the mercy that I (hopefully) conveyed in my previous post.

Thanks for listening ...

Tom Van Dyke said...

How 'bout that Chuck Schumer?