Let’s Talk Frank About Kleinheider

Are conservatives in this state insane, is Carter damn near omnipotent, or is Fred Thompson the Right’s Tinkerbell?

Ha, in all fairness to you, dear readers, the thesis statement of this post is so awesome that there is no way that the rest of it can be anywhere near as good.  I just feel like I should say that upfront.  But let’s go forward anyway, shall we?

We need to turn our attention to this post over at Terry Frank’s place, written by one Wes Kliner in order to answer our thesis question, to this portion of his post in specific:

Throughout the state of Tennessee, conservatives and Republicans are excited about the momentum building in the “Run Fred Run” campaign. Yet standing in the face of this overwhelming tsunami of support, both in Tennessee and across the United States, there is the strident voice of one who unswervingly prognosticates that Fred will not run. Who? — Adam C. Kleinheider [emphasis mine]

Seems that Adam suspects the group he now panders to at WKRN will not keep him in “boxed wine and peanut butter” if he jumps on the “Draft Fred Thompson” bandwagon. Talk about your ultimate philosophical sellout.

Adam … in your commentary above you say “Then I bagged the elephant.” No, unfortunately, it seems that the “elephant” WKRN bagged you. Pre- Mike Sechrist you were ACK. Post-Mike you have become Adam. For the almighty dollar, you have now sold out your conservative ethos to pander to a more diverse group than those who “brung ya to the dance.”

Fred needs to run. And Adam, you need to come clean.

America, let us close our eyes together and savor this.  Because, really, this could not be any funnier.  Read this again:

Yet standing in the face of this overwhelming tsunami of support, both in Tennessee and across the United States, there is the strident voice of one who unswervingly prognosticates that Fred will not run. Who? — Adam C. Kleinheider

In what bizarro world is this a problem?

Kleinheider’s making a guess.  He could be wrong.  He could be right.  He’s just guessing that Thompson won’t run.

And yet, Kliner is so intimidated by Kleinheider’s mad guessing skills that he takes up a whole long post at Frank’s denouncing Kleinheider.

Why?

Is it possible that Kleinheider is so powerful that he alone can keep Thompson from running just by sheer force of will?  Have the Republicans in the state of Tennessee gone commie on us so that if just one conservative is not in accord with everyone else, they cannot act, lacking, as they do, group consensus?

Or is Fred Thompson Tinkerbell, where everyone has to clap as hard as they can and really believe in him or he can’t come back from the political dead?

The whole thing is very strange.

But, if you see Carter walking around with a little extra swagger in his step this weekend, I don’t think it’s just that he’s got to make room for the cell phone, it’s got to also be that he’s been promoted to most powerful conservative in the nation.

The Butcher Makes a Prediction

So, Mack is hell… no, not quite hell… heck bent on transforming me from a charming, and yet surly recluse, to a charming and yet surly person who does shit.  And so tomorrow he’s going to take me out 4-wheeling.

I told the Butcher this.  He said, “You’ll end up crying.”

“Do you think so?”

“Is it you?  Are you trying something new?  Yeah, there will be some tears by the end of the day.”

I would love to refute him with actually facts that prove otherwise, but nothing springs to mind.

And, for some reason, I just drooled all over myself.  Bleh.  I hope this “four wheeling” doesn’t require that I have basic control over my motor functions, because I don’t appear to be that skilled.

How German is She?

I don’t think I’ve ever written a post about Muslim immigration into Europe and its implications.  I haven’t written on it because I don’t live in Europe; I don’t get the nuances of the dynamics; and so I don’t know what I’m talking about.

But I saw this story over at Uncle’s, about a woman who was denied a quick divorce from her husband who beat her and threatened to kill her because the judge in Germany ruled that the Koran says wife-beating is okay, so the wife shouldn’t expect any better.  And I saw Uncle’s comment on it– “Multicultural sensitivity at its most perverted. If it keeps up, society there will reach the point that it so culturally sensitive that it cannot survive.” –and realized some feminist analysis, coupled with some useful multicultural analysis, might actually be useful in this case.

Is this multiculturalism run amuck or is this one judge’s bigotry and xenophobia writ large?

I’ve read through the NYTimes article and a couple of things really stand out.  One is that the wife, who needs the divorce, because her husband is a nut-job abuser, is not easily identifiable as a Muslim; she doesn’t wear a head scarf and the other is that the judge said that she thought the woman’s “western lifestyle” might be a reason her husband might feel compelled to beat her.

This got me thinking about the nature of xenophobia in general.  If you think about it, the xenophobe has two problems–one is that there’s a group of outsiders who are not like “us” who are coming into the country and refusing to assimilate and ruining things, but the other is that the outsiders, who are not like “us,” might find ways to pass, to become so much like “us” that the line between “us” and “them” becomes fuzzy and hard to distinguish.

If you’re of the belief that that “other” group is an enormous problem that must be dealt with by removing the “other” people from your society, the folks who can and do assimilate are a much bigger problem than the folks who don’t, because those folks are much harder to identify.  So, even as xenophobes give lip-service to how much the “out” group refuses to do like we do, make no mistake that the xenophobic nightmare is that the “out” group would find a way to do so.

How else to understand what’s going on in this case?

Here you have a Muslim woman who has done just what we “Westerners” ask of Muslim women.  She’s Westernized.  And yet, the judge, a Western woman, turns around and says, “It is precicely because of your desire to be like me that your husband is justified in beating you, because, in your culture, it’s okay to beat uppity women.”

You see that?  How the judge refuses to grant that the woman wanting the divorce has a claim on German culture?

See, I think that Uncle views this case as evidence of the blurring of cultures, that the German courts are now going to start giving Koranic verses the same weight as secular law.  But I don’t think this is a case of blurring of cultures at all.  I think this is a clear-cut case of an ethnically German non-Muslim woman drawing a clear line between how “real” German women can expect to be treated and what kinds of behaviors “other” women in Germany, no matter how seemingly “German,” have to tolerate.

Random Things–More Questions

1.  If I put a song on my iPod, can I get it from my iPod onto my computer?  How?

2.  All the cool kids do Friday Random Top Tens.  How do I get my iPod to spit me out ten random songs?

3.  I’m feeling better, but not great.  I just realized that I’m going to have to take my cell phone out with my on Saturday in case I need to call Mack to come and rescue me.  On a scale of one to ten, how pathetic is that?

4.  Has anyone heard from the Bloggers on the Hill folks?  I’m still planning on showing up on Monday.

5.  Are a huge perverse love-hate man-crush on Roger Abramson and a squealing delight with Lee enough to declare today boy-crush day?  I have to tell you that when Abramson does his Kaus impression it about sends me.

6.  When will I be able to breathe again?