Elci The trouble with bad manners, Bill Buckley once said, is that they sometimes lead to murder. Buckley was perhaps the most well-mannered contrarian journalist in the business, and he had a genius for friendship. Considering the disposition of political forces in Connecticut – Democrats own the state, lock, stock and barrel -- most contrarian journalists would necessarily fall on the Republican side of the political barricades. They would also be conservative or libertarian. Buckley s last significant collection of his writings -- Happy Days Were Here Again -- was subtitled, provocatively, “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.” Those who knew him well will testify that Buckley could handle disagreement without flyting off the handle. Buckley’s irrepressible good humor always stood him in good stead. Asked by a New York Times reporter during his run for mayor of New York City against John Lindsey what he would do if – miracle o...
Sanders When we talk about political campaigns, we often resort to military terminology. In the United States, the campaign wars seem never ending. The chief problem with campaigns is that they are distortion mechanisms constructed to capture votes, which is why German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” The quotable Bismarck could be disarmingly honest, as in, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.” For truth in politics, we look to disarmed retired politicians rather than active vote-hungry politicians. In war, capturing the flag is an indication of a battle won, and so too in political campaigns. We think of accurate accusations of genocide, for instance, as a battle for the moral soul of a constituency. For this reason, it seems to Jews in the United States a false flag to accuse the state of Israel of genocide. The children of Buchenwald and Auschw...