John Lloyd is by-lined as “co-founded the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, where he is Senior Research Fellow”. And he has written a very revealing article on Reuters. In this, he criticises Trump, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen and Beppe Grillo for using intemperate language in political debate. Now these are widely divergent figures coming from different ideological directions (but they do have one thing in common: I will leave the readers here to speculate what that is), and I am a fan of none of them. Even the odious Cameron comes in for a bit of criticism but he is a bit of an outlier compared to the above list.
Hillary “Clinton has admitted that it was a mistake that she used her private server to conduct State Department business when she was secretary of state”, so given that, John Lloyd feels Trump calling her “crooked” is simply beyond the pale. Likewise him calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” when she made an extremely dubious claim to be part Cherokee, is just ghastly.
Lying, well that is just politics (which is why Cameron may not be quite such an outlier after all, and he did share a platform with the person he “insulted”). But being disrespectful to a lying politico? Well clearly one of the pillars holding up western civilisation, not to mention all that is good and decent (but one could argue the typo “descent” is more appropriate), is being kicked away by these barbarians! Essentially John Lloyd, who is if you recall the co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, is writing about the frightfulness of lèse-majesté.
Oh I feel so much better about the state of journalism today having seen this.
As a pro-EU institution, you need to prepare the ground for that nasty little goat-f*cker begging for membership.
People who identify as liberal and progressive often have a deep rooted sense of rank and seniority.
Well, I don’t profess to understand American politics, but presumably John Lloyd’s public statements were intended to more or less coincide with mullah Obama’s recent moronic finger-wagging utterances along the same/similar theme of “civility” in public political discourse (apparently a blatant polemic against Trump).
Let’s face it, the American people have got the president they deserve and will no doubt get whatever they deserve next, and the Constitution is going to Hell in a basket, along with the proletariat who have apparently allowed that.
God help Merika.
By the way Perry, I think you might have meant “decent” where you wrote “descent”.
I just want to note that the people who ignored the behavior and tone of James Carville and Harry Reid have no moral right to say anything about Trump and Boris.
Of course they have a perfectly good legal right to say anything they want. At least in the non academic part of the US.
I don’t care about “civility” among politicians; clarity is more important to me. Where I miss civility is among the pundits, who seem to think that shouting over each other in panel discussions is the epitome of debating technique.
As to Lloyd, I enjoyed his reference to Elizabeth Warren as “widely admired”. That must have been a typo; surely he meant “widely reviled.” And if he thinks calling Hillary “crooked” has anything to do with the emails on her private server, he is either grossly ignorant or simply dishonest (my bet is on the latter). Yes, that was indisputably illegal, and almost certainly justifies a treason charge under the relevant statute, but her “crookedness” relates to the Clinton Crime Foundation through which she took millions of dollars in exchange for providing favors in her capacity as Secretary of State. More of those details are coming to light every day. She belongs in prison, and not (solely) because of the emails. Merely calling her “crooked” is actually being quite generous.
WRT what Trump, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen and Beppe Grillo have in common: my speculation is that Perry meant that all have made “Islamophobic” remarks. (Though i learned about Grillo’s remarks only from Lloyd’s article.)
Speaking of Lloyd, it strikes me that not once does he remark that usually people resort to personal attacks when they are out of rational argument. (Though in the case of Hillary and Warren, personal attacks are justified by their moral lapses.) I infer that Lloyd does not believe in rational argument.
1965
I am at college in Wellesley Hills, MA (Babson) – right next door to Hillary (Wellesley College) – we were both freshmen. I was and still am political and talked to one of Hillary’s classmate one day at a political event. Knowing I was a Republican, she said, “Stay away from Sister Frigidaire, she’s a horrible icicle.”
I thought nothing of it until 1992 and Bill get’s elected and in a bio of Hillary, I read about her being labeled “Sister Frigidaire” at college. That same year I volunteered and joined the US Army – college at the time was not for me.
She is ruthless and evil and has been for a very, very long time.
JGIII, yet another book is coming out which makes precisely the same claims. Of course, that says nothing about whether she is “crooked”, although she most certainly is (along with being a thoroughly nasty person).
Indeed, that and others like it is exactly the point I am making. And this article was written by “the co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford”.
Re Laird @ 12:41 PM
Seconded, thirded and fourthed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Warren is “Fauxcahontas”, not “Pocahontas”. If by some chance she winds up on the Democrat national ticket, will the pro-Democrat media salute her as the first American Indian national candidate? If so, it will be a double lie – because she has no Indian ancestry, whereas Vice President Charles Curtis (1929-1933) was part Kaw Indian and lived for several years on a reservation in Kansas.
Idunno about BoJo; he seems bumptious, but not actually abusive. Trump however is a genuine ass. Unfortunately, it helps him fool a lot of people who mistake rudeness for sincerity.
He will never be forgiven for likening the current pan-European movement that seeks to achieve a single European polity, with an earlier pan-European movement that sought to achieve a single European polity.
How very true. I am astonished how many otherwise smart people seem to have fallen for it. Yes I am all for pissing off the PC people but guys… it is a shtick, nothing more.
And now for something completely different.
“What do these politicians do if they take power? How do they govern diverse, largely free societies, and interact with those who do not share their views –and whom they have grossly insulted? How do they call convincingly for civic peace when they have spent years encouraging their followers to revolt against elected authority . . . ?”
Do people who live where this guy lives get mail, or television, or the internet?
Someone please ask him to look up the name Barack Hussein Obama. He’s spent the last seven years giving us detailed responses to all of these questions.
One can tell the truth about these people without showing “lack of respect”.
“You are not telling the truth Mr Cameron” is perfectly respectful.
And “you are working against both the freedom of the people and independence of the country Mr Cameron” is also respectful.
It is the truth.
Indeed Paul, but such civility should only ever be a tactic when dealing with such people. Sometimes the picture above is actually the appropriate tactic.
I agree Perry. Sometimes the most effective tactic of all is mockery. And mockery projected with profound truth is doubly devastating (which is why I am a fan of Milo, since he is a master at that particular art.)
I find it ironic that the left, the purveyors of no-platforming and “Shout them down” and “pelt them with eggs” tactics would have much to say agin Trump and his irrefutable boorishness. But, as is always the case with the left, what they really mean is that politeness is due their side. The other side are a bunch of knuckle dragging, racist homophobic bigots who deserve all the opprobrium that comes their way. The treatment of George Bush being a very obvious example.
In regards to this nonsense that our elected officials deserve respect…. I am reminded of one of the things that really grates on me, and that is the habit of the cognoscenti and the media to continue to address politicians with the title of the highest office they have achieved, irrespective of whether they still hold it. So Ms. Clinton is Secretary Clinton, even though she hasn’t been for a half dozen years. Her husband is President Clinton, despite the fact that he hasn’t been for sixteen years.
It is treated as an honorific, much like the ridiculous British system of honours, as if they are Lord and Lady Clinton of Feloniusshire. When the Constitution was formed they deliberately choose banal titles to make it clear that it was a job, not a title of nobility.
I think Laird woefully postdates Hillary’s career in, er, high finance. Long long before she became Secretary of State she was the most successful cattle futures dealer in history, turning $1,000 into $100,000 in ten months. And then, presumably because this wasn’t really fair to other players, giving up the game altogether. I find it astonishing that her success – well beyond, in probability terms, the hurricane assembling a jumbo jet from junk level – remains so untrumpeted, so to speak. You’d have thought that campaigning against a businessman, she’d be delighted to emphasise her own talents in this area.
Hillary says she just got lucky trading futures. Anyone in the entire universe believe that?
No, JohnK, there isn’t a single sentient being who believes that story, or who even believed it when it first hit the news some 20+ years ago. But $100k is chump change. She has become quite proficient in the fine art of graft since then; she’s in the big leagues now.
Laird, you clearly don’t (a) watch enough cop shows or (b) remember your bible stories.
Even Al Capone started small. You learn how to do a billion dollar fraud-cum-bribery heist, with layers of deniability and a phalanx of protective flunkeys as cut-out between you and the hit man, by learning from smaller things you did in your youth. Hillary’s cattle futures “profits” lacked the subtlety of the later, more expert Hillary. It was naked and obvious. That’s why it’s a better story than the more recent stuff, which is cleverly clouded in obscurity.
And you’ve forgotten your widow’s mite. $100,000 is chump change to Hillary now. But once upon a time, it was a lot of money for her. If you want to know what sort of person she is, taking a $100,000 bribe in plain view, when $100,000 is a lot of money to you – that’s just as revealing as anything later involving bigger numbers.
Agreed Perry – there is a time for open contempt.
As for for Hillary Clinton.
Actually I find her corruption and squalid greed her only redeeming feature.
An idealistic collectivist (say Plato or Jeremy 13 Departments of State Bentham) is likely to do harm than someone like Mrs Clinton – whose first thought in any situation is……
“How much money can I take in bribes, or just steal, from this opportunity?”
After Mrs Clinton actually robbed the Whitehouse – lots of things were found to be “missing” after January 20th 2001 and were traced to Hillary Clinton.
And even, it is repeatedly says, has a habit of “picking up” (and not putting down – they somehow fall into her bag ) things when she is invited to various places – including private homes.
There is something oddly reassuring about such a person.
Someone like Hillary Clinton – who is driven by squalid personal greed and the desire for petty revenge against people who (in her own mind at least) have slighted her.
No wonder the true Comrades turned away from Comrade Hillary to Comrade Barack in 2008. And back Comrade “Bernie” now.
After all even back in the 1960s Hillary disobeyed Saul Alinsky.
Hillary allowed her personal feelings (it is said her distaste over various things Comrade Saul Alinsky, an old man by then, wanted her to do for him ) overrule the orders of a senior Comrade in the Progressive movement.
Rather than do her duty Hillary ran off to Yale.
Putting her own happiness above loyalty to the Progressive cause.
Again – rather nice in a way.
Paul Marks, I think what you’re saying is the equivalent of “an honest politician is one who stays bought”. But I don’t think Hillary meets that definition; I think she’s in the pocket of whoever bought her last.
If she were purely driven by greed and cupidity I would agree with you, but I think that there still remains a core of the “true believer” in her (which was first demonstrated during her years in Bill’s White House). As president she wouldn’t merely run off with the White House silver (again) and line her pockets to an extent which would make Ferdinand Marcos blush. She would do real, permanent, damage to the republic, to an extent which neither Trump nor Sanders could match. She’s greedy, evil and dangerous; Trump is merely greedy and Sanders is merely evil.
Laird, second para:
That’s exactly what I’ve always thought: She’s a firm True Believer, and if she’s a thug and a gangsteress in her own right plus an irresponsible minion to boot, all that doesn’t destroy the True Believer core.
But do you think the True Belief is of the Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist type? I don’t think I’ve heard Shrill recommend re-education camps for 25 million Americans who aren’t entirely docile; nor incarceration or the death penalty for those who don’t enthusiastically embrace the doctrine of CAGW.
On the other hand, “social democrat” (in some fluffy sense) doesn’t seem to cut it either. What do you think?
Do you think she actively wants to destroy America in the way that Obama does (as I still believe — this while he wants to be Bruce Springsteen and Robert Mugabe)?
As for leaving Alinsky in the lurch, there are always these splits within Movements. Stalin/Trotsky for instance. Not that Saul/Hill is of the same degree, but not all protegées remain joined at the hip to the Master for their entire lives. Some do have a spark of independence.
. . .
As for Sanders, what do you think of this (excerpt):
http://politichicks.com/2016/05/democratic-socialism-21st-century-socialism-or-how-a-bus-driver-can-steer-a-country/
—“[Writer] Sarah P. Condor-Fisher, Ph.D., Esq., LL.M. grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. When she was 17, she was apprehended crossing the border, cross-interrogated by the Secret Police (KGB) and jailed. She studied MA in philosophy at University College London, she holds BA and MA in English and Ph.D. in American Literature and Literary Criticism. She is also a practicing California attorney with her own law firm.”
Julie, I agree that Hillary doesn’t seem to be of the Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist type. I suspect she’s more of the Mussolini type: a confirmed statist who wants to control everything but is content to allow the titans of industry to retain a modicum of ownership (and wealth) and the proletariat to retain a soupçon of personal liberty (or at least the appearance of same). And no, I don’t think she “actively wants to destroy America in the way that Obama does”; she doesn’t share his deep-seated anti-American animus. But she is indifferent enough that she would allow his policies to remain in effect, and thus accomplish the same thing in the long run.
I would fear that she would appear to be in the pocket of whoever will buy her next. I doubt that she could be trusted to be in anyone’s pocket, and in her book, that would be ‘integrity’.
Laird, that seems about right to me. “Indifferent” is exactly the word I’ve been looking for, for awhile now. Of course, I think there are quite a few shared policies. Health Fraud, for maybe the most obvious.
The question is, then, what exactly is the core True Belief that we agree is still there?
. . .
Mr Ed. I think that is exactly right.
I have some sympathy with PM’s view that a mere* thief is a lot better than a communist. But I also share the concerns that there remains a solid core of progressive dogma and spite poking through the carapace of venality. But even if we limit the problem to mere greed, the practicalities these days are not that you dip your paws directly into the Treasury and extract $500m. That would be quite cheap. You extract $500m commish for proposing white elephants costing $20 billion, and price fixing schemes costing $100 billion, and so on. The pol only walks off with 2%. The other 98% goes to the pol’s clients. It costs the public 50 times what the pol is trousering.
Oh for the days of the 1990s when you could buy a Tory MP for five grand, cash on the nose. (Allegdly, mlud.)
* the “mere” obviously carries a lot of weight in this sentence. Since communism is, aside from the murder, obviously theft on a gigantic scale.
Higher taxes, access to abortion, and gun control.
And ever-increasing governmental power. I don’t know if she truly believes in ACGW (as does that fool Al Gore), but she most certainly finds it a useful tool and will push aggressively for ever greater control over industry.
And “It takes a village”-ism. And Universal Health Care.
“Ever-increasing government power,” yes certainly. For reasons of both ideology and self-image, I imagine.
But at one time she was certainly a Marxist (of some variety). Actually, I imagine [correct word] she still is…and that would be the True Belief. The question becomes, just what variety.
Anyway, I agree that a plain thief is better than a communist. At least a dedicated-to-global-international-communism communist. Or better than even a kleptocrat with a communist core and a Proggie veneer.
I have to agree with the Marxism comment. She certainly was a Marxist at one time.. But I think this was just a result of her dramatic rise in power. She and Bill were the good ol’ boys in the 90’s. For the first time, people felt like they had someone to connect with. They were “young” for the time in politics, and “hip”… please.
Marxism was simply her device for expanding her reach.
I sincerely believe that when she got a taste of real power, influence, and affluence.. she became addicted. It’s happened to many in politics I’m sure. As the current media empire hypes up certain politicians and places them upon pedestals, they give them the opportunity to exercise power freely, and without consequence. I think that’s the core belief, Power.
She doesn’t care about the poor, and the “disenfranchised”. If she actually did, she would acknowledge the fact that Disability Insurance of SS will deplete its trust fund this year, or that when we started SS we had approx 160 people paying in for every one receiving benefits… Now its 3 paying in for every one. Can we honestly sustain this?
If you were born after 1990, you will never have the opportunity to receive the amount of money in benefits, as you paid in, regardless of how long you live.
Did you know that statists, like Clinton, are the reason that we apply income tax to peoples social security benefits? It’s ridiculous!
How anyone can look at the current system, and think that it helps anyone is beyond me. People are simply selfish and greedy, just like Clinton.
Screw our kids right? When the system crashes, and we are in another recession, the Clinton’s wont suffer, we will.
Thanks FDR, you bastard.
^^^He admitted that SS was initiated to expand the reach and power of the federal government using tax dollars. `It was never about us… It’s always been about giving them our power, and we continue to do so.
Hmph, and all this time I thought it was French. “I fart in your general direction!”