Blogcritics Comments on Calling New Hampshire

Comment by Reggie on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:02:23 EST

Has anyone else noticed that my comment #106 has become conventional wisdom in the days since I wrote it? It's not that what she's saying is factually incorrect, it's just that it's politically incorrect. Remember: She's running against a "black" guy for the nomination of a political party in which a large percentage of the registered voters are black, and which holds MLK up as an almost God-like figure. Any statement that is viewed as minimizing His legacy is considered borderline Nazism to many on the Left. Personally, I think she was just trying to bait Obama into a defensive overreaction that would have turned off some voters, but he was smart enough to largely ignore the comment. I have to admit that the guy has run a pretty smart campaign so far, with the exception of some foreign-policy gaffes early on. Now, despite the fact that Obama didn't really respond to Clinton's comments, she is now out there claiming that Obama is dividing people along racial lines! This woman has no honor, nor decency. I don't see how anyone could possibly defend this obvious attempt by the Clinton camp to posion the racial well in the Democrat Party for personal political advantage. Shame on her. She's little better than George Wallace in this regard.

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:19:07 EST

Churchill was an avid bather, but I don't know about the skin condition. Basically, he was a wilful naughty boy who never really grew up, and that turned out to be just the kind of person needed at the time! I think that's why he loved parliament. All the verbal jousting just reminded him of school.

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Calling New Hampshire

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:45:42 EST

There's a pattern emerging. Here is my forecast: Some time between now and Tuesday morning, Dave will publish an article entitled "Calling Michigan". Having got the predictions in that one horrendously wrong yet again, he will publish an article on the eve of the South Carolina primary entitled, "Oh, Fuck It." He will then retire to his leafy acres in suburban Austin, to content himself with being deafened by Baritone on a weekly basis.

Comment by RJ Elliott on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:41:25 EST

Didn't Churchill have some sort of horribly itchy, chronic skin condition that led him to take long, hot baths for hours on end in an effort to alleviate the symptoms? I seem to recall reading that before. Or maybe I'm confusing Winston with someone else... Anyway, something like that is bound to make a man a reader (all that time in the bathroom...), as well as a drinker. And I would imagine it wouldn't hamper the blossoming of a dry, sarcastic wit, either... ;-}

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:26:33 EST

Dave, the most intelligent of men are wrong sometimes. Thankfully that doesn't happen to you very often. :)

Comment by Dave Nalle on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:29:05 EST

ALL HAIL VERMIN SUPREME!!! Well, other than getting virtually everything wrong, I think I did pretty well with my predictions. :-/ Let me echo both of those statements. I both acknowledge the supremacy of Vermin Supreme and that my predictions were a bit off. Hey Dave: I noticed you changed your predictions a little bit after you published this article. When did you do that? About midnight Monday when I saw the weather report for Tuesday. I think I made them worse. Dave

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:45:21 EST

Surely not!

Comment by Clavos on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:09:03 EST

That's what I heard...:>)

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Calling New Hampshire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:29:37 EST

That's what happens when you smoke dope and then go flying... Happen a bit in 'Nam, did that?

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 23:37:45 EST

I know someone who did that many years ago. He died of natural causes, eventually.

Comment by Clavos on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 23:15:47 EST

That's what happens when you smoke dope and then go flying...

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 22:56:20 EST

Ho ho. High-larious :)

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 22:45:24 EST

Here's another one: Guy taking flying lessons. It's his first time in the pilot's seat. He takes off, climbs a bit and levels out. The instructor turns to him and says, "You're flying too high." The guy says, "I'll fly however damn high I want." The instructor says, "I don't like your altitude."

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 21:46:54 EST

Lol. Harold be thy name. Very clever Doc ... although I have heard it before. Aussie accent tales, in a similar vein: My son came up with a beauty as a kid, having been scolded for copying a boy who always dropped the "g" from words like going, doing, etc. A TV reporter was talking about the Aussie motorcycle champion, Mick Doohan (which, pronounced with an Aussie accent, sounds the same as doing with the G dropped". "See", he said. "It can't be that bad Dad ... even the man on TV says Doohan". And once, at a party in an an area neighbouring the suburb of Glebe, when I suggested we go to "up to Glebe and get something to eat", he asked, "Where's gleben".

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 21:08:16 EST

Lol. I wouldn't doubt that in the slightest. What do you think Clav ... Churchill and FDR, two of the greatest leaders ever? And I do mean ever, given the constraints of democracy within which they worked their magic. It wasn't like they could just do whatever they wanted. I like the idea that the man I regard as America's greatest leader and the leader of the greatest American generation had to do it all from a wheelchair, which shows tremendous force of will. Churchill, too, had that force of will and often did most of his work lying down (after a scotch or two) :) People often say that Churchill breathed a huge sigh of relief when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but I suspect Roosevelt did too, even if he was mortified by the US losses and Japan's cunning. It's quite amazing that history, or fate, or whatever we like to call it, put two such men together at the time it did.

Comment by Clavos on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:51:48 EST

My mother used to swear she had heard that, when Churchill was a child, his mother would dispatch a servant to find him with the order, "Go see what Winston is doing and tell him to stop."

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:44:50 EST

It wasn't that much later that the young Churchill, free from the army and working as a correspondent, was escaping from a Boer prison in Pretoria. The story of his escape was published in the New York Times I like the way he talks about the large vulture that was taking an uncommon interest in him. And my favourite Churchill quote, his attack on Ramsay McDonald in parliament: "I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder". My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench." Ah, yes we laments the passing of all those skilled in the art of the parliamentary verbal joust.

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:28:15 EST

And on Churchill. His father, Lord Randolph, once wrote to him after he'd failed his university exams (again), warning that he was becoming sick of young Winston's behaviour and his lackadaisical attitude - and then went on to outline what was obviously at that time a genuine litany of irreponsibility. The best bit: His parting shot was that young Winston would never amount to anything.

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:04:35 EST

DD: "Milner was the name of one of the houses at my high school." See, this gets curioser and curioser. I once lived in Milner Ave. Obviously, we've been marked from birth Doc.

Comment by STM on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:01:39 EST

Dave: "We can't talk about Lady Astor, she was a member of the dreaded 'Milner Group' who secretly run the world." No Dave, that's KAOS.

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:21:14 EST

I've discovered that this website can be damned handy! Less than an hour after I adopted my new favorite quote, on this here page than I'm using it, or rather paraphrasing it... Winston Churchill originally said it, and I'll paraphrase it "Dan occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."

Comment by Jet in Columbus on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:16:17 EST

I've always been taught the Christ's middle name was Hosanna... but what do I know?

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 18:48:56 EST

LOL... Chaucer may have sown the seeds... but I guess it wasn't until the reign of Elizabeth that we finally came to the conclusion that world domination was the one surefire way of getting the Spanish, the French and the Pope to stop fucking with us. Worked pretty well, too.

Comment by Clavos on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 18:31:42 EST

Some sources claim that the original idea for Brit world domination was Chaucer's. He first proposed it in The Milner's Tale...

Comment by Dr Dreadful on Calling New Hampshire

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 17:38:01 EST

Dave @ #211: Milner was the name of one of the houses at my high school. Could the boys in that house really have been training for world domination as 'The Milner Group'?