Powerline wins Best Overall Blog!
I didn't have the readership to endorse anyone for the 2004 Weblog Awards but I'm happy to see that Powerline is as popular as I think their quality writing deserves.
Consider this timely tid-bit:
It was at this point my father jumped in to save me by saying that it took him 15 years before he told anyone of his (brief) service during the Vietnam War for fear of being spit upon. This allowed me to contrast the fact that when I returned from war last year I was treated to steak dinners by complete strangers. Grandma ended the conversation with "As it should be."
My Grandmother remembers when "over there" meant Europe and the Pacific, a mighty struggle and sacrifice that brought out the best in America. Why is it she now associates "over there" with the pain of the Vietnam era? My father knows. Those opposed to Vietnam then, today run the Democratic Party and most news sources.
But there's hope. The 60's are over. And those who consider the 60's their heyday are getting awfully long in the tooth.
Consider this timely tid-bit:
Experience countsThis theory does indeed hold merit. Just this weekend at an extended family gathering, my grandmother told me how glad she was that I was back from Iraq while American boys die every day "over there." I responded that every day, the 129,999 who don't make the news (by dying) are accomplishing great things "over there." She countered by stating that Iraq seems to her the most unpopular war since Vietnam.
[L]et's ask why the Moore wing is so influential compared to the party's far left wing in the late 1940s... [T]he anti-totalitarianism of that generation was not based on electoral calculation (the Democrats had won four presidential races in a row), but on bitter life experiences... [WWII, totalitarian union organizers]
What about today's left? It's most searing experience remains the Vietnam War... in Michael Moore's words, America "is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe." To these leftist the Islamofascists, if they exist at all, are an abstraction. Leftists have never dealt with them...
If this theory has merit, the Democratic party's real problem may be that it's the captive of its baby-boomer wing, of which Michael Moore is only an over-sized manifestation.
It was at this point my father jumped in to save me by saying that it took him 15 years before he told anyone of his (brief) service during the Vietnam War for fear of being spit upon. This allowed me to contrast the fact that when I returned from war last year I was treated to steak dinners by complete strangers. Grandma ended the conversation with "As it should be."
My Grandmother remembers when "over there" meant Europe and the Pacific, a mighty struggle and sacrifice that brought out the best in America. Why is it she now associates "over there" with the pain of the Vietnam era? My father knows. Those opposed to Vietnam then, today run the Democratic Party and most news sources.
But there's hope. The 60's are over. And those who consider the 60's their heyday are getting awfully long in the tooth.