Gail Collins sums it up beautifully.
I like neither Hillary Rodham nor Hillary Clinton, honestly. I’m rooting for Barack Obama to get the Democratic nomination. I like the guy, though not his policies, and something is better than nothing.
Month: January 2008
Thomas Boudreaux, Future President of the USA?
Well, not if his dad Don Boudreaux has his way. In yet another exceptional letter, Boudreaux writes to a DC radio station:
I’m appalled by everyone who called in today expressing hopes that one day one of their children “might become President of the United States.”
My son, Thomas, is ten. I hope that he graduates from college and has a satisfying and lucrative career. But I’d much rather that he be even a janitor or a used-car salesman than become a successful politician. To succeed at politics – especially at the national level – requires duplicity and shamelessness rivaled only by arrogance. For my son to become President he would have to abandon nearly every moral precept that my wife and I try hard now to impart to him: honesty, forthrightness, decency, respect for others, and modesty. We emphatically do not want our son to yearn for power, for to do so would inevitably corrode his humanity.
Thomas, like nearly everyone else in this world, will be fit to rule himself when he is an adult. He is not, and never will be – again like everyone else – fit to rule others, even if those others elect him to do so.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Needless to say, the validity of Boudreaux’s observations goes beyond America and American politics.
A Fee For Patriotism?
Headline of the day:
Don’t pay us to be patriotic: Muslims to UPA
It seems that the central government “has proposed to offer additional grants to nearly all the 12,000 madrassas, which get Government funds, to celebrate national festivals namely Independence Day and Republic Day.”
If politicians wish to bribe or pander, they are welcome to do with their own money. But why on earth should you or I have to pay for it? Immense disgust comes.
(Link via email from Vikram Chandrashekar.)
“The Earthquake Was Caused By The Shifting Of The Great Cobra”
Ted Rall asks, “What if Mike Huckabee were a fundamentalist Hindu?”
(Link via email from Gautam John.)
PS: And did you hear Huckabee modestly confess, “[t]he country is not just about me”? Heh.
Abhishek?
WTF headline of the day:
Why Hrithik never offered lifts to Ash in his helicopter?
The question mark at the end makes it particularly priceless. The detailed narrative is also a hoot, especially the bit about how “Aishwarya was also making gestures to the chaiwalla and her personal assistant…”
(Link via email from reader VatsaL.)
“Not Tonight, Dear, I’m Tracking My Portfolio”
The names of three banks and the word “stocks” beat “sex” to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, according to a Google China list seen on Thursday.
Well, what to say? Stock markets can stay up for a long time.
Splatter
The WTF headline of the day, with picture, comes from Rediff:
Saif jumps from the 22nd floor
And what’s with the byline?
(Link via email from Abhimanyu Sanghi.)
A Political Skill
The candid answer of the day, if only in jest, comes from a Newsweek interview of Tony Blair:
Newsweek: You just sold a memoir for $9 million. How were you able to convince your publisher you could write a best seller and make peace in the Middle East simultaneously?
Blair: Look, I’m a politician—I can convince a lot of people of a lot of things.