The panels were interesting...always meaty and at times passionate and contentious and full from start to finish with thought provoking information. But I will admit that I looked the most forward to the hour and a half evening event with Mark, Jonah and Rob Long. They did not disappoint.
Though moderator Jim Geraghty made a valiant effort to reign in three very distinct and strong personalities, he quickly settled back like the rest of us to watch the action. As comedy often is, there was an ADD feel to the evening. The three of them jumped around from topic to topic with lightening speed, giving us all a mere nanosecond to recover from one guffaw before launching into another twisted tangent. Very little was spared their special treatment.
Confession time...I do love National Review. It has been a consistent voice in my life for as long as I can remember. My Quaker/East Coast grandmother (a Smithie no less) was all things left. She sneered at conservatives in the way that only an East Coast elitist can. But she loved Bill Buckley...hated what he said, but loved how he said it. She respected his precise and flavored communication even if she rolled her eyes at his conclusions. As a result, I spent many nights watching Firing Line while she yelled at the tv or threw her copy of NR on the coffee table with derision. I can only imagine what she would think about how much Buckley would ultimately influence me (spinning in her grave...or rather her urn, does not even come close to the horror I am sure.)
Back to the confession...the first thing I open to in my NR when it arrives is Rob Long. Why is that worthy of a confession? I suppose because it is comedy/satire and not in the "officially" meaty category that most think of with NR. But Long's style suits me...a little bit twisted, often just on the edge of taste and with a wickedly fabulous sense of tweak. The snark factor just does it for me. In some ways, it is like eating dessert first. And in reality, it is as meaty as any column in the magazine and often, some of the most cutting and hard hitting analysis out there. But clever Long does it with a smile and a chuckle. Most of his victims are too focused on his grin to see the dagger being turned.
And an odd bonus for me...my children are perhaps more inundated with political conversation that many. It is a constant theme in our home and my freelance writing ideas are often massaged around the dinner table. Long's way of approaching important and critical political themes is presented in a way that I can express to my children. Many of the themes and the truly wicked satire remain a bit sophisticated for them, but the overall approach and his ability to find things to laugh with (or often at) provide an important primer for understanding the complexities of political discourse. And a reminder that all of this can and should be fun.
While many talk of the importance of having fun during what could be very uncomfortable times, Long has long embraced that mantra and shows no signs of slowing down.
Go ahead...eat the dessert first once in a while...
ps...One drawback of the evening was Long's observance of the constant vacuuming by the HA crew....and I mean constant. For the remainder of the trip I could not walk past a crewman vacuuming without giggling which I am sure seemed odd to them. When I arrived home, I promptly put my vacuum in the corner.




In the recent photography session with McCain, Greenberg admitted to placing a strobe on the ground to make McCain look “sinister” and on her web site she photo-shopped those pictures so that McCain appeared as if he had fangs and placed captions such as “bloodthirsty warmonger” under those pictures.
I suppose she’s right. I mean, if I were a patient in a San Francisco emergency room and I let it be known that I harbored some moderately conservative views, I should naturally bear all of the responsibility if the surgeon gave less than the full measure of his efforts to save my life… after all, I should know better than to trust a liberal to save a moderate because that would be “somewhat irresponsible” now wouldn’t it? Sorry, but ethics should not be confined to the medical and legal professions.
Apparently it is perfectly fine to torture children to get your photo op or to purposely alter images to suit your political bias when you’re supposed to be acting impartially, but call the ACLU if you decide to make a political statement at a political rally and use a caricature of an opposition candidate. The Democrats are up in arms over a box of waffles with Obama on them
Is it the picture of Obama? Well, it does look like him. Would they prefer that he was represented as white? Are waffles stereotypical beyond the obvious jab at his party affiliation?
Is it the hat? Well, there are already photographs of him wearing a similar if not identical hat. But yes, it is the hat that has people up in arms. Apparently a Muslim hat is racist… but you can slap a cowboy hat on a picture of GW and it’s just good old fashioned American fun, right?
By the way, she’s a feature “artist” at The New Republic if that answers any questions for ya’. Oh, and she loves bears so you can bet that she hates Sarah Palin doubly due to her take on polar bears and their status as “good eatin”. Oh, and her website is called manipulation.com.