Rotten Tomato Alert

Reason's own Nick Gillespie will be going mano-a-mano with guest host Tony Snow on The O'Reilly Factor tonight. Ostensible topic is what, if anything, President Bush owes Evangelical Christians during this term. The program airs at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern, 8 pm Pacific/11 pm Eastern and Saturday at 1 am Pacific/4 am Eastern.

Comments

[rst]

A guest host, you might get a few words in edgewise.

[dlc]

Please be sure you ask Tony if he's taken Pres. Bush's balls out of his mounth now that he's been re-elected.

[dlc]

...That's "mouth"

[Jeff]

Bonne chance.

Viel gluck.

Mnoho stest.

Goddam cable's been out for two days.

[Brian]

Ask those Fox guys how they all get that giant, indestructible TV hair. Is it, indeed, hair? Some advanced carbon fiber or polymer? Ballistic nylon? Can it deflect shrapnel and bullets? What's the half-life on that stuff? 5000 years?

[Jeff]

Brian,

Most of the Fox anchors look like televangelists to me. Coincedence?

J

[Drooling Richard]

78% of Evangelical Christians who make up 23% of the electorate voted for Bush. So that figures to 18% of the 51% of the vote Bush received came the ECs. Or, IOW, the majority of Bush voters, 65%, are not ECs. If my math is right, Bush has a mandate from the non-ECs.

[crap-action-jackson]

Please try to work in a Santorum reference

[joe]

Nick, you're really good on TV.

I think Fox invites libertarians on to argue the progressive side of social issues that they either side with the progressives on, or want to show both sides. That way, they won't have to be in the uncomfortable position of admitting that a Democrat might be right or winning.

[Ruthless]

Here is a cul de sac spot, if ever there were, to stick mine, but what you gonna do?
A recent column from Charles Krauthammer said: "This does not deter the myth of the Bigoted Christian Redneck from dominating the thinking of liberals, and from infecting the blue state media. They need their moral superiority like oxygen, and cannot have it cut off by mere facts."

The aforesaid to make this point: The death of Turd Sandwich Arafat is not appreciated by "liberals" other than as a spur to gig stupid Dubya to carpe diem and produce peace between Israel and the Palestinians mui pronto.

As I had said earlier, those who truly desire peace need to wait for more years than Dubya will be Prez for Palestinians to sort themselves, in the sense of Hatfield and McCoy.

The Hatfield or the McCoy remaining standing, someone may be able to talk some sense into.
Or not. Probably not.

Jimmy Carter, surprise, is among those setting this inane trap for Dubya. See his column in the NYT.

[Ellie]

*whistles* My goodness, Nick is cute!

[geronimo]

*whistles* My goodness, Nick is cute!

[Drooling Richard]

"Nick is cute!"

That Catholic guy with the pink shirt, rose-rimmed glasses, and the lisp was even cuter.

[JDOG]

The world according to Joe:

"I think Fox invites libertarians on to argue the progressive side of social issues that they either side with the progressives on, or want to show both sides."

Individual liberty is not a 'progessive' social issue. It is a human necessity. Nick did not do a good job on the show. After correctly stating that the government's involvement in a social contract, like marriage, is unwarranted, Nick retreated on a pragmatic tangent while the sanctimoniuos Catholic stuck to his principles.

I think Nick's is a good guy and I encourage him to keep spreading the necessity of reason and liberty in the mass media. But given the brevity of the debates offered there, Nick's gonna need a cache of killer, principled, sound bites to be persuasive. Any taker's ?

[joe]

JDOG, the expansion of civil rights for gay people is, and always has been, a progressive issue. The opposition to this broad movement has been a conservative cause. You're playing word games with your little "individualist" shtick.

Doing away with sodomy laws was certainly an individualist cause, as well as a progressive one. State recognition of gay people's marriages is neutral as far as individualism goes. Laws against discriminatory hiring and firing of gay people would probably be considered anti-individualistic by most people on this board. Regardless, all three of those causes are progressive causes, and the opposition to them is conservative.

And just as progressive issues can pro- or anti-individualism, individual liberty issues can be progressive, regressive, or neutral.

Believe it or not, JDOG, some people can actually have more than one principle.

[JDOG]

Joe,
From a libertarian point of view only individuals have rights, not groups. That means the Gays, the Christrian, the Evangelical Christians, the Gay Evangelical Christions, and the Gay Egavangelical Cristions with ADD, all get the same rights. What is it you don't understand here ? Oh, Never mind.

[joe]

From a liberal point of view, it's a problem when individuals in one group aren't granted the same rights as people in other groups. I hope your determination to ignore any issue related to disparate treatment of people in different groups hasn't completely blinded you to the fact that this occurs with some frequency.

And since you asked,there is nothing in your sophmoric politcal orientation that I don't understand, here.

[Ruthless]

If this doesn't prove the point of my thesis of 9:21 PM of Nov. 12, I don't know what will.
This is from Thomas Friedman's column in tomorrow's NYT.

"If only President Bush called in Colin Powell and said: "Colin, neither of us have much to show by way of diplomacy for the last four years. I want you to get on an airplane and go out to the Middle East. I want you to sit down with Israelis and Palestinians and forge a framework for a secure Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and progress toward a secure peace in the West Bank, and I don't want you to come back home until you've got that. Only this time I will stand with you.

"As long as you're out there, I will not let Rummy or Cheney fire any more arrows into your back. So get going. It's time for you to stop sulking over at Foggy Bottom and time for me to make a psychological breakthrough with the Arab world that can also help us succeed in Iraq - by making it easier for Arabs and Muslims to stand with us. I don't want to see you back here until you've put our words into deeds.""

This morning on Scott Simon's Weekend Edition on NPR, he had a guest who posited that the eighth deadly sin is "speed."

[joe]

Ruthless, have you considered the possibility that Friedman might genuinely believe this is a rare opportunity that needs to be seized?

[James B.]

I'm still waiting for Nick to turn on a jukebox by hitting it with his fist.

[Ruthless]

"Ruthless, have you considered the possibility that Friedman might genuinely believe this is a rare opportunity that needs to be seized?"

As Ronnie said to Jimmy, joe, "There you go again."

This isn't a rare opportunity. It's just another in a series for "liberals" to rant.

[Cletus Nelson]

I think Ron Paul hits the nail on the head: So long as the "peace process" consists of both sides picking Uncle Sap's pockets, there is a cash-driven incentive to AVOID any type of peaceful reconciliation.

As is expected, Bush will be urged to "broker" an agreement. Both sides will eagerly pay lip service to "peace" and a new list of "urgent" peace-related expenses will be picked up by the US taxpayer.

Within months of said agreement, another suicide bombing will set off "reprisal" attacks against the Palestinian Authority (PA)which will facilitate "rebuilding costs" for the Palestinians and "additional security expenses" for the Israelis.

Didn't Einstein define insanity as doing the same thing over and over in the hopes of achieving a different outcome?

[Ironchef]

Joe,

A GROUP of individuals does NOT equal separate individuals.

"Group" rights doe NOT equal individual rights, by defintion.

[Ruthless]

Wouldn't you say, Cletus, that Arafat's death is a "rare opportunity" for the US to not just do something, but stand there?

[joe]

I didn't write anything about Group Rights, chef. I wrote about individual rights, and the problem with them being denied to individuals based on that individual's affiliation with a group.

Stop arguing with the liberal in your head.

[Cletus Nelson]

Ruthless:

I think the time has come to offer "moral support" and empty pockets. So long as the the cash incentive is there, we can look forward to another round of geopolitical three-card monty...