Here's to You, Mr. Robinson
Peter Robinson is by a great and scenic distance the most entertaining blogger on NR's Corner. Other bloggers use a couple of words to make their points, then move on to play catch with the young'uns or clean the Simpsons episodes off the DVR. Robinson uses twice as many words as he ever needs to, upholstering his posts with phrases that flow like notes off the harp of Heaven's most comely angel. He doesn't even refer to the blog as The Corner: It's "this happy Corner." From a recent post asking Ramesh Ponnuru if Rudy Giuliani's pledge to reduce abortions would win Ponnuru over:
Would it affect your thinking if early on Rudy persuasively hinted—or came right out and stated—that he would name as his running mate a throughgoing pro-lifer? (Michael Medved's recommendation: Bobby Jindal, whose rise in American politics I personally would walk over broken glass to advance.) O Keeper of Principle and Logic, what think?
So Sen. Fred Thompson gifted Robinson with an on-camera interview, and it is beautiful. The marriage of Robinson's heavenly blather and Thompson's tough-guy grunting is nearly worth the 15 minutes of peering into your Google Video screen. Here's how Robinson leads off one question: "Napoleon once said something about if you want to understand a man, you have to know what he was thinking when he was 21."
Here, brilliantly, is how Robinson asks about Iraq.
Is this a fair statement of your position? That as to specific policy initiatives we have to wait to see how the situation develops, day by day, week by week, especially in the coming months, I think Gen. Petraeus is supposed to report on the surge in September. So as regards specific principles, watch, wait, see, but, the overarching principle would be we must not lose. We must not leave Iraq in a way that is perceived by Iraqis or by the rest of the world, or indeed by ourselves, as a loss. Is that a fair position?
Thompson is unlikely to get a more favorable interview if he enters the race. That seems problematic if you listen to his answers, which are guff. Here's how Thompson enumerates the problems facing America:
Well, we're at a crossroads in many respects, and we're going to do what many other generations have done, and that is come together, for a change, and solve them. You know, the things that we hold most dear, that is our safety, our very survival, certainly our economic well being, is at stake, with regard not only to our own families but with regard to future generations.
I know Thompson fills a need in the GOP primary, and I mostly agree with Jesse Walker that if he runs a good campaign on the ground he'll be the nominee. But if this is what he brings into the actual race, he's going to get pulped.
