Thursday, May 28, 2009

'Tamen hic vivit . . '

"Quousque tandem abutere, Catalina, nostra patientia? Quamdiu etiam iste furor eludet nos? ad quem finem effrenata audacia jactabit sese? . . . Non sentis tua consilia patere? . . . O tempora! O mores!"

4 comments:

  1. Julius Dreher.
    ACT IV. SCENE I.
    Dreher's yurt in the Vermont wilderness.
    DREHER. This is a slight unmeritable talker,
    Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,
    The Federal world gerrymandered, Levin should stand
    One of the three to share it?
    HOWARD THE BEALE. So you thought him,
    And took his voice who should be prick'd to die
    In our black sentence and proscription.
    DREHER. Howard, I have seen more days than you,
    And though we lay these slanders on this man
    To ease ourselves of divers intellectual loads,
    He shall but bear them as Atlas bears the massy globe,
    To groan and sweat under the business,
    Either led or driven, as we point the way;
    And having brought this sacrifice where we will,
    Then take we down his load and turn him off,
    Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears
    And graze in commons. 'Cause I'm so awesome
    Upon my molars the grist of freedom doth dissolve.
    I am for petty sale, should the nobles not see
    Mine stance, wide and welcome.

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  2. It must be some stray terrier blood in me. Just hold on a second...

    So there's this withering dissection of Levin from David Frum, in which Frum says:

    I've spent some time in recent days listening to the Levin radio program, watching him interviewed on television and reading his new book, Liberty and Tyranny. From all these things - shows, interviews, book - there emerges a man who cannot begin to deal in an intellectual way with novel ideas, discrepant information, or unwelcome reality. Levin's mind is entirely closed upon itself. No wonder he cannot respond to a dissenting caller except by screaming at her.That included at least half, probably more, of Dreher's entire "rebuttal" to Levin by word count alone, based on the post in question.

    Apart from name-calling, where in Roddy McDumpster's post is there anything that supports Davy McFrumpkin's assertion that Levin is a (gasp) screamer?Please, go look at Dreher's post. If I were trying to discredit Levin I would not quote a segment that had no referent or context. I would quote precisely the context. But then, I'm not a deeply disturbed and vindictive weenus.

    Unless you get me started... and then I will provide quotes, pitchures and movin' video to make my point.

    The market for "reformed Republicans" must be getting pretty dry by now, given Dreher's alacrity.

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  3. The toughest thing for Frum to handle is this distraction from what has to be the longest running autohagiography in Washington.

    How can Frum be expected to cope with topics that are, well, not him?It's not a cheap-shot: Frum's work - up until 2004? 06?, when I stopped reading it - was chock nauseatingly full of self congratulation and self promotion. I simply couldn't stand to read "him" any further. The last point was the piece wherein Frum welcomed Mark Steyn to National Review. The whole thing reminded me of a cub-scout looking down his nose at a Marine.

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