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Our Compulsive Hunger Always To Know First, Speak First And Decide First Has Only Been Amplified By The Fact That We Can Now All Participate Instantly In A Virtual Version Of A National Cocktail-party Conversation On Twitter, Facebook And Blogs.

-John Podhoretz

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Our Compulsive Hunger Always

John Podhoretz

...

Our Compulsive Hunger Always To Know First, Speak First And Decide First Has Only Been Amplified By The Fact That We Can Now All Participate Instantly In A Virtual Version Of A National Cocktail-party Conversation On Twitter, Facebook And Blogs.

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Cocktail Parties

More From John Podhoretz

The Real Story Of The Ground Zero Mosque Is That The Project Only Became Feasible Because Of The Appalling And Astonishing Fecklessness Of The Officials Who Were Charged With The Reconstruction Of The Site And The Neighborhood All The Way Back In 2001.

Romney Is A Good, Intelligent, Extraordinarily Generous Man Who Put On A Great Fight. But He Didn't Understand The Country Or The People He Sought To Lead, And That Is Why He Lost.

The Exit Polls Suggest That After A Relatively Disappointing First Term, Obama Managed To Reassemble Almost All Of His 2008 Electorate.

For The Record, I Am Not An Admitted Homosexual, Nor Am I A Homosexual, Though I Do Know The Lyrics To Every Show Tune Ever Written, Which Might Perhaps Account For The Confusion.

I Was Wholeheartedly Attracted To The Conservative Atmosphere That Permeated The City Of Washington.

You Want A Political Culture That Works To Create Conditions Under Which An Economy Can Thrive? Since Signing The Oslo Accords With The Palestinians, Israel Has Spent Two Decades Working To Unshackle Its Economy From Its Socialist Roots, With Remarkable Results.

Romney Has Adopted Almost Every Position Conservatives Want Their Candidate To Espouse: He's Pro-life, He Wants To Repeal Obamacare, He Wants To Cut Taxes And Cut The Federal Budget, And He Wants An Unapologetic Foreign Policy Dedicated To The Proposition That This Too Will Be The American Century.

Memories Of The Last Nine Years Have Turned Ground Zero From A Site Of Horror, To A Reminder Of Grief, To An Occasion For Ludicrous Artistic Posturing - And Now To Something Very Close To Parody.

That Distinctive Presidential Conduct Is Now Gone Forever, Banished To The Snows Of Yesteryear By Barack Obama. From The Beginning Of His Presidency To The Present, He Has Spoken Specifically And In Unprecedented Fashion Of Republicans As His Rivals, His Stumbling Blocks, The Primary Cause Of His Troubles.

This, Of Course, Has No Chance Of Passing. But Then Tuesday Night's State Of The Union Address Could Be The First One In History Deliberately Designed Solely To Generate A Pavlovian Rage Response In Members Of The Opposing Party.

The Great Mystery Is Why Robots Come Off So Well In Science-fiction Films When The Human Characters Are Often So Astoundingly Wooden.

Obama Lost His Ability To Push His Agenda Through Congress When He Received What He Himself Called A 'shellacking' In The November 2010 Elections. That Shellacking Was Primarily The Result Of Massive Policy Overreach When He Had A Democratic Congress In His Pocket.

She Needs To Seem Tough, And Whatever Hillary's Weaknesses, Tough Is A Pretty Good Word To Describe Her.

In The Democratic Primary In 2008, The Obama Team Devised A Strategy To Use The Caucuses And A Complicated System Of Awarding Delegates In The State Primaries To Sneak Up On Hillary Clinton And Establish A Lead Obama Never Surrendered.

In 2013, There Were 6,261 Black Homicide Victims In The Us — Almost All Killed By Black Civilians.

As A Matter Of Policy, Increasing Taxes On The Most Economically Productive Group, Which Already Generates 60 Percent Of The Nation's Federal Revenues, During A Sustained Period Of Economic Doldrums Is A Wretched Idea.

America Is Great Not Because It's A Team. America Is Great Because It Is A Nation Whose Founding Documents Elevated The Rights Of The Individual.

Imagine His Delight After It 'leaked' That He Will Propose Raising Taxes On The Wealthy By $320 Billion Over The Next 10 Years, Including Increases To The Capital Gains And Inheritance Taxes.

Here's A Very Good Rule Of Thumb In Politics: Losing Begets Losing.

Our Compulsive Hunger Always To Know First, Speak First And Decide First Has Only Been Amplified By The Fact That We Can Now All Participate Instantly In A Virtual Version Of A National Cocktail-party Conversation On Twitter, Facebook And Blogs.

Cocktail Parties

Nixon Was An Awful President In Many Ways, Including In Some Of His Foreign-policy Choices. But He Left No Doubt That Foreign Policy And America's Leadership In The World Outside Its Borders Was Of Paramount Importance To Him.

Insulting The Electorate And Accusing It Of Spiritual Weakness And Sinfulness Are Not The Ways To Get Yourself The Job Of President.

Obama's Explanation For The Slowdown In Economic Growth Is That The Public Sector Is Hurting, And That's Where Washington Must Step In And Act.

I Don't Feel Alienated From American Culture, But I Understand People Who Do.

You Want A Culture Where Citizens Are Free To Express Themselves And So Live In The Openness Necessary To The Functioning Of A Successful Economy? Israel Has A Free Press, Much Of It Openly Hostile To The Parties In Power.

As A Member Of The Mormon Church, Romney Is Instructed To Tithe 10 Percent Of His Income. That's In Keeping With Most Charitable Giving: Religious Institutions Get About One-third Of All Contributions, According To 'the American' Magazine.

Newt Gingrich Has A Restless And Outsized Intelligence That Is Tragically Unleavened By Any Kind Of Critical Sensibility.

Is Victory Sweet Because Your Side Wins - Or Is It Really Because The Other Side Loses?

While Negativity Is Politically Useful, It Is Also Demoralizing Unless It Is Accompanied - And To Some Extent Overshadowed - By Elevated And Inspiring Ideas About The American Future.

This Has Always Been The Way Of Presidential Politics. The President Rises Above The Fray While His Surrogates Go On The Attack. They Throw The Spears And Fling The Mud; He Sits Upon The Throne.

When Obama Was Inaugurated, He And His Team Had An Insight - Though Whether The Insight Was Conscious Or Not I Don't Know. But It Was This: The Tarp $700 Billion Price Tag Was A New Kind Of Model.

All Conservatives Are Bilingual We Have To Be. We Speak Both Liberal And Conservative. But Liberals Are Monolingual - They Don't Have To Be Anything Else. They Speak Liberal, And Are Completely Ignorant Of The Conservative Tongue.

There's No Light At The End Of The Tunnel In The Republican Message, No Promise Of Better Things To Come. There's Only The Present Stagnation, Followed By A Slow Decline.

Obama's Presidency Hasn't Been Dedicated To Achieving Economic Growth In The Short Term, Or About Creating Jobs.

By Keeping Most Tax Rates At Present Levels, Obama And The Democrats Will Claim That They Have Championed Tax Cuts For The Middle Class.

The United States Established Itself As A Trustworthy New Nation In Its First Two Decades After The Revolutionary War By Paying Its Debts, Even When Many In The Country Believed It Had No Obligation To Do So. Alexander Hamilton, The Founder Of This Newspaper, Insisted On It.

What People Adore About Superhero Movies Is The Signal Quality Of The Christopher Nolan Films - Their Complete Lack Of Irony When It Comes To The Portrayal Of Heroism And The Need For Heroes To Confront Evil.

Hurtling The Pentagon Into An Unprecedented Budgetary Meltdown Is Horrifically Irresponsible. Obama Doesn't Care. This Is War - Not Against The Taliban, But War Against The Gop. He Has Republicans On The Ropes, And That's A Victory He Savors And Desires - Unlike Afghanistan, Where He Seems Only To Want To Turn Tail.

It Has Never Made Any Sense To Argue That, Unique Among The People Of The World, Arabs Are More Concerned On A Day-to-day Basis About The Treatment Of People They Don't Know Than They Are About How They're Going To Put Food On Their Own Tables, Or Whether Their Sons Will Ever Find A Job.

Obama's Victory In November 2008 Was A Historic Political Accomplishment.

Many People Crave Security And Stability Rather Than Risk-taking, And That Doesn't Make Them Any Less American. They Are The Workers Rather Than The Job Creators, And All Societies Need Both.

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The Most Passionately Anti-obama Republican Politicians And Activists Consider Themselves The Truest And Purest Of Conservatives, And Often Unleash Their Scorn And Fury On Others Who Also Call Themselves Conservative But Differ On Strategy And Tactics.

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I've Worked As Someone's Deputy, And Now It's Time For Me To Run Something. It's Time For Me To Run My Own Shop.

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Obama Is Talking To Voters As Though He Is Their Boss, Or Their Principal, Or Their Father. He Is Not Any Of Those Things. He Is Their Employee. And Employers Don't Like It When Their Employees Yell At Them - Even If Their Employees Have It Right.

For Obama To Save Himself, He Should Be Thinking About The Example Of An Unlikely Republican Predecessor: Richard Nixon.

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Nixon In 1968, Unlike Obama 2008, Was Elected As A Minority President With Only 43 Percent Of The Vote. Yet, In 1972, He Won What, In Some Measures, Was The Most Lopsided Election In American History With 61 Percent.

Obama Has Seen To The Passage Of The Most Radical Legislation In Recent American History And So-called 'progressives' Should Be Thanking Him For It - Even As Many Of The Rest Of Us Rear In Horror From Its Implications.

American History

Let Us Now Praise Barack Obama.

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Pop Culture Is A Reflection Of Social Change, Not A Cause Of Social Change.

Robots Have A Rich And Storied History In Movies.

If You Want To Know Why Republicans And Conservatives Are In A Political Crisis, You Need Only Consider The Fact That The Right's Deeply Held View Now Boils Down To This: Taxes Should Not Go Up On The Wealthy, And Your Health Benefits Should Be Cut.

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Executive Power

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Wealth Creation

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Conservatives Must Avoid The Siren Song Of Schism, Or All Is Lost.

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American History

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