When Mighty Casey struck out, he may have disappointed the fans of Mudville, but he didn’t insult them. He didn’t brand them racists. Or at least Ernest Lawrence Thayer—the poet who immortalized Casey’s big whiff—didn’t mention any such calumnious castigations in his delightful ditty of the diamond.

But this isn’t 1888—the publication date of Casey at the Bat. No, it’s 2011—the much more modern and much less civilized era of loudmouthed serial interrupters like “Hardball’s” Chris Matthews, who makes rude conquerors like Alexander the Great look polite by comparison.

Used as I (and I suspect you) am to Matthews’ cheesecloth logic and scattershot, half-cocked accusations, I make it a point to miss “Hardball” as often as possible. When Fate is kind, on any given week I am able to miss all five episodes of The Interrupter’s Diatribe-Disguised-as-Dialogue program. Not catching Chris’ hour of senile logorrhea gives one a rare feeling of euphoria—akin to finding a free parking spot in downtown Chicago on a Saturday night, or—back in the days when apartment life compelled me to frequent laundromats—finding a vacant dryer with time still paid for on it. Missing ”Hardball” is just one of those simple pleasures in life that puts a little extra spring in your step and a smile on your face. I’m grateful to MSNBC for affording me this little weekly bit of heaven on earth—missing “Hardball”—especially now that I can no longer thrill to missing “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” five times a week.

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Sure the news stinks: Obama (of course) has come out foursquare for the Ground Zero mosque, the economy is in the dumps and Dustin Pedroia is still on the DL.  But look on the bright side: the snarling, vicious, fascist Left is starting to crack up!

Don ‘t take it from us — take it from Bill Kristol:

The left has collapsed.

Its political support has collapsed. Public opinion polls point to a historic repudiation of the president and the Democratic party this fall—something on the order of a 60-seat Republican gain in the House. The GOP has an outside shot at taking the Senate as well.

Its claim to intellectual integrity has collapsed. Paul Krugman—Ivy League professor, New York Times columnist, and Nobel laureate (the holy trinity of the liberal establishment)—has humiliated himself with a startlingly dishonest attack on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Krugman, called out by Ryan, rebuked by honest analysts, and unwilling to concede his errors, has retreated into uncharacteristic abashed silence.

Lenin and Stalin, Democrat role models

Its Leninist discipline has collapsed. Last week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs complained about the craziness of the “professional left” in the punditocracy. “Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs explained. “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality. .  .  . They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.” Members of the professional left hit back at Gibbs, dubbing the Obama White House the “amateur left.”

Naturally, it’s a complete coincidence that no less than seventy members of the current Congress — all “Democrats,” naturally — are members of the Socialist Party of America (and we bet you can name half of them without even peeking). Not that there’s anything wrong with that — after all, they have the best interests of the country at heart. It’s just that their notion of America bears absolutely no resemblance to that of the Founders.  Or yours, for that matter.

More Bill: (more…)

Not to be missed: the first of a two-part series of radio broadcasts detailing the West’s suicidal love affair with Soviet communism and the role the “useful idiots” — otherwise smart people who for whatever reason fell under the spell of the God That Failed:

The phrase ‘useful idiots’, supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.

In political jargon it was used to describe Soviet sympathisers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them.

Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic fervour – to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived.

In part one John Sweeney looks at Stalin’s Western apologists.

You can listen to part one, available for only five more days, here. (more…)

As the November mid-term elections draw near, race arsonists’ political distractions are seen in full action.  Facing defeat at the polls, the Left is desperately resorting to its only remaining trick.

With different styles and brands of utopian-driven influence — from the dependent welfare state of the American Democratic party, the socialism of Marxist/Leninists’ Workers’ Paradise, the Open Society of Soros’ idol Karl Popper, or any of the current collective salvations of social justice — examining the tactics as they occur is an enlightening exercise.

On Sunday’s This Week, President Obama’s defacto spokesman, V.P. Joe Biden, was sent to poison the well. Host Jake Tapper asked, “The NAACP had a convention in the last week, and they passed a resolution saying that elements of the Tea Party are racist. Do you think elements of the Tea Party are racist?”

The presidential reply is as follows:

Well, the truth is that at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks expressed racist views, you saw that on television. But, I don’t think — I don’t — I wouldn’t characterize the Tea Party as racist.

There are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of their things, their — their protests — that have expressed really unfortunate comments. And, again, it was all over TV, all over your network, you know? A black Congressman walking up the stairs of the Capitol.

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A blast from the past, and a warning for the future.  There’s some typical KGB boasting here — and remember that, in the end, they lost — but it’s worth watching and paying heed to:

Maybe it’s also time we brought ourselves up to speed on the Soviet illegals program, the results of which are still with us.  The Soviets spent a great deal of time and money identifying possible collaborators (whether witting or unwitting) in the homeland of the Principal Enemy — that was their name for the United States — and then gliding the recruits along their support networks of fellow travelers and sympathetic “useful idiots” (especially journalists) through the elite universities and into high governmental positions.

The U.S.S.R. may be gone, but its handiwork lives on, and the struggle for the soul of the West that Marx began in London continues.

Your thoughts welcome here.