The count is now…

twenty-seven:

Further investigation by The News-Sentinel has found evidence of plagiarism in seven more guest columns from former White House aide Timothy S. Goeglein.

With that, I’m closing comments on the previous Goeglein posts. This has now achieved wreck-on-the-freeway status, and I just don’t know what more there is to say.

Posted at 3:16 pm in Media |
 

50 responses to “The count is now…”

  1. Dexter said on March 3, 2008 at 3:50 pm

    Well, OK then, we’ll move on. A few days ago I posted a story about Motown potholes. Here’s a pretty good size pothole, actually a sinkhole that swallowed a WHOLE MINIVAN in Chi-Town:

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-west-side-sinkhole-webmar04,0,460314.story

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  2. Dexter said on March 3, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    shop at Meijer? beware Listeria monocytogenes…it’s in the chicken entrees.

    http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/Recall_06_2008_Release/index.asp

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  3. infoshaman said on March 3, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Nancy, Thanks for the effort. As a former northern Hoosier, I’ve followed the kerfluffle and found myself shaking my head.

    Just one final question: How many of the Goeglein columns were “original thoughts”? 50 percent? Less?

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  4. Harl Delos said on March 3, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    Chicago sinkholes are pikers. The canal road, about four or five miles east of Antwerp, swallowed up *four* cars one morning, a decade or two ago.

    And those cars were flying low, too. People who lived a half mile away wondered why they were blasting at General Portland in the middle of the night.

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  5. Harl Delos said on March 3, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    Woo, woo!

    http://www.slate.com/id/2185657/

    WTG, nance!

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  6. Dexter said on March 3, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Harl: I live close enough to Antwerp to recall that event…cars piling on top of each other BANG BANG BANG, but that was a bridge-out situation. After that, all rural bridges were scrutinized and many replaced.
    Was this like Carcetti trying to get the 5th and 7th graders’ test scores up, and crime to nosedive 10% PRONTO? In other words, pure politics? I don’t know…Harl, do you know if the diligence in bridge inspections is still there?

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  7. Dexter said on March 3, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    hey, Harl! TY 4 the heads-up…I’d have caught it later as I am a long-time Slate freak. Good piece there.

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  8. brian stouder said on March 3, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    a non-sequitur –

    In order to properly observe the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, the Fort Wayne Lincoln Museum is closing down.

    http://www.thelincolnmuseum.org/pressroom/index.html?ID=press_room1204576919

    What a shame

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  9. Michael said on March 3, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Well, heck, he had a two-hundred-year run. Besides, certain recent presidents compare favorably to him anyway, I hear. So there’s less need for a Lincoln Museum, after all.

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  10. Jeff said on March 3, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Dorothy — Sorry to hear about your near-campus, non-student tragedy (for those who don’t know, the separation between Gambier and Kenyon College is thismuch).

    I’ve done a few wiki-entries, like the one for Warren K. Moorehead (go ahead, you know you want to), and it’s fairly painless; plus, i feel even more secure about saying that * in general * Wikipedia is as good a * starting point * as any place on the internet. Exceptions exist, but John Seigenthaler (for instance) got fixed and locked a long time ago.

    The Lincoln Museum news is . . . weird. If you can’t make money with a Lincoln museum in 2008-2009, then . . .

    And don’t forget that Lincoln shares a birth day and year both with one Charles Darwin. It should be a grand time for looking back next February!

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  11. Jeff said on March 3, 2008 at 5:21 pm

    I gotta say that the press release is a minor masterpiece of public relations. You just have to kind of savor that kind of reverse topspin.

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  12. Helen said on March 3, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    Nancy, I’m just a lurker – came here a few days ago via a link in a blog I respect in Canada of all places. I have read all the postings, and all the comments with your responses, and just want to express my admiration for your grace under fire vis a vis the Goeglein postings. I believe that plagerism is a symptom of something deeper – a disregard, if you will, of the individual creativity, of the person from whom one plagerizes. What difference is there between coveting another persons wife and property, and coveting another’s words? It is a moral failing (and I am an atheist – yes we have morals). The attacks on you have been unnecessary, and relentless, yet you have handled them with courage, grace and character. Well done. That’s all, but I hope you won’t mind me lurking in future. I find your posts very engaging and your regular commenters quite intelligent and entertaining.

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  13. alex said on March 3, 2008 at 6:00 pm

    Our little corner of the state still has the Dan Quayle Museum. Hey, it celebrates the same cultural divide the other one did, roughly along the Mason-Dixon, although that line has sort of migrated up to Interstate 80 or so in the past century and a half.

    Seriously, this is a huge loss for Fort Wayne. Curse you, John Boscia. May your golden parachute clobber you like a lead balloon, you sumbitch. (Or, to steal from Ashley, you cock-suckin’ fuckmook.)

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  14. Julie Robinson said on March 3, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    Didn’t we all suspect that Lincoln National would pull the plug eventually?

    But may I be blunt and say that The Lincoln Museum did not appeal to most people? To Lincoln scholars and the above-average person (that’s you, Brian Stouder!), yes. To the average person, no. Most of the school kids that went were boooored.

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  15. moe99 said on March 3, 2008 at 6:27 pm

    Well, alex, one of my second cousins from my corner of NW OH was on Dan Quayle’s staff and folks there were very, very proud of her for that……

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  16. velvet goldmine said on March 3, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    Oh, man! No fair! I’m just emerging from a three-day fever and all comments are closed.

    So may I just be the 4000th soul to say that the, er, event, is very exciting. I’ve shared the news with former colleages who remember the exciting week that I got a “Nancy” doll signed by the cartoonist and was about to send it to Ms. Nall, when it mysteriously vanished from our newsroom. It’s probably the most diligent investigation we’d ever undertaken! Doll was recovered and sent — and now I have a touchstone when I tell my former colleagues about the big doings at the web site I’ve been reading for literally years, which has become so newsworthy itself. (I WILL NOT say “meta,” I WILL NOT say “meta”)

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  17. blogenfreude said on March 3, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    Car wreck indeed. Best view is over here in the left lane.

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  18. brian stouder said on March 3, 2008 at 6:55 pm

    Julie, indeed – it’s not really surprising; still, I am almost embarrassed at how painful this is!

    My reaction is sadness and regret; I regret that I didn’t join the museum years sooner, and experience all the more of its charms, and the conistently challenging intellectual explorations of its guest speakers.

    And for purely selfish reasons I’m sad that it is soon to end.

    I guess it would be proper to resist the temptation to express anger at its corporate patron, and instead offer my sincerest thanks to them, for all the horizons that they widened for me (and for my children, who have been coming with me in recent years).

    Maybe I’ll achieve the ‘proper’ attitude at some point….but not yet.

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  19. michaelj said on March 3, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    So SRC is the greatest Detroit band. Even better than MC5. I guess you could look at this however you’d like, but Bob wasn’t the best singer and he was a great guitar player but not the best by a mile. Nancy comes lately, but hell, nobody got William Butler Yeats.

    He wrote two tremendous anti-war anthems, he always had his mot heartfeld self at heart. He wrote Mpak. If you don’t get that song, you aren’t from Detroit. Can’t cpnceive
    So whatever I think? Bogus. Can’t conceive. Whatever. whatver you think, ahole.

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  20. Cathy Dee said on March 3, 2008 at 7:24 pm

    Cool, Nancy: Slate

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  21. Suzi said on March 3, 2008 at 7:29 pm

    Has anyone heard what the fate of the Lincoln Library collection will be when the museum closes?

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  22. michaelj said on March 3, 2008 at 7:44 pm

    Damn. Dis anybody in Congress sign on with W? Here’s the deql on NaFTA. Clinton did the tight thing. Obama made shit about, and thats a fact jack,ahole he had to to deal with the U N. Is Obama lying his ass off? For sure.

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  23. droudy said on March 3, 2008 at 7:55 pm

    Nancy,
    Fantastic! Congrats for exposing more lies and the lying liars that tell them.

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  24. michaelj said on March 3, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    Damn. Dis anybody in Congress sign on with W? Here’s the deql on NaFTA. Clinton did the right thing. Obama made shit about, and thats a fact jack,ahole he had to to deal with the U N. Is Obama lying his ass off? For sure.

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  25. Eli Perle said on March 3, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    Nancy – great piece in Slate. I especially liked the part about how Goeglein and Hart both misspelled Professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s name. In M. Thomas Eisenstadt’s blog (now updated), he notices that Hart cribbed that exact spelling, and indeed the entire quote, from a Dartmouth Alumni story about Deputy Sec. of State Thomas Callahan. Turns out the plagiarizee is also the plagiarizer. For those who didn’t see it, Eisenstadt’s blog is here:
    http://www.eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/03/03/in-defense-of-plagiarism-why-tim-goeglin-got-thrown-under-the-bus/

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  26. Harl Delos said on March 3, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    At 8:28PM EST, they mentioned the Goeglein matter on Countdown with Keith Olberman, with details wrong (he said 20 stories, not 27) and virtually no names. Shucks. I had been hoping that Tim would get honored as one of the worst persons in the world, or better yet, that Nance would get honored as one of the best.

    Harl: I live close enough to Antwerp to recall that event…cars piling on top of each other BANG BANG BANG, but that was a bridge-out situation. After that, all rural bridges were scrutinized and many replaced.

    Not a bridge – a culvert, a big tube of galvanized metal that carried rainwater and wastewater under the road. That sinkhole in Chicago was caused by the collapse of a sewer line – which amounts to the same thing.

    I’m surprised that headquarters hasn’t pulled Lincoln National Life out of Fort Wayne years ago. It’ll be the next thing to go, you know. And yeah, that press release sure makes it sound like they’re doing something great and honorable, instead of cheaping out.

    I know the insurance company by Club Olympia was broken up by the state insurance commissioner because they sold more insurance than they had assets to sustain. I have noticed that Kennedy National Life is gone, too. Did Maury Tauschlog (I probably spelled his name wrong) sell the company and retire, or did the company fail, or what?

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  27. michaelj said on March 3, 2008 at 8:54 pm

    How does ny corn make my celery cost so absurdly much? How des this have to do with with my price for vegetables? Americans are dumber than grunt.

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  28. alex said on March 3, 2008 at 9:19 pm

    michaelj–

    yer number 27 on this thing titled 27. Woo-hoo!

    How does our asparagus make our pee smell like the disaster in Bhopal? And what does it have to do with the price of beans in Madagascar?

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  29. MonkeyBoy said on March 3, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    In the previous thread I posted the following comment just before it was closed. I think it still stands for comments.

    Come on peeps. Wikipedia has a Timothy Goeglein page up and it needs editing – in particular putting in dates and references and details. Though don’t clog it up with too much.

    I know a lot of people here are journalists and the Wiki page is open to anonymous editing so anybody can improve it.

    Note to the people who are intimidated by the knowledge needed to edit a Wiki entry. Um, it is really easy:

    1) Only click on a sub-section to edit.
    2) Preview, Preview, Preview, and then only finally commit.
    3) If you need some strange Wiki syntax to appropriately reference, footnote, or format something don’t bother to learn it. Just find another Wiki page that that displays something similar to what you want to produce, click edit, search, and then you will find out how the author did it. Just copy and paste something like

    [[Ernie Pyle]] [[School of Journalism at Indiana University]]

    into your edit, preview, and it should look nice. Of course if you are pasting in some pattern from an irrelevant page, after it looks nice you should go into it and edit its internals to make it relevant before you preview and commit.

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  30. Lance Mannion said on March 3, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    I followed Eli’s link to the Eisenstadt piece and, ok, it’s getting late in the evening here, I’m tired, my brain’s probably already gone to bed where it’s waiting for the rest of me to catch up, but…

    WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

    Is there a single coherent paragraph in Eisenstadt’s post? Is his point really Plagiarism in defense of extremism is no vice?

    Is it possible that a Right Winger like Goeglein resorts to cutting and pasting because he knows he’ll wind up sounding as mad as Eisenstadt if he tries to write his own stuff?

    Good job on the Slate post, Nance!

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  31. michael heaton said on March 3, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    nancy
    nice walk-off on Slate
    best
    michael

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  32. Jeff said on March 3, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    Hours of fun, folks —

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Biographical_museums_in_the_United_States

    . . . and don’t forget to click the link to the United States Vice-Presidential Museum, the onliest one in these United States, located in the Hoosier State, but dedicated to Arizona’s third senator, as we knew him when he [koff] served us.

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  33. tensor said on March 4, 2008 at 12:01 am

    Ms. Nall,

    Thank you for having us interlopers walking all through your blog, what with some of Mr. G.’s defenders not having the grace to take off their shoes and all.

    You’ve earned your fame the right way: by being a good citizen, and fact-checking journalist. I believe Mr. Elmer Davies himself would have given you high marks in your profession.

    And, I had great pleasure clicking through the advertising links here. Learned a few things.

    Thanks again for your great work!

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  34. michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 12:52 am

    So SRC is the greatest Detroit band. Even better than MC5. I guess you could look at this however you’d like, but Bob wasn’t the best singer and he was a great guitar player but not the best by a mile. There were the Quacknbush brothers and there was Detroit rock. Nancy comes lately, but hell, nobody got William Butler Yeats immediatley either.

    He wrote two tremendous anti-war anthems, he always had his mot heartfelt self at heart. He wrote Two +two. but asshp;es pursue other idiotic wars. Hillaary voted to make the asshole stand up to UN inspection. I DO’T AWW HOQ RHDid he do that? Well, no. How the hell do people get away with claiming that was a vote for shock and awe.

    When all gets settled. Seems you disliked this guy with good reason.

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  35. Kristina said on March 4, 2008 at 1:28 am

    Regarding the Lincoln Library Collection – I’m sure it will be traded in the first or second round draft for the rights to have their name plastered on another sports stadium somewhere.

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  36. Eli Perle said on March 4, 2008 at 2:07 am

    Lance – sorry you didn’t get Eisenstadt’s post. Really not that complicated: There’s something funny going on with Jeffrey Hart’s original piece in the Dartmouth Review. Thanks to Nancy noticing that Prof. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s name was mispelled in Goeglein’s piece, it helped prove that Goeglin copped from Hart. Take the Googlin’ (or “Goeglein”…the new verb for “using Google to search for plagiarism”) one step further and you’ll find that Hart stole part of his story from Thomas Callahan, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State (who unlike either Goeglein OR Hart, has literally put his ass on the line for this country, serving in hotspots like Rwanda and Afghanistan). THAT’s the guy who should be working in the White House.

    Who knows, maybe this was Goeglein’s subliminal hoax pointing to Hart’s ridiculous article in the first place. As Nancy’s been saying for months, his columns were pretentious claptrap.

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  37. Dexter said on March 4, 2008 at 2:33 am

    Thinking the third person on a match with a cigarette would die , none of my friends nor I would consider lighting up third.
    I just watched the old Bette Davis movie “Three on a Match”.
    Guess what? Not only was it not a superstition, the whole concept was concocted by the match company to sell more matches!
    Not biblical, not honoring a practice that old soldiers engaged in…just a match company’s greed!
    I was duped!

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  38. Harl Delos said on March 4, 2008 at 4:37 am

    Lance Mannion Says:

    Is there a single coherent paragraph in Eisenstadt’s post? Is his point really Plagiarism in defense of extremism is no vice?

    That’s not how I read it. He’s saying plagiarism is not just OK, but good, period, and everybody should do as much of it as possible, because these poor Jukes and Kallikaks who live in The Great Flyover would never see great literature. Three generations of idiots is enough, you know? We must take Eisenstadtian pity on them.

    Is it possible that a Right Winger like Goeglein resorts to cutting and pasting because he knows he’ll wind up sounding as mad as Eisenstadt if he tries to write his own stuff?

    Obviously, you think the count isn’t going to stop at 27, that eventually, we’ll find it’ll rise to 38, else you would suggest looking at the other 11 to determine that. You’re probably right.

    If a neocon worried about sounding mad, he wouldn’t be a neocon, now, would he? The defining characteristics of a neocon are intellectual laziness, selfishness, and complete disregard for others. William of Occam suggests that Timmy was following Halliburton’s Law: “What’s mine is mine, and if you’re not watching carefully, what’s yours is mine, too.”

    It’s worth noting that Halliburton builds a lot of chemical plants. They didn’t invent Halliburton’s Law; they appropriated it. It’s a generalization of Markonikov’s Law which says “In the addition of an unsymmetrical reagent to an alkene, the less electronegative part of the reagent adds to the carbon atom in the double bond with the most hydrogen atoms already attached”. Or as every chemical engineer simplifies it, “them as what has, gits”.

    Eli Perle said:

    Who knows, maybe this was Goeglein’s subliminal hoax pointing to Hart’s ridiculous article in the first place. As Nancy’s been saying for months, his columns were pretentious claptrap.

    I grew up on a farm, so I can recognize organic fertilizer by the feel of it oozing between my toes when I walk barefoot in a pasture. With Eisenstadt as a boss, Eli surely knows pretentious claptrap equally well.

    Stepping in manure isn’t the end of the world. It washes off easily with cold water from a garden hose. I get the feeling Eli is not a True Believer, but figures claptrap washes off easily, and what the heck, it provides well for his family. I have to respect that.

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  39. Jeff said on March 4, 2008 at 6:30 am

    Who are neo-cons, other than conservatives we don’t like? Kristol et al are “American greatness” conservatives who made common cause with Cheney-ite “realpolitik” Kissingerians and saw a standing need for the US to make a military shift in the Middle East from Saudi bases to a new center of gravity, counterbalancing the ongoing Shi’ite ascendancy. Economic conservatives (fine, anti-tax conservatives, aka country club conservatives) uneasily let that group control foreign policy because they didn’t interfere with NAFTA and neither understood the others’ aims anyhow, but the country clubbers have an uneasy feeling about where this whole foreign oil thing is going anyhow (hence their pointless reflexive obsession with ANWR drilling), and libertarians and libertarian conservatives were, as usual, left standing at the bus stop with social conservatives with a “we’ll pick you up next time around, promise!”

    Meanwhile, the Democrat party promised to be against as much war, anywhere, as they could manage to get away with, without pausing to ask when a democracy has compelling interests — their stance is that the main compelling interest of a democracy is to be anti-war. That has just enough moral and rhetorical value to keep you far enough above 40% to think you can reach 50%. They’re also against NAFTA, against listening in on international calls made by non-citizens, and encouraging non-citizens to leave the country they entered illegally.

    All of which is why a) i think many conservatives (who are often, but not always, Republicans) have an interest in an opposition party that musters better arguments, forcing our party to think more coherently, which isn’t happening this go round either, and b) you don’t need any neo-con boogie men to explain the political players. It’s lazy shorthand for a bunch of so-called Jewish ex-liberal guys who wear suits, work in think tanks, and like to talk about wars in a bloodless monotone, and politically it represents no faction or group whatsoever.

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  40. Terry WAlter said on March 4, 2008 at 6:43 am

    Fort Wayne sometimes seems like the end of the earth- and you live in DETROIT???!!! I have a proposal for the Lincoln collection. They could set it up at the entrance of their beautiful new downtown baseball park. No wait, that’ll probably get even LESS visitors.

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  41. del said on March 4, 2008 at 7:57 am

    Terry, that’s how Nancy survived the onslaught . . . she’s already been tempered in fire by a City where the weak are killed and eaten. Read her post about her handyman’s knife wound and you’ll get the picture.

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  42. Harl Delos said on March 4, 2008 at 11:05 am

    Jeff asks “Who are neo-cons, other than conservatives we don’t like?”

    The answer is that neo-cons are people who CALL themselves conservative, but aren’t. Starting from a base of being liars, it just gets worse when you examine them in detail.

    “Conservatism is a way of viewing the world that manifests a high regard for tradition and a realization that progress starts from the bedrock of tradition. It is a tested way of living, and therefore the safest.” I think it’s Kenneth E. Moore from Notre Dame that said it, but the typography suggests perhaps he is quoting someone else – perhaps Burke? Google doesn’t help.

    Conservatives want to protect the past; neo-cons want to try something new.

    Conservatives want to balance the budget; neo-cons don’t give a damn.

    Conservatives want to cut back on spending to balance the budget; neo-cons want to spend wildly so that liberals are afraid to spend any more.

    Conservatives want a strong military to discourage attacks on this country; neo-cons want a strong military so they can engage in pre-emptive strikes.

    Conservatives support the free press guaranteed by the first amendment; neo-cons want to limit freedom of the press to those who can afford a Goss Metro.

    Conservatives want separation of church and state; neo-cons want government to parrot their church’s views.

    Conservatives support the second amendment because a militia is important; neo-cons support the second amendment, because hunters’ votes are important.

    Conservatives are willing to concede that liberals have good ideas, although not often, and they try to maintain good relations; neo-cons figure 50% plus 1 gives them the right to do whatever they damn well want.

    Conservatives believe in self-sacrifice; neo-cons believe in looting the treasury.

    Conservatives oppose public welfare because private charities are more effective in caring for the needy; neo-cons oppose public welfare because they’re niggardly.

    Conservatives oppose excessive regulations because they are invariably poorly written and they become obsolete; neo-cons oppose excessive regulations because they feel entitled to lie, cheat, swindle, and defraud.

    Conservatives support the death penalty because interminable prison sentences are cruel; neo-cons support the death penalty because of blood lust.

    Conservatives believe in free-market solutions, because they are flexible and competition results in efficiently and effectly meeting the needs of buyers; neo-cons believe in free-market solutions, but not too free, because there’s a lot of money to be made by steering contracts to the right parties.

    Conservatives come in all faiths – Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Druid, Deist, and atheist. Neo-cons pretend to be Christian, and claim to believe every word in the Bible, but they pick and choose the parts they like, and they think anyone who turns the other cheek is a damnable fool.

    Neo-cons aren’t conservatives we don’t like. Agreed, they are people liberals don’t like, but Russell Burke wouldn’t have liked them, either. Nor do I. The whole neo-con philosophy is intellectually and morally corrupt.

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  43. Peter said on March 4, 2008 at 11:38 am

    Great work.

    My mother-in-law, who still lives in Ft Wayne, always used to send us your columns and she still laments your absence from the paper!

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  44. michaelj said on March 4, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    So Harl Delos, you’re one of those Raygunites voting for Barrack, right?

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  45. Harl Delos said on March 4, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    So Harl Delos, you’re one of those Raygunites voting for Barrack, right?

    If you recall, Ronald Reagan said that if some protester lay down in front of his car, he’d drive over him. I was SCARED of what he would do. What’s the song with the line, “he’s got him a medal he won in the war, weighs 500 pounds and it sleeps by the door”? He turned out to be OK, in the end.

    We’ve had three excellent presidencies since WWII. Eisenhower was criticized for playing too much golf, and the country prospered. Reagan was criticized for sleeping all day, and the country prospered. And Slick Willy, he was getting his wick waxed, and the country prospered. It seems to me that if we ever get a president that’s comatose, the country will do extremely well.

    The most qualified president we ever had was Jimbo Buchanan, from here in Lancaster, and I hold him in somewhat higher regard than most do, because I think it was his diplomacy skills that kept the war from breaking out before 1860, but everybody else seems to think he was one of the five worst presidents ever.

    And the most accomplished president since WWII was Lyndon, who promised not to send our boys 10,000 miles to do a job Asian boys should be doing. He fought poverty and fought for civil rights, and we ended up with lots of riots. Detroit still hasn’t recovered.

    There’s always the question: do you choose a more capable administrator whose policies you dislike, or do you choose an incompetent whose policies you prefer? Both Hillary and McCain have both repeatedly replaced key campaign staffers, and have both run out of cash at key times. Obama seems to have demonstrated that he’s the only competent manager out there, so despite being the most liberal of the candidates, he seems to be the conservative choice.

    And if he would pledge to become comatose without triggering the 25th Amendment, he *definitely* is the one I’ll vote for.

    This fall, that is. Pennsylvania has closed primaries.

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  46. Peter said on March 4, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    Reagan was criticized for sleeping all day, and the country prospered.???

    He presided over the worst recession since the Great Depression. Prospered??

    The most qualified president we ever had was Jimbo Buchanan.

    Qualified in what sense? He faced the most severe crisis in this nation’s history AND DID NOTHING.

    You have very odd priorities.

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  47. del said on March 4, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    I’m not informed enough to intelligently comment on most of those presidencies. Was too busy being born and such. But I liked the content of Harl’s first post in drawing a distinction between good conservatives (like Jeff and Danny) and some of the bad neocons.

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  48. Wally Wilson said on March 4, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    Harl,

    Neocons also tend to be neoliberals (global economic market as an actual faith).

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  49. Harl Delos said on March 4, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Peter said:

    Reagan was criticized for sleeping all day, and the country prospered.???

    He presided over the worst recession since the Great Depression. Prospered??

    The worst recession since the Great Depression is happening right now, sir, at least according to Mr. Zuckerman on the McLaughlin Group this January. And he’s not alone:
    http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080227145039.aspx

    Between 1980 and 1989, middle class income grew 11% in real dollars, there were 20 million more jobs, and the percentage of households with incomes over $50,000 jumped from 17.6 percent to 23.5 percent.

    That compares to a *drop* in real income in the 1970s.

    The most qualified president we ever had was Jimbo Buchanan.

    Qualified in what sense? He faced the most severe crisis in this nation’s history AND DID NOTHING.

    Jimbo graduated with honors from Dickinson College, and became a successful attorney, state legislator, US Representative, US Senator, Ambassador to England, and Secretary of State. Can you name any other president with qualifications so good?

    Yes, he faced the most severe crisis in the nation’s history, and he managed to keep the south from seceding until a radical republican was elected. At that point, he considered the situation, and concluded that there was nothing illegal about seceding from the union.

    The Monroe Doctrine supported other wars of independence in the Western Hemisphere. Obviously, the US should have honored the CSA’s desire to be independent. A war of conquest against southerners was a complete violation of the fundamental principle of democracy – that people should rule themselves.

    Of course, not everybody believes that’s what democracy means. Dubya, for instance, wants to impose democracy on people who don’t want it, defining democracy as a government that does whatever Uncle Sam tells it to do, although he can’t be bothered to get a declaration of war. Isn’t fighting a war without benefit of a declaration of war the very definition of “state-supported terrorism”? All democracies are equal, I guess, but some are more equal than others.

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  50. ethan said on March 10, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Ms. Nall,

    Congratulations. You’ve destroyed a man’s life. And for what? Because he repeated a few things that bore repeating? Ah, I bet that’s it. It was WHAT he was repeating that annoyed you. Sounds to me like he was repeating a lot of good sense. He was one of the good guys. You ruined his career just because he didn’t clog up his writing with ego-serving credits to a few people whom he felt said the same things he thought and felt perfectly already.

    The petty I-said-it-first niggering that goes on among writers is sickening. It’s not like Goegein cut and pasted a whole essay and put his name on it. I doubt the Pope cares that this guy repeated him. I always thought mimicry was the sincerest flattery. I suppose it’s more important for people like you and the rest to get your little byline for every bit of drivel you spout through your laptop so you can feel like you’re somebody.

    I doubt I’d have ever read the works this man ‘plagiarized’. But, I may have run across HIS article and been enlightened by the wisdom of Hart and the Pope, even if I didn’t know ‘they said it first’. Isn’t that what is most important?; that the people are informed? Isn’t that what published writing is for? Have you forgotten this? Do you expect every person to read every single writer to make sure he didn’t miss the one opinion that made sense or solved his problem?

    I’ll stop now. I just realized I’m preaching to the choir. If I were you, I’d go to confession. And if I were the priest hearing your confession, your penance would be to go hang your britches on a nail. Shame on you.

    Most sincerely,
    Ethan
    Crystal River, FL

    P.S. For those of you calling Goegein’s writing ‘claptrap’: I think if I were Reilly or Rosenstock-Huessy or one of the other ‘victims’, I might be offended.

    P.P.S. I see you have an extensive website. Now that I know what kind of person you are, I won’t bother reading it.

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