I like to gloat as much as the next person. But I am uneasy at giving these people any more exposure. Arguing against their wrong-headedness sometimes elevates them into people who are worth responding to. Increasingly, they are NOT. Can we let them fade away?

One can always count on a question like this to stir up the Ricochet cadres. I'm sure any of the recommendations here would be worth your while. Can I throw in a little anecdote for all us book lovers? Many of us here admire Victor Davis Hanson, the classicist/historian and sometime commentator here. Recently he tried his hand at a novel, about Sparta. So last year when I had the occasion to speak with him socially in a group, I   asked him if he read fiction and what sort did he favor. He smiled wryly and said "Nothing much after 1850."

Disney and his works are eternally fascinating. How great that Yeti once toiled in those vineyards!

I want to make one point about classic Disney animation. I am told that the movie I consider the zenith from a visual standpoint, "Pinocchio," owes its greatness to the coterie of European artists who fled their restive countries, and Germany's looming menace, during the 1930s and 1940s. These artists found a warm welcome at Disney Studios, and sent its output to new heights. True?

Thank you for the resounding recommendation. I listen repeatedly to Edward Hardwicke's reading of "Silver Blaze." It always thrills me. He doesn't try to "do" voices and yet the distinctions are discernible, through pacing, emphasis, whatever. I have heard several other narrators but none to equal him. I am certainly tempted to try this one, in light of your enthusiasm.

Is it not possible that someone in the White House, someone in the inner circle, some thoughtful adult, is thinking along these same lines? Might such a person, following in the tradition of other "now it can be told" memoirs, crank out in 2016 or so a book that tells the world how foolish and illusory and harmful has been this whole sad enterprise? Oh, maybe not.

The front page of The New York Times amounts to a coronation keepsake. It's little wonder that the low-attention citizenry can't see through the posing when the media are complicit cheerleaders. One of the headlines: "Inaugural Stresses Theme of Civil and Gay Rights -- Safety Net Praised." Yes, those sets of rights are separate and distinct. Next up, undocumented immigrant rights. Or perhaps adolescent rights?

It is a delight to see that so many Ricochet members have well-developed ears for the language.  You don't sound like a bunch of Mrs. Grundys; you sound like level-headed people who value common sense and straight talk.  Franco's tour de force of cliches demonstrates beyond argument  how empty these phrases are. Not a drop of meaning remains from their passage through the media meat grinder of the last few decades.  Overuse and abuse are the way of the world.

A.A., what a way to spend your holiday! Now go have another eggnog.

The photo of Cal Thomas, right next to the one of John (007) Yoo, contains three Ricochet members. My wife is one of them, and she is horrified! The best I can say about the article is that it could have been worse. And just when did being over 60 and white become dishonorable?

Love the Ricochet mention at the end of your column for Fox. Nice!

People are busy. Especially waitresses. I see that you cut her some slack, and that was gracious. The news can be boring, especially political and financial news. You have to apply yourself to get past the headlines and,  sadly, many people never learned to love reading. The challenge is to reach these people, not scorn them. Breitbart was good at it.

The first time I heard "fiscal cliff" was back in May, on Larry Kudlow's Saturday radio show. I thought he was saying "fiscal clip." 

One more "why I no longer read The New Yorker" story? I grew up with the magazine in the house, graduating from the cartoons to the movie, book and theater reviews. Subscribed myself off and on. I thought the magazine was sophisticated and funny. It published Capote, Salinger. As I grew older, though, it seemed pretentious and smug. The covers became political and ham-handed.

Then, in 2006, Dick Cheney hit a hunting buddy, Harry Whittington, with birdshot. The New Yorker cover presented a parody of the "Brokeback Mountain" poster, with Bush and Cheney in the Ledger and Gyllenhaal roles,  Cheney with shotgun. What did that mean? They were secretly gay? Cheney wanted to shoot Bush? It meant nothing, but it was certainly meant as an insult.

I have not picked up The New Yorker since.

The many fine thoughts here (which bear repeated reading) put me in mind of a deceptively simple but powerful one that struck me like a thunderbolt years ago. It sums up the thrust of what many are saying in one form or another. I can no longer recall its source, but it is on the order of this: Freedom is not the capacity to do what you will; freedom is the capacity to do the right thing.

It's the smugness that is so irritating. To the NYT mindset, the 50s were the cultural dark ages, and the media term Red Scare contained its own mockery. Happily the documentation of Communist espionage in postwar America is there for anyone who cares to see. It's much more than a crossword jest. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, John.

As a corollary, it occurs to me after reading Troy here on Obama's effortless rise to the most powerful position on earth (and his squandering of that capital) that now we are witnessing a kind of disdain. His leftist supporters seem to sense it when they say, Oh he does not want this irksome job. On some level, I wonder if he resents how easily the world has laid itself out before him. He is not a man of gratitude. He measures his victories against the meager degree of effort he has exerted to attain them, and he finds the world wanting and worthy of scorn.

Reading the words of Churchill at that moment in history, and the corresponding thoughts of Roosevelt, are cause to believe in Divine Providence.