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This week, Mollie Hemingway sits in for Peter, and of course we cover Syria, the Russians, and the President. Then, we’re joined by authors Tevi Troy and Rod Dreher. Tevi discusses his new book What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House. Later Rod Dreher discusses his piece Story Lines, Not Party Lines and the dearth of storytelling amongst conservative candidates. Finally, a Ricochet Podcast meditation on New York City, war, and the meaning of 9/11.
Music from this week’s episode:
Rhapsody in Blue (from Woody Allen’s Manhattan) by George Gershwin
The Ricochet Podcast opening theme was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Pass the borscht, EJHill.
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… so what happened to Tonx?
I am curious to hear how this sounds, what with all the hiccups the recording session experienced.
It is amazing what Blue Yeti can do with those big blue furry fingers of his.
WOW! The podcast was up for 15 minutes and I got it on iTunes …. very nice!
Im listening to the podcast now and I think Mollie should be a regular.
Let’s just say they weren’t political allies of ours.
That’s really funny. Someone at Tonx actually started reading Ricochet and then yanked the sponsorship? I’d kind of like to hear some mention of this on the podcast, though. Or maybe on GLoP. Only because I think it could be a pretty funny subject.
(well, except inasmuch as it sucks to lose a sponsor)
on that note, though… I know Rob has said that he doesn’t want donors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have conservative companies as sponsors. I think advertising on Ricochet would be a pretty smart move from a company with conservative sympathies. We give money to politicians or political causes; it only makes sense that we would utilize our standard economic dealings to also further “the cause.”
If you know of any, we’d be happy to talk to them.
I just figured out how to stream the podcasts through my Roku. I now have James Lileks speaking in a Russian accent through Klipsch speakers.
How do you do this???
Obama and Snooki the starlet. Times have changed.
Once upon a time there was another ‘Snooky’ aka Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk. What comes around…
What’s Peter going to do with his new coffee grinder?
How do you do this??? ·3 minutes ago
Go to your Roku account and add the private channel “ITPC” (itunes podcast channel) then open it up and search for Ricochet.
How do you do this??? ·3 minutes ago
Go to your Roku account and add the private channel “ITPC” (itunes podcast channel) then open it up and search for Ricochet. ·7 minutes ago
I’ve only linked my Roku to my Amazon Prime account. Is this a setting on the device itself or something on the web? (Grovels, displays ignorance well beyond my alleged competence)
How do you do this??? ·3 minutes ago
Go to your Roku account and add the private channel “ITPC” (itunes podcast channel) then open it up and search for Ricochet. ·7 minutes ago
I’ve only linked my Roku to my Amazon Prime account. Is this a setting on the device itself or something on the web? (Grovels, displays ignorance well beyond my alleged competence) ·0 minutes ago
Have to log onto your Roku account online to add private channels.
I didn’t quite understand what horrified Mr. Long about de-stabilising the middle-east, post 9/11. What am I missing?
Good point. I suppose if I knew of them, I’d already be working for them.
Im listening to the podcast now and I think Mollie should be a regular. ·2 hours ago
Right? Smart take.
Im listening to the podcast now and I think Mollie should be a regular. ·2 hours ago
I agree!
Megadittoes.
I wasn’t horrified. I was sort of channeling the “approved” wisdom, from both sides, about the need to achieve stability everywhere and anywhere. The perverse wisdom of the Bush administration’s initial post-9/11 working group at Camp David, which seemed to suggest that de-stabilization of the region — despite terrifying our allies in the area, despite not knowing what might come next (as in Egypt and Libya and, now, Syria) — might be a better option than aiming for stability, has yet to be vindicated. But at the time — and even now — it was pretty out there.
… The perverse wisdom of the Bush administration’s initial post-9/11 working group at Camp David, which seemed to suggest that de-stabilization of the region — despite terrifying our allies in the area, despite not knowing what might come next (as in Egypt and Libya and, now, Syria) — might be a better option than aiming for stability, has yet to be vindicated. But at the time — and even now — it was pretty out there. ·0 minutes ago
Thanks for you response. I remember watching CSPAN a few days after the towers attack. It featured Thomas Friedman giving a talk on his book Latitudes, and him explaining how the political power was maintained throughout most of the Middle East, in that, regimes maintain absolute control over their people by allowing them to transfer their accumualated hate towards America. Government controlled media outlets allow descent as long as it was disguised as America’s or Isreal’s fault. Even our “allies” like the Saudis and Egypt. There was no Islamic free country to contrast (for some reason Turkey didn’t count). The victimhood mentality was a very cohesive force in keeping the various subjects under heel. A shining_example_was_needed.
I wasn’t horrified. I was sort of channeling the “approved” wisdom, from both sides, about the need to achieve stability everywhere and anywhere. The perverse wisdom of the Bush administration’s initial post-9/11 working group at Camp David, which seemed to suggest that de-stabilization of the region — despite terrifying our allies in the area, despite not knowing what might come next (as in Egypt and Libya and, now, Syria) — might be a better option than aiming for stability, has yet to be vindicated. But at the time — and even now — it was pretty out there. ·0 minutes ago
If ever you get Steyn on again, Rob, could you please ask him about this stability stuff? One of his themes in America Alone was that stability was an allusion, that supporting the Mubarek’s of the world brought us “Mujammed Atta flying through the office window”, that “He’s an SOB but he’s our SOB” should be replaced by “He’s our SOB but he’s an SOB” and so we should shake things up, promote democracy, etc.
Now he appears to be in the more cynical stability camp, more or less.
Thx.
What was so odd about this new “instability” strategy was that is came out of a Bush White House. GHWBush represented — and espoused — a very pro-Saudi line. And the Instability Strategy was designed, in part, to shake up the Saudi regime. I guess the theory was, now that 9/11 has occurred, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s already happened. May as well knock the pieces off the board and start again.
Now he appears to be in the more cynical stability camp, more or less.
Thx. ·27 minutes ago
Edited 24 minutes ago
Right. Good point.
Which just goes to show you: there are no solutions, only tradeoffs, as a wise Thomas Sowell teaches.
Maybe the flaw in the instability strategy was in the selling of “liberty will spread and all will be beautiful”. I personally am OK with “liberty will spread and good chance it might get ugly”. We are still historically early in the whole process.
The great cultural change of 1980: we were just sick to death of the Woody Allen-ish Carter administration, we were getting our a$$es kicked all over the world and had hostages in Iran. After taking Olympic hockey gold, we had Urban Cowboy and Dallas and even in NYC men were buying cowboy hats and boots. Jeans became acceptable as dress clothes. No surprise that in November came a landslide for a boot and jeans wearing rancher who rode horses and cleared brush for relaxation. We were ready to lick some ….you know what.
Oh cripe I mean KICK some !!! Damn keyboard!
Best mis-type ever? Perhaps.
“As if he could tie his shoes intentionally”- excellent line.
Stability – that was the “realpolitik” liberal line on why we had to deal with the Soviets – because they were always going to be there. We had to accept the bifurcation of Europe because that meant “stability.” The folks at The State Deptartment love stability. Then they don’t have to update their contacts list in their iPhones.