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Current events have you pulling your hair out? We’ve got some audio Rogaine for you: Niall Ferguson, author of the newly published biography of Henry Kissinger stops by to give us some perspective on terrorism and international relations. Then, our good pal Larry Kudlow (you listen to his podcast, don’t you?) joins the show to give some perspective on his friend The Donald, the state of the economy, and, his (not yet announced) race for the US Senate.
Music from this week’s episode:
Creep (Radiohead cover) by Scala & Kolacny Brothers
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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I may listen to this podcast solely because of that photo. Well done.
James disdained, Rob resigned and Jon just happy he isn’t standing next to the Donald.
The phrase “his friend The Donald” kind of makes me not want to listen…
I prefer this cover of Creep:
Got you all beat:
I’m angry with God for giving Lileks such a beautiful radio voice…Oh…that lightning was close!
That Moon Loungers vid…wonderful…funny (I think)…the Hoffner bass…sweet…two guys playing the drumkit….
Rob, it’s Mate De like a mate on a ship and De my name. and James, my preferred gender pronoun is she. And as a sailor in college I would have definetly have taken the switch between the voting age and drinking age. No question about that.
Love the Radiohead cover
Mate: sorry! You’re She and Her from now on.
I can’t get enough listening to Niall Ferguson. He always says, in the most soothing possible way, the things I wish I were able to articulate.
Niall Ferguson is married to Ayaan Hersi Ali so he likley has perspective on Islam on a personal level. Loved his commentary
I think it may be time to stop spending so much time on Trump on this Ricochet podcast. The carping about how Trump’s supporters are incoherent in their support of Trump vs. their excoriation of the the lying establishment has been done to death, and there are so few of those supporters listening, I don’t know what the point is.
But I think a more important point is that the hosts at this point are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (actually, the suffering started quite a while ago.) The discussion about “death penalty for cop killers” vs. “complete stop to Muslim immigration” illustrates this. The former, as an executive order, is blatantly unconstitutional and goes to core of constitutional protections. The latter concerns proscribing entry for non-citizens not in the country (leaving aside the confusion about whether he also meant citizens), which, I understand, is something the President could do unilaterally (yes, even based on religion). Even if I am misinformed on this, it is certainly on an entirely different level of executive concern from the former. Listening to the discussion, one gets the impression that the hosts didn’t know the difference because TDS makes it impossible for them to think straight.
This is coming from a guy whose opinion of Trump is basically the same as the hosts. But the discussion sounds a lot like Bush DS on Washington Week in Review, so that can’t be good.
I’m not suggesting they be as temperate as Larry Kudlow. Wow, that was some restraint. Come to think of it, if the Republican establishment started taking that approach, I’d bet we’d see Trump steadily fade…
Woodrow Wilson did not “run a good war.”
I think TDS would manifest itself as hyperbolic panic over the most anodyne remark or proposal. BDS was predicated on the peculiar belief that Chimpy McBushitler was the first moron in history who happened to be an evil genius AND an utter puppet whose string-pullers were neocons devoted to endless wars for oil.
TDS? The Daily Shot? Why drag the morning newsletter into this?
Fair enough, it’s not perfectly analogous by a long shot. But this is as close as sensible folks get to BDS.
Thanks for the all the Creep covers — had not heard either of the ones you posted. As a long standing Radiohead head, I love the original version most of all.
The one I used is from the sound track of The Social Network (well, it’s TV version of it, because the one on the actually sound track has an F-bomb in it and I’ve been called on that recently).
One more, very much worth listening to.
Almost used that one. Wasn’t quite creepy enough for the end of this show, IMO.
Got to say, having loved Radiohead for two decades and never having seen that PMJ version before, that is going into the iTunes most played list right now.
PMJ is a rabbit hole that can ruin a whole afternoon of work.
Trust me.
What makes Ricochet great? A comments thread that begins praising me (always an upside in IMHO) and ends up debating Radiohead covers.
Now, what’s a Radiohead?
There are as may disaffected voters just on the right than there are black people in america.
Just food for thought.
When are you going to interview Niall Ferguson about his Henry Kissinger book?
From the podcast description, I assumed that was what he was on for, and I was interested, especially after hearing him interviewed from the Left on C-Span’s Afterwords.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?327972-1/words-niall-ferguson
I didn’t hear a single question about it.
Kind of disappointing.
We ran out of time. Luckily, Peter did 45 minutes with him solely on the Kissinger book:
Niall Ferguson was over almost before he started. Boohoo. He was brilliant. Please have him back soon!
The exchange between Rob Long and Niall Ferguson about Islamic extremism from about minute 29 through minute 36 is one of, if not the best descriptions of the situation we face that I have heard or read. Just spent the last half hour transcribing that segment to word document so I can study it more and send it to a few friends.