TOBY PETZOLD

Enjoy this fun little stroll through the music of the English language, courtesy of Joseph Bottum:

In a logical sense, of course, some words are literally true or false when applied to themselves. Words about words, typically: Noun is a noun, though verb is not a verb. Poly- syllabic is self-true, and monosyllabic is not. And this logical notion of autology can be extended. If short seems a short word, true of itself, then the shorter long must be false of itself.

But what about jab or fluffy or sneer, each of them true in a way that goes beyond logic? Verbose has always struck me as a strangely verbose word. Peppy has that perky, energetic, spry sound it needs. And was there ever a more supercilious word than supercilious? Or one more lethargic than lethargic?

Let’s coin a term for this kind of poetic, extralogical accuracy. Let’s call it agenbite. That’s a word Michael of Northgate cobbled up for his 1340 Remorse of Conscience–or Agenbite of Inwit, as he actually titled the book. English would later settle on the French-born word “remorse” to carry the sense of the Latin re-mordere, “to bite again.” But Michael didn’t know that at the time, and so he simply translated the word’s parts: again-bite or (in the muddle of early English spelling) agenbite.

The relative perfection of our language to all others is unquestionable. People who come to live in America should learn to speak it.

David Wright with ABC News was saying earlier that Obama’s policy is to not deal with Hamas because they’re not heads of state, but a terrorist group. Hmm. A very tough line to take, one would think.

But then it is also Obama’s position that, as President, he would meet with the leadership of Iran and Syria and presumably other terrorist-sponsoring states without preconditions?

Does the man who wishes to lead these 57 United States not understand that Hamas is a tool of Iran and that Iran is the actual problem?

Richard Wolffe, one of Keith Olbermann’s army of arm-sheaths, made an interesting observation on MSNBC this evening about an actual ”failing” of Obama’s campaign: he doesn’t use surrogates enough to field the incoming.

Yeah? Well, let’s see if we can find some surrogates for this poor man! Now that he’s disowned his own spiritual adviser and let go several policy advisers, he’s probably needing someone to step in and keep him from accusing the President of attacking him as an appeaser in a speech before the Israeli Knesset when the President didn’t even refer to him —either by name or intimation.

Hilariously, the White House came back later in the day —after Obama made of the speech what he needed for the cameras— to say that Bush was actually referencing Jimmy Carter, who has recently been drawing on Hamas’ pipe and getting humiliated in the process.

On balance, I’d say that Obama should have kept quiet since there was no need to impugn himself on a reference not even intended for him. He’s the one who chose to associate himself with Carter’s recent embarrassments by taking offense in Carter’s stead. That shows some deep insecurity and a guilty conscience —guilty of mistaking yourself for a stupid old man who recently got played by a bunch of Nazi Submitters.

With thanks to the Power Line boys, read this David Brooks’ column for the latest on Obama’s approach to our enemies:

“The debate we’re going to be having with John McCain is how do we understand the blend of military action to diplomatic action that we are going to undertake,” he said. “I constantly reject this notion that any hint of strategies involving diplomacy are somehow soft or indicate surrender or means that you are not going to crack down on terrorism. Those are the terms of debate that have led to blunder after blunder.”

Obama said he found that the military brass thinks the way he does: “The generals are light-years ahead of the civilians. They are trying to get the job done rather than look tough.”

What “job” have Obama and the general officers of America’s military settled on? Since the first job of our armed forces is to prosecute war against our enemies, I’d like to know what Obama means by this. Invading Pakistan? I think he’s suggested as much before, so why doesn’t he address it more fully now? Is he in favor of undermining the government of Iran since he sometimes appears to understand that they are one of those “root causes” we need to know so much more about? Let’s hear him say what he ought to be saying —now that he doesn’t need to fight for his own nomination anymore.

I don’t know if I belong to his same generation, but I am sure that my conception of what post-partisanism entails is vastly different from Barack Obama’s. It is my generation that will eventually have done with and put paid to the Democrat-Republican dichotomy that the American Republic depends on. Something else will arise and by a different name. I think a transitional three-party era is nearing. I think the Democrats are about to split in half.

Party is American, but I don’t belong in either of the major ones. Or in any of the minor ones but to my own self. So, for me, the old dichotomy is personally irrelevant.

But do you suppose the same is true of this man, less than a decade my senior, who now runs for the Presidency of the United States? Party is entirely relevant to Barack Obama. So what is he going to do to show that he is above partisanism, as he claims? Because that’s all he does is claim to be above or past such things.

I have never heard a politician resort as readily and insistently to the idea of page-turning, bridge-building, consensus-seeking, and change for change’s sake as this man does, so where is he going to break away from the Democratic Party and reach out? What issue will he exploit to show that he can be trusted on foreign and military policy? What else will he do, besides disown Jeremiad Wright, to show that he recognizes the group psychosis that is the social gospel of his church? When will he show the courage to disagree with his party? And how is he not a typical Leftist politician, spouting bromides about rising above it all when he has no moral or experiential authority to persuade me that rain falls?

If this guy is a revolutionary, why don’t he show up and kick it?

Check out this comment from Byron York at The Corner:

John Edwards’s appearance in Michigan to endorse Obama just happened to be set for 6:30 P.M., at the top of the networks’ nightly news feeds. ABC’s World News went to a live picture off the top, but Edwards apparently missed his slot, so ABC went to its China coverage and promised to return to Michigan live.

Unlike cable news, the network newscasts do not usually carry live events in their carefully-timed programs. But after China, ABC went back to Michigan while anchorman Charles Gibson explained that the Clinton campaign had hoped “that the headlines would be all about her victory in West Virginia, and yet with this…they seem a bit trumped.” Gibson explained that Edwards’ appearance was “timed for maximum exposure…timed for the evening newscasts.” And with that, guess who walked onto the stage, with ABC carrying it live? “George Stephanopoulos, this is the kind of publicity that you can’t buy,” Gibson said. “This was designed to completely squash the West Virginia story,” Stephanopoulos added. And with that, ABC took Obama’s introduction of Edwards live, and…completely squashed the West Virginia story. Didn’t even report it in any real sense. A big victory for Obama — the kind of publicity that you can’t buy — courtesy of ABC News.

Big Media supports the most left-leaning politicians possible as leverage against the essentially conservative impulses of Government to censor and fine certain incidents of programming. That is part of the explanation for why rectal thermometers like Olbermann, Matthews, Williams, Gibson, et al are so deeply embedded in the Obama candidacy: it’s an economic issue. It’s a control issue. It’s self-serving.

I regard Hillary Rodham Clinton as a hero to her party and to the Republic. She is all that’s keeping an unqualified “post-partisan” charlatan from the nomination of the same party that gave us FDR, Truman, and Johnson.

Why should my opinion of Barack Obama be so low? Easy: Keith Olbermann supports him.

Mrs. Clinton is a tough chick and I think she knows the Presidency better than this cultural interloper. I hope she stays around long enough to make her case and to leave a mark on the ass of these hippie idiots so fucking interested in absolving themselves of racial guilt that they would support a man for the Presidency of the United States who is unknown and unprepared to take that mantle just because he says he can “unify” this nation. What a confidence job.

Here’s to grown-ups. Like Mrs. Clinton. But, frankly, more like Mr. McCain. I hope President McCain will give Senator Clinton her due.

One of the most beautiful women I know is also a waitress at my favorite restaurant —a great Vietnamese place in South Austin— and, today, she told me that I remind her of her dearly departed horse because his name was also Toby. Because of the name. The name makes her happy, so when she sees me, it…uh…

I’ve been going into this place for years and I think that’s maybe the most she’s ever said to me at one time. Naturally, I’ve taken the time this afternoon and evening to completely zapruder the hell out of her completely unprecedented remarks and to contemplate polluting myself to their memory, but I am more bemused than anything else. If bemused still means horny.

Oh, and who cares that John Edwards endorsed BHO? Keith Olbermann, who is a miserable propagandist craphound, seems to think Edwards’ coronation today of the Southside Messiah is far more important than the 2-to-1 shellacking Mrs. Clinton gave to him in West Virginia yesterday. Get a clue, Olbamamann. People know what this race is about.

Here’s some crap I really disrespect (emphasis added):

Luis Vera, LULAC’s general counsel, said LULAC wants a judge to toss the results of the March 4 primary because it believes delegates weren’t allocated fairly, considering Latinos invariably support the party’s nominees. The party bases the delegates awarded within each state senatorial district on the percentage of voters who turned out and voted for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the most recent previous general election.

A key factoid: Latino-heavy districts end up fielding fewer delegates to the national convention. Why? Turnout in those districts often drops in general elections partly because Democratic candidates in those districts face fewer serious fall races.

Vera, set to be a delegate to the state convention pledged to Sen. Hillary Clinton, said it’s possible Clinton would benefit from a change in delegate allocations. Clinton, after all, bested Sen. Barack Obama across the Texas-Mexico border region.

“Of course, it’s possible,” Vera said. “That’s inconsequential. I could care less. This is not about Hillary Clinton and this is not about Barack Obama. My loyalty is to the Latino community.”

Man, is this guy gonna have a problem in Obama’s America of post-racial transcendence or what?

Barack Obama’s candidacy disappoints me because he’s not what I would have wanted in a possible black President.

He doesn’t hail from the historical tradition of Black America (I think even Jesse Jackson raised this point), so it is much more difficult for me to think of him as a transcendent figure when there is no narrative of his family’s triumph over slavery and Jim Crow to appreciate. His choice of church in his mid 20s was, it appears to me, a purely political thing made by a newcomer —nothing he inherited, say, through a pious black grandmother or the larger Black Christian community. He is literally an African-American, not the Black American that I know —as a lover of American History and a son of the South— I will some day rightly embrace as my choice for President.

I can’t really justify this view as a matter of fairness or logic, but it is something I have considered. Mostly, I think Obama disturbs that romantic ideal I have of the first descendant of men and women enslaved here becoming the President of the United States. And, so, in a corner of my mind that has nothing to do with assessing the policies, preparedness, or strategic judgement of the next President, I will continue to harbor a certain resentment towards Barack Obama for the presumption in this accident they call his candidacy.