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Post 0

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 8:34pmSanction this postReply
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Roark said: "Mr. Enright reads every paper in town.  They are all brought to his office -- with the editorial pages cut out"
"He's always done that.  Roger missed his real vocation.  He should have been a scientist.  He has such a love for facts and such  contempt for commentaries."
"On the other hand, do you know Mr. Fleming?" he asked. 
"No."
"He's a friend of Mr. Heller's.  Mr. Fleming never reads anything but the editorial pages.  People like to hear him talk."


Post 1

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 9:22pmSanction this postReply
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Hanson and Paglia are noted academics, Krauthammer was a state psychiatrist. Buckley needs no introduction. Coulter is a great polemicist, and, until her atrocity, Godless had my respect. Hitchens doesn't wite fiction but rivals Orwell in his intelligence. Limbaugh and Prager are great speakers and critics, if not advocates of a positive program which I can endorse. I regret adding Stossel, as he's skewing the curve. I do like him ideologically - but rank him below all the rest rhetorically.

Ted

Post 2

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 9:24pmSanction this postReply
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Mike, most of these people have a bit more to say than does George Will or Michelle Malkin, they stand outside and against the voice-of-the-people and the horse-race mentality of Bob Novak and the leftist uselessness of Frank Rich.
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 5/21, 9:26pm)


Post 3

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 11:46pmSanction this postReply
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NOTICE

I have remove William Buckley and Dennis Prager and replaced them with Ben Wattenberg and Mark Steyn. Neither Buckley nor Prager had any votes.

Ted

Post 4

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 5:33amSanction this postReply
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I have John Stossel's Greed.  I have read Ann Coulter standing in a bookstore and found her vacuous.  I know nothing about any of those other people.  George Will wrote a book about baseball and another about World War II which he called America's greatest generation.  I never read anything of either.  To me, these people are less visible than Paris Hilton, a name I know, but whose face I would not recognize, and whose reason for fame is unclear to me.

Ben Wattenberg, Mark Steyn, Markie Mark Wallenberg?  Dennis Prager? who are these people? Why should I care?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/22, 5:35am)


Post 5

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 9:29amSanction this postReply
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PJ O'Rourke. Sorry I'm a weirdo. :3

-- Brede

Post 6

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 5:04pmSanction this postReply
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How, exactly, B., does that make you a weirdo? Here's a link to P.J. O'Rourke, interviewed and very funny, In Depth.

Mike, they're all commentators, and there's no particular reason why you should care about any of them. But If there is a commentator you like, here's an opportunity to recommend one. As for Ben Wattenberg, he's a pro-growth, pro-market, pro-immigrant Democrat. Prager is a top-rated radio show host, a bit too much of a Jewish moralist for your tastes, I'd guess, but a great speaker and critic. Steyn's perhaps one of the funniest syndicated columnists around, and a small-ell-libertarian hawk - again, a religious Jew, and perhaps too right wing for your tastes. His America Alone is well worth checking out.

As for Coulter, I'd assume from your disdain you didn't like her How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)? Her Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right are invaluable references and impeccably researched. As for her Godless? Well, it was horrifyingly bad. Ah, well, she's still a sharp and funny wit.

I realize now that I omitted Thomas Sowell, and he'd certainly have outranked many of those here.

Ted


Post 7

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 8:20pmSanction this postReply
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For Hitchens fans, as suggested by John Dailey:

http://www.hitchensweb.com/

Ted


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Post 8

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - 3:56amSanction this postReply
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Dennis Prager would have gotten my vote, even though his stalwart defense of religion often makes him sound like a total fool.  He defends intellligent design, has no clue about the laws of identity and causality, thinks life is 'meaningless' without God and argues that "intellectually honest" atheists must confess that all ethical values are purely subjective.  In other words, aside from the fact that he is a philosophical dimwit, he can be fascinating at times.  His sense of life often seems contradictory to his religionism, and he is a moralist in much the same sense that Ayn Rand admired Mickey Spillane.  And he believes that reason and common sense should always prevail.  His favorite motto is that he prefers clarity to agreement (even though he has a blind spot the size of Lake Michigan when it comes to religion).  If you can ignore the fact that his underlying premises are thoroughly medieval, his fundamental intelligence and eloquence can be quite stimulating.  And his choice of discussion topics is much broader than the boring, mundane tedium of politics and current events.  To my knowledge, he is the only radio host to ever devote one hour each week to the importance of human happiness, and that alone earns him a warm place in my heart.

Post 9

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - 12:29pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks, Dennis, I guess I shouldn't have second-guessed myself.

Prager is very good to listen to when he's crucifying the relativists, but all your comments in criticism are quite true.  Indeed, he had a discussion one day where he limited call-ins only to religious people and agnostics because he wanted to discuss morality, and "atheists can't have moralities."  An objectivist called in, and he cut the caller off once the caller identified himself as an atheist, saying that Rand's ideas were nonsense except where she had stolen her ideas from religion.  Of course, at that point, I changed the channel, outraged.  But I'd still rather listen to him than just about anything else except my own CD player.

Ted


Post 10

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - 7:25pmSanction this postReply
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Give me a Break!

I did say that one should vote for his favorite commentator, ideology aside. I find the number of votes that John Stossel is getting (God bless him - I send pro-Stossel email to ABC all the time) a bit suspicious. Is he really so much fun to read? I think some people are voting based on ideology, rather than on entertainment value here!

Ted

Post 11

Friday, May 25, 2007 - 4:03pmSanction this postReply
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Ted,

Prager exasperates me at times.  I almost threw the radio threw the wall when he suggested to atheists that they shouldn't let their own narrow viewpoint prevent them from allowing their children to have the glorious experience of growing up with religion (!!!) He seems intimidated by Rand.  His screener once told me that he did not want to discuss Objectivist ethics on his program because it was too complex for people to understand.  But for some reason I enjoy him--perhaps because of his devotion to "clarity."

I met him in the Denver airport a few years ago and told him I enjoyed listening despite the fact that I'm an atheist.  He was very gracious and even mentioned the encounter on his show the next day.

He has never responded to any of my e-mails explaining the idiocy of his claims that religious morality is the only "objective" approach to ethics.  Or that God cannot endow life with any unique meaning because the word "meaning" has no meaning outside the context of human awareness.  I finally gave up--but I continue to listen.


Post 12

Friday, May 25, 2007 - 5:30pmSanction this postReply
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Funny how generous amoral Objectivist atheists can be toward some people, isn't it, Dennis?

As for the glory of religious experiences, I enjoy them daily - why do I need to embrace faith or attribute those experiences to Jove in order to undergo them? Anyone who's hugged a loved one or looked at a Hubble image has done no less, with neither faith nor deity needed.

Ted

Post 13

Monday, May 28, 2007 - 12:04pmSanction this postReply
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Preferenced Priority:

Christopher Hitchens
Camille Paglia
George Will (unlisted)
Charles Krauthammer
Ben Wattenberg
Rush Limbaugh
Ann Coulter

     Never heard Sowell speak, but read a few books/columns of his.

LLAP
J:D


Post 14

Monday, May 28, 2007 - 1:45pmSanction this postReply
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John, I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one here who's heard of Wattenberg. It's a shame he doesn't have his show on PBS anymore, (I guess he became a pariah when he embraced growth and the market) but he does still write. He was the first mainstream moderate to trumpet the falsehood of the impending population explosion and to argue in contrast that growth is good.

As for Will, I read him, but dislike him for two reasons. First, he's more of a social conservative than an economic libertarian. Given a choice between a balanced budget amendment or an amendment banning abortion, he gives the impression of preferring the latter. Also, while Limbaugh and Coulter do the same thing, Will is too much into the horse-race aspects of politics, commenting too often on strategy as opposed to principal.

Ted

Post 15

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 11:01amSanction this postReply
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Ted:

     Caught Wattenberg a couple times on CSPAN giving speeches at varied locales with a Q&A following, but not the show you mention.

     True about George, but, when he's arguing, he's good; I'm attracted to his arguing sorta like to Ebert-and-Whoever: I'll very often disagree with the final evaluations (especially when I see the movie regardless), yet find their arguments given worth having listened to anyways...usually. Like Hitchens, he is one intelligent commentator.

LLAP
J:D


Post 16

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 12:44pmSanction this postReply
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Wattenberg had one of those half-hour think-tank like commentary shows on Sunday mornings.  He's been off the since the late nineties.  I have never heard will argue, just some commentary on ABC back in the 80's and when he has hosted political debates.  Nothing at all in the last decade.

Ted


Post 17

Saturday, June 2, 2007 - 7:08pmSanction this postReply
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     This may be a bit late, and possibly irrelevent, but, after just seeing this, not commentator, but writer (whom I tried to remember when I made my list) being interviewed on CSPAN in an Afterwords, I just gotta add his name.

     I've read nothing by him but seen him speak therein in several formats, and this guy is one I could listen to explaining ANYthing (his forte is political history), though I've never seen him on a panel, nor 'debate' anyone.

Michael Beschloss
 
     I put him 'twixt Christopher and Camille. Ergo, she's 3rd.

LLAP
J:D

(Edited by John Dailey on 6/02, 7:10pm)


Post 18

Saturday, June 2, 2007 - 11:20pmSanction this postReply
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Beschloss is quite smart, he comes across as a moderate Republican. When whatever it is that they call the Macneil/Lehrer Newshour nowadays needs a moderate - I mean a conservative - point of view, they have him on as a talking head. I haven't read him, or heard him on C-SPAN2, or even sat through the post-MacNeil/Lehrer show since before 9/11, so all I can say is that he comes across as a bit too pragmatic in the Nixonian sense in my memory.

Ted

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