Now, I’ll happily grant that the phrase “binders full of women” is an awkward one. I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men . . . I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks?” and they brought us whole binders full of women. During the second presidential debate in 2012, Romney was asked about pay equity. Which brings me to another Mitt Romney debate comment that received similar mockery and self-flattering giggling.
In other words, they were so married to the myth of their moral and intellectual superiority, liberals preferred to stick with the punch-line than even imagine that reality wasn’t on their side. Liberals were so invested in the idea that the political Right made too big a deal about Soviet Communism and that we used our hawkishness as an unfair wedge issue against Democrats that when Mitt Romney said an incandescently true thing about Putin’s Russia, liberals rolled their eyes and then laughed uproariously at Obama’s “the 1980s called” quip. The ridicule didn’t end with the Cold War (when, by the way, the extent and danger of Russian meddling were much greater than they are now). Starting with George Kennan’s Long Telegram, conservatives spent the entirety of the Cold War pointing out that the Russians were undermining American life, and we got mocked and ridiculed for it by self-styled sophisticates who thought such concerns were little more than paranoia. In last week’s decidedly un-jocular “news”letter, I wrote about how the hypocrisy of the Left’s newfound outrage at Russia’s meddling in our politics can’t be summarized by saying “Romney was right!” when he said Russia was our biggest geopolitical foe in a debate with Barack Obama. Besides, the line I have in mind is pretty short: “You stupid f**k, look at you now.” There are just way too many expletives for this family-oriented “news”letter to transcribe more of the dialogue than absolutely necessary. One of my favorite scenes from Scarface is when Tony Montana shoots the Colombian assassin in the head before he can blow up some guy’s car. One of my favorite scenes in Scarface is when Meryl Streep compliments Peter MacNicol’s seersucker suit. Rather than focus on the totality of it all, however, I’m gonna try to make one extended point. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.ĭear Reader (please petition the Federal “News”letter Authority not to revoke my license),Įven for someone who thinks the only difference between 20 is that in 2017 the universe decided to take the condom off, this has been a truly remarkable week. EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File.