Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Empty Platitudes - Romney At The VFW Convention

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The Romneybot spoke to the crowd at the VFW convention today.  More empty platitudes and criticism of Obama. It reminds mey of my favorite lines from the 1923 novel, by one of the best wordsmiths Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay, where the main character finds himself "floundering in a quagmire of hypocritical platitudes" - that's Romney's life story.   Daniel Larison:


It was mostly a pastiche of the usual baseless complaints and a handful of bad policy ideas. Remarkably, Romney chose this venue to revisit his Venezuela alarmism and the worn-out criticism of Obama's response to the Green movement protests. These are two of the most discredited objections he could have repeated. On a more substantive note, he said that he would demand that Iran cease all enrichment, which is a demand designed to be rejected by the Iranians. That re-confirms that he has no interest in pursuing a negotiated solution.


I listened to the speech and the thing that struck me was while there was applause it was subdued. Larison again:


Judging from the applause he received during the speech, the convention audience was similarly underwhelmed by a lot of what he had to say. The applause that he did receive was polite, but not especially enthusiastic. Romney delivered the entire speech in that strained, almost incredulous-sounding tone he uses when he wants to convey emotion.


This is how I saw it too.  Obama got a better reception.  Perhaps it's because Romney always comes off as phony or maybe even the VFW is tired of endless war which is the neocon line Romney is pushing.

Romney is taking off on his foreign tour to prove his foreign policy skills.  I predict it will be a disaster.




2 comments:

  1. As opposed to Obama, who never uses platitudes. His awesomeness at the VFW:
    �If anyone tries to tell you our greatness is past, that America is in decline, you tell them this, like the 20th century, the 21st century will be another great American century. We are Americans, blessed with the greatest form of government every devised by man.�

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  2. "I predict it will be a disaster."
    And right you were. Even Krauthammer agreed.

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