LinkSwarm for January 26, 2012

LinkSwarm, or EuroDoom? LinkSwarm, or EuroDoom? Well, the first link has some of each, but with Davos just starting up, I imagine their will be a nice helping of EuroDoom ready to serve tomorrow, so let’s put up a LinkSwarm today:

  • Mark Steyn looks at the Costa Concordia sinking and smells a metaphor.
  • Myth: Newt Gingrich told his first wife he was divorcing her on her hospital deathbed. Fact: They had already agreed to a divorce, Newt was just visiting her, the tumor was benign, and Jackie Battley Gingrich is still alive. But who are you going to believe: Online liberal trolls, or the daughter who was actually in the hospital room at the time?
  • Borepatch says that Gingrich is particular effective at demolishing the Left’s Thought-terminating cliches.
  • Larry Elder lists all the things Gingrich can nail Obama and the media on.
  • Jonah Goldberg discusses Newtzilla, but his best barbs are reserved for his opponent: “Romney seems like a creature put on Earth to blend in with the humans and report back what he finds. He clearly likes earthlings, and they in turn find him pleasant enough and surprisingly lifelike.”
  • Maureen Dowd on on Obama’s cocoon of self-aggrandizing victimization. Like all Dowd’s columns, it focuses on the trivial minutia of the-personal-as-political…and is all the more devastating for it. “The man who came to Washington on a wave of euphoria has had a presidency with all the joy of a root canal…The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They’ve forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House. And after four or eight years of public service, you are assured membership in the 1 percent club.”
  • After 12 months, what has the Arab Spring wrought in Egypt? Cairo Winter: “The reality of the past twelve months, however, has undone whatever high hopes one might have held. Egypt is now headed for radical theocratic, rather than liberal democratic, rule. And a befuddled Obama administration has failed to do anything to stop the coming disaster.” (Hat tip: Michael Totten, who adds: “I know a few Egyptian intellectuals and activists who are authentic liberals, but they’re not remotely a majority. The percentage of Egyptians who genuinely support most or all the tenets of Western-style liberal democracy is in the high single digits at best.”)
  • An interesting quiz that ties in to Charles Murray’s new books asking how thick is your bubble?
  • A roundup of State of the Union reactions from the Texas congressional delegation.
  • Japan suffers its first trade deficit since 1980. Remember all those stories from the 1980s about how Japan was going to take over the world? They were very similar to the ones we were getting about China just a few years ago…
  • Hat tips: Ace, Insta, The Corner, and the usual suspects.

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