Anyone can fall victim to an attack of foot-in-mouth disease. When FIMD strikes, the polite thing for other people to do is ignore it and move on to the next thing—except when it happens to a celebrity. Then it’s okay to laugh.

So, Gwyneth Paltrow—BWAAAAHAHAHAR!!! Did you really, really opine that you have it rougher than the average working mom? Yes, you did, and though I can’t speak for Mr. & Ms. Average American, I must say that your sad tale of woe tore at my heart. Just imagining the travails of a two-week location shoot in the wilds of Wisconsin makes my blood run cold. Having spent many an Army Reserve annual training tour at rustic Fort McCoy, I’m familiar with the hardships of life on the other side of the Cheddar Curtain. Still wake up screaming, in fact.

But enough about me—back to dear Gwyneth. This wasn’t her first bout with FIMD. In 2006 she informed the world that she preferred English people to Americans because, you know, they’re so much more civilized. Apparently she’s never been molested by a pack of drunken soccer hooligans.

Seriously, though, while I realize that Tinseltown celebs tend not to be the sharpest knives in our national cutlery drawer, how dim must Gwyneth be to honestly believe that she, a highly compensated star with a retinue of personal assistants, drivers, nannies, housemaids, etc. at her beck and call, actually has it tougher than an ordinary working mom? But let’s turn the soapbox over to an actual working mom who replied to Gwyneth via an open letter in the New York Post:

“Thank God I don’t make millions filming one movie per year” is what I say to myself pretty much every morning as I wait on a windy Metro-North platform, about to begin my 45-minute commute into the city. Whenever things get rough, all I have to do is keep reminding myself of that fact. It is my mantra.

And I know all my fellow working-mom friends feel the same. Am I right, ladies? We’re always gabbing about how easy it is to balance work and home life. Whenever I meet with them at one of our weekly get-togethers—a breeze to schedule, because reliable baby sitters often roam my neighborhood in packs, holding up signs peddling their services — we have a competition to see who has it easier. Is it the female breadwinners who work around the clock to make sure their mortgages get paid, lying awake at night, wracked with anxiety over the idea of losing their jobs? Or is it the mothers who get mommy-tracked and denied promotions? What about the moms with “regular” 9-to-5 jobs, who are penalized when their kids are sick and they don’t have backup child care?

Those women are living the dream, I tell you!

There’s more and it’s pretty funny. But if Gwyneth Paltrow were to read it—or have somebody read it to her—I doubt she’d see the point. How could those shivering moms on the Metro-North platform ever understand the toil and drudgery of the celebrity lifestyle?

Oh, and by the way, Gwyneth. When your daughter grows up, she’s going to get back at you for naming her Apple. Trust me on that…

Posted by tmg110 at 1:08 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 29 March 2014 1:52 PM EDT

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The malicious stupidity that characterizes the Democratic Party and, by extension, the entire left/liberal/progressive spectrum, has been well on display recently. As is frequently the case, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is setting the standard. Recently he charged—on the Senate floor—that the Koch brothers, those chief horribles in the demonology of progressives, are “un-American.” It’s un-American, you see, to disapprove of and argue against the policies that Harry Reid, Barack Obama, etc. support.

Supposedly Reid’s problem with the brothers is that their money is corrupting American politics. We can’t have filthy rich plutocrats using their personal fortunes to promote their ideological preferences! This from a politician whose party greatly benefits from a veritable army of fat cat billionaires, with George Soros leading the charge. That’s the stupid part of Harry Reid’s slur.

The malicious part of it is—or ought to be—obvious. On the Senate floor, protected by congressional privilege, Reid stood up and called two American citizens un-American. Not because they adhere to the enemies of the United States, or give our enemies aid and comfort, or advocate the subversion of the constitutional order, but just because they’re politically opposed to Harry Reid and his party. And not one member of that party that I know of has condemned Reid for his odious name-calling. You can just bet, though, that if someone were to call Harry Reid un-American on the Senate floor, or on TV, or on a conservative talk radio show, he and the rest of them would squeal like stuck pigs. Well, I won’t go there—not quite. Without attacking Senator Reid personally I will merely observe that his behavior in this matter was un-American. In the extreme.

Posted by tmg110 at 11:31 AM EDT

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Much has been made of the fact that on 6 June 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was absent from Normandy. The commander of Army Group B was on leave in Germany—his wife’s birthday happened to fall on 6 June—and he was due to meet with Hitler before returning to his headquarters.  Bad weather and rough seas were predicted for the English Channel, and Rommel judged that there was little chance that the Allied invasion would be launched during the first week of June. This was a reasonable assessment, though it happened to be mistaken. Advised that a brief improvement in weather conditions was likely around 6 June, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, gave the order to go.

Though it certainly was unfortunate from the Germans’ point of view that Army Group B’s able, energetic commander was absent on the day of the invasion, their command problems went deeper than that. On paper the chain of command seemed clear enough. At the apex stood Adolf Hitler, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. His orders were transmitted via the Armed Forces High Command—Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW. Next in the chain was Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the Commander-in-Chief West— Oberbefehlshaber West or OB West. From his headquarters in Paris Rundstedt commanded all German forces in France and the Low Countries, including Rommel’s Army Group B along the Channel coast. Army Group B controlled two armies, Fifteenth Army in the Pas de Calais sector and Seventh Army in the Normandy sector.

But in typical Third Reich fashion, this seemingly clear chain of command was in fact a muddle. To begin with, the dispute over tactics between Rundstedt and Rommel led to the dispersal of the strategic reserve: seven panzer and panzer grenadier (mechanized infantry) divisions in the Army Group B area. Four of these divisions were allotted to a headquarters called Panzer Group West, nominally under the command of OB West. The other three were allotted to the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, nominally under the command of Army Group B. One of these, 21st Panzer Division, was designated as Seventh Army reserve, i.e. the army commander could order it into action on his own authority. Moreover, the four divisions of Panzer Group West were in OKW reserve, i.e. they could not be ordered into action by either Rommel or Rundstedt but only by Hitler. Thus of the seven powerful divisions that constituted the main striking power of the German Army in the Normandy area, only one was in position to intervene against the invasion on D-Day itself. The rest were either too far away or outside the control of the commanders on the spot.

The intelligence picture was equally muddled. The German command’s conclusion that the Pas de Calais would be the likely Allied landing site was largely the process of staff analysis and supporting evidence proved difficult to come by. Air reconnaissance coverage was spotty, while the Germans’ intelligence networks in Britain had mostly been penetrated and rolled up or turned. The well-known Allied deception plan, Operation Fortitude, sowed further confusion. This involved the creation of a phantom invasion force under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, supposedly preparing for a landing in the Pas de Calais sector. Thus even when intelligence pointing to Normandy did come to hand, the German command was not completely convinced by it. This air of uncertainty persisted even after 6 June, delaying the redeployment of German forces from the Pas de Calais to Normandy.

On the afternoon of 6 June the 21st Panzer Division mounted a counterattack against the British beaches that briefly penetrated to the Channel coast. But confusion reigned at all levels of the German command, the division had suffered significant losses, and that evening it fell back. The one chance, such as it was, for the Germans to roll up part of the Allied beachhead was missed. Even so, as I described in earlier posts, in the face of a stubborn German defense the Allied plan miscarried and many critical objectives were not reached. What might have happened if Rommel’s proposed defensive layout had been followed must be speculative, but certainly the presence of three or four panzer divisions in the immediate vicinity of the invasion beaches would have posed a serious problem for the Allies. On the other hand, if Rundstedt’s ideas had prevailed, the Allies would have faced the prospect of an encounter battle against a large—and largely intact—force of veteran German panzer divisions, beyond the range of Allied naval gunfire support. Given the substandard performance of many US and British divisions in the actual Battle of Normandy, such an encounter battle was unlikely to have been a walkover. Probably thanks to their overall superiority, particularly in the air, the Allies would have prevailed no matter how the campaign developed—but not all victories are created equal. Costly as it was, the Battle of Normandy could have been costlier still for America and Britain.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:56 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 29 March 2014 10:12 AM EDT

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In this, the winter of Barack Obama’s discontent, it’s both instructive and entertaining to spare a backward glance for the Obama of 2008: that transcendent figure who, we were assured, was set to transform the world. So here’s a classic of the genre (and a tip of the hat to National Review’s Jim Geraghty for drawing my attention to it). Writing in Slate on December 3, 2008, Emily Yoffe gushed:

For researchers of emotions, creating them in the lab can be a problem. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley, studies the emotions of uplift, and he has tried everything from showing subjects vistas of the Grand Canyon to reading them poetry—with little success. But just this week one of his postdocs came in with a great idea: Hook up the subjects, play Barack Obama's victory speech, and record as their autonomic nervous systems go into a swoon.

In his forthcoming book, Born To Be Good (which is not a biography of Obama), Keltner writes that he believes when we experience transcendence, it stimulates our vagus nerve, causing "a feeling of spreading, liquid warmth in the chest and a lump in the throat." For the 66 million Americans who voted for Obama, that experience was shared on Election Day, producing a collective case of an emotion that has only recently gotten research attention. It's called "elevation."

 >snip<

Keltner believes certain people are "vagal superstars"—in the lab he has measured people who have high vagus nerve activity. "They respond to stress with calmness and resilience, they build networks, break up conflicts, they're more cooperative, they handle bereavement better." He says being around these people makes other people feel good. "I would guarantee Barack Obama is off the charts. Just bring him to my lab."

Mmmm-hmmm—Barack Obama as a “vagel superstar.” It’s a fragment of psychobabble that neatly encapsulates the Myth of Barry as retailed to a gullible electorate in 2008. But what is interesting about it, I think, is this: Keltner’s analysis, as interpreted by Yoffe, is actually a pretty good pointer to the source of Obama’s current plight. “For the 66 million Americans who voted for Obama, that experience [transcendence] was shared on Election Day, producing a collective case of an emotion…” A less gooey and more accurate way of putting this would be to say: There was no there, there.

To be fair, Yoffe briefly considers this possibility: “The 58 million McCain voters might say that the virtue and moral beauty displayed by Obama at his rallies was an airy promise of future virtue and moral beauty. And that the soaring feeling his voters had of having made the world a better place consisted of the act of placing their index fingers on a touch screen next to the words Barack Obama. They might be on to something.”

But probably not. Those 58 million boobs have been dismissed and forgotten by the time that Yoffe sums up: “But this time, elevation won. And expect that on Inauguration Day, even if the weather's frigid, millions will be warmed by that liquid feeling in their chests.” Yes, quite. And the fact that elevation won—not superior policies or logical argument or realistic analysis—pretty much explains the incredibly shrinking Barack Obama of 2014. And if our community organizer-in-chief has a liquid feeling in his chest, it’s probably acid reflux.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:10 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 27 March 2014 8:15 AM EDT

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In their increasingly desperate quest for a reason to feel hopeful about their prospects in this year's elections, Democrats have grasped at another straw. Well, actually it's a joint: “Democrats' great green hope? Americans only want to vote for marijuana.” That’s the good word from the latest George Washington University Battleground poll. It seems that 73% of the registered voters surveyed favor medical marijuana and 53% percent favor decriminalization of pot. So the Dems have got the stoner vote locked up. If the election were held tomorrow and marijuana was the only issue, the Dems would win in a landslide.

Or maybe not. I happen to support the legalization of pot myself: The more Democrats who smoke pot, the fewer who will manage to find their way to the polls, or even remember that it’s Election Day.

Posted by tmg110 at 1:14 PM EDT

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it looks as though the Supreme Court is about to hand the Obama Administration another embarrassing defeat. Yesterday the Justices heard arguments in the Hobby Lobby contraception mandate case, and a clear majority of them seemed skeptical of the government’s position. Progressives, of course, have retreated into their “corporations aren’t people” stronghold, insisting that religious liberty and, indeed, all constitutional rights are for individuals only. But in point of fact, they’re pretty selective in their deployment of this argument. Progressives champion laws that allow a minority- or women-owned business to bring discrimination lawsuits, a point made by Chief Justice Roberts. On the other hand, a prosecutor can indict an entire corporation and I doubt that anyone on the Left would be willing to see that power taken out of the hands of law enforcement. Anyhow, the Court has held that corporations possess First Amendment rights as regards free speech. What, therefore, is the argument for denying corporations First Amendment rights as regards religion?

During the Clinton Administration a law designed to defend religious liberty from just such an attack as the one being mounted against Hobby Lobby was enacted with bipartisan support. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act stipulates that when government interferes with the free exercise of religion, it must clearly demonstrate a compelling interest and impose the "least burdensome" option. This is a high bar and the contraception mandate doesn’t clear it. The arguments of the Obama Administration and feminists to the contrary notwithstanding, respecting the religious freedom of Hobby Lobby’s owners would not devastate the rights of women. Contraception is cheap and widely available and will remain so even if Hobby Lobby doesn’t cover it in its employee health plan. Nor is it the case that a Supreme Court decision adverse to the Administration’s position will result in a corporate rush to dump contraception coverage. A few additional companies here and there may claim the same religious exemption, and the courts are certainly competent to rule on the merits of each such claim.

The reasons given by its supporters for the retention of the contraception mandate are, therefore, not only unpersuasive but dishonest. (Rather hysterically, Sandra Fluke calls the possibility of its being struck down a “catastrophe” for women.) No, this is just one more example of the Obama Administration’s—and the Left’s—hostility to religion. As such they deserve the sharp rebuke that the Supreme Court seems poised to deliver.

Posted by tmg110 at 12:53 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2014 12:59 PM EDT

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This is kind of funny. Superstar pollster Nate Silver received rapturous plaudits from Democrats on account of his spot-on prediction of Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection victory. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ladies of The View offered to…well, you know.

But then Silver turned his attention to the 2014 off-year elections, and he recently came out with a forecast that's much less to the taste of the Dems: “We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber.” Well! The Democrats’ reaction to this bit of prognostication was a collective shriek of rage. As Jonathan Tobin notes in this post on Commentary’s “Contentions” blog:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is trying to argue that the man who called all 50 states right in the 2012 election is wrong. The DSCC claims that there aren’t enough polls to justify Silver’s assertion that the Republicans have a 60 percent chance of picking up at least six Senate seats. The Democrats also point out instances of Silver being either wrong in the past or at least underestimating the actual margins of races. But while the attempt to take down Silver will reassure some nervous Democrats who may have been under the impression the liberal-leaning pundit/statistician was only capable of predicting results they like, the response bears all the signs of the same denial that characterized GOP jousting with the writer two years ago.

Tobin is spot-on with that last observation. I myself have had the feeling for several weeks that the Democrats, unable to process all the bad news with which they've been bombarded, have decided to take a vacation from reality. A reality check from the redoubtable Prince of Pollsters, Nate Silver, was just about the last thing they wanted to hear. Hero to zero, Nate, hero to zero…

Posted by tmg110 at 7:39 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2014 3:13 PM EDT

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A battle, as Clausewitz reminds us, is a clash of two living wills. I’ve discussed Allied intentions and plans for the invasion of Normandy at some length. But what about the Germans?

From mid-1943 on, Hitler’s attention was drawn more and more to the western theater of operations. The Führer was not greatly concerned about the situation on the Italian front, where the line had stabilized south of Rome. The mountainous terrain of central Italy greatly favored the defense and by the end of 1943 the Allies’ painfully slow advance up the peninsula had been brought to a standstill. Hitler knew, however, that in the spring of 1944 he must reckon with an Allied invasion of France. If this could be defeated, Germany would gain a long breathing space in the west, enabling major forces to be transferred to the Russian front. But if the invasion succeeded, the war would be lost.

For the Germans there were two questions whose answers would govern their conduct of the coming battle. (1) Where would the Allies invade? (2) How should the available forces be deployed?

Regarding the first question there were only two plausible alternatives: Normandy and the Pas de Calais, both of which lay along the Channel coast. The latter was favored by Field Marshal von Rundstedt, the Commander-in-Chief West, and most other senior commanders, because it offered the shortest cross-Channel passage between Britain and France. Hitler professed his agreement with this assessment, but his instincts repeatedly led him to question whether Normandy might after all be the Allies' chosen spot.

The second question was rather more contentious. Rundstedt advocated what may be called the General Staff solution. The mission of the static beach defense divisions would be to delay the Allies, not defeat them. The mobile divisions—Panzer, panzer grenadier, field infantry—would be held in reserve. Once it became clear where the Allies intended to make their main effort, the mobile reserves would be concentrated to deliver a full-scale counterattack at the decisive moment. It was a plan which the great Moltke would no doubt have approved.

But Rundstedt’s principal subordinate, Field Marshal Rommel, commanding Army Group B with responsibility for the defense of the Channel coast, had very different ideas. Based on his experiences in North Africa, the Desert Fox argued that Allied air superiority would make it difficult if not impossible to effect the concentration envisioned in the Rundstedt plan. Rommel insisted that if the invasion was to be defeated at all, it must be defeated on the beaches, within 48 hours. Should the Allies manage to seize and stabilize a bridgehead, he concluded, they could never be ejected and the battle would inevitably be lost. Therefore, all mobile reserves must be deployed close to the coast, standing by to intervene immediately when the invasion commenced. For reasons to be explained in my next post, this dispute over deployments and tactics had not been settled by 6 June 1944.

Posted by tmg110 at 2:50 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 22 April 2016 10:13 AM EDT

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This caught my eye today: “Hillary Rodham Clinton says young people understand the significant threat of climate change and that she hopes there will be a mass movement that demands political change.” Seriously? Does she mean like Occupy Wall Street? You do remember Occupy Wall Street, don’t you…?

Okay, sure, maybe the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential candidate was just blowing smoke. Her suggestion came in the context of a Clinton Global Initiative University panel discussion, i.e. an exercise in leftie frivolity. But Republicans and conservatives can always hope that Hillary will try to make climate change a major campaign issue. Considering where it ranks on the American people’s list of priorities, we couldn’t ask for a nicer election year present from the opposition.

Posted by tmg110 at 2:06 PM EDT

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If you want to annoy a progressive, try pointing out that the industrial West’s first system of unemployment insurance and social security was enacted by that exemplar of Prussian Junkerdom, Herr Blut und Eisen himself, Otto von Bismarck.

Now it’s true enough that the Iron Chancellor was no liberal. Alarmed by the growth of the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) he stole a march on them with his landmark social legislation. The German proletariat was offered a deal: economic security in exchange for labor peace. The benefits conferred were scanty by today’s lavish standards and the hand that offered them was moved by cynical calculation. Nevertheless, Bismarck was reviled as a class traitor by his erstwhile conservative allies. But his policy worked. Given a stake in the country, German workers and the party that represented them turned aside from the ideology of revolution. By and large, they chose to work within the system to defend and expand their benefits. Officially, the SDP remained committed to doctrinaire Marxism. In practice, it trod the path of evolutionary reform. “In Germany there will never be a revolution, because in Germany revolution is strictly forbidden.”

The annoyed progressive will no doubt reiterate that Bismarck was no liberal! This is true. But he was no conservative, either. Though he got his start in politics as a member of the old Prussian Conservative Party, he quickly demonstrated a near-complete lack of ideological commitment. When circumstances dictated, Bismarck abandoned his old conservative allies and aligned himself with the National Liberal Party. Though a staunch supporter of the Prussian monarchy, he had no respect for the monarchical principle as such. In 1866 King George V of Hanover found his country invaded, himself deposed, his personal fortune appropriated and his kingdom summarily annexed to Prussia. That Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia happened to be Britain’s Princess Royal, daughter of Queen Victoria and, therefore, a close relative of the deposed King George, troubled Bismarck not at all.

It’s probably most accurate to categorize Bismarck as a radical: a disturber of the peace. If he had a guiding principle it was the aggrandizement of Prussia—or, more precisely, the aggrandizement of the Prussian state as personified by Bismarck. This is the argument set forth in Jonathan Steinberg’s recent biography: Bismarck: A Life (which I’m currently reading). The Iron Chancellor exalted the state, but only as the mechanism through which he, Bismarck, operated the levers of foreign and domestic policy. The constitution of the North German Confederation (1867), which with a few tweaks became in 1871 the constitution of the German Empire, was designed to concentrate all effective political power in the hands of one man. Bismarck dominated the Prussian-German government—even the King-Emperor. And this proved to be united Germany’s fatal flaw: Once the great man had departed the scene (1890), the system was utterly deprived of its vitality.

Bismarck’s career is the more remarkable when you realize that his success was his alone. He dominated no particular political party; he commanded no reliable parliamentary majority. From first to last he was a king’s minister, responsible to and serving at the pleasure of his royal master. The longevity of his public career was due to the longevity of King William I, who appointed Bismarck as prime minister of Prussia in 1862 and reigned on as king and (from 1871) as emperor until 1888. Bismarck dominated the King as he dominated everybody else, and though their relationship was sometimes stormy William trusted and depended upon on his chancellor. Since in Prussia the crown wielded substantial power, his relationship with King William placed that power in Bismarck’s hands. He used it with a disregard for principle and a lack of scruple that horrified his more straight-laced contemporaries.

Steinberg’s biography has reminded me of another Bismarck reference that would no doubt annoy contemporary progressives: his campaign against religion, the so-called Kulturkampf (1871-78). But that’s a subject in itself that demands a separate post.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:35 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 26 March 2014 3:17 PM EDT

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