Hennessy's View

The Washington Post’s headline writer made a common mistake on Sunday.

He confused “one who apologizes” with “apologist.”

An easy mistake, no doubt, for most of us. Professional headline writers should know better. So should Glenn Kessler, the author of the WP story.

The claim that Obama is an apologist for the nation began to take shape shortly after he became president.

An apologist is “one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something.”

Britannica.com describes an apologist as:

any of the Christian writers, primarily in the 2nd century, who attempted to provide a defense of Christianity and criticisms of Greco-Roman culture.

Romney does not accuse Obama of being an apologist for the United States; he accuses the president, accurately, of apologizing for the United States.

To anyone who knows the meaning of the words, Kessler’s story reads like a farce.  Kessler attempts to demonstrate that Obama does not apologize the U.S., but, in fact, he defends his country.  But Kessler uses the wrong words.

Making Kessler’s sin even more egregious, he writes at the Post’s fact checker—a fact checker who failed to look up the meaning of “apologist,” the central word of his story.

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of precise words. Lord knows I’m as guilty of letting my precision wane as is Kessler or anyone else.

Still, I will accept the title of “American Apologist” proudly.  And, while I disagree with Kessler’s intended meaning, I do agree with the literal assertion of his story: Barack Obama is no apologist for the United States.

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Some center-right people take their ball and go home. Guess who?

Since the 2010 election, we’ve heard from the Establishment (GOP, MSM, DNC) that Tea Partiers are too puritanical.

The elitist theory holds that Tea Partiers demand doctrinaire allegiance to some engraved-granite list of principles.  Stray from that list, and the Tea Party will hunt you down like a dog in the street and beat you with a Wiffle Ball bat until you pee blood for a week.

Guess what, though. It’s not the Tea Partiers who defect when their candidates lose.

A recent Rasmussen poll (subscription may be required) found that Establishment Republicans are far more likely to vote Democrat, third party, or not at all if their favored candidate loses a primary.

Interestingly, those outside the Tea Party are more committed to finding a candidate who shares their views–67% of Tea Party members take that approach compared to 75% of non-members. That data contradicts a common story line that Tea Party members are interested in ideological purity while others are more practical in their considerations.

But the divisions get even clearer when the questions get more specific:

Again, those in the Tea Party are more committed to the GOP field than other primary voters. Ninety-one percent (91%) of Tea Party members now plan to vote for the eventual GOP candidate even if their first choice isn’t the nominee, compared to 71% of non-members.

Kidding?  Non-Tea Party Republicans could see a 29 percent defection rate if their favorite candidate isn’t nominated?  Wow.

The next time someone tells you that the Tea Party is too puritanical, tell them, “Perhaps, but we’re not nearly as puritanical as the establishment Republicans.”

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Writers are always looking for the perfect topic for a book.  But there’s a problem.

What’s important to me may not be important to you. And what you to read about, I might not care about. 

That’s why great books achieve a certain universality.  They touch on the essence of life itself, of humanity itself, of existence. 

Some say that the secret to perfectly spellbinding stories is a mixture of just three elements: sex, food, and spirit.  That’s why Elizabeth Gilbert’s Love, Eat, Pray became such a phenomenal best-seller and movie.

I might claim that sex, justice, and military is the perfect American combination for a fiction story.

But I’m not here to talk about fiction.

I’m here to talk about hard, cold reality served up by one of St. Louis’s leading conservative writers.

Are you ready for the perfect conservative book recipe?

Buy and read Bob McCarty’s Three Days in August.  Read all about the book:

U.S. Army Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart admitted to having a one-night stand with a 28-year-old German woman the night of Aug. 22, 2008. She did, too. Both knew sex was part of the plan when they left the discotheque near Stuttgart. Two months later, however, her story changed and the highly-decorated combat veteran found himself facing rape and kidnapping charges.

During court-martial proceedings one year later, Stewart faced an Army court-martial panel comprised of soldiers who had recently returned from a 16-month deployment with the Army attorney serving as Stewart’s lead prosecutor.

Despite a lack of both physical evidence and eyewitnesses to the alleged crimes, it took only three days for the panel to find Stewart guilty of numerous offenses — including aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, forcible sodomy and assault and battery — and sentence him to eight years behind bars.

Incredibly, the conviction was based almost entirely on the testimony of Stewart’s accuser, a one-time mental patient who, with the backing of the German government, refused to allow her medical records to be entered as evidence.

When several witnesses came forward during a post-trial hearing to reveal startling proof that the accuser had lied several times during the trial, their words were largely ignored by the court and Stewart remained behind bars.

Today, Stewart’s fighting for a new trial so he can shed the “sexual offender” label that will stay with him the rest of his life if justice remains out of reach.

Based on extensive interviews and never-before-published details taken from the actual Record of Trial, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight for Military Justice by Bob McCarty paints a portrait of military justice gone awry that’s certain to make your blood boil.

Coming in eBook and print versions.  Look for it at booksellers everywhere Oct. 19.

Mark the date, October 19, down on your calendar; it’s game one of the World Series, it’s the day before the next After Party at Helen Fitzgerald’s, and it’s the day Three Days in August launches. 

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For most of my life I was naïve.  I think.

I thought that most people who voted for larger government, higher taxes, tighter regulation, and limits on speech, religion, and assembly, were misguided.

I’ve always known and acknowledged that the people who advocated and plotted to concentrate power in the hands of a few were wicked creatures.  I never hesitated to attack them head-on.

But the others.  The others I sometimes pitied. Other times I belittled.  Other times I simply giggled at them.

After the center-left’s response to Tucson, I think I might have been wrong.  There might not be many “good” liberals.  Maybe most on the center-left are rotten, power-hungry, freedom-hating, murder-using slime.

Please show me I’m wrong. Don’t bother telling me, because I don’t believe a one of you. Show me.

The liberal-progressive-left world has demonstrated the worst of humanness this week.  It’ll take a lot to convince me you haven’t sold your souls.

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I tried to manually trackback to Seth Godin’s post on TV from this post. 

Between WordPress’s false negatives on reporting success of links, my laptop’s touchy touchpad, and Typepad’s weird trackback URL system, I managed to:

a. Link once to the wrong blog post

b. Link twice to the right blog post

I pride myself on being respectful of blogging etiquette.  I hate trackback spam. I hate it even more when I’m the one creating it.

I am sorry to Seth and his readers. 

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