Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 5:42pm

Of Black Magic and Bearded Marxists

I assume that only deaf and blind individuals in this country are unaware that GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell said on the execrable Bill Maher’s show Politically Incorrect in 1999 that as a young woman she dabbled in witchcraft.  What brought this up is that O’Donnell on the show was criticizing self-proclaimed witches and made this comment to demonstrate that she had personal experience of what she was attacking.  Her appearances on Maher’ s show were to serve as the token Christian conservative who Maher could attack.   As this essay on chastity which she wrote in 1998 indicates, O’Donnell was doing far more than making guest appearances at this time on Maher’s show, and I interpret her agreement to be on Maher’s show as an attempt to get her message across in an unfriendly venue.  She is making light of the whole stupid issue which I think is the right tack to take.

Less well known is that her opponent Chris Coons wrote an article when he was 21 for the Amherst student newspaper entitled The Making of a Bearded Marxist in which he described how his college experiences transformed him from a conservative into a leftist.  (Son of a gun, I guess there are people foolish enough to fall for the low level political indoctrination that many campuses engage in in lieu of an education.)  What do I make of this statement of Coons?  Other than that 21 year olds are apt to make fairly foolish statements, certainly I did, nothing.

Neither of these stories have anything to do with the Senate race.  However O’Donnell’s teenage fling with witchcraft will be trumpeted by what is laughingly referred to as the mainstream media, while the self-description of Coons as a bearded Marxist will be ignored by the same media.  If the media wishes to focus on issues which might be relevant, they might start at this blog, where they can learn how Coons as County Executive of New Castle, betrayed a pledge not to raise taxes, and massively increased government spending.  Taxes and spending  are the hot issues this year, and not stupid things done and said by the candidates in their salad days.

For those of you interested in seeing a Christine O’Donnell video clip that isn’t more than a decade hold, here is a speech which she delivered at the Values Summit after her primary win.

I still think Christine O’Donnell is a flawed candidate, but I must say the hysterical piling on against her by GOP insiders, the mainstream media and the Democrats is making me more supportive of her candidacy with each passing day.

Update:  Another Chris Coons story for the mainstream media to ignore.  According to Patterico at Patterico’s Pontifications, Alan Muller, an evironmental activist, and Leftist, contends that Chris Coons has used his office  to persecute Muller, because of Muller’s criticisms of Coons.  Read all about it here.

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Art Deco
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 7:39am

Expecting our JournOListas to have fixed, transparent, and non-sectarian standards of conduct has turned into a utopian disposition.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 7:50am

Whatever!

Ms. O’Donnell was not insisting that global warming is going to raise ocean levels by 20 feet; that heterosexual AIDS is a major health concern; that law-abiding Americans can’t be trusted with guns; that every nation and every culture is superior to our own; that illegal aliens and Islamic jihadists are entitled to all the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens; that providing 31 million additional people with health insurance will save us billions of dollars; that Supreme Court justices should essentially be social workers who get to wear their robes to work; that drilling for oil and digging for coal are evil endeavors; that windmills and sunbeams can supply all the energy a modern industrial nation needs; that Christian symbols should be eliminated from the national landscape; and that the redistribution of personal wealth is a moral imperative.

She was not displaying the arrogant disdain for traditional American virtues, not to mention logic and common sense as her opponents have habitually done.

As if anyone cared: What was the current occupier of the White House doing in high school – selling cocaine? He can’t release his Birth Certificate.

Double standard?

Bill Sr.
Bill Sr.
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 8:12am

Our chosen one in the White House did his dabbling in Christianity with the Rev. Wright for an extended time(and never remembered what was said). His personal inspiration and serious pondering came from those who prepared him for his real lifes work while with Ayers the bomb throwing Marxists and other real extremists.

RR
RR
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 8:56am

The Coons piece looks entirely mainstream.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 9:34am

I agree with RR since “mainstream” often has a weak relationship with reality.

RR
RR
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 10:38am

Don, I meant that I didn’t see anything in the Coons piece worth reporting. Did you see a shocking revelation that I missed?

c matt
c matt
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 12:03pm

I thought liberals liked wiccans?

Blackadder
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 1:12pm

According to the article Coons’ political transformation came while on a trip to Kenya. So the shocking revelation is that he, too, is motivated by Kenyan anti-colonialism.

Joe Hargrave
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 1:24pm

I’ll take O’Donnell’s simplicity over duplicity and evil wrapped up in a veneer of sophistication.

Seriously, I think some people, even some Christians, would be deceived by Satan if he did no more than adopt the title “faculty chair” when presenting his arguments.

Henry Karlson
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 1:38pm

“I’ll take O’Donnell’s simplicity over duplicity and evil wrapped up in a veneer of sophistication.”

She has not only gone on the air talking about lies and why they are not permitted, she has a history of lies for herself. Duplicity? Her life is full of them. When she went to ISI she made false claims about herself; when she left them, she made false claims about herself. She has a history of seeking after her own good over others, and using everyone for her own benefit. That is her history.

And people would be interested, while talking about how people “hang out” with “bad people” in high school, it is not just in high school she hangs out with people who dabble in the occult (good or bad, it’s up to you and the voter; but it seems her sister continues to dabble in it). So acting like it is a thing of the past, when she continues to hang out with occultists is again another example of her ways. Now, I think it is good she stands by her sister, but in doing so, she should honestly reflect upon what that means for who she “hangs with.”

Blackadder
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 1:41pm

Btw, I find it amusing that people are saying O’Donnell shouldn’t be Senator from Delaware because she has made some “crazy” statements. Do they not remember Joe Biden?

Phillip
Phillip
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 2:29pm

Let’s apply the standard to Richard Blumenthal in Conn. Much worse by far.

c matt
c matt
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 3:52pm

The most hypocritical thing of all is Bill Maher calling his show “Politically Incorrect” – you couldn’t find a more politically correct show.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 5:35pm

Yeah.
My son used to say that Maher is to politically incorrect what MTV is to music.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 5:58pm

HK: Try applying that “open and honest” standard to Barry Sotoero or Barrack Hussein Obam or whatever is that fake, phony fraud’s name . . .

Joe Hargrave
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 6:02pm

Oh please Karlson. If it was some lefty calling for universal, tax-payer subsidized hugs and tickles who had once dabbled in witchcraft, you would be citing ecumenical decrees in their defense.

Henry Karlson
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 6:44pm

Joe

Once again, your response shows no comprehension to what was said. I pointed out the issue is her lack of honesty. It had not to do with who she hung out with, or continues to do so, but how she explains it, and how this connects to her other misrepresentations, something one can find as a pattern in her life.

If someone wants to be a witch, or hang out with them, fine. If one once was a witch, and no longer is one, fine. However, if one’s sister is still practicing practices she learned from wicca, and you hang out with her, it is clear, you hang out with such people. Why say you don’t? That is the question.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 7:48pm

Destructive dem stooges and penurious propagandists in the media can’t devise answers for America’s problems: one-in-seven Americans living (hope and change!!) in poverty, unemployment at horrid levels, unprecedented federal and state deficits, foreclosures tragically up, and businesses driven to despair by unfunded mandates and ruinous regulations. So, they dig up high school silliness to misdirect voters’ sensibilities.

Moe
Moe
Monday, September 20, AD 2010 7:49pm

There’s a lot of old scuttlebutt surrounding Hillary Clinton and her association with New Agers Marianne Williamson, Jean Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson. It has been reported that part of Hillary’s therapy, to help her reach her full human potential, was “channeling,” including, under the guidance of these New Agers, directing Hillary to converse with the dead: Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi. I guess that one could say that Hillary Clinton dabbled in seances. At least Ms. O’Donnell has not/will not be running for the presidency.

mundabor
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 3:35am

After decades of “Christianity Light” everywhere in the West it is really not a great surprise to read that the one or the other, in younger years, has “experimented” with stupid things.

Yes, this wouldn’t have happened 100 or 200 years ago; not because the teenagers of those times were less stupid, but because they were taughts more properly.

What is more relevant and is not said, though, is that O’Donnell is, by all his faults, clearly Christian *now*, whilst you have a President of the United States clearly and wilfully omitting the Creator when reading from your Constitution. This, Obama did not as a teenager or as a child whilst attending a Muslim school, but just a few days ago.

Some people never change.

Mundabor

mundabor
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 3:36am

“taught” and “her” fault, of course 🙁

Henry Karlson
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 4:35am

Look to her sister, and look to Christine’s checkered history. Indeed, she doesn’t want to answer anything to do with that history. “Liberals” mention it, so it’s ok to dismiss legitimate concerns because liberals mention it. You got to be kidding me! She is looking out for herself, no one else, as her history shows.

Art Deco
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 6:00am

so it’s ok to dismiss legitimate concerns because liberals mention it. You got to be kidding me! She is looking out for herself, no one else, as her history shows.

No, her history does not show that. It shows a woman who has not succeeded at constructing and maintaining a fully adult life. That is a legitimate concern, and not merely in Delaware. (It has been a legitimate concern about Patrick Kennedy throughout his entire career in politics, just not a concern throughout all sectors of the population).

Phillip
Phillip
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 6:43am

“It has been a legitimate concern about Patrick Kennedy throughout his entire career in politics…”

That should read: “It has been a legitimate concern abouth the Kennedys throughout their careers in politics…”

Phillip
Phillip
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 6:49am

But since we are on the topic, it is interesting to note that the Ted Kennedy, in spite of killing an aide, committing adultery, corrupting the morals of his nephews and being one of the strongest supporters of abortion and the homosexual agenda, still managed to receive an elaborate funeral from the Church.

I suspect O’Donnell still has a lot of work to do to equal that man.

HGL
HGL
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 6:52am

Seriously, I think some people, even some Christians, would be deceived by Satan if he did no more than adopt the title “faculty chair” when presenting his arguments.

And how often he does no more than adopt the title faculty chair … expect me not to be impressed by academic titles.

Achievements included in their usual background (as well as in some non-titled ones) involves knowing more facts than the public. There is nothing short of an obligation to personal sanctity that could give them an over all better judgement.

Henry Karlson
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 7:01am

Art

She has a history of making things up — like her law suit; she just does whatever suits her. Some, like Donald, say politics is the art of compromise (funny how we hear that now). I have no problem with compromise; what I have a problem is someone whose record is checkered with dishonesty and manipulation for the sake of her own gain ( such as when she said she had finished undergraduate studies and was in a graduate program). Of course, I find this behind much of the Tea Party — dishonest presentation of the facts so that people can get in power and use that power for their own will, with the people who are following them often not seeing the disconnect (such as the focus on the taxes for the rich as being somehow the government is seeking to tax the middle class!)

Henry Karlson
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 7:46am

Ok, you said comparison; fine – that was my mistake for doing a quick skim of the responses. Nonetheless, even then, comparison ends up choosing a candidate which rarely equals our own desired candidate, and end up establishing principles which we think are more important and others of secondary importance which can be compromised. Politics still takes it. And when we do comparisons, we must not confuse the rhetoric or the image, but also the ability of the people involved in relation to our principles of choice.

Art Deco
Tuesday, September 21, AD 2010 7:56am

She has a history of making things up — like her law suit; she just does whatever suits her.

I do not find the supposed contentions of her lawsuit against ISI Press (as summarized in news reports) plausible on their face, but it is very imprudent in that sort of circumstance to accuse someone of fabricating unless you’ve considerable granular knowledge of the dispute at hand.

Her disinclination to publish her curriculum vitae is an indication that she has an unhappy history with her employers. Bad enough.

That should read: “It has been a legitimate concern abouth the Kennedys throughout their careers in politics…”

Some Kennedys, not others. Joseph Kennedy, four of his nine children, and several of his 28 grand-children have transgressed in manners gross and unusual against the moral law. The ways they did so have differed from person to person. Patrick Kennedy is a much more benign figure than his father or his cousin Michael. He has suffered from a generic incompetence at the art of living that is the closest to Miss O’Donnell’s manifested troubles.

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