Where is 'progress' leading? And other questions you should never ask
The Destructive Impulse of Liberalism
Herman Cain in Council Bluffs, Iowa, August 2011 (photo by Robert Stacy McCain
The Destructive Impulse of Liberalism
(Robert Stacy McCain, Born Lucky) - One afternoon in August 2011, I set up my laptop in a restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska, ready to write a column for The American Spectator. It was the week before the Iowa Straw Poll, and I’d spent the day following Herman Cain’s presidential campaign bus, ending the day with a rally at a park in Council Bluffs. My friend Dave Weigel was there, and when he said he was going to have dinner at a German restaurant in Omaha, just across the river, I sort of invited myself to join him.
When I set up my laptop, however, I kept having trouble getting a WiFi connection. After an hour of fruitless effort — and a couple of cold beers — I gave up, telling Dave that it was obvious that I’d fallen afoul of The Gods of Dateline Integrity. You see, I intended to have a Council Bluffs dateline on that column, despite the fact that I was writing it on the other side of the Missouri River in Omaha. This was perhaps not the kind of ethical transgression that would get a guy fired. After all, I had been in Council Bluffs to witness the events I was describing, but The Gods of Deadline Integrity were clearly offended and, no matter what I tried, my laptop simply refused to let me get online and file that column. So I packed up my gear, bid Dave adieu, and hopped in my rental car to head back to Council Bluffs, where I found an Internet connection, finished the column and filed it (“Aiming for Ames,” Aug. 9, 2011).
The reason for telling that story is to explain why I bought…