A minor fisking of Beast Trash - read it in full here:

Do Liberals still not realize, off-prompter, Pres. Obama is about as eloquent as Porky Pig absent the social graces? As for dimensions, the only dimension Pres. Obama has shown in public is Me, if “Me” is in fact a dimension. When I think of monodimensionality, I think of the wonderful edit of Obama-at-UN, where he shakes the hand of 160 leaders and his posture and smile never change. He may not be a one-dimensional cardboard cutout, but he certainly does well playing one on the talking picture box.

As a resident Ayn Rand dork here at C4P, I have no problem admitting that I occupy that strange political ground where I’m both a supporter of Gov. Palin while being heavily influenced by Rand. Rand certainly would have disliked Sarah Palin for many reasons, among them being one of the reasons she disliked Bill Buckley and dismissed Fred Nietzsche. As she famously told him the first time they met, “You’re much too intelligent to believe in God!” Like Nietzsche and a host of others, Rand would have dismissed Gov. Palin as a mystic, and like Niestzsche, Gov. Palin’s reputation would not be harmed. 

For the past week, Reason Online has been putting on a wonderful examination of the life and work of Ayn Rand. The piece above is an interview with Barbara Branden, one of Rand’s earliest students and the wife of Nathaniel Branden, Rand’s one-time “intellectual heir” with whom she had an affair and, later, a falling out. As a piece of trivia, early editions of Atlas Shrugged (including the First Edition I bought my sister for Xmas a few years back) were dedicated to Mr. Branden and Rand’s husband, Frank O’Connor – after their falling out, subsequent editions were dedicated only to O’Connor.

I’ve read most of Rand’s published nonfiction work, as well as all of her fiction. I re-read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged each spring, and am currently working on a reader’s guide to Atlas Shrugged (this project started here as “Blogging Atlas Shrugged,” until I decided it was too much work just to publish on the site so, yes, I’m writing it as a book). One of the primary issues I have of Rand criticism is that so many people who take potshots at the woman and her work have clearly read almost none of her writing, or certainly didn’t read it and “get” it. This isn’t merely the case of blog commenters and armchair philosophers.

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“’This is a crucial moment in the history of mankind!’ Gerald Starnes yelled through the noise. ‘Remember that none of us may now leave this place, for each of us belongs to all the others by the moral law of which we all accept!’

‘I don’t,’ said one man and stood up…’I will put an end to this, once and for all,’ he said … Gerald Starnes cried suddenly after him, ‘How?’

‘I will stop the motor of the world.’ Then he walked out.” –Atlas Shrugged, p. 671

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 It is not that, of course; if NATIONAL REVIEW is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it. –William F. Buckley, “Our Mission Statement,” National Review, 11.19.1955

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"This hurts," one administration official told the Huffington Post on Saturday, "unless we can get [Scozzafava]  on board."

And on Sunday, the White House all but confirmed that it was after Scozzafava's endorsement. Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Obama's senior confidant, Valerie Jarrett said the administration "would love to have -- of course, have her support."

"And it's rather telling when the Republican Party forces out a moderate Republican and it says I think a great deal about where the Republican Party leadership is right now," Jarrett added.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/01/white-house-pushing-to-ge_n_341436.html

--From HuffPo, a few hours before Scozzafava (R-NY) threw her support to Bill Owen (D-NY) instead of Conservative Party and registered Republican Doug Hoffman

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Valerie Jarrett, unintentionally, spoke volumes of truth regarding her last statement. I love it when insulated Liberals show such concern for the Republican Party.

For now, I think the question of who is the leader of American Conservatism has been answered, and as much as I love him and what he tirelessly does, it ain’t Rush Limbaugh. As I took a news blackout yesterday, I was driving home when my father called and informed me that Dede dropped out.

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I've not read it (ARI hasn't sent me an advance copy, but frankly, I've been too busy to ask for one and it seems antithetical to Objectivism to ask for free stuff) but this is a balanced, intelligent overview, so far as I can tell - I'd add I've not seen this episode of "The Simpsons" but it definitely trumps the Ayn Rand School for Tots in "A Streetcar Named Marge," arguable The Best Episode Ever:

I still think these criticisms of Rand are largely accurate. There was, however, one important point that I underrated: Ayn Rand was the greatest popularizer of libertarian ideas of the last 100 years. Many more people have read Rand’s books than have read all the works of Friedman, Hayek, Mises, Nozick, and all the other modern libertarian thinkers combined. In becoming a libertarian without any influence from Rand, I was actually unusual. Over the last 15 years, I have met a large number of libertarian intellectuals and activists of the last two generations, including some of the most famous. More often than not, reading Rand influenced their conversion to libertarianism, even though very few fully endorse her theories or consider themselves Objectivists. Burns quotes Milton Friedman’s perceptive assessment of Rand as “an utterly intolerant and dogmatic person who did a great deal of good.” I think he was probably right.

Here (h/t Instapundit).

Rand's celebration of independence and personal autonomy has proven to be powerfully subversive in a culture that places great emphasis on conforming to the dictates of family, religion, and tradition. Gargi Rawat, a correspondent and news anchor for top tv channel ndtv and a former Rand admirer, says Rand's theory of the supremacy of reason and the virtue of selfishness adds up to "the antithesis" of Indian culture, which explains the attraction for Rawat in her youth and for many rebellious Indian teens today.

Unlike in the United States, Rand's most popular novel in India-anecdotally at least-is not the overtly political Atlas Shrugged, but her earlier novel, The Fountainhead, in which Rand's political views are muted. The novel tells the story of Howard Roark, an architect who refuses to compromise his designs for clients or the public in a heroic expression of personal will. It is Rand's most accessible work, and also the one that makes the strongest emotional appeal to those who feel suppressed by attempts to put the collective ahead of the individual.

 

I've been looking forward to this one for awhile, and it's finally coming: Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, by Jennifer Burns. In his review of the bio over at American Thinker, Richard Baehr quotes burns as calling Rand’s work “a gateway drug” for young people into Conservatism, one of the most accurate statements about the influence of Ayn Rand’s work, especially her two major novels.

There are few university literature or philosophy departments that give Rand’s work much thought, and most mentions of her in academe are, bluntly, insulting. While millions of students have sat through lecture after lecture and unreadable book after unreadable book regarding an unmemorable score of postmodernists, many more have discovered Rand on their own, often as teenagers, and the works never leave them. Some dismiss them as appealing to an adolescent sense of idealism but not for adults, but it’s difficult to read and understand Atlas Shrugged while living and working in the United States circa 2009 and not conclude that Rand had a much better grasp of political realities than her more critically lauded bomb-throwers.

I found the interview from Tom Snyder’s show and marveled at it: here is a woman in her 70s discussing the philosophy that she developed in a clear and concise manner. Many argue that Rand’s philosophy is not necessarily unique, that there are flashes of great minds from Aristotle (who she credits) and Nietzsche (who she dismisses as a mystic), and as an Objectivist who also loves the work of Aristotle and Nietzsche. What is so remarkable about Rand, even at that age, is how sharp she is, how precise her language is and how deeply her thinking resonates. Most people who didn’t actually major in philosophy couldn’t even name another female philosopher, yet there was Rand, taking on all comers until her death in 1982.

I’ve read two biographies of Rand, and have read almost everything from the Objectivist catalogue, in part because I love her writing and the writing of her students, and in part because I’m an Objectivist. I didn’t read The Fountainhead until I’d graduated from college, and reading it I saw in it about 90 percent of what I already believed, particularly regarding Capitalism and Individualism (I read Atlas Shrugged the day after I finished The Fountainhead, making what I believe of nine people to have read the two massive novels in 48 hours).

Because of these times, Rand’s work is finding a new audience. As the current crop of youngsters polls to the Statist, volunteering types, there is still hope that so many teens and twentysomethings are being exposed to Rand’s ideas, her novels and her beautifully Romantic writing. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

From Baehr’s review:  

For Rand, more even than Levin, was a purist, and brooked no moderation around the edges of the philosophy she developed, which came to be known as objectivism. Rand challenged critics and dissenters to prove her ideas wrong, and thrilled by the challenge of taking on all comers in debates on her ideas. Her life was one of intellectual battles, including a fight to be acknowledged for her achievements in developing her new philosophy. Many of the leaders on the right who were her contemporaries, such as William F. Buckley, had no use for her. Buckley, who worked to link his Christian beliefs to the conservative movement, hated Rand's unadulterated atheism. Literary snobs thought her novels were badly written. Academics never took her seriously.