The Corner on Carpetbagging

Last Saturday night I went to what I believed was a small gathering of old friends for dinner and drinks. It was going to be one of those “friends” moments where old friends reconnect after having been guilty of being so caught up in the daily grind that we have let the social side of friendships drift. In retrospect, it seems likely I had been invited as the lone “Thatcherite” to an attempted hazing by moonbats rather than as a long lost friend whose acquaintanceship they longed to renew.

If I had suspected that I was being set-up for a hazing, I might have attempted to arm myself with Niall Ferguson’s "Colossus":

"Anyone who invested in the oil field engineering company Halliburton in late 2000 in the expectation that the company would benefit from a Republican election victory has been disappointed. In the three years to Nov. 2003 the company's shares declined by more than a third and did not benefit significantly from the more aggressive Middle Eastern policy supported by its friends in high places. An investor who put his money in Wal-Mart shares in late 2000 would, by contrast, have made a capital gain of a fifth."

Who would have suspected that Dick Cheney was a failed carpetbagger?

(Tip: This quote is taken from The Corner: [John Hillen])