Bob Woodward is the most over-praised journalist in modern American history. He’s an “icon” because he took out Richard Nixon. Every book should be titled “Democrats Pounce,” because that’s how these books succeed. Back in October 2006, when Woodward’s Bush-bashing book State of Denial came out, NBC’s Tim Russert proclaimed: “Mr. Woodward will be all over the media talking about this book, talking about this issue. You know the Democrats will pounce on it.” Yes, “he’ll be all over the media” and “the Democrats will pounce on it” is pretty much the same thing. This has become a pattern with Woodward when he’s writing Democrats-Pounce books. The next book, The War Within, came out on September 8, 2008. The trend continued with the anti-Trump books: Fear on September 11, 2018. Rage on September 15, 2020. The Trump Tapes on October 24, 2022. And now, War on October 15, 2024. All the networks are sharing Woodward’s usual anonymous sources making wild claims, like Trump shared Covid tests with Vladimir Putin. Pounce!  All the networks loved that, and not so much Woodward’s claim that Biden told staffers that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “bad [bleeping] guy.” Kamala Harris jumped on Woodward’s Trump story and knew her softball interviewers wouldn’t ask a question about the “BFG” tale. Now what would happen if Bob Woodward had written a book that went after Joe Biden the way that he has gone after Trump? What if Woodward worked his shifty secretive sources into talking about how they all hid Biden’s cognitive decline from the public? Would all the networks share that? We’ll never know, because Woodward has no interest in upsetting the people who rush out to buy his books. What if Woodward wrote a book that carried shocking allegations like the ones Josh Boswell has filed on Doug Emhoff for the UK’s Daily Mail? The networks have treated those stories like they do not exist. The Daily Mail is not a prestigious Nixon-ruining Democrat rag like The Washington Post. On October 3, the Boswell scoop was headlined “Kamala Harris's husband Doug Emhoff 'forcefully slapped ex-girlfriend for flirting with another man' in booze-fueled assault after date to star-studded gala.” This claim was set in 2012, before Emhoff began dating Harris. “One of her friends told DailyMail.com that the woman called him immediately after the incident, sobbing in her cab, and described the alleged assault.” On October 8, Boswell posted another scoop. “Kamala Harris's husband Doug Emhoff faces explosive new allegations from his time at top LA law firm.” He was allegedly "inappropriate" and "misogynistic" at work, according to anonymous former colleagues. They claimed he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn't flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball.” One can respect the decision to avoid a story until it can be confirmed…if it’s ever applied in a bipartisan manner. It is not. No one showed this restraint when women made wild accusations against Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Addressing this Emhoff silence, Trump told Ben Shapiro: “If that were me, it would be the greatest story in the last five years.” You could laugh out loud when they would make the excuse, like Lesley Stahl did about the Hunter Biden laptop, “it can’t be verified,” What they mean is “we refuse to try and verify that.” They’ll admit “this has not been confirmed by NBC News” or whatever with Woodward and his anonymous sources/conspirators. But it’s too juicy to wait for confirmation.

Plenty of ink, including my own, has been spilled in recent years debunking the boomer mantra “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Millennials, who inherited a weaker economy, culture, and country than their parents, found this phrase unfair. Rising housing and education costs, stagnant real wages, and the influx of foreign ideologies and populations are not issues of individual effort.When older conservatives responded to these systemic grievances with calls for personal virtue, they deflected from the real issues, placing blame where it didn’t belong. In this context, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” felt like a deliberate slight — and understandably so.It is possible to recognize the failings of the federal bureaucracy while maintaining faith in personal greatness.Yet, the phrase still holds value. Young conservatives would be unwise to dismiss it entirely. Acknowledging the failures of the administrative state doesn’t mean rejecting the ideals of individual effort and resilience that “bootstraps” represent. To do so would be to accept a mainstream narrative of personal victimhood.It is possible to recognize the failings of the federal bureaucracy while maintaining faith in personal greatness. Appalachia’s response to Hurricane Helene illustrates this point.Most of the material, financial, and service-based donations to the victims came from individual citizens, not the government. Historically abandoned by the American government, Appalachians have literally pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They have led rescues using mules and horses where machinery couldn’t reach, showing a self-reliance that contrasts sharply with federal inefficacy. North Carolina highlights the true American spirit — neighbors working together — and the impotence of the overburdened administrative state.The narrative of personal victimhood has never fully taken root in Appalachia. Their resilience demonstrates a resistance to this mentality. In other regions, where the victim mindset prevails, it stifles self-governance and achievement. Psychologically, it shifts responsibility outward, making people feel powerless to change their circumstances. It absolves individuals and groups of accountability.To those with a victim mentality, the idea of free will is foreign, and overcoming challenges seems impossible. This mindset rarely leads to passive acceptance of life’s circumstances; instead, it encourages what Nietzsche called “slave morality” — manipulation disguised as virtue, cowardice, passive aggression, and a sense of entitlement to others’ resources as compensation for their own struggles. This mindset paved the way for totalitarianism in the 20th century, using the politics of resentment as a justification.Americans cannot afford to indulge in passivity or resentment, especially as challenges grow. No one is coming to save us. We must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps — to hope and persevere — not because it will change interest rates, but because it is the only virtuous way to live or die.

Why is it that the politicians keep referring to America as a “democracy”? How many times have we heard that President Trump is a “threat to democracy”? Well, yes, we are a democracy. We vote…

There's so much we still don't understand.

The beginnings of an anthem. The post “Done by mistake”: The song Eric Clapton thought was nothing special first appeared on Far Out Magazine.