Al Smith Dinner: 2012

As lively and bracing as this election has surely been, I've been looking forward to the traditional Al Smith dinner like even the most avid Football fan looks forward to the Superbowl commercials. I just love this thing, for reasons which I'm sure the tapioca between my ears at the moment will likely fail epically to articulate as satisfactorily as I managed during the last go-round.

Obama's comic chops continued to earn honest props. It's a thing to behold, the way he plays against his signature oratorical cadences, executing a really masterful Aikido twirl between what he knows to be perceived as vanity, and the humility of joining in with the mocking of it.






But what really, honestly surprised me was how readily Mittens was able to morph into a very decent comedic groove. His self-referential ribbing of the "Richy Rich: The Android Years" vibe was right in the pocket (and a deep one, at that....badum-CHING). His bit toward the end, about competing without disliking, and his praise of the President and his family were both gracious and conspicuously sincere.

Both candidates, in fact, ended on notes of elevated and edifying good-fellowship, even as the roasty bits before made clear that It was still On. That's what these things do: they sit between the crusty bread slices of the debates, like a nice schmear of Nutella.

Worth taking a bite; leaves a badly-needed good aftertaste.

Transparency

To borrow a formulation from Glen Reynolds:

They told me that if I voted for John McCain, freedom of the press would be stifled. And they were right!

UPDATE:  Well, if I'm gonna be scooped, it might as well be in as fitting a manner as this!

UPDATE: Grf! Fixed another bad link. Thanks to Mr H for alerting me to another installment of the Blogger Follies.

A Royal Flush

(Adapted from a Facebook reply to a friend who wondered: "Not to offend anyone, but why should anyone on this side of the Atlantic give a rat's ass about the royal wedding?")


In a few hours, millions of people --an uncomfortable number of whom reside in the US-- will be rising early from their slumbers to witness the pomp and pageantry of the wedding of Prince what's-his-face with what's-her-name.

The best answer I can give to my friend's query is this: Because Americans have, right from the start, exhibited a deep (and, I submit, deeply unhealthy) obsession with the very sort of aristocracy which, I seem to recall, we kinda fought a war to shake off.

We're always trying to turn our celebrities and politicians and "Robber Barons" into a kind of royalty, while we look on, agog with admiration (and envy) from our serf-tilled fields. The tabloids and tell-all documentaries are our modern guillotines.

It's almost as though we've not ever quite recovered from the collective trauma of eliminating an hereditary gentry from our culture and society, and substituting a truly egalitarian, meritocratic system.

But there's really nothing quite as UN-AMERICAN as the very notion of an aristocracy. Personally, I find the whole thing nauseating in the extreme.

Needless to say, I won't be setting my alarm.

Civil Discourse in "The New Republic"

[by Mr.Hengist]

... aaaaand no sooner do I publish my previous blogpost (Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse) than "The New Republic" comes out with this cover for their latest issue. Well, at least they didn't put in little soldiers firing artillery at the giant Republican elephants destroying D.C. So how's this for an example of the civil discourse of the Left, TNR-style:

Their Uncivil Terms of Civil Discourse

[by Mr.Hengist]

On January 8th, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, nineteen people were shot, six fatally, others grievously, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It was an awful, unprovoked tragedy perpetrated by a lunatic. What happened afterward was an ugly smear campaign perpetrated by the Left against the Right.

It's always wise to be cautious about drawing conclusions in the midst of a national crisis. Facts are few and sketchy, frequently subject to subsequent revision as the fog of uncertainty lifts in the days that follow. Early reports are reliably wrong.

We saw no such caution from the Left. Before anything was known about the shooter we saw the Left shoot from the hip, targeting the Right - the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, etc. In the days that followed, as facts began to emerge, we were told that it was the violent rhetoric and imagery of the Right which was to blame for inciting this act of violence.

Even as exculpatory facts entered the public sphere - friends saying the shooter was left-leaning, classmates and teachers concerned at his odd and disturbing behavior, etc. - the accusers did not recant, nor was the smear campaign tempered. We saw much the same thing play out last year when a guy flew his plane into an IRS building.

It's a deliberate and dishonest ploy by the Left delegitimize and silence the Right, just as when they've accused the Right of being a bunch of Nazis and racists, they've now added the charge of accessory to murder. We exclude violent extremists and haters from the discourse of politics, and the Left has been relentlessly trying to push the Right outside of that sphere.

After Sarah Palin put up a video addressing this on her Facebook page she was criticized for it, naturally. For making herself the center of attention. For using the term "blood libel." Really, for not admitting culpability.

On January 17th, 2011, the WaPo ran Eugene Robinson's column, "Palin's egocentric umbrage", which addresses these criticisms, and it deserves a fisking. I'm happy to do the honors. Let's begin!

"In the spirit of civil discourse, I'd like to humbly suggest that Sarah Palin please consider being quiet for a while. Perhaps a great while."

Just as I said: this is a ploy to silence the political opposition - "in the spirit of civil discourse", of course. Palin's video and statements have been nothing but civil; it's the content with which Robinson has a problem. She simply won't admit her guilt, and anything less is uncivil and warrants her preclusion from the public debate.

"At the risk of being bold, I might observe that her faux-presidential address [...]"

"Faux-presidential address"? Good grief. Sitting in front of a video camera with a neutral background, there she was, speaking quietly and earnestly. OK, you want to see what a "faux-presidential address" looks like? Have a look at then-candidate Barack Obama in his Invesco Field DNC acceptance speech, with the faux-columns and faux-presidential seal. That, Eugene, is faux-presidential, and I was really embarrassed for you guys back then. I suspect this swipe has more to do with Liberals speculating about a Palin presidential run next time around, although it's been hard to tell whether they're gleeful at the prospect the Republicans fielding her or worried about her chances of actually winning.

"[...] about the Tucson massacre seemed to fall somewhat flat, drawing comparisons to the least attractive public moments of such figures as Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew."

So Liberals didn't like her video, and in other news, the sun rose in the East. Here's another general rule from the Liberal playbook: never praise your opposition. It's different on the Right; Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial received widespread praise, along with some minor criticisms, which surprised me not at all.

"I could go so far as to observe that Palin almost seemed to portray herself as a collateral victim. Surely a former governor of Alaska - who served the better part of an entire term - would never seek to give the impression that she views any conceivable event, no matter how distant or tragic, as being All About Sarah."

This so ludicrous as to be risible, and childish to boot. It was the Left which pounded on the Right for days, and specifically on her. Palin was made a target of insinuation through no action of her own, and now they're turning it around and pretending that she's inserting herself into the story, apropos of nothing? What's more, her speech was about America and our national debate, not herself. I can't help but wonder whether Robinson even watched the video or picked up his talking points from the HuffPo instead.

"Yet this is the unfortunate impression that Palin's videotaped peroration seems to have left. I am at a loss to recommend any course of corrective action other than an extended period of abstinence from Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites."

In other words: Shut Up, Sarah. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

"Palin doubtless understands by now that characterizing her alleged persecution by journalists and commentators with the term "blood libel" was a semantic faux pas."

This seemed to be the other major criticism of her video from the Left: outraged indignation and/or derision at her use of the term "blood libel" to describe what the Left has been doing. I first became aware of the term during the Second Intifada, around 2000-2001, when it was used to describe a variety of contemporary violent libels against the Jews in present-day Israel. I remember thinking, "That's a marvelously descriptive term!" I've subsequently read it here and there, perhaps a dozen times, to describe violence-related libel of both Jews and others. Jim Geraghty of NRO has put up a brief list of some of these examples.

In the context of the Tucson massacre I first read it on Instapundit from Glen Reynolds. Indeed, Glen: blood libel is the perfect description of what the Left has been doing to the Right.

Of course, I don't know whether Sarah Palin was aware of the ancient historical roots of the term, or of its subsequent usage unrelated to that history, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was. Naturally, the Left would be very surprised if she was. Neither side has any evidence either way, but note how the Left has assumed that she was unaware. Naturally.

"One must question, however, not only the tone of her complaint but the content as well. Did she, indeed, have a legitimate grievance? I must be frank: The evidence suggests not."

Oh, yes, let's have it, Eugene.

"Days earlier, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot while meeting with her constituents; six people were killed in the incident, including a federal judge, and more than a dozen others injured. It happens that Giffords' district, in southern Arizona, is passionately divided on just about every hot-button issue."

OK, so here's his first point: political passions run high in Arizona!

"It also turns out that before last November's election, Giffords gave a television interview expressing her concern about the bitterness and rancor of our political debate. In the interview, Giffords cited a graphic that Palin had posted on Facebook - a map identifying congressional districts being targeted for Republican gains. The districts, including that of Giffords, were highlighted with an unfortunate symbol: the cross hairs of a rifle scope."

Well, yes, but Rep. Giffords was hardly the first to voice that complaint. The Left has also been harrasing the Right for years on end about the tone of their political opposition. So here's his next point: Rep. Giffords was dismayed by the political rancor from the Right!

"One of Palin's aides must have been trying to lighten a dreary week with a bit of humor when she claimed that the cross hairs were actually those of a surveyor's scope."

Ah, no. I hotlinked his quote above as it was in his original column. Go ahead and clickthrough that link of his and you'll find that the Palin aide said they were surveyor's marks, as would appear on a map. The piece he links to even has a hotlink to a USGS website which has the very symbol in question.

"Perhaps the ruse would have been more effective if viewers of Palin's "reality" television show hadn't recently watched her use a high-powered rifle, not a theodolite, to fell a caribou."

... and your columns, Eugene, would greatly benefit if you actually read the things to which you link, assuming that your misrepresentation was due to sloppiness and not malice. Now, personally, when I first saw the those marks I thought they were target symbols. I still do, as the crosshairs of a scope are a more familiar symbol than the marks of a surveyor. Nevertheless, it's a far stretch that this is an incitement to murder, which is the implicit accusation that Robinson and the Left are making.

"Or, indeed, if Palin hadn't famously counseled fellow Republicans not to retreat but instead to "reload."

Well, let's take a look at that. The Republicans were not literally retreating. In order to reload, one has to have already discharged the loaded ammunition in a gun. Since neither applies in a literal sense, it is nonsensical to use this as an incitement to murder. The audience understood it as metaphor even as the Left pretended otherwise. Indeed, all of these military terms are understood as such in American politics, as evidence by the electorate. Right-wingers are neither taking up arms against the Left nor taking pot-shots at them, insofar as we can tell. There are the occasional gun-related incidents on the Left and the Right, but the assertion by the Left that this will incite the Right is provably wrong. What's more, military lingo and imagery have been used in conjunction with political campaigns since, well, forever. Further, one might reasonably expect the side which favors gun ownership to use gun-related imagery and words, which Republicans do; one would expect the opposite of the anti-gun Democrats, but their avoidance of these terms has been less than studious.

Of course, as the Left has long characterized the Right as a bunch of rootin' tootin' gun-totin' redneck yahoos, and have long since come to believe these catcalls and insults they've hurled, the incitement charge perhaps seems somewhat plausible to them. Well, no, not really. They know who to be genuinely afraid of: militant Islamic jihadists. If you piss off those guys they'll cut your head off, so Liberals don't dare provoke 'em. The Rightwing? Nah, not scary at all, which is why Liberals feel free to insult them.

"In her statement, Palin gave the impression of being appalled that journalists mentioned the cross-hairs graphic in the hours after the rampage in Tucson. She singled out reporters and pundits, not political activists who might bear partisan animus. Surely she must have anticipated that viewers who recall her course of collegiate study - journalism - would be baffled at this reaction."

Because reporters, as we all know, are strictly non-partisan and never, ever let their biases affect their reporting! Well, so they tell us. Reporters and editors of the dinosaur media by and large heavily lean Liberal/Left and often report in a dishonest, slanted way to either hurt their political opposition or help their side. Case in point: the Tucson shootings. Our national media, print and (so I'm told) video, have by-and-large jumped on the insinuation bandwagon, but only because that insinuation is directed at the Right. If they were unbiased then we should see them increasingly insinuate the culpability of the Left, as more evidence and indicators show that the Tucson shooter was left-leaning. Not happening, is it?

"In the days since, we have learned that the alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, appears to be an unbalanced young man whose political views are confused and perhaps irrelevant. But at the time, nothing was known about the assailant or his motives."

Not so. MSNBC wasted no time in liking the shooting to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin on January 8th, the day of the shooting, even before we knew much of anything about the shooter (and, thus, before anyone could know anything about his politics or state of mind). The earliest reports on the shooter were that his political views were "confused."

Indeed, the state of mind of the shooter is of utmost importance. At the risk of committing libel myself, I think we can all agree that it appears the Loughner is certifiably crazy. Much like Sirhan Sirhan, who heard voices telling him to kill RFK, or Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a communist so bonkers that even the Soviet Union couldn't use him or keep him for propaganda when he defected to the USSR. To try to discern the politics of a lunatic is to try to superimpose a template of rational order on what is, by definition, disordered and irrational. We do not take seriously the political views of someone who believed that the government is using mind control on us through the use of grammar.

"I am confident that at least one of Palin's professors must have taught her that in reporting about a shooting, the fact that the principal target felt threatened is highly relevant information, as is the specific nature of that threat."

Actually, Eugene, you fool, it's completely irrelevant. Logic and law tell us that if the murderer is rational we need to establish a causal relationship between the alleged incitement and the act of murder, and if the perpetrator is irrational then it has little, if any, bearing. At this point the linkage appears nothing more than coincidental, at best, assuming that the alleged incitements could be interpreted as having an inciting effect, an assumption I have already challenged.

"It is also relevant that most of the violent political rhetoric that blights the public discourse is emanating from the far right - a constituency for which Palin speaks, often so colorfully."

Leaving aside the characterization of Sarah Palin as "far right" - objectively, like it or not, she is definitionally mainstream - this assertion is hogwashian balderdash. During the Bush years the worst sort of imagery and rhetoric came from the far Left, and was tolerated or applauded by Liberals. OK, one quick example: remember "Death of a President"? That British wish-fulfillment film about the assassination of then-sitting POTUS George W. Bush? How did the Liberal/Left react to that being shown nationwide in American movie theaters? With open arms. Such a thing was not, shall we say, out of bounds. Now, imagine the reaction if a similar film were to be released now about sitting POTUS Obama...

"In the 1960s and '70s, this was not the case; anti-government invective and unsettling talk of "revolution" came primarily from the far left."

In addition to openly advocating revolution and opposing the government in every form and in every way, they also carried out actual murders and bombings, but Robinson has whitewashed this from his accounting of Leftist sins past. Down the memory hole they go!

"Palin is perhaps too young to remember that era, but as a student of history she must have read about it - and must recognize the contrast between then and now."

I'm also too young to remember that, but even a cursory comparison between then and now shows the Leftists of that era to be utterly and completely beyond the bounds of civil discourse in ways which were unequivocally violent and treasonous. Nowadays the best the Left can muster is, "Hey, that map `targeting' Democrats has crosshairs on in - that means they want to kill Democrats!" and the like. By contrast, Leftists of the 60's and 70's openly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States, and occasionally acted on that threat in violent ways. They blew things up. They killed people.

"For her to take such umbrage, then, at the reporting of evident, pertinent and factual information deepened the impression that she is - and I must be frank - astoundingly thin-skinned and egocentric."

How dare the narcissistic bitch defend herself!

"[...] Palin portrayed herself as not only a popular champion but also a martyr [...]"

Oh, that's rich: she's made herself out to be a martyr. Get it? Those other people got shot, killed, and here Palin is making herself a martyr. Thing is, if you were to actually watch the video, she never speaks directly of the allegations made against her. Instead, she speaks in vague, third-person terms of a general nature, only alluding to the "target" map, for example.

"Or perhaps - solely in the interest of civil discourse - that there be no next address."

... because, in Liberal-land, the terms of "civil discourse" are that YOU WINGNUTS SHUT UP, got it?

Half-Koched

For a while now, the blabosphere and Facebook status-klatches have been sporadically abuzz with the story of the wealthy, conservative Koch brothers. Supposedly they've been busily at work manipulating public disgruntlement by diligently, quietly seeding a little astroturf garden called the "Tea Parties."  The story has never felt especially credible, given the 'epidemiological' patterns of the TP movement's efflorescence, from Santelli's rant, on outward. It just felt too organic for such claims to hold much water with me.

An amusing little editorial by Andrew Ferguson, in Commentary more or less echoes my initial reservations about the story, and provides more context. It deals with the style of meme-weaving which lends itself to the kind of conspiracism that's become such the stock in trade for this administration and its backers:

The story of the Koch brothers and their involvement in politics, unknown as it is to most readers, is undeniably worth telling. But mere interest isn’t the reaction that ThinkProgress and Mayer, who is as much a party apparatchik as a reporter, meant to provoke. This is five-alarm journalism. “In many places,” Mayer told Maddow in a back-scratching interview, the Tea Party movement “has been considered a spontaneous uprising that came from nowhere.” In fact, it is merely one of the Kochs’ “stealth attacks launched on the federal government, and on the Obama administration in particular.” Maddow summed up the theme of top-down manipulation: “Tea partiers who attended these rallies, particularly the early ones, were essentially instructed to rally against things like climate change by billionaire oil tycoons.” 

Now, as the editorial points out, the Koch brothers have hardly been shy about their political positions: public financial records, not to mention public appearances...and even one run for VPOTUS on the Libertarian ticket are kinda hard to square with any attributions of attempted stealth!  Nonetheless, the brothers' perfectly above-board contributions to a group which shared their clear political proclivities were reported by "Think Progress"as though they were late-night dead drops of envelopes stuffed with unmarked bills and coded instructions.

But such is the perfectly consistent belief system of the collectivist on proud display. The very notion of the spontaneous emergence of a political phenomenon is anathema for those who maintain that humanity can truly advance (or "progress") only through the deliberate action of duly-designated elites.

And, of course, the irony that the heavily Soros-backed Center for American Progress should be the source of this story is apt to be altogether lost on those who've hitched their wagons to the Statist star. Pretext of principles, indeed!

But Star Chambers and Secret Groves have always been the preferred provinces of those who harbor an unnerving skepticism about the capacity of people to come to their own conclusions without being managed from the shadows...or from the Capitol. Since the Tea Parties arose, they have been: catspaws for the GOP, fronts for racist organizations, and Trojan horses for social conservative groups. Now they're a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries. Must be quite a challenge for the CAP "idea factory" to have to re-tool its assembly line so frequently!

Quoth Ferguson:

One mark of the paranoid style in American politics, Richard Hofstadter wrote in his famous essay, is its concern with “factuality,” a piling up of random details to create a coherence that reality itself can’t provide. Journalism of a certain sort becomes a convenient instrument of the paranoid partisan. “The paranoid’s interpretation of history,” Hofstadter wrote, “is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will,” an “amoral superman” who “manufactures the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way.

With the Kochs, the American left gets two amoral supermen in one. Mayer’s article, and the larger campaign it’s a part of, is meant not only to alarm its audience but to soothe it as well. Any Democrat unnerved by the rise of the Tea Party movement will find it comforting to learn that it’s a giant confidence trick. The belief requires both a deep cynicism about one’s fellow citizens and a touching credulity about the ease with which they can be manipulated. All those angry, badly dressed people shouting into megaphones on TV: they’re not evil, they’re just stupid. [Hofstadter link added]

A charitable characterization of Progressive thought is that it believes humanity can be remade, perfected by a benevolent and comprehensive manipulation of its environment in order to foster the development of its highest potentials. For one who holds such beliefs, the idea that such large numbers of people can be so thoroughly hoodwinked and herded must at some level be a hopeful one. After all, if they can be prodded over to the Dark Side so easily, then they can be just as easily coaxed back into the light, right?


This endless cavalcade of narratives which opponents --on the Right and Left-- have hatched to try and fathom the Tea Parties resembles nothing more than the twitchiness of a species in response to the appearance and adaptive mutation of a rival species. One might imagine the reactions of Neanderthals, perfectly comfy in their lush valleys, to the arrival of those bald, skinny Homo Sapiens with their silly big heads...

[Shamelessly and extensively edited 10/12/10, to correct grievous violations of proper syntax and other late-night crimes against the English language]

Late update (3/29/2011):  Here is a lengthy, excellent account of the Koch brothers' history, and the evolution of the ginned-up, Outrageously Outraged campaign to smear and demonize them. Worth a read.

Dog Bites Man: Media Moguls' Dollars Skew Hard to Port

From the files of the Utterly Unsurprising comes this report of the political contribution tendencies among the denizens of the MSM. Given the spectacle of leg-tingling hagiography to which The One was treated during the 2008 election cycle, this kind of falls in the "water is wet" category of reportage. If you'll pardon the expression, here's the money quote:

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

And, lest one malign the source (the Washington Examiner is hardly Liberal-friendly), these stats were drawn from the Center For Responsive Politics, whose invaluable site opensecrets.org, is widely considered  unimpeachable in its non-partisan objectivity.

Just a little food for thought, for the next time Fox News is raked over the coals for Rupert Murdoch's political contributions. That is, if one were inclined to be --dare I say-- Fair and Balanced.

Standards and Practices

Andrew Klavan (who, as it turns out, wrote the screenplay to one of my favorite movies that no one has heard about: A Shock to the System), posted an editorial over at the City Journal, in which he talks about the Left's particular genius in demonizing its opposition. The way he lays it out is quite pithy in a way that will make leftists fume and squirm, and conservatives shrug and say "yeah? And?"

Leftists will blacklist you—and then if you complain, they’ll attack you for whining. They will call you a racist and compare your leaders to Hitler—and then if you return the insult, they’ll scream about the decline of civility. They will do everything in their power to cut you off from media and artistic outlets—and then when you create outlets of your own, they will savage them for their bias. Like the mobster in a Raymond Chandler novel, they will beat your teeth out, then kick you in the stomach for mumbling.

The sheer slipperiness of the Left's confiscation of the public discourse would be admirable in its Machiavellian efficiency...if the health of the Republic were not so badly endangered by it. Still, you kind of have to give it to the gifted con man who is able to frame the situation in such a way that no responses outside that frame appear as reasonable or even possible. That is, till you realize that you have just signed away your life's savings.

Nowhere is the dominance of the Left's meme tampering more evident than in the entertainment business, where Conservatives like Jon Voight, Adam Baldwin, Dennis Hopper (!), Janine Turner (!!), Kelsey Grammer, and a smattering of others perform a careful dance, like operatives behind enemy lines, operating by multiple reports athwart plausibly-deniable blacklists (Klavan claims to have the goods on those, but won't spill, because it would violate trusts and pretty much annihilate his ability to make a living. Take his statements accordingly...but do take note of the status of the above-mentioned careers...). At the viewer level, the product is a ceaseless slurry of Liberal blue food, as ideologically diverse as a Womyn's Studies course at Bryn Mawr:

More than a dozen movies attacking the war on terror without shading or nuance, but not one film that said simply “We’re heroically right and they are villainously wrong.” Not one film exposing the lies and excesses of environmentalism. Not one in which, say, a brave radio talker battles the mainstream media on behalf of white boys wrongly accused of raping a black girl. There are some narratives—evil corporations, American military abuse, desperate housewives, victimized minorities—that are acceptable and others—the glories of capitalism, America’s defense of liberty, fulfilled homemakers, race-baiting con men—that are not, despite their truth and the fact that the majority of the audience approves them.

 Klavan's prescription is a wise one: Don't wait around for Liberal Hollywood and the Left-leaning MSM to catch an attack of fairness. To quote Malcolm Reynolds, that's a long wait for a train that never comes. Rather, let the Right and Center-Right...hell let the actual center place a much greater emphasis on the pursuit of a presence in the cultural landscape for their own ideas. Let films and books and TV shows get produced and discussed which reflect something other than the "America's bad, m'kay?" attitude which so pervades the pap leaking from the Hollywood Hills. Don't ape the tactics of the Left by huffing and puffing about their product, but strive to compete in an open marketplace (gods know, the movies could scarcely do more poorly at the box office than pretty much all of the the GWOT-bashing flicks coming out of Hollyweird in the last few years!). Use the free market to promote the free market, in other words!

But, as Klavan entreats, "it would be nice, for purposes of discussion, if we could all begin by acknowledging the obvious."

Sauce: Goose, Gander

Just sat through 11 minutes of video (posted and duly re-posted on the Facebook walls of some friends) in which an Obama-supporting chap interviewed a succession of Tea Partiers, highlighting a certain lack of resolution in their data. Pause for popcorn:



Sorta like if Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments were produced at MSNBC, right? Not the most stellar performances of wonkery from the lumpen non-wonkers.

But it reminded me of something. Let's see....



Oh yeah! That was it.

So, what's the take-away from this little exercise in compare-and-contrast? Well, that would kinda depend on  your chosen set of goggles, now wouldn't it? Is it an indication of how much more [insidiously] effective Right-Wing media outlets are in promoting a set of talking points? Is it a sign of the Left-Wing Media's emphasis on emotionally salient but factually-unfurnished memes? Is it a simple matter of (Camera One) Tea partiers' brainwashed vacuity? (Camera Two) Obama supporters' blinkered adherence to the cult of their Dear Leader's personality?

Is it an indication of how the granularity of much-needed data gets sand-blasted in an environment of entrenched partisanship, such that individuals on  both sides (not to mention all the other possible "sides") are deprived of the means (or even the vague sense that there is a need) to flesh out their wafer-thin comprehension of Very Important Stuff?

And where in this process might we situate the act of promulgating one of these clips in the absence of the other?

Man Bites Dog: Honest Reporting From WaPo on Tea Parties

And the title is where the snark will end. It was refreshing in the extreme to see this editorial by the Washington Post's Robert McCartney on his personal investigation of a Tea Party rally.

I went to the "tea party" rally at the Washington Monument on Thursday to check out just how reactionary and potentially violent the movement truly was. 

Answer: Not very. 

Based on what I saw and heard, tea party members are not seething, ready-to-explode racists, as some liberal commentators have caricatured them. 

Some are extremists and bigots, sure. The crowd was almost entirely white. I differ strenuously with the protesters on about 95 percent of the issues. 

Nevertheless, on the whole, they struck me as passionate conservatives dedicated to working within the system rather than dangerous militia types or a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Although shrinking government is their primary goal, many conceded that the country should keep Medicare and even Social Security. None was clamoring for civil disobedience, much less armed revolt.

Clearly, the author has differences with the Tea Partiers. This is not a problem; dialog on the issues does not require complete agreement (that's why they call it 'dialog!'). What is most edifying about this piece is how it openly looks at the degree to which the worst stereotypes put forth about the movement hold up to scrutiny. McCartney shows the ability to disagree with the Tea Partiers on the issues without the need to marginalize and misrepresent them. Instead, he went and found out for himself. He talked to people. He questioned them on the issues, but he also soaked up their vibe. Then he reported honestly on what he found, without shady selective emphases or narrative-supporting innuendo.

Not much more to say on this: it was just nice to see a journalist in the MSM do his job with the integrity and forthrightness which enables his readers to engage in genuinely critical thinking. He does not take it upon himself to villanize or slander, in order to preemptively foreclose on people's access to the variables which will guide their thinking on the matter, just because he might not like some of the conclusions to which they might come.  We could do with quite a bit more of this. Please do read the whole thing.

Leaker Plugged? UPDATED

Via Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air, comes this WaPo story on what appears to be the identification and indictment of an NSA staffer who may have been a source of the leaks which enabled certain unnamed major news outlets (cough--NewYorkTimes--cough) to blow the cover of two successful tools for the monitoring of terrorist activities against the US. Quoth Ed:

The indictment doesn’t name the paper or identify the subject matter, but it also doesn’t appear too difficult to connect dots in this case.  The Times produced most of the original reporting on these secret programs, including the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) that eventually got retroactive cover in a rewriting of FISA laws.  They also exposed the secret bank-tracking program Swift that turned out to be both completely legal and extraordinarily effective — before the Times blew its cover.

This is another one of those issues which, in even a reasonably sane political climate, should transcend partisan politics. This staffer was sworn to protect this Nation from all threats, both foreign and domestic. If he had a problem with the Administration's use of its Constitutionally delineated powers, then the course of action was to seek redress within the scope of his role as a defender of that Constitution. The fact that he (i.e., the leaker, whether or not this particular individual turns out to be guilty) felt that he was empowered to sabotage the mechanism of National Security by going to the fracking press with classified programs (leaving aside what I feel about the NYT for running the stories...might generate content warnings if I let myself go there) makes him an enemy of the state, an outlaw in the most literal sense. Similarly we as citizens need to look at this sort of behavior as wholly unacceptable, whether we agree with its motivations or not. It is yet another subversion of the processes of rule-of-law governance by arrogant individuals with a greater regard for their own feelings than for the consequences of their little tantrums on the safety of their fellow citizens.

Kudos to the Obama DOJ for going after this. I don't care what side of the political spectrum you live on; this kind of vindictive political vigilantism endangers us all, and constitutes the skinny end of a wedge toward anarchy.

UPDATE: Powerline's John Hinderaker appears to have read the article more closely than I, finding (in plain sight) that:

Unfortunately, Drake's leaks don't appear to be the ones that threatened national security. Rather, they put NSA's bureaucracy in an unflattering light:

Gorman's coverage of NSA often placed an unflattering focus on NSA administrators. An August 2006 story quoted intelligence officials as showing that the NSA eavesdropping facilities in Fort Meade were at risk of paralysis because of electrical overload and potential failure of the power supply.

Dang. Still, though far less critical than finding the wanker(s) who spilled the beans on the specific programs whose beans were spilled, this is nonetheless not entirely insignificant an indictment. Not only does this guy's alleged misbehavior violate the lawful processes by which such things ought to be handled, but it did reveal potential sources of vulnerability in the infrastructure which subtends our intelligence-gathering operations. One can easily imagine some inventive enemies were looking very carefully at ways to overtax certain electrical sub-grids...

Still a generous helping of just desserts, even if it's not the top banana split I would've liked.

Hounding the Fox

For days, I have refrained from commenting on the surreal spectacle of top Obama Administration officials taking to the airwaves and slamming the Fox News channel. I simply could not believe my eyes and ears, and was waiting for some kind of clarity to emerge, some less malign set of motivations to come into focus than those which sprang most readily to mind. After all, the Democratic Party now controls the White House, and both houses of Congress. Essentially all of the major media outlets to varying degrees are supportive of the Left-leaning (or, in the case of MSNBC, the hard Left) currents in American society. This is about as advantageous a position as any Administration has enjoyed in this Nation's history. Why would such an Administration debase itself and call its motives into question by attacking a lone dissenting voice?

In a much-ballyhooed clip from O'Reilly's show, Chris Wallace commented that the Obama White House is "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington." "With these guys, everything is personal," he noted. He is correct. In more ways than one this Administration is shaping up as the bizarro version of the Bush Administration, which arguably did far too little to address the barrage of negative coverage it received from the major news outlets, and so allowed the opposition to shape the narrative to a devastatingly detrimental degree (including -- hilariously -- the notion that dissent was somehow being stifled). By sharp contrast, the Obama Administration seems never to have left campaign mode, and aggressively sweats every negative note, however trivial. Not only is it unseemly and un-presidential, it lends unnecessary credence to the polemics of those who are less than balanced (let alone fair) who opine on the insidious goal of constructing a "State-Run Media."

I don't watch too much TV news, since the sheer volume of information which I feel it necessary to absorb in order to get a reasonably comprehensive picture of what is happening on any given day does not lend itself to the linear crawl of  spoken words. It's a bandwidth issue with me. Mostly, I do watch Fox, though I do tune into CNN regularly. I watched hours of MSNBC, before finally feeling confident that I could justifiably discontinue the practice. My conclusions? Fox's news desk is canted discernibly to the right. CNN's news desk is canted discernibly to the left. MSNBC seems to recognize no clear distinction between the two (that is, News and Op-Ed), lurching dizzyingly to the Left, all the time.

What's interesting to me in the context of this discussion is that I find the news/reporting departments of CNN and Fox to lean approximately equidistantly in their respective directions. Indeed, were one to alternate between the two (as I periodically do), one would get (dare I say it) a pretty fair and balanced perspective on things (though TV news, regardless of editorial bias, is universally biased toward the most lurid and attention-grabbing slant on things. Another reason to use it as a supplement at most). I would be more than pleased to be disabused of this idea, but I have the uncomfortably strong sense that many of FNC's most ardent critics have never seen more of the channel's programming than has appeared in clips on "The Daily Show." I get this feeling from my own attitude during my Liberal days, which could be summed up as "I don't have time to pollute my consciousness with exposure to that vile propaganda outlet's blatherings." It's like I was expecting to find Leni Riefenstahl newsreels or something.

Now, of course, when it comes to commentators and editorializers, the picture gets more murky. I make no secret that I find Hannity to be a shrill chihuahua of a polemicist, and tend to avoid him in large doses, just as I do Michelle Malkin's blog on the Web. He grates on me even when I agree with him. But put him up against Rick Sanchez, Soledad O'Brien, Wolf "Let's fact-check a skit on Saturday Night Live which dared to criticize Obama's Presidency" Blitzer, or Anderson "Tea-Bagger" Cooper on CNN, and the distinction is all-but erased. The latter bunch are so embarrassingly in the tank for Obama I keep waiting for them to get tossed a fish for their troubles. Indeed, last night on "Special Report" (a superb newscast, which even not-entirely-ideologically-hamstrung Liberals would find tolerable...up until the panel discussions in the second half of the hour, anyway), Britt Hume reflected on the Obama/Fox imbroglio and wondered how "our colleagues at CNN and elsewhere like being patted on the head and given the seal of approval by the White House." Indeed, that is the other side of this: to exactly the degree that the White House sees fit to attack and discredit one news outlet, it is implicitly designating others as "Friendly." Were I to consider myself a journalist in at least the stated tradition of the profession, I would (hopefully!) bristle at the notion that I stood to be considered a sanctioned advocate. So much for "speaking truth to power!"

This piece at Politico offers the most plausible (and chilling) account for the White House's otherwise incomprehensible attack on FNC:

A White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News – which in past times would have drawn howls of censorship from the press corps – has instead been greeted by a collective shrug.

That’s true even though the motivations of the White House are clear: Fire up a liberal base disillusioned with Obama by attacking the hated Fox. Try to keep a critical news outlet off-balance. Raise doubts about future Fox stories.

But most of all, get other journalists to think twice before following the network’s stories in their own coverage.

"We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.” (emphasis added)

 Let's pause a moment on that last bit. The point that this "White House Official" appears to be making here is that the only reason the ACORN story was allowed to become Big News (you know, the one in which an organization which was the recipient of truckloads of taxpayer cash --with much more to come-- and which was responsible for a large number of votes for Obama --many of them even corresponding to real people-- was found to be riddled with individuals who were willing to help a pimp set up a brothel with underaged Salvadorean illegal immigrant girls, and avoid both law enforcement and the tax code)  was because Fox got "breathless" and the rest of the news media felt compelled to follow them...after a little over a week of dead silence on the matter. Just wanted to make that clear.

Anyway, the point here appears to be a concerted effort to cast Fox as a poison pill, to discredit it with the viewers/voters, and to give other news outlets pause before picking up on any stories which Fox might break. It is, as Britt Hume nailed it, an attempt to "Quarantine Fox," to isolate and drain it of its ability to introduce memes into the noosphere, where they might proliferate, flourish, and interfere with the Obama Administration's narrative and plans. As such, it is both futile and despicable.

Jake Tapper, a rare and admirable straight-shooter of a journalist over at ABC, called Obama's Press Secretary on the highly irregular policy of the Executive Branch arrogating to itself the right to designate a vast media outlet "not a news organization." Tapper essentially asks Gibson where the White House gets off making that call, and..ah, hell: just read the exchange. It's short, but cracklingly on point. It is not  appropriate for a branch of the Government to "work the refs"  in this manner (H/T to Chris Wallace again). It undermines the whole point of a free press in a democratic society, which is to inform the electorate and keep their representatives (their employees!) honest...or as close to it as can be managed, anyway. Just ask your average Venezuelan newscaster what it's like to live in a society in which the media are expected to speak with one voice. I'm not saying that this is the Obama Administration's conscious intent (relax!). But conscious or not, that is eerily akin to the net effect which would come to pass in the (thankfully unlikely) event that FNC ultimately were to be brought down (...though watch out for that "Fairness Doctrine").

This has to stop.

EDITED 10/21 for grammar and flow.

Krugman Unhinged

Via the ever-reliable New York Times, comes this screed by Paul Krugman. I've passed on many an opportunity to vent on the egregious spleen vomited forth by those who would silence the legitimate concerns of dissenting citizens on the question of healthcare "reform." I simply have not been able to rely on myself to remain even remotely civil in commenting on the sneering hypocrisy of the very voices who declared dissent to be the highest form of patriotism...so long as that dissent took the form of exercising their freedom of speech to declare (largely unchallenged) that George W Bush was squashing dissent.

I am no longer all that concerned about remaining civil.

Krugman is so far off the deep end with his assault on the legitimacy of his (cough) fellow citizens' expressions of discontent, that he couldn't touch bottom from a diving board which required oxygen supplies:

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.

Really? The "Birthers" (those who question Obama's citizenship and thus his qualification to hold the office of POTUS) are a fraction of a fraction of the farthest fringe of the conservative movement, scorned by all mainstream conservative spokespeople. Krugman's and his Democratic fellow-travelers' disingenuous attempt to conflate this gang with the broad spectrum of Americans who object to the Democrats' attempted phagocytosis of the world's premier healthcare system by yet another bloated, deficit-funded bureaucracy is the very depth of demagoguery.

This is not about race. It is not about "astroturfing." It is about political (and literal!) thuggery of the most base sort, with a liberal dose (pun intentional) of snide elitism (right down to the ever-so-cleverly embedded Yeats reference in Krugman's penultimate paragraph).

The people who are organizing (as a community...) to protest this Rube-Goldberg of a healthcare takeover are not "brownshirts." They are not funded by nefarious corporate cabals. They are not motivated by racism, nor are they ignorant of the issues. They are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends. They are Americans. These attempts to vilify and silence them are a nauseating disgrace, a perversion of the very essence of political discourse in this Republic.

And, as is becoming increasingly clear, there will be a price.

Que Sarah, Sarah...

I'm probably just tilting at eco-friendly, bird-dodging, serenely sustainable wind mills here.

When it comes to Sarah Palin, after all, it seems people's minds are pretty well made up, and no number of pesky facts nor nettlesome contexts will make a whit of difference. She's a theocratic zealot bumpkin wolf-killing book-banner who misuses the privileges of her office and callously neglects her errant and altogether too-numerous children...for Jesus. Right?

Well, maybe not so much. Seems her opponents just can't seem to gin up ethics violations, outright illegalities, and personal peccadilloes as fast as she keeps getting cleared of them (at considerable and still-mounting taxpayer expense).

It's a good thing that a compliantly hostile media machine isn't busy blazing every lurid accusation across the clouds like the Bat-Signal, and allowing every subsequent refutation to sink with nary a bubble, because...oh...wait...

Say, did you hear that Sarah Palin has bed slippers made from Real Puppies?

Change?

I know it's lazy to just piggy-back on someone else's blog post, but I'm leaving for NYC in scant minutes, to re-unite with a host of old friends (including a certain "Libertarian Weirdo" [his words] regular readers may know).

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air has a thing or two to say about the Obama Administration's belated coming-to-jebus moment when it comes to the importance of protecting secret information for the sake of protecting the country. Now, to be clear, I think they are coming to some smart conclusions which will keep us safer. The kind of "transparency" which the Obama campaign bleated so relentlessly about would lay bare some very sensitive information which could be utilized by our enemies for hurting us more effectively. It is a relief to see that, given access to the sort of classified information to which Presidents are privy, Obama is arriving at the same sensible conclusions for which his predecessor took so much heat.

As usual, it is the sheer hypocrisy of this Administration which irritates me mightily, along with the free pass which he still gets from the media (answer true, Liberal readers: is this the first you've heard of this?).

"Smears" From a Bizarro World Election

Disclaimer: I generally find Sean Hannity to be a shrill, irritating chihuahua of a commentator. The fact that I'm linking to his site's forum in no way implies that I can stand the fellow, nor that I find his approach to political discourse to be in any way constructive or palatable.

That said, this post on his forum was so devastatingly, hilariously, heart-breakingly apt that I simply could not resist sharing it. Here's a sample:

McCain Defends Association with Abortion Clinic Bomber

Associated Press Writer
September 16th, 2008 8:38 EST
Link: ap/stories

Phoenix (AP) – Back in the 1990’s John McCain probably didn't think much of sharing a seat on a board in Arizona with now infamous 1980’s abortion clinic bomber, Mike Hancoff, but with the White House on the table, he probably wishes he didn't have that association hanging over his head today.

"I strongly denounce acts of violence like those Mr. Handcoff committed, but he has done great work in the community since those days.", McCain said when questioned by reporters about this recent development at a rally in Selma Alabama.

The Obama campaign was quick to respond to the story.

"John McCain needs to explain his ties to this domestic terrorist, the American people demand an answer.", Barack Obama stated at a campaign stop in the 57th state in the Union, Puerto Rico, on Monday.

"We can't have domestic terrorists potentially making their way into cabinet level positions in a McCain White House.", Obama added.

McCain and Hancoff shared positions on a board for Focus on the Family in Arizona that dealt with the subject of abortion, the law and the church. Hancoff was a well-known community organizer in the Phoenix area during the 70’s before becoming very involved in the evangelical community and becoming an anti-abortion activist.

It's a scorcher, and worth reading in its entirety, even if (as I suggest) you skip the snide, hyper-partisan commentary which (inevitably) follows it.

I am saddened (though hardly surprised) that the efforts of the McCain campaign to bring Obama's highly troublesome association with this miscreant to the fore are being portrayed as "smears" by The One's disciples and by his loyal legions of media advocates. If the above post were not satire, then you can bet what's left of your stock portfolio that I would be very vigorously demanding some accounting from McCain...and I would set the bar very high for what would constitute a satisfactory response ("He's just a guy from my neighborhood" would not even come close).

Associations such as these speak to the degree to which a candidate finds the extreme views of others to be tolerable and, in turn, to what extent lesser versions of such extremism might find a ready ear in that candidate's administration. They are relevant because we need to know where a person draws the line, and to compare that point with our own limits of the tolerable. Obama's extremely unconvincing attempts to distance himself from Ayers' past not only reveal the threat which he himself sees in a close examination of his affiliations with the free-on-a-technicality terrorist, but also skates right past the larger question of how deeply the present radical views of that terrorist are shared by the candidate. These questions have not been satisfactorily answered. Simply dismissing them as "smears" is the sort of denial tactic employed by blinkered ideologues. This disturbs me. It should never be too late to take in and process new information about someone we would entrust with such power.

Do I think that Obama is a terrorist? (sigh) of course not. Do I think that he is intent on tearing down the Capitalist Empire of America? Nope. Do I think that he is a politician whose ideological compass is fair game for evaluation as he interviews for the Big Job? Oh yeah. I couldn't give a dingo's kidneys about his incessant ululations about Hope-'n-Change. I have zero investment in his (or McCain's, for that matter) rhetoric about Leading Us Into A Brave New World. He is making a case for occupying a position of considerable administrative clout in the operation of this Republic, and I'm damn well not going to skim over any portion of his resume. And you shouldn't, either.

In the end, all emotional investment in a candidate is (at best) ancillary to the primary responsibility we have as voters. A candidate's ability to inspire is an important piece of data, but it is by far not the most important one. I'll take a sober and competent but boring Executive over a feckless but Inspiring Leader any day of the week. Brett Joshpe over at Townhall.com makes a very good point (which will doubtless feel like heresy to Obama supporters...and that's very much the point):

However, the prospect of an Obama presidency is not just scary, it is sad. Obama talks of hope, but it begs the question: Are we so morally depleted as a society that we need government to inspire us and give us hope? Has anyone gone into the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office lately? That is government; it is long lines and instant coffee. And there is nothing wrong with that. As James Madison recognized, government is necessary...it is also not to be trusted. It certainly should not inspire. American ideals should inspire. Parents should inspire. The kid down the street who is serving in Iraq should inspire. Not government.

So, bring on Ayers, and ACORN, and Rezko, and the Keating Five, and "Troopergate," and anything else you've got. This is a Very Big Decision we will need to make in the days to come. We can't afford to yadda-yadda over any of this stuff, however yummy a candidate may make us feel inside.

After all, even Jimmy Carter probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

This Is The Way We Spread The Smear

Over at Pajamas Media, Charlie Martin performs the service of drilling down into the sordid details of the emergence, spread, and perpetuation of a particular anti-Palin rumor (the one about how she "cut funding for the Special Olympics by half!" Which in reality refers to her having increased the budget...but by less than some desired). It is a worthwhile but sobering read, revealing a coherent --if not necessarily intentional-- mechanism whereby some scurrilous smear goes viral, surviving long after even the original sources have posted (largely-ignored, seldom-linked) corrections and retractions. It brings to mind the infamous "plastic turkey" meme which survives to this day, despite having been decisively roasted, stuffed and served up on steamer trays.

Now, I know enough about self-organizing dynamics of complex systems to grant that this sort of thing might simply emerge from the background noise of an increasingly noisome political ecosystem. I have a visceral revulsion toward undisciplined conspiracy-mongering, with its tedious penchant for raging cases of Occam's Razor-burn. I am perfectly willing to grant as the default position that this sort of national whispers-down-the-lane phenomenon is merely a case of replicative drift, amplified by the internet's lickety-split transmission of every idea, however corrupted.

Still, it bears mentioning that Martin's post links to analysis of the production and promulgation of a "viral" anti-Palin YouTube video (which falsely alleges the Palins belonged to the anti-American Alaskan Independence Party), tracking that video back to a PR firm with extensive links to the Democratic Party in general, and to the Obama campaign in particular. Might this be a case of astroturfing? The answer to that is kind of above my pay grade. Anyway, it's rather beside the point, that point being that it is incumbent on us as consumers of politically-relevant information to carefully and thoroughly vet that information, with full awareness that we are highly unlikely to encounter any such tidbits which originate from sources who do not have a dog in the fight.

In the case of Sarah Palin, the sheer histrionic toxicity of the discourse surrounding her should be prima facie evidence for any observer who even pretends to be interested in doing the work of formulating a rational opinion that they must exercise particular care. Nothing illuminates the GIGO doctrine more than a hotly contested election. Whether it is getting swept up in the blind, inanimate groupthink of a self-organizing rumor, or becoming the unwitting victims of a deviously crafted disinformation campaign, it is beneath the dignity of the participants in this Republic to suspend our critical thinking when making such portentous judgments.

Let us strive to have our vote be seen, and not herd.

ImPalin' the Smears

A bit of time has passed. After a highly compressed period of dutifully parroting and promulgating every scurrilous rumor about Sarah Palin, and pulling a straight-up CSI on the minutiae of her life and family, the MSM --shocked that Governor Palin did not dutifully and promptly prostrate herself before them for their trouble-- has finally scored an interview with the GOP VP pick. I await it with great interest, both for its own sake, and for any sign that sharp but relevant questions and good manners will at last be in evidence. I try to be optimistic about such things.

In the meantime, I have encountered multiple sites and postings and articles which debunk much of the mis-and-dis-information about the Alaskan Governor which persists in floating around the noosphere. Unfortunately, my search for such clarity on sites which do not lean (or topple) unabashedly Rightward yielded sparse results. This list came closest, though single-sourcing a blog is not a way to inspire much confidence in one's premises. So, I waited.

My patience was rewarded by this entry at factcheck.org, a site which I can't imagine anyone accusing of pandering to the Right (indeed, it seems to me that, if anything, they tend to put ever-so-slightly counterclockwise english on their findings). It very persuasively puts to bed many of the most worrisome bits about Sarah Barracuda.

For many, I fear it is too late to revisit their judgment of Gov. Palin. Indeed, as I've said before, I can't honestly fault one for feeling the stakes are too high to risk a false negative on accusations of would-be religious bleed-though into her potential governance. For myself, however, I am greatly heartened by the potential elevation of the discourse from the unsubstantiated and sensationalistic to the substantive and germane. There are weighty issues aplenty on which to assess Palin's readiness to be McCain's XO, without having to waste time filtering out the "ground noise and static."

A lot more responsible journalism and less nakedly partisan character assassination would do much to redeem the energetically self-beclowning media somewhat, and to let us get on with the business of making important political decisions.

Russia invades Georgia: Blame America First

[by Mr.Hengist]

When there’s trouble in the world, Western Liberals are usually sure of one thing: Somehow, America is to blame. Whether it’s war, famine, pestilence, or just a fly in your soup, it must be the result of some fault of the United States. We did the wrong thing - or nothing, we did too much - or too little, we started it - or didn’t stop it. At best, all other actors on this stage are reacting in response to us; at worst, they are like mindless forces of nature or animals acting on an instinctual level, unaccountable to their own actions.

Russia’s war of aggression on Georgia provides clear examples of this mindset. Yesterday, two senior Clinton Administration officials wrote an op-ed for the WaPo in which they said, in passing, “The West, and especially the United States, could have prevented this war.” No explanation is provided other than the magic Liberal pixie dust of Diplomacy and "transatlantic unity" as the preventative medicine which would have kept the peace, nor is any other needed for the Liberal readers of the Liberal MSM because for them it rings true. I'll refrain from speculation on what they might have had in mind and let the insubstantiation of their accusation speak for itself. Read this otherwise stinging piece, if only for the unintentional humor of their disdain when noting that Russia "hardly demonstrates its commitment to Olympic ideals."

Today the NYTimes published an article entitled, “After Mixed U.S. Messages, a War Erupted in Georgia", from which we can deduce that we are to blame for a war that “erupted” - almost like a natural disaster. War? It just sort of happens, like a tornado; the only thinking actor represented in this headline is the United States, and we are, of course, to blame. What’s remarkable is that there’s nothing in this article about mixed messages from the United States to suggest that our messages were mixed at all. Over and over, in the clearest possible terms, the article quotes Bush Administration officials as having warned the Georgian government not to succumb to the provocations of the Russians and their proxies, even as it makes the unsubstantiated assertion that “Georgia may have been under the mistaken impression that in a one-on-one fight with Russia, Georgia would have more concrete American support.”

As for the Russians, the NYTimes tells us that we provoked them. We provoked them by starting work on an anti-missile shield for Western Europe against missiles from Iran and Syria, friendly client-states of Russia, in the former Soviet slave-state of Poland. Self-defense, and the defense of our friends, is no excuse when it comes to thwarting the ambitions of our enemies, according to Liberals. We are also told we provoked them by recognizing the independence of a free Kosovo; the Russians are now citing this as analogous to their invading the Abkhazia and South Ossetia provinces of Georgia. Of course, we didn’t so much invade Kosovo as save them from the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs, also a friendly client-state of Russia.

Lest you think that Liberals believe that action in defense of the free or helpless is tantamount to aggression in the Liberal world of universal moral equivalence, I refer you to the ethnic cleansings in Rwanda and Darfur, where America has once again been cast into the role of being the world's only policeman only to be castigated for failure kiss the world's boo-boo's and make it all better. It might seem contradictory, but it’s not when you remember that for Liberals, what the U.S. does is wrong – and whatever we don't do, that’s wrong too.

Maliki "Timeline" Meme: Still Hasn't Timed Out (UPDATED)

Time is short, but I wanted to take the time to point out that the mistranslated call by Iraqi PM Maliki for a "Timetable" for American troops' withdrawal is still chugging along in overtime (was there any doubt that it would live on after being rebutted?). Then again, this is Reuters we're talking about.

Discussions of "general time horizons" are very different things from the sorts of arbitrary, inflexible "timetables" sought by opponents of seeking victory in Iraq. The former are practical descriptions of the conditions for phasing out an increasingly superfluous (which is to say, successful) American combat force. The latter are little more than instructions for how long the enemies of Iraq and the US need to bide their time before re-infiltrating and getting about the business of striving to undo the good we've done so far.

Out of time (and waiting for the retraction/correction.........................)

UPDATE: And from the gift that keeps on giving that is the Obama campaign, comes this little treasure from Gateway Pundit, showing how the "Timeline" gaffe has officially been embraced by The Enlightened One's minions.