Aldo points me to this bit from Glenn Reynolds in which Professor Reynolds notes, as I too have been noting for some time now, that, on the whole, the mainstream press has abandoned the last pretense of objectivity and is openly advocating for an Obama presidency, and so for complete “progressive” control of the government (with the SCOTUS being a temporary outlier). And this advocacy on the part of the press is not merely one of support (which would at least have the luxury of editorial precedent) but one that, as a function of said advocacy, is, by the methods available to it as the primary conveyance of information to US voters, unabashedly saboteurial in its aims — from the overdetermination of pro-Obama stories, to the failure to vet him, to the desire to insulate and protect him from scandal (while simultaneously playing up contrived scandals on the McCain ticket), to the astonishing omission of stories that reflect the Obama campaign’s use of tactics to chill protest or free speech (even going so far as to hide from the public the nature of many of his most ardent supporters).
And tonight, the VP debate will be moderated by a woman who has close ties to intellectuals who believe Sarah Palin’s “false claims to feminism” are “offensive to black women” — the last predictable step in a “post-racial,” “post-ideological” campaign that has done nothing so much as stoke racial and class grievances, painting those who might not vote for Obama on the basis of his race “racists,” while lauding those who will vote for Obama on that basis as “civil rights champions” pushing for an “historic” moment. Plus, she’s an Obamabot.
In a comment earlier today I noted the progressive left has “let the mask slip because they know it’s okay now to do so.” And the reason for this is that the ground has been cleared and the materialist stars aligned: 8-years of anti-Bush animus along with the historically-predictable “change cycle” election have convinced Democrats the time is theirs. And as I’ve been at lengths to point out over the last several weeks, the intellectual and ideological ground has been laid over the last 4 decades, beginning with the Great Society, then the mainstreaming of radicalism and authoritarianism, which have marched their way slowly through our institutions under various terms of art: multiculturalism, social justice, “diversity,” “tolerance,” the cult of personality (a celebritizing of our culture), the “democratization of interpretation,” the death of the author (and with him, the death of individual agency — which we’ve exchanged for consensus interpretation and the will to power, destroying the grounds for “meaning” in the process), the exchange of church dogma for church action, a salvation through perfunctory deeds rather than through actual faith (something Flannery O’Connor spent years warning against, bless her heart).
And now, with but a month left before we witness what could eventually prove the death knell of classical liberalism — a belief in the individual, the necessity of self-reliance, the importance of limited government, the necessity of a rule of law that proceeds from a central set of foundational beliefs — many of us are left asking, what can we do about it?
Reynolds writes:
if you really want improvement over the longer term, you need to support competition that isn’t an arm of the Democratic Party. […]
If you want to have a media environment that isn’t dominated by the Gwen Ifills and Keith Olbermanns of the world, you need to ensure that other kinds of voices flourish. That means supporting the alternatives with your eyeballs, your subscriptions, your advertiser-patronage (and you could write those advertisers and tell them you’re happy that they’re supporting that kind of programming, too — they probably don’t get many letters like that, so they’ll be noticed) — basically, your money. Businesses need money to flourish. There’s a vast underserved population out there, for news, entertainment, movies, etc., and if people start serving it, the current “mainstream” media won’t be so mainstream anymore. So if you’re unhappy with current offerings, put your money where your mouth is.
And if you’re one of the people with creative interests, start making alternative stuff. Not just news and punditry, but entertainment, documentaries, etc. If An American Carol does well this weekend, it’ll make it a lot easier for the next film of its type to be made. If Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary work does well, it’ll encourage a lot more of that kind of work.
Think of it like cultivating a garden: Starve the weeds, feed the flowers. Like gardening, it’s work. But like gardening, if you do the work you’ll see results.
Maybe. But many of us have been doing the work, and the results simply aren’t apparent.
Sure, some few people have achieved a measure of success by joining a stable of new “right-wing” celebrity pundits. But all that’s done is divided out the conservative elites from the progressive elites, reinforcing the idea that those two groups are the only ones with any real (or maybe “consistent,” is a better word) legitimacy to expound on topics political and cultural. Pajamas Media has become merely an inversion of the Huffington Post. The Corner is Salon, tilted right.
Meanwhile, the real problems lie in the insinuation into the very fabric of our culture the threads of progressivism — and the market is unable to make corrections on that, at least in a timely fashion, so long as progressives are allowed to control the institutions that manufacture the threads and mass produce both the fabric and those who wrap themselves in it. And the press is just one part of this strategy.
The bottom line is this: We are in dangerous times. And while I know it’s de rigeur for “intellectuals” to wave off “fear mongering” about a turn toward European-style soft socialism in America, I can’t help but think that certain folks are in fact counting on such a blase reaction — that today’s useful idiots are meta-useful idiots, as well.
And these folks exist on both side of the political divide.
So I’m open to suggestions. Because as it stands, I don’t think I’m in any position to make a real difference. Not that I don’t still try; just that it has taken more out of me than I thought possible, with the “reward” being frequent abuse — and a daily reminder of my failure to gain purchase as any kind of influential voice on topics that would seem my natural bailiwick.
I should have subtitled this post, “how to win friends and influence investors.”
Off to take the kid to school. Don’t know if I’ll return here.
Yeah, whatever.
Dude! Did you catch “Dancing with the Stars”?
I guess the answer is to hunker down, breed prodigiously, indoctrinate our many children, and prepare for the revolution a generation hence.
Okay, now the pity party’s over, suck it up and keep on going.
Did you think it would be a cake-walk to cause a paradigm shift?
I posit there are more who share your beliefs than you give credit.
Let me say this again–America has the knack for having the right person for the right time, in any given situation. Even a cursory look through our history will bear this out. The stumbles (Carter) merely point out the correct path we need to take. I see no reason to believe this election will defy past history. The very people it’s so popular to call uneducated idiots, sheeple,–name your own pejorative–are the bedrock of this country. They have been and will be, and their basic intelligence will exhibit itself once more. The price we pay for the country being a beacon for the world is neverending, and efforts such as yours are part and parcel.
You know damn well that ones like you (and me) can never let up or be discouraged, sir–so man up pumpkin and continue.
I do harbor one hope in this election, irongrampa: Latent Racism.
Pajamas Media has become merely an inversion of the Huffington Post. The Corner is Salon, tilted right.
Ok, you’ve lost me there. Let’s say you’re right, that they’re opposite faces of the same coin. Doesn’t that make them counterbalances? Isn’t that what we want? For every Olbermann, an O’Reilly? (Ok, not a good example.)
Yeah, they do tend to be on the elitist side. But it often takes an elitist to defeat an elitist. You think Sarah Palin can defend intentionalism? We need her to put corrupt pols in jail, not to fight the battle of ideas.
Because as it stands, I don’t think I’m in any position to make a real difference.
How do you measure whether you’re making a difference?
Not that I don’t still try; just that it has taken more out of me than I thought possible.
The unhappy truth about fighting back tyranny is that it will always cost you. Sometimes dearly. Those who aspire to absolute power are relentless little bastiges; like the weeds in the garden, they’ll always grow back if you don’t cut them back before they set seed or drive a taproot into the earth’s core, or weave miles and miles of roots 30 feet deep.
And as every gardener knows, when you make the soil good for plants, you also make it good for the weeds, and because weeds are better adapted for survival than your domesticated beauties, your battle against the weeds never ends.
I truly hate the fact that bad people and their desires never rest nor sleep. I’ve got better things to do than harass congress to do the right thing or study the tactics of amoral radicals.
Or at least I thought I did. Maybe what I’d rather do isn’t better after all…
For real though, Katrina convinced them they had nigh-omnipotent narrative creation powers. It was then when it changed I think.* It changed into something oppressive and not American.
It is not the death knell of classical liberalism–it is the death knell of our representative repubulic. Government manufactures crises, mongered by the no-longer-free press, and annoints itself the solver of said debacles. Thanks to the public education system, few remain able to see it. “Soft socialism” my ass. I fully expect to be freezing in the dark eating soylent green within not too many winters. Of course all references to Edward G.’s last film will have been scrubbed by then–racist title.
Also Anderson Cooper wrote a whole book and he was on the cover looking soulfully earnest and well shod you knew even if you couldn’t see his feets in the picture. That boy knows a thing or two about shoes.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/ssinc/movies.html
Not all is lost in the culture war. Follow the link to the 10 ten highest grossing movies in the U.S. this year and all time. Look at the titles. Most if not all are reflective of a fairly conservative set of values–good vs. evil stuff; small guy as hero; fairy-tales that value courage, honor, truth, etc. Reynolds makes a great point, but the appearance that the Left is ascendent, in some ways, is an illusion created by the left-leaning media. In the same way that the Kerry campaign tried and failed to make early exit polling make it seem as if Ohio was going Dem in the last presidential election. That’s the danger. They’re essentially doing the same thing again–making it seem as if the race is as tight as it is. I’m not arguing that this race is not close–but in 2000 and 2004 the polling did not square within the margin of error the election results, if memory serves.
Not surprisingly, I agree with Benedick. But (also not surprisingly) I have to add some specifics:
Have as many kids as you can afford and raise them right. Have one TV in the house and leave it off as much as possible. Take them to political events (our 2-year old did remarkably well at a McCain-Palin rally recently, despite spending 5 hours in the baking hot sun waiting for it to begin. Without a nap, even!). Talk to them about the world. Talk to them about our country’s unique role in history.
Homeschool them or — if that’s not a possibility — make sure they understand the history of this country. Take them to Gettysburg. Valley Forge. Independence Hall. Williamsburg. Make them read, and understand, every letter of the Declaration of Independence by the time they’re in first grade. Make them read and understand The Constitution, and The Federalist Papers, by the time they’re in fourth grade.
Work hard. Teach them the value of working hard. And saving. And the joy of purchasing something on their own. Record your family history and make sure they know that too.
And get involved in local politics. School boards, township committees, whatever. Chances are, Irongrampa is right. There are lots of us out there, surely many more than it feels right now — it’s just that very few people are conveying the message in a way that is agreeable and persuasive.
There is a sense among many of my like-minded friends that this time it’s different — this time some sort of revolution really is coming. Of course, I was 2 when Carter was elected, so what do I know? But if we are to have a battle for this country’s soul, I plan to fight like hell for what this country stands for. Happily, our side’s got most of the guns.
I get what you are saying about PJ media, I’ve felt that for a while, and I’m not even a part of them.
The flip-side of HuffPo?
Yeah, elements of PJ Media, I guess.
Jeff,
While there are obviously many personal and political differences within the right-wing blogosphere I have seen the major blogs come together at times, such as the effort to uncover Greenwald’s sock-puppetry, Jawa Report’s investigative journalism project to uncover Axelrod’s astroturfing campaign, even fro forma things like this.
I read the major libertarian-right blogs, and I know that that there is deep concern at every one about the failure of the MSM to uphold the public trust during this election cycle. This issue is important enough, IMO, to warrant an extraordinary effort to make common cause among bloggers in a united campaign to call out the media. Do you think there is any chance of such a project? A boycott, or a series of linked posts across the whole right–wing blogosphere loaded with links and examples?
Perhaps we should take heart in natural models of parallel or recurrent evolution of useful adaptations, such as sightedness, camouflage, flying etc. Granted that these and their like in the natural world take ages to develop but things are well known to move quite fast in memespace, witness the resurgence of fascism on the left. Pretty speedy it seems to me. The same will happen with the urge to liberty as counterbalance to the urge to equality, I’ll betcha.
You’re straining against more than forty years of history, here; it’s all of it. The Enlightenment was a once-every-couple-millennia aberration. The world only knows it’s round every once in a while, and never for long.
So yeah, you can’t win — much. Because the other guys are giving the people what they want. Right in the keester. And they’re way into it.
Don’t let it get you down. Cursing the darkness is underrated, until it isn’t. By my watch, you’ll only need to keep hammering this shit until about 3865 to get your first “Hey, that guy’s kind of onto something.” And it’ll be sweet.
Actually, I understand Jeff’s frustration. It boils down to this: “If I keep doing the same things over and over again, and I’m still not achieving my goal or having any substantive impact on the world at large, I must be nuts.”
Several years ago, in the times before the advent of blogs, I tried to get people – people just like many of you – to pay attention to Muslim extremism and to groups like ACORN, and to the poor science behind anthropocentric global warming.
I was told by lots and lots of right-wing conservatives and bloggers that I was nuts.
What I found that I had to do before I shared information with others was to teach people the basic principles of critical thinking …before I could even share facts, references and resources with them.
They didn’t want to learn about critical thinking, because they already thought they knew how to think. (In the real world, most people know *what* to think, not *how* to think.) SO… I hadda use metaphor and allegory and fables – and even the Midwestern vernacular – to teach them about critical thought.
Plus, when I just buried their objections under a plethora of references, resources, peer-reviewed journals and white papers, they – people just like most of you – all came back with, “I don’t have time to read all of that stuff! Just tell me what it says.” Then, after telling them what it said, I would hear, “I don’t know about anything about any of that stuff. What yer sayin’ is just nuts!” ????
Worse, people still decry the validity of the MSM…while quoting the MSM as a authoritative source. i.e. if the MSM and the big blogs haven’t already covered it, it just can’t be true.
So, yes, If what Jeff’s experiencing is anything at like my own experience, I understand his frustration.
That’s just got to be bullshit if the ideas the founders cooked up were worth a tinkers damn. If they were good for something that something will militate for their recurrence. If they aren’t good for something then goodbye and good riddance, right?
No, Sdferr. Because those ideas of the founders aren’t going to be revoked or revised in a Big National Referendum. Rather, they’ll be reinterpreted to mean something completely different, and the children grow up earnestly believing the reinvention is the original. Those of us stubbornly insisting that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” does NOT mean “government-enforced equality of economic mediocrity” will be dismissed as nattering old cranks.
No. It makes them the same currency.
There are real world effects to ideas, Benedick. Reinterpretation will get the world (your polity) different results, likely really crappy results which will demonstrate beyond all nattering the “meaning” of the ideas everybody has learned to take for granted. Or not.
Which is better, bleeding with leeches or the application of antibiotics when it comes to treating an infection? Do we care as a matter of defense of a fucking theory? Hell no. Results, baby. And the results of the loss of liberty will, I predict, be pretty shitty.
Both sides of a wooden nickel spend the same, to continue the analogy.
Buy more guns. Have more children. Keep the faith.
Jeff, I’m probably light years behind on these ideas but why do what Whittle did – pitch a book? Take these essays and make them into something people can carry around, send to their friends (as presents even)? I know paper books are supposed to be on their way out, but whatever.
Write lots and lots letters to editors? Editorials? You’ve had 10 million page views, why can’t you use those page views into something far reaching?
Every great man has a pack of haters and abusers looking for a way to bring him down. It’s the Age of Envy, after all. Hatred of the Good for being good. These are the hallmarks of society. Look for the small ways to change the culture a little at a time. Use your style and wit to really, seriously, influence people. I noticed in a recent study that Colorado is #3 in the country for economic freedom. Use your resources to encourage your local and state politicians to keep it that and ask why you’re not #1?
Heck, we could all be doing that.
Except me. I live in Chicago. heh
In the immortal words of Jerry Jeff Walker …
Pissin’ in the wind
Bettin’ on a losin’ friend
Makin’ the same mistakes, we swore
We’d never make again.
Pissin’ in the wind, but it’s blowing on all our friends
We’re gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren.
Jeff, I feel your pain. I never went through a “liberal†period during my mis-spent youth. I started reading history books in the third grade, and that knowledge kept me far from the leftard lunacy that engulfed so many of my peers. I fear that the plan initiated by a few radicals all those years ago has begun to bear fruit. Their “long march†through the institutions has been a total success. Academia, government, education, entertainment, and worst of all, the press, are thoroughly infested by leftists, and has resulted in a society that gets a one-sided view on every issue, no matter the source. Our kids learn nothing about our country’s past, except for all the rotten things we ostensibly did, our colleges produce reams of unintelligible gibberish, and graduates who can barely read and write. The so-called Fourth Estate has become a Fifth Column. Politicians can be videotaped saying something incredibly incriminating, yet when it blows up, NO ONE calls them on it. It seems that the cards are stacked against us. My only cause for hope, is the fact that in spite of all the above, they still can’t break 50% in the polls.
The correction is going to be very, very painful, but it will come eventually. Of course, we may not be around to see it. But if you are looking for inspiration to keep fighting the good fight, I can offer two potential sources. First is the fact that you have to wake up with yourself tomorrow. Do you want your son to remember that win or lose you did your best to fight against tyranny or that you surrendered to it? The second is that however bleak things may be, the monks of Iona faced a much bleaker and more difficult task keeping the last remaining flames of Western Civilization alive in the face of the barbarian darkness.
I need a drink. (strong)
OK, here’s where my inner Marine comes out. We have been too focused on tactics and strategy. Wait. I here you out there. You say to yourself, “Strategy and tactics, well what the fuck else is there, superman?”
Campaigning.
Our political objective is unlimited; we desire the end of leftist influence in American politics. Then our media objective is also unlimited; we desire the annihilation of the liberal media. This does not mean taking over the media. It’s impossible. The mainstream media would rather go out of business than present fair coverage.
I submit that this is a direct analog to the suicide bomber’s mentality. How do we counter the suicide bomber? Certainly not by persuasion, but rather by preempting their attacks, subverting their logistics, neutralizing their command and control. In short, we counter the suicide bomber by killing him prematurely.
Let’s figure out how to preemtively cause mainstream media to go out of business. LEt’s take the money out of the game. Then we can emplace out own media. Instead of taking over the MSM, we destroy it and re-make it in our own image.
How? This depends on the available means. Some that immediately come to mind:
Law. Make them eat their own interpretive standards: legal challenges, lawsuits, slander suits, libel suits, etc.
Business. Pool our money and take shit over: takeovers, shareholder voting revolts, SEC complaints, etc.
Federal and state politics. Buy politicians: lobbying, contributions, punitive press forays by alternative media
It’s a war of ideas played out in a war of politics. We’ve been wimps, so we’re getting out ass kicked. Our own Republicans can’t even get behind enforcing immigration laws. If we can’t get them to do that, we’re weak as hell. If we want to win, we have to crack some heads, figuratively speaking.
We’re in the position of a stronger numerical force with inferior weaponry. There’s ways to handle that, but we’ve not tried.
Does anyone wonder why I stopped trying to engage any of our resident trolls seriously?
As for the more existential level, I all but suspended blogging on my site in August, and am doing somewhat the same this month. Instead, I’m writing fiction.
It seems to be set in an earlier time, before the internet was pervasive. I wonder what that signifies?
See this would be a good post if you countenanced more better just how debilitating a Baracky defeat would be for Baracky’s media. The good guys can still win I think. They better, really. Baracky is the last wave of what emanates poisonously from where those two big building thingers used to be, and those people what did that, for them this will be either a lot glorious or really a stunning deflatingness for them I think. This is why Baracky will lose.
#29 – How is a “right” leaning media better than a “left” leaning media, especially if its M.O. is stealth? There is room for bias. Everyone has bias. Let’s just see it upfront.
JeffG,
It’s probably bad form to write it out in the open this way, but you have a commodity much needed by PJM, needed in spades by PJMTV. Putting ideas, etc. aside for the moment, your podcasts revealed something they don’t got, you got, and that’s the ability to face the camera, with ease of delivery, and appeal to the eye.
Bluntly, practically, you are in decent shape, young enough, with a face that does well from several angles. If I made comparisons to what I’ve seen on PJMTV so far, I think I would make the room uncomfortable and create grudgesm so I’ll just see if I can get an amen on that.
I’d like to see you work on the visual punditry. I think you might enjoy some advantage there.
[…] better than Palin: that he’s a better speaker (even as his gaffes are overlooked by a media that is clearly in the tank for Obama), that he has more experience, and that he has better ideas. He thus not only has to win this […]
nishi fails to understand that the Leftocracy she craves IS a theocracy in every significant way. And, not being constrained by any mandates of a beneficent God, they will, sometime or sooner, get around to doing what ALL tyrants do, that is, eliminate any ideological opposition. That includes other Lefties that aren’t sufficiently “pure” (as defeined by themselves, of course). Be careful what you ask for. History shows us that the Left is orders of magnitide more brutal than the Right has ever been.
This is for Dr. Yes, too, since he doesn’t take comments.
You and Jeff both endorsed poor Palin.
To me that was the ultimate betrayal.
You could have kept my alleigance with a simple acknowledgement that she wasn’t “ready”, wasn’t QUALLIFIED to be VP, and it was a calculating and cynical pick by Team McCain.
I loved you both once but I despise you now.
You are Liars.
You don’t know what a “liar” is, do you, sweetie? Like so much else you pretend to know about, you are flash without substance.
I don’t much care what you think of me, Kate. Go fuck yourself sideways with something heavy and barbed. And for the love of Christ, if you despise me so much, stop fucking emailing me, and go comment on somebody else’s site. I don’t owe you jack.
#35 – Lost allegiance in the kingdom of punditry? OHMYGAWD! The humanity!
Why would Jeff want the allegiance of a fascist?
Jeff,
I value you more as an educator than as a pundit. I can get “Fire bad! Bread good!” from damn near anywhere; what’s harder to find is insightful commentary that lays out the tricks that are being used to influence me, and the ideology driving it all.
Don’t get me wrong — the punditry is fun, too, as are the dick jokes. But those are commodities. This here edumacational stuff is the precious metal.
Of course, now that you’ve lost Kate’s love, you might as well just drink yourself to death. Can we run a tab together?
And isn’t “allegiance” a strange choice of words? Allowing that nishi(*) uses words without any concern for their meaning, it still strikes me as odd.
(*) I will not call it “Kate”. I know too many highly intelligent and respectable Kates to sully their name with association with the foulness of nishi.
“witness the resurgence of fascism on the left”
When did it ever stop?
From an email: “instead of communicating despair, it sounds like you’re fishing for a long comment thread of people begging you to stay.”
Not true. Don’t do it. This is my way of venting, and if you don’t want to read it, don’t. Whether I stay or go is ultimately up to me. I decide, and I have decided before.
From the same email: “you might be coming across as a bit petulant and pouty (not to the level of obnoxiousness, but it’s visible enough). It seems a little sour-grapey to piss on the Corner and PJM while at the same time aspiring to their ranks.”
I don’t aspire to their ranks. First, aspire is the wrong word. Second, the “Army of Davids” I was told was in the offing is really nothing more than a few Davids and, when convenient, the Davidskateers. The Davidskateers keep the Davids flush.
But believe what you want. Go where you want. Do what you want. Read who you want. This is my site, and I’ll write what I want.
>>nishi fails to understand that the Leftocracy she craves IS a theocracy in every significant way. And, not being constrained by any mandates of a beneficent God
Yes. A great case can be [and has been] made for regarding the Left as the inheritors of some of the wackier Dissenter theologies. Ranters, Diggers, Levellers, Fifth Monarchy Men, Quakers, they’re all in there.
Just for the record, for anyone who was wondering, I, sdferr, am not a party. That is all.
Uh oh, kate’s spitting again. I still picture her more as a swallower, though. There, there little girl. Daddy will make everything alright. Just let him. Mmmkay.
“But believe what you want. Go where you want. Do what you want. Read who you want. This is my site, and I’ll write what I want.”
Afuckingmen, cudlips!
Right. So, we are against the unwarranted killing of innocent children. Yup, guilty as charged. My preference would be that the state get out of the “marriage†business altogether. I understand how codifying and encouraging what is demonstrably the only good way to raise children is in the state’s interest, but I fear we have gone too far down this road, so getting out altogether seems best to me. Anti-science? In what way? Because we demand that the global warmists show their work? To behave scientifically? No, that one doesn’t fly, but then, your arguments never do. For the Left, it’s all about power and control.
Fuck off, nishi. You are an idiot, just like all your fellow-travelers.
I may have mentioned this before, but it’s important to remember:
Victory is not declared. It is acknowledged. Fight’s not over HERE. Not nearly.
Wake me when my watch comes around. Oh, and Jeff Y., Semper Fi. Campaigning, yes, indeed. Everybody, stock up on Black Knights and check your shot records. We are definitely going to end up miles from here.
And years away.
Ah shoot. This is the link I meant.
Nishi, I am forced to fall back on old SNL, but at least it was funny back then…
Kate, you ignorant slut.
For all your self-promotion re: your intelligence, you really are a waste of basic elements and water. You lack of honest comes into stark relief when you praise the party that is antithetical to those things you preach as being the salvation of the future. The are anti-Darwinian, supporting the unfit and insuring their ability to breed on your nickel. They are pro-abortion, but only when it is politically advantageous — were there an extra 2% of the electorate in flip-flopping on the issue, they’d do it in a heart-beat.
On a pragmatic level, the Democrats are the anti-mathematic (statistical truths are deemed “racist” if they do not conform to the preferred narrative). They are anti-indepence and pro-dependence party. They have sold minorities onto a political plantation with a variation of the old Roman stand-by of bread and circuses. Having lost the battle of ideas long ago, they rely on identity politics — race politics, gender politics, et. al. and ad nauseum.
For someone who claims to be so smart, your really are an ignoramus.
Jeff, I find you influential (and pretty damn funny) and I have influence over my kids and grandkids. Your influence may not be obvious, but it is viral.
We may spend time in the wilderness, but when that generation dies out, we’ll come back. Be a Kaleb or a Joshua, and you can look yourself in the mirror and smile.
Comment by quellcrist falconer on 10/2 @ 1:36 pm #
Comment by thor on 10/2 @ 1:39 pm #
Scratch a reactionary leftist, find the fascist gibbering underneath.
For the record, I’m deleting any comments that rub me the wrong way today. You are free to declare me a liar and make your showy exits.
Karl is over at Patterico’s. Go help him build his resume. He, after all, aspires.
The thing that just drives me mad, daily, about the press in America is the simple, shocking, almost unbelievable fact that our press has voluntarily self-censored and conformed itself in lockstep with a single political party/ideology, moreso even than the press in authoritarian/dictatorship-run countries ever have on the threat of death.
IT IS THE END!
This is a bad time for me to be on the internet. As I told Kate in an email last night, I just found out a friend has stage IV cancer. Her reply was to tell me she’s sorry, but that PALIN IS ALSO A CANCER AND THAT I MUST ACCEPT THAT I AM THE CAUSE etc etc.
I want to hurt people today. It’ll pass, but if I stay here, I just may go crazy.
That was the most profound comment of thor’s sorry life. I knew he had it in him.
Oh, yes. Hurting people. Feel it everyday. Then again, I have a definite anger problem. The management is fine as I don’t ever hurt anyone. But the urge is there. It’s those stupid worthless Judeo-Christian ethics that hold me back, though. Of course, being a classical liberal/libertarian working in a large county government surrounded by class warfare waging dipshit democrats doesn’t help. Notice, I didn’t say anything about liberal. Liberal, these people ain’t. BMoe, get me a job down in Athens! I beg you!
And, sorry for being a bore, but I am very sorry to hear about your friend. For what it’s worth, I’ll pray for your friend and for you. Hang in there, Jeff.
It’s things like this that make me go and help the economy by buying 500 more rounds at the local Cabelas…
Ohhhh, that hurt, OI, ya nutter.
There’s a tempest brewing! I’m taking to the street clutching a very large knife in my teeth!
And if I even smell an elephant, this’ll be the day an elephant dies!
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t presume, Jeff, but since you’ve asked for suggestions several times now:
Because as it stands, I don’t think I’m in any position to make a real difference.
If you keep your eyes on the big picture, you’ll always despair of making a real difference. It’s an illusion that anybody, by themselves, is a game changer in our society.
Instead, you first decide if “the thing†is worth doing. (I think you’ve been mulling this over for the last 3 or 4 months.)
If you decide the thing is worth doing, you keep your eyes on your small part, and you try to enjoy the process.
E.g. — I’ve got a buddy who’s an army CSM (Command Sergeant Major) and he told me he hasn’t retired because he feels he can “save a few lives” if he passes on things he learned in his last 3 deployments (Iraq and Afghanistan). Not “win the war,†but just save a few lives.
Baby steps, as happyfeet once said.
For the immediate future, realize things aren’t so bad. Find a copy of Richard Ketchum’s “Winter Soldiers†about how Washington turned the rebellion around at Trenton, and his half-dressed soldiers stood barefooted in the snow, listening to their officers reading Tom Paine’s “These are the time that try men’s souls….†and waiting for the barges to ferry them over an ice-choked river.
You’re a tremendously smart and talented writer, Jeff. Just keep searching for your niche.
Cheers and Best Wishes.
Good Lord.
Sorry to hear it, Jeff, and hope the best — whatever it may be — for your friend.
Jeff, she actually said that ?
To quote Office Space “A person can get their ass kicked for saying shit like that…”
And if I even smell an elephant, this’ll be the day an elephant dies!
The night Chicago died…
Jeff:
My solution for you is three-fold. First, disable comments for a bit. I come here to read what you write, not what others write. I’ve only just come back after you disappeared for so long the last time. Second, ignore the e-mails, especially from friends who are having cancer issues and who may be displacing their anger about their diagnosis onto you as a way of dealing with their pain. Third, run for office. Easy for me to say, of course, because it’s not me who’d be giving the speeches, kissing ugly babies, and eating rubber chicken. But you’ll have far more influence, personally, over the events that cause you despair if you are in a responsible public office than you do here, despite thing being the best blog I’ve ever enjoyed reading.
I guess finally I would say that if the press is in the bag as much as we think they are, the backlash against them can only continue once The Chocolate Jesus is elected and utterly fucks up the country over the span of 4 years. Remember that Clinton ran as someone he wasn’t, abetted by the press, in some was as egregiously as they have abetted The Holy Zero, and once he was in office the PEOPLE somehow held his feet to the fire on most issues (alas, not Fannie and Freddie, which were essentially “secret” fuckups of our political betters we are only finding out about now), despite the press being continually in the tank for him, and he ended up governing fairly conservatively on most issues.
I would hate the Country to have to go through an O! presidency just to get back on track, but we may have to go through that evil in order to. There isn’t much we can do about it at this point, other than hope that McCain pulls his head out of his ass over the next month on his campaign strategy and that the economic meltdown actually doesn’t happen. Well, those things, and the eternal hope that Biden will actually lose it and scream “YOU ANTI-CHOICE C*NT!! YOU SHOULD HAVE ABORTED TRIG, WHO ISN’T EVEN YOUR BIOLOICAL CHILD!! REPUBLICAN BREEDER WHORE!!!!!” at Palin during tonight’s debate. Stranger things have happened, you must admit . . .
I am waiting for the post entitled “How We Lost the Cold War”. That honestly seems to be what is going on nowdays.
I’m back. No elephants, no oompah loompahs, nobody that inspired death, that looked like they really, really needed to be gorged by a letter opener, and nothing but junkmail in the mailbox.
Sorry to hear about your friend, Jeff.
JeffG,
Long time reader, not big on commenting. I have always been in agreement with your politics and insights. It’s your thought process and sense of humor (and outrage) that keeps me coming back.
In my opinion, the newly acquired laziness of Americans that will be our downfall. The left makes points with popularity and coolness (easy). The classic liberal or the right makes their points with reason and logic (hard).
Anyhoo, love your blog.
I posted a highly effective idea yesterday. Unfortunately, when I posted a similar comment a few days ago, all I got was guff: proteinwisdom.com/?p=13339
If anyone wants something that will actually work, help promote my plan and encourage others to do the same.
Sharkman: “Well, those things, and the eternal hope that Biden will actually lose it and scream “YOU ANTI-CHOICE C*NT!! YOU SHOULD HAVE ABORTED TRIG, WHO ISN’T EVEN YOUR BIOLOICAL CHILD!! REPUBLICAN BREEDER WHORE!!!!!†at Palin during tonight’s debate. Stranger things have happened, you must admit . . .”
The combination of Biden and a live mike are potentially as dangerous as barbituates and a fifth of gin.
50/50 chance he endorses McCain/Palin before the debate’s over.
If it were up to me, I would commission and effort to develop a rating metric for every candidate. This system of rating would focus on a politicians ability to understand, cite, and respond to the importance of how certain rhetorical devices work in regards to “re-imagining” the argument (etc.)- and I would get Jeff to be the director and oversee the project.
Call it the PW Gauge or The Goldstein Meter and rate every single person that is seeking an elected office.
Groups like “Right to life”, Judicial Review, and Pork Buster have made themselves relevant to the political discourse by using a similar method that translates an entire way of thinking into a numerical score that can be thrown at a politicians face with ease.
The reason that the MSM mask of pretend objectivity has been ripped away, microwaved into vapor, has less to do with the media falling for Obama, his socialist message, his blackness, or whatever… it has everything to do with how inept John McCain is at defending himself, his message, principle beliefs, and his political party.
The media can get away with it ONLY because McCain is completely unable and unprepared to point any of this out without sounding hypocritical and fumbling.
Sure, the McCain camp might recognize what they are seeing on some level, but they don’t know how to counter it. They might get a few blast off at the media and shout “You’re in the Tank!”, but they don’t spend much/any time defending those assertions and as a result these charges come off as crazed rants that are the emotional responses of a guilty conscious.
The way I see it, Jeff Goldstein has spent several years explaining in great detail the responsibilities facing political leadership in the modern age of advocacy journalism, so it only makes sense that it become a working part of the requirements and considerations in the candidate selection process.
Sorry to hear about your friend, Jeff. I have too many people in my life in a similar situation, and it’s just crushing. I, too, will pray for your friend, as well as for you.
“…are potentially as dangerous as barbituates and a fifth of gin.”
Dangerous?
That’s what Maureen Dowd lives on.
It’s called a “Molly Ivans”
I recently lost my brother-in-law to, and have also just found out about a cousin with cancer.
We hates it.
Sorry about your friend, Jeff.
N. O’Brain: “That’s what Maureen Dowd lives on. It’s called a “Molly Ivans—
Personally, I prefer Sylvia Plaths. One part mercury, one part cremede menth and one part vegetable oil… the trick is drink only the green layer.
Cancer sucks, Jeff. I’m sorry about your friend.
Now, a pause for levity:
Q: How do you make dickbread?
A: With dildough.
How someone could draw a comparison between a terminal disease they are suffering from with a political party they disagree with is beyond me.
Jeez y’all are in a dark place. We’re going down down down cause that’s a lot the only way to make this cruel cruel world hear what we’ve got to say. Put the right letters together and make a Better Day I think.
What would Don Quixote do?
Oh, and Kate? I know, the pretty girls can’t stand you either. But I bet they also find you irrelevant.
Well, the Rays are leading the WhiteSox 6-3 in the sixth, so assuming, to the extent he gives half a shit about it, Baracky ought by rights to be a White Sox fan (of course I don’t believe he cares about baseball) there is that to cheer us up.
It is just another of those mystifying phenomena we can observe repeatedly and never understand. I mark it down to God wanting to make sure we never think we’re close to having all the answers.
Jeff, mucho sorry about your friend.
Mr. Pink: “How someone could draw a comparison between a terminal disease they are suffering from with a political party they disagree with is beyond me.”
Apparently, having the spelling proficiency of a toddler, the emotional development of an elementary school student and the discriminating taste of a tape worm helps in the matter.
Barack is probably more of a Redsox fan.
Jeff – There is a seething in me these days, as well. If it wasn’t for you and Steyn I may have lost it long ago. I’m tired of talking to people who act like Santa actually exists. It’s always good to stumble upon the other poor one eyed fools living here in the land of the blind. Do what you want to do. Or not. I’ll read what you write any time I can.
Jeff: even if you piss in the snow, I promise to read it.
Apparently, having the spelling proficiency of a toddler, the emotional development of an elementary school student and the discriminating taste of a tape worm helps in the matter.
You talking about me or Jeff’s friend? If you are talking about me just because I actually think Miller Light tastes good doesn’t make my tastes comparible to a tape worms thank you. I would have to agree with your first two statements however except I probably have more of a highschool emotional level. All the seats on the short bus are the cool ones in the back brother.
Jeff, We may be on opposite sides of the ideological divide but I too enjoy your reading and thought process. Despair comes and goes (I have experience…). Family and the changing of seasons are constant.
Yeah, sorry, but it does.
If the choice is between despair and panic — and from what I’ve been seeing around, a lot of people think it is — I’ll choose despair.
When I’m depressed, I don’t do much of anything. People in panic almost always make things worse.
Mr Pink: “You talking about me or Jeff’s friend? If you are talking about me just because I actually think Miller Light tastes good doesn’t make my tastes comparible to a tape worms thank you.”
I was referring to Kate/Nishi/Falconer/Bottom-feeder, actually… although I may have to look at you strangely, but only if you’re thinking that Miller Light = beer.
Mr. Pink, if you read Jeff’s comment carefully, you’ll see the equating of cancer to an opposing political party was made by one of our resident trolls — not by Jeff’s friend.
Cranky-d if I had said Schlitz or Natural Ice you would be right. Miller Light is not that bad and it is still American owned.
Mr. Pink: “Cranky-d if I had said Schlitz or Natural Ice you would be right. Miller Light is not that bad and it is still American owned.”
It’s still sex in a canoe…
Oh I did not interpert it that way McGehee. I did not think he would actually be telling that psycho about his personal life so I was drawing the assumption that his friend with cancer said that. Sorry.
Still Miller Light is not that bad. I can also drink 24 of them and still be somewhat functional.
Sorry about your friend’s bad news, Jeff. I can say as a longtime reader/occasional commenter I really appreciate your “voice” on these here intarwebtubes. Me? I’m cleaving to Nietzche’s dictum that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Kate is one of those people that finds a way to piss all over anything, and cannot be trusted with something as precious as your feelings about the life of a friend.
I have a bum shoulder just now and my finger still hasn’t healed. So it’s going to take longer than a month to turn myself into a human tank.
That’s unfortunate.
Pink Champale!!!
/ifagunistomyhead
There’s always endurance running, Jeff
Miller products all smell like they have gone off. Now, I’m not saying I won’t drink them if they’re free, because I have before and I will again. The “free” aspect kind of drives my decision making on the subject, plus the free beer always comes after I have had a good amount of relatively decent beer first.
kelly: “I’m cleaving to Nietzche’s dictum that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
There’s yer problem, kelly…
That which does not kill me best hope I can’t get up fast enough to give pursuit.
Is there some kind of deadline on the human tank project? Enquiring minds…
The human tank thing is different than the starve the weeds, feed the flowers thing. I think the human tank thing sounds potentially a lot more effective. But also what’s very clear is that the rarest thing in America is a respected journalist. The media has let go its post-Watergate pretensions of inveterate watchdoggyness and what patina of respectability that had brought will fade away as a consequence. There’s an invisible hand what works when you’re wiping spit out of your bitch whore journalist eye I think.
Jeff G.
Just keep fighting the good fight, Bro…
The forum you have here, where people can get together and share their thoughts and cogent opinions, are about the closest thing we have in modern America to the Revolutionary era bulletin board in the public square where pamphlets, essays, and notices were posted; especially at the pub, where guest writers can post their essays…
Although you wonder about the influence of your forum, I for one can say that I take some of the thought provoking ideas with me into the everyday world, where if I’m lucky I can transmit them on to folks that may not use the internet or read any of the online media. And I think to some extent, we could all testify to the same experience.
Although our comments may at times be glib, flip, or pithy, and may seem to lack content, in your own way you get people to think about the things you write about in a way that they mightn’t of prior to reading one of your essays, or even at all. And, although many of the adversarial commentors here are frustrating at times or off topic, in their own way they help gird our arguments against the folks in everyday life that would simply choose to parrot either party line or MSM talking points.
So cheer up friend, ignore the thoughtless critics and asinine baiters. Who cares about pajamas media; I confess that I seldom go there. And, as far as NRO goes, they have some excellent writers, but accept no open discussion, so while their publication may have more influence among the chattering classes, believe me, you have a whole other class of people chattering about your essays, and more importantly your ideas and essays; we are your chattering class…
So it seems that the existence of this very site, and all our frequent visits, should serve as a daily reminder that you indeed have gained purchase as an influential voice on topics that are your natural bailiwick.
NRO is like when you get assigned a gay roommate in college and for real there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that but still you know what they did was match you guys up with a Meyers-Briggs they had y’all fill out over the summer so … that’s awkward. How did this happen you think.
How very philosophical of you.
Puck, re your # 11?
Been there, done that, although the ages you specify are probably inappropriate. Thanks to the Public school system? I have one moonbat and one I like to call “The one that lived”.
Short of homeschooling (almost impossible here in MA.) I see no real answer. I’ve been heavily involved in the girls educations, but all I ever get is “gimme”.
When I was teaching (disclosure, not a certified teacher, Head Start and Developmentally disabled adult certificates only ) we were, ummm, discouraged from listening too much to the parents/guardians.
Back on topic, Jeff? There are many of us out here, some less educated than others (Waves at the PW commentariat). But we all hold the same ideal…That this Country cannot and will not be destroyed from within.
Besides, as I once read somewhere, lefties just hate smart people who have thought things through and don’t agree with them. THAT really drives them nuts.
Psst.. Baracky claims to be a White Sox fan. One of the newspapers had photoshopped him in one of the WS players and Blagovich in the place of a Cub’s player on their front page.
Why? I cared not enough to find out.
>>Besides, as I once read somewhere, lefties just hate smart people who have thought things through and don’t agree with them. THAT really drives them nuts.
Yeah, sorta lived through that. There was a time I was really into reading Plato and adopted the whole Socratic Dialogue approach. Being antagonistic, I used to hang out at coffeeshops arguing whatever using that. Overheard the tarot-reading girl say, “don’t argue with that guy” and that was cool.
Thor, the fact that you think I’m a nutter says it all about your comprehension skills. I know you’re not a moonbat, but an asshole you most definitely are. But that’s what gets you off, so I’m kind of sorry I enabled.
Can’t hack it. So I’m plyo training. If I can’t outleap or outsprint it, I’m just going to stop, take it to the ground, and break it into pieces.
Wow, just read through the comments. I figured Kate had that “girlfriend who can’t get the fucking hint that it’s over” vibe. That last comment in the email she sent Jeff just goes to show what a dirt bag she truly is. Amazing………..
I’d like to see you work on the visual punditry. I think you might enjoy some advantage there.
Big amen on that. Jeff’s got acting chops, as we saw on those Citizen Journalist vids. If he doesn’t want to go to PJMTV, he can do his own thing right here.
And that sux about your friend.
Victor said “If it were up to me, I would commission and effort to develop a rating metric for every candidate. This system of rating would focus on a politicians ability to understand, cite, and respond to the importance of how certain rhetorical devices work in regards to “re-imagining†the argument (etc.)- and I would get Jeff to be the director and oversee the project.
Call it the PW Gauge or The Goldstein Meter and rate every single person that is seeking an elected office… ”
Love this idea. I’d call it Rubric Goldstein. (played off Rube Goldberg)
Jeff, long-time lurker. We need your caliber of discourse. I’m still trying to get over the loss of DeBeste.
Jeff,
You have the right to ignore everything I say. You’ve doubtless heard it before. But it’s important, so I’ll say it again:
You should write a book.
For one thing, you could write it up to the academic standard (such as it is), and maybe shake things up enough that other conservative academics feel brave enough to come out of the closet. For another, you can give politically active citizens the tools to recognize what is going on and fight back.
And, you’ll have your monument in stone.
(I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m in a PhD program, and I’m getting the faintest inkling of the unholy hell I’m about to go through to write something worthwhile. But someone’s gotta do it.)
Maybe it would cheer us all to remember that if Obama loses the election, the MSM and the left will get even worse, leading to a nastier, more-unhinged election in 2010 and 2012.
No?
How about the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012? Maybe our Rightful Overlords will descend from space and convert us all into Cybermen, and we won’t care anymore.
I don’t like to comment to or about Nishi, but that’s just about the crappest thing anyone could have said to anyone.
I’m sorrier to about your friend, JeffG. That’s rough news.
“sorrier about” not “sorrier to about”
And still no one to support my contention that Jeff is uncommonly photogenic and easy before the camera, for a blogger? I mean, once you get a load of the other bloggers on TV?
Jeff is very good on tv but how is he at the self-conscious of being self-conscious thing? He wasn’t very self-conscious about being self conscious about cleaning his finger gash, but he’d been drinking.
It’s still sex in a canoe…
Been there, done that too!! Actually kinda kinky…teh squirming!!!
FWIW, now that it’s just you again, I’m hitting the site 2-3 times a day. Before, it was once a week to see if you’d made it back. And I don’t understand most of the pretty words you like to use. But I feel like you see things sorta the way I see things, and it makes me feel smart.
As someone who made an ill-advised, half-assed attempt at blogging, I know how difficult and frustrating it is. And you’re much better at it than I was, and wordier to boot.
Best of wishes to your friend, and to you.
Jeff,
I am sorry to hear about your friend. I also am amazed that Kate/Nishi/Quellcrest Falconer (Christ! can’t they stick with one name?) could be so wretched. Hang in there bud.
I don’t know what to advise you, Jeff.
Sorry about that, but I think analysis of the underlying assumptions of language, and how those assumptions are used to define the terms of the debate is glossed over by many. Too technical, perhaps. Ace has a post where he compares an argument between a theist and an atheist as ultimately futile because they cannot agree on assumptions.
I touched on that in a recent comment thread with Sdferr, regarding assuming objective reality and the ability to perceive it. Without an agreement on foundations, no rhetorical edifice can be constructed.
You are arguing with people who will not say what foundation – base – they are coming from. Without that determination, that agreement, then there really can be no debate,and debating foundational matters is like writing a history of logistics when the reading public wants to read about cavalry charges. Yet without a Marlborough arranging to have replacement boots waiting along his line of march, there would have been no Battle of Blenheim. Without the line of little ships protecting the convoys, there would have been no Britain to launch an Overlord from.
And the last would not have meant much if many things were not done in North America – such as the great petroleum pipelines from the Gulf to the northeast.
Foundations – defining them – is the key to any debate, any lawsuit, but they are less than overtly dramatic to read about.
“Aldo points me to this bit from Glenn Reynolds in which Professor Reynolds notes, as I too have been noting for some time now, that, on the whole, the mainstream press has abandoned the last pretense of objectivity and is openly advocating for an Obama presidency”
It is depressing, like that point where Putin decided to stop the pretense of being a democrat.
Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. I am depressed that the media has shed their hypocrisy on the matter and are openly “Oh yeah, we be baaaad!” in the tank for Obama.
#36 Jeff G.:
Go fuck yourself sideways with something heavy and barbed.
Or as I said, ‘Go fuck yourself sideways with a nail-studded bat turning at a high rpm.’
Kate may change her internet names, but the person inside remains the same.
Nish…? tho…?
Trollhammer is nice, but I’d almost trained myself to miss them anyway.
Jeff, you are a remarkably learned man. A true scholar. Fantastic communimacator in that your text or spoken word always stands on its own two feet… or pseudopod… or tentacles… and your words equal your intent. Every time. You are good people – a good Joe – and I think that maybe the contrived class consciousness that so many Lefties foster is probably one of the most personally annoying/irritating things in your world.
Thank you for every single word you’ve ever written here. Thanks for your podcasts, and certainly your d’absinthe flavored Dr. Kildare video episode featuring your sliced digit. Thank you for responding to my emails.
Do you have any earthly idea how few and far between men like you are? We need the armadillo up behind you for a bit, whispering, “Dude, you are ONLY a man” on even numbered days, with a break on Sundays for mezcal testing.
On the odd numbered days, he’ll just leave a post it note on your heavy bag. The first one could read “Thomas Paine was ONLY a man”. Day three “Galileo was ONLY a man”. Day nine “pffft brlugle. Gahbet!” (mezcal can be lethal if not properly respected.)
Turn off the comments if you think it will help. Or expand on any of your recent quality essays and submit to NRO, WSJ, TCS, WaPo…
And anybody else reading here should choose a side in the fight, and then act. I’m going back to the Republicans. I intend to run for precinct delegate to state. And maybe run for local office here at home. Give money. Write to candidates. RECRUIT candidates.
Pay Jeff for allowing you to wear out the carpet. What you can, when you can.
Don’t wait for PJM. They aren’t the future, and I think that you know it, too.
Dinner. And again, thanks Jeff. Just thanks is all.
I’m afraid “psycho” has it right. Liberty has not been the default human condition, in fact the opposite has usually attained. Obastard’s virtually inevitable victory marks the steep descent into recrudescent fascism. I suspect in ten years we will have a society along the lines of Mussolini’s Italy, with government fingers deep into ownership and management of large sections of society. Government already has had sway for years over education… the larger economy is next. Legal intimidation will be widespread against enemies of the left wing Obastard administration. No one will go to jail, they will be merely bankrupted by legal fees incurred for speaking out and being accused of violating some FEC law or “hate speech” statute.
To make matters more concrete, I seriously fear Obastard the Odious and an increasingly blue state Congress will agitate for a Constitutional Convention over his two terms (you can bank on his reelection). Once a Convention is held, be very afraid. I predict it will begin with a movement to overturn the 22nd Amendment, so we can enjoy the balm of Obastard for twelve, maybe sixteen years. But once a Convention is opened, all kinds of mischief can ensue. Virtually anything can be proposed as an amendment. Look for health care, higher education, housing and fully funded retirement to be ensconced as literal rights in the Constitution. And watch the document become utterly meaningless, shorn from reality. It could finish so larded up with nebulous promises that the defunct Soviet Constitution will look like a marvel of clarity in comparison.
Then she took her finger out of her nose, said “I like pretty things” and ran, bike helmet first, into the plate glass window. I then asked her if she knew where she was, and she said, “I’m a pony, pony, pony! Lookit me run!”. Honestly, I was deeply concerned. I told her, “Mrs Palin, I am so much smarter than you, I’m like Murphy Brown, and you are the pretty blonde ditz. Except you are only the governor of Alaska and she was on TV. You need to understand that I am herer to help you. Do you not understand that if you don’t answer the questions the way I would, or Murphy Brown would, or even Hillary Clinton would, that you would look silly when we edit this?”
I almost cried because I was being so fair…
I seriously fear Obastard the Odious and an increasingly blue state Congress will agitate for a Constitutional Convention over his two terms…
I don’t see this happening, and I’m an alarmist.
Wow, someone got paid for that. Amazing.
Cleo, don’t be jerky. Not funny.
And by that, I mean Semanticleo’s weak ass “satire” copy and paste job.
American Gladiators is on ESPN Classic. I’m going to sit in this hotel room and watch and remember a much better time.
Big hair, steroids, pink wine, cocaine, boxy cars, jazzercize and humans running around in giant hamster balls for money.
like you know what moly is
Cleo doesn’t realize the implications of painting Katie Couric as the intellectual one, I don’t think.
#93 McGehee:
One of the funny things about me is that the little things drive me nuts. The big things? Then I buckle down and start thinking clearer than I usually do. It is like I am in a hyper-drive right then.
“but how is he at the self-conscious of being self-conscious thing? He wasn’t very self-conscious about being self conscious about cleaning his finger gash, but he’d been drinking.”
Well, now he’s going to be all self conscious about it. Sorry for ruining you broadcast career, Jeff. Shoot.
“I seriously fear Obastard the Odious and an increasingly blue state Congress will agitate for a Constitutional Convention over his two terms…”
“I don’t see this happening, and I’m an alarmist.”
From your lips to God’s ears. Please.
@130, so fucking what?
I don’t read any papers either. There’s this thing called “teh intertubes” and you can find all sorts of neat shit on it.
I don’t see this happening, and I’m an alarmist.
Me, either. Still way too many red states to carry that one off.
I do expect more sneak attacks on the Bill of Rights, though.
#116 Jeff G.:
Can’t hack it. So I’m plyo training. If I can’t outleap or outsprint it, I’m just going to stop, take it to the ground, and break it into pieces.
Agincourt. Or Cowpens. Take your pick.
I expect some new “assault weapons” bans on rifles and detachable magazines. I have already made some appropriate purchases.
#126 Blitz:
It is possible…
And still no one to support my contention that Jeff is uncommonly photogenic and easy before the camera, for a blogger? I mean, once you get a load of the other bloggers on TV?
Hello? Number 118! Even chopped liver counts for something around here, doesn’t it?
“I was concerned, after one of the times where she seemed to be answering a question I hadn’t asked,†Couric said. “It didn’t seem possible that she would intentionally answer the question that way, knowing people would see it.
Holy smoke, cleo. Do you never watch interviews with politicians? When in Sam Hill have politicians ever answered the questions they were asked? Turns out that Rule One of Interviews is to NOT answer the question asked but to give the answer to the question you wanted to answer.
That Couric is acting like it’s some new thing is so transparent it nauseates. But way to put stock in it, cleo. Says more about you than it does about Palin.
I do expect more sneak attacks on the Bill of Rights, though.
It would be foolish not to expect it. Look, we are talking about people who have no interest in classical liberal values, in The Enlightenment, in liberty. Once they have the unpleasant spectre of dissenting political opponents on the run, why would they break off the chase? If I were in their position and detested the inconveniences of the Bill of Rights, hampering the arrival of the Golden Age of Progressive Socialism, I would do every expedient thing to quash my enemies. Given that such a person has no regard for liberty, the prospect of trampling liberty does not seem to be an impediment.
By the way, that would be Arkansas executing the retarded. See “Clinton, Bill.”
Mikey, since I use TrollHammer in its first version the comment numbers, they do nothing unless I toggle off and reload.
Anyway, that comment of mine wasn’t inspired by anything in this thread, really. It was an observation based on the title Jeff chose for this post. And anyway, if you’re thinking more clearly you are by definition not panicking — panic is a state in which the imperative to act far outruns the ability to think clearly at all.
Almost all of the single-vehicle fatalities in my neck of the woods result from the driver panicking and over-correcting whatever he did wrong to begin with, usually in a case where if he’d just let the first thing happen he wouldn’t have been killed. Badly hurt maybe, but still breathing when the ambulance arrived.
That was the point I meant to convey.
Conservative = Classical liberal values. Proudly.
Cleo –
We are “Conservatives” because YOUR lot are NOT liberal.
I’m a gun-owning red-meat hippie.
Only Texas waits until they have been born and committed a crime before it executes the Retarded…..
Fixed that for you.
Sounds like an interesting trip, I’m calling shotgun ;D
—
Sorry about your friend Jeff. hang in there and, should you decide not to go crazy, be assured you really do make a difference. I’ve got to agree with those who’ve opined that the press knows this is their last chance to remain relevent so they’re burning what little credibility remains to them in an all-out effort to elect Teh One. However, I also have a good deal of faith in the intelligence of our fellow citizens and I’ve got to think that a majority of them see this snake oil show for what it is. I’d like to think that after the election there will be many opportunities to fill the vacuum left by the dying MSM.
Of course, I could be wrong. That’s why I live in Wyoming and have a basement-full of food and ammo.
*high fives Swen*
The end of the world is not so intimidating if you can face it with fresh s’mores. Sooth.
Aren’t we all?
Back atcha! and did I mention I’ve overstocked the wine cellar? If the world should end there’s no point in facing it sober.
#159 McGehee:
Ah. I get what you say about TrollHammer. And there is the first eruption of ‘fight or flight’; but once that is done, I always recall thinking faster and clearer than I have ever done, especially if I hav ever thought about that sort of situation. It i like a hyper OODA – loop.
The first time I can recall it I was twelve and we were shooting downa trail near the lake and there was a turn to make or you dropped ten feet onto the cobbles at the lakeshore. I got there and as soon as I knew I wouldn’t make the turn down came my hands off the handlebars and onto the front of my bike seat, and I pushed myself off the back and let the bike go.
OODA.
We got the bike back up, and twisted everything back to where it was supposed to be, and went on. That was just a kid reacting, but it was the same thing – no screaming, just acting, and thinking as I went off the back of the bike ‘I hope it doesn’t bust up, because dad will be mad’, and I would be waiting to get it back together unless I opened my ‘piggy-bank’.
Blood would get you sympathy, but destruction of a bike without a scratch! Not Done.
Oh, hell yes.
Jeff,
I am reminded of the old chesnut;
“Three missionaries are awaiting entrance into Heaven and begin to talk. The first describes how he swayed a whole city into the ways of the Lord, the second claims he brought a whole nation into the Church, the third says nothing. The other two ask him ‘how many souls did you bring in and save?’ ‘One’ he replies.”
I know, teaches proper humility, etc. But I cannot help think that even if you despiar, Jeff, you can count to at least “one”. I have been trying to avert my eyes to what is going on back home. I told myself that I was doing my part for my country here on my third deployment, don’t ask anymore of me.
I am slow to move to anger, or involvement outside my immediate family and friends…but I am sitrring now. When I get back next month, I am going to get back into it again. “It” being whatever it takes to stop this nonsense – teaching, politics, whatever.
I can’t look down at the floor and ignore it anymore.
Jeff – The pen is mightier than the sword.
Your pen is mightier than many swords – many swords plus the GAY PORN COCK OF LIES!
Sometimes bread is cast on the waters, the return seems to take a bit longer for some than for others. Think about just how much bread – what a great body of work – that you’ve cast out there. A tsunami of goodness is coming back my friend.
[…] thank God. and Jeff. […]
Jimeny Xmas, don’t any of you know how to fight a war?
You win a war by cutting off the supply lines and controlling the source of money.
Very few Americans are born as ranting leftwing nut jobs. Most of them are recruited in campuses.
Those campuses, in return, depend on bequests, endowments, and wealthy alumni to support that recruitment.
Wanna make a change for the better? Start educating donors on what they’re really supporting. Show the donors how they’re underwriting Marxists who want to destroy them. Name names and encourage donors not to give.
That is the fastest and best way to shut down institution capture.
[…] PROTEIN WISDOM– “Professor Reynolds notes, as I too have been noting for some time now, that, on the […]
kate: “How very philosophical of you.”
*shrug*
Kate, philosophy is all well and good. But, betimes, practical matters must take precedence.
[…] Obama and media bias objectivity, an interest post over at Protein Wisdom, in which I despair. again. […]