House of Eratosthenes

One, and I have to kick it off with this: Candy Crowley and the false-fact-check. Gee, she “knew” that off the top of her head. And it’s not true. You realize what this means, right? It means CNN, and likely most of the entire mainstream news “industry,” is just a giant Journolist. A huge never-ending circle-jerk of conspiracy about how to lie to us most convincingly, every day. In fact, the Journolist scandal was just the tip of the iceberg, a big nuthin’.

Candy herself admits this is wrong. So, lefties, let’s quit arguing about it:

Two: There is “This proves that other guy is rotten and stupid and evil and nasty,” and then there is “If I were ever on his side, this is where I’d be jumping off the wagon.” I think this is where I’d be jumping off the wagon, were I ever in Obama’s corner in the first place. Taking note of another’s personal success is a personal insult now? How can you live in the same country as me, when you don’t even live in the same universe?

Three: From one of our own occasional comment thread participants, Tracy Coyle: “I thought it interesting that Obama said federal officials should not be telling people about their health choices but federal officials should tell health care insurance providers what they MUST give to their beneficiaries.”

Four: We now have a solid pattern, playing out over a mere five days, of Obama/Biden administration members saying things that are easily proven false and trying to smuggle the bullshit under the radar by means of forceful and bombastic expression of the bullshit.

Like Severian said:

It’s not even the lies, per se — I play poker; I appreciate the strategic value in a well-deployed lie. It’s the apparent belief in the lies. The doublethink, whatever you want to call it. It hurts my brain too much. I can only stay on my high horse so long about how X is categorically bad, full stop, any attempt to imagine a situation in which X isn’t bad makes you the worst person in the world… except when my guy gets caught doing X, in which case it’s not a tactical maneuver, a lie, or even good ol’ fashioned hypocrisy, but a categorical good, and questioning that makes you the worst person in the world.

That shit gives me a migraine.

Five: American politics have been invaded by an “incubus” of thought which redefines positive and capable things like “dignity,” “strength” and “power” according to the stature achieved when someone is given material things at the expense of strangers. We’ve got a lot of people walking around among us who appear to think this is what “dignity” is all about: Give me free stuff. I call it an “incubus” because it has apparently raped the legacy feminist movement and sired a bastard child, which is the newer feminst movement, combining the give-me-free-stuff with the older feminist visions. Back in the early 1970’s the message was “we are strong and don’t mess with us,” nowadays it is “we are strong, don’t mess with us, and we can’t make our way in life without you giving us things for free.” I made this point over at Margot’s feminist blog, before the debate, pointing out that this does not inspire respect for women and is not helpful. Subsequent to that, I asked for a demonstration of Mitt Romney being anti-woman. Someone demonstrated they must not have paid any attention to my earlier comment, because they replied with an Obama campaign “Life of Julia” link, thereby proving my earlier point.

Meanwhile, real dignity and power don’t have much to do with receiving stolen property after making a passionate tearjerker case that you can’t survive without it. That would be, where I come from, the opposite of real dignity, and the opposite of real power as well.

Six: Regarding the lady who couldn’t remember about “education” until she fished a piece of paper out of her pocket. If I never see a debate again, in which the candidates are asked essentially “What are you going to do to erase the challenges in my life?”…it will be too soon. “What are you going to do to get the government out of my way?” — yes. “What are you going to do to get everything else out of my way?” — no.

Seven: I don’t want to see the candidates answer those questions again either. If one or the other were to deliver a polite but vicious Newt-Gingrich type of smackdown, waxing lyrically with a speech about how that isn’t the government’s role and it not an enumerated power in the Constitution, it would be very refreshing at this point. But I suppose that’s hoping for too much.

Eight: Also to be filed under “Were I in His corner, I’d be jumping off the bandwagon right now”: The Barack Obama I saw last night seems quite satisfied with the status quo, seems to think the way things are going is exactly the way it all should be going. I suppose that’s what incumbents are supposed to do. But I thought they were also supposed to come up with a reason why what we’re experiencing, is not necessarily representative of where their leadership is about to take us in the years ahead. The Bush administration talking about “Nine eleven changed everything,” ad nauseum…Obama did none of this. Even when He started fake-taking-responsibility for Hillary Clinton’s fake-taking-responsibility. It’s as if His fine speechmaking is supposed to change our opinion about the way things should be, even to such an extent that having our embassy invaded is suddenly a good thing. This is the real disadvantage of having a Medicine Man in the White House: All His political objectives can be easily met by means of His magical hypnotic powers. Every bungle is followed up by, essentially, “I meant to do that.”

Not falling under the spell here. What a strange way to announce You’re not running for re-election, President Obama.

Nine: Eighteen percent. That’s how much less the female employees in the White House are paid compared to the males.

Ten: A democrat president talking about how to grow the economy is like Wiley Coyote coming up with ideas on how the Roadrunner can go faster. How does your side go about presenting itself as a savior of the economy, when it sees the accumulation of personal wealth as a bad thing? On this, I go back to an observation I’ve made before, that we seem to be arguing on how to improve “the economy” without first coming to some sort of agreement on what exactly it is that term is supposed to describe. I don’t think we agree on this. I think our friends the liberals are describing something different with that term.

Eleven: There is the matter of time. All three debates have maintained an enduring trend in which “moderators” show great enthusiasm in cutting off the Republican with some kind of “that’s enough of that, we’ve gotta move on,” and in the aftermath, the democrat candidate and the left-leaning viewers show no small amount of certainty, and some resentment, that the dem candidate didn’t have as much time to speak when the final stopwatch readings show this is not the case. Of course it always feels like your guy is getting shorted, and feeling is how liberals make their decisions in life. If they measured things objectively and allowed the measurements to overrule their feelings, they wouldn’t be liberals.

Twelve: Can we ditch this whole debate format? Sitting on a high seat, with your feet six inches off the ground, knees splayed outward with your crotch dangling before the audience, it’s as unstatesmanlike as you can get. And it looks just stupid. The only fitting occasion on which people should be sitting this way, is when they grab some liquid refreshments at the bar while waiting for the hostess to find them a table. When there’s no room to stand at the bar. I don’t want the next leader of the free world to be chosen this way. It seems like such a reasonable request. The whole debate process in general is questionable, but this “town hall” thing with the candidates balancing themselves precariously atop high pub chairs is particularly dumb.

[…] Classic Feminism’s Bastard Child About the Debate Last Night “Stadium Goes Crazy When Soldier Reunites With Family” “Biden Without the […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/17/2012 @ 08:27
Amen to every inch of this post.
Especially this:

“If I never see a debate again, in which the candidates are asked essentially “What are you going to do to erase the challenges in my life?”…it will be too soon. “What are you going to do to get the government out of my way?” — yes. “
- tgoon | 10/17/2012 @ 08:38
Not only was Crowley busted last night, she apparently forgot that the Internet is forever.
- Physics Geek | 10/17/2012 @ 09:40
Well said.
- bpenni | 10/17/2012 @ 12:06

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About the Debate Last NightWednesday, October 17th, 2012

About the Debate Last Night
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012