Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Republicans will make a move to repeal ObamaCare, and Obama is going to make some wonderful, awesome speeches about how this is not the right way to go, that we have to keep the law in place because it’s going to make life easier for us any week now. You know, I don’t think I’ve felt as sorry for any White House speechwriter as the guy who’s going to put these together. The New York Times will love whatever it is, but…just wow. How would you even get started?
We need to be thinking and talking about extending the Bush tax cuts. The party-of-more-and-bigger-taxes is in charge of the White House and the Senate, but this one might actually go through if it’s timed right. Only a month and a half left to the year, you know.
People who say “got to raise taxes, the money won’t come from anywhere else” — I get that. Disagree with it, it strikes me as living life on a merry-go-round, but at least I understand. What I do not understand is people who are enthusiastic about this. What is this widespread, feverish, rock-star-like appeal of higher taxes?
It must be easier to be an atheist when you’re a vegetarian. Imagine how silly it would be, if we were surrounded by Tribbles who were made of marshmallow and chocolate with a yummy caramel center, to say “they’re just like that because they evolved that way.” To a meat-eater gnawing on chicken wings on a rainy Sunday morning, this is what atheists sound like. Cook the animal’s flesh over flame and it turns into a delicious snack, you’re saying that was not part of a design? It certainly isn’t survival-of-the-fittest to have yummy flesh on your bones that tastes good with a dry rub.
We need a “Barney Frank” law. I’ve been listening to the President drone on for years about “The Folks Who Caused This Mess in the First Place” — well, there he sits. And Massachussetts might like him just fine, but it seems to me the nation as a whole has an interest in preventing more screw-ups like Fannie & Freddie.
I also don’t get people who are upset at the Tea Party folks, saying even more Republicans would have been elected on Tuesday if the movement had less influence. So you like the name “Republican” but object to fiscal discipline, and the idea of the next generations being able to earn and keep money? What exactly is it you want to see happen? Is it just that eighteenth letter that enthralls and enthuses you?
If you voted for Barack Obama two years ago I really don’t know how you can claim to know who’s “qualified.” How could you possibly think you’ve got what it takes to see this in people? You’re probably an excellent reverse-divining-rod for who’s “qualified.”
Speaking of which, two years after we elected a President mostly because Katie Couric successfully smeared someone from the other side, it’s time to say it: Katie Couric stinks on ice at picking our presidents. She’s even worse at that than she is at her real job.
Cross-posted at Washington Rebel and Right Wing News.
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- Eight Little Thoughts I’m Having After the Elections | Washington Rebel | 11/07/2010 @ 10:42I don’t think I’ve felt as sorry for any White House speechwriter as the guy who’s going to put these together.
Don’t feel sorry, they get lots of practice.
- KG | 11/07/2010 @ 13:33I question that our pace of crises will not accelerate further to where deliberation is no option. Learned and experienced people who have long been ignored will no longer seem from the fringe and deemed impossible. They will not need to deliberate so much as explain and sell what they already know, to a public that may finally listen.
Bankruptcy judges do something of this for towns and cities, and the result is miraculous. Our situation is larger and more complicated, but not nearly so complicated as running the federal metastasis in the first place.
The rules for a successful society and government are simple, it is only that we have been led to distrust them.
- jamzw | 11/07/2010 @ 23:41“Katie Couric successfully smeared someone from the other side”
This is one meme that is patently laughable. Katie Couric’s “smear” amounts to nothing more than asking what Supreme Court case beyond Roe v. Wade that Palin disagreed with and what Newspapers Palin read, which Palin couldn’t answer or wouldn’t answer. If anything, Palin smeared herself. What gets me about this meme, especially coming from conservatives, is that it absolves Palin of ANY responsibility for her own words/actions and plays the victim card like Al Sharpton plays the race card. I ask you, Freeberg, where’s the smear? You claim it, but I want you to show me specifically where it is.
- huckupchuck | 11/08/2010 @ 07:10There is this Saturday Night Live skit from the summer of ’08 when Hillary and Obama were duking it out. The Hillary-like actor and the Obama-like actor were seated at a round table debate and the moderators asked Hillary “Let’s see who is more prepared to be President. Hillary Clinton, who is the United States ambassador to Botswanaland?” Miraculously, because of all her experience-and-what-not Hillary managed to nail half the answer, but botched the other half of the name. They condescendingly corrected her, articulated the full name, amid hoots and catcalls. Then went “Senator Obama, same question.” Obama, or course, got it all right.
If you replace Hillary with any old Republican, I find this to be an accurate portrayal of the way the media asks questions.
So you say it’s laughable that Palin was smeared Huck? I’ve been taking an informal survey of questions democrats are really asked, looking for the very toughest ones. I have yet to hear of any member of the liberal establishment being asked anything along the lines of a trivial-pursuit question…which GOP representatives are asked regularly. For the last six years, the toughest questions I’ve ever heard of any liberal being asked amount to “What do you have to say to people who…”, setting-em-up to deliver a pre-canned lecture they had all rehearsed and ready to go. Those are the toughest questions, the very, very toughest. For liberals.
Now when O’Donnell was asked what Supreme Court case she deplored and wasn’t able to deliver, Chris Coons The Bearded Marxist did manage to swoop in and offer a scathing sermon about Citizens United. Very impressive. But he didn’t wait to be asked the question.
Seriously, if the concern is genuine and it’s about people assuming office who aren’t prepared for it, the question ought to be for the candidate’s opponents: “Can you name on occasion on which, as Mayor of Wasilla or as Governor of Alaska, Palin pissed in her boot because she didn’t know what she was doing?” That would be the operative question if the concern was an honest one.
- mkfreeberg | 11/08/2010 @ 08:04As always with liberals, there’s a confusion between process and principle. Not surprisingly, when I clicked on Huck’s blog there’s a post about how liberals don’t mind when conservatives use welfare-state policies to their advantage, i.e. the same old tired anti-Tea Party talking point: “hey, they’re out there protesting stuff they themselves use! Wingnutz is teh stoopid!” Yep. And this is why all liberals voluntarily pay far, far more taxes than the IRS would normally assess…. but I digress.
Candidates for office must submit their qualifications to we the people. This is a foundational principle of democracy. We the people have a right to ask questions about those qualifications. To liberals, however, the process of questioning candidates is tedious and unnecessary, because “being a liberal” is the one and only qualification one needs for office — witness the actual liberal argument, made by actual professional liberals, that “running for president” was sufficient qualification in itself to actually be president, while the governorship of a large, economically significant state was insufficient to be vice-president, i.e. the dude that spends his days attending the funerals of foreign MPs and hanging out in an undisclosed location. That being the case, what else should the tiresome process of questioning be used for, other than to stroke the egos of the questioners by pointing out that conservatives are teh stoopid and liberals are teh awesome?
In reality, of course, NO president knows, or needs to know, the name of the ambassador to Botswana, or the details of Citizens United, or the price of rice in China — the office of the president (the one with the not-quite-as-cool official seal) has a huge staff which can put backgrounders together on all that stuff at a moment’s notice. A president needs to have a coherent philosophy and set of policy goals on things like Botswana and the Supreme Court and Sino-American trade relations. One would like to think that conservative candidates have these things, but we’ll never know, since their media appearances all turn into games Trivial Pursuit. Hell, I’d like to think that liberal candidates have these too, but again,we’ll never know, because their media appearances, as Morgan notes, all come in the form of “what do you say to all the mean awful hating haters who…” etc. etc. etc.
If Palin had nailed the question about newspapers, Couric would’ve challenged her to factor polynomials or build a working nuclear reactor right there on the set. Something, anything, to prove that Palin is Teh Stoopid, because as we all know, Palin is Teh Stoopid!
[PS “where, specifically, is the smear?” is my second favorite silly “there is no liberal media bias!” talking point. My first favorite, for the record, is “yeah, what with all that liberal media bias, it sure is amazing the Republicans manage to elect anyone at all!” This from the same people who howl about “Republican obstructionism”, 2008-2010.]
- Severian | 11/08/2010 @ 11:17Freeberg, how easily you forget. Don’t you remember that Couric interviewed Biden at the same time? And she asked Biden the exact same questions about the SCOTUS decision. She also asked him plenty of questions you might consider “trivial pursuit” style questions. Even still, it is not a “smear” to expose ignorance. Asking Palin what SCOTUS case other than Roe-V. Wade she disagreed with is not like asking who’s the Ambassador to Botswanaland. Knowledge of our institutions and their major impacts on our lives is something we should expect our Vice-Presidents to have some basic knowledge of, don’t you think? Do you think it was an unfair question? As for the Newspaper question, that’s not trivial pursuit at all, but rather a question that gets at Sarah’s curiosity about the world and the events in it. How is that an out of bounds question? Candidates of all parties are repeatedly asked what book they’ve read that has most influenced them. Such questions are not out of bounds at all. I just think you are being a bit defensive about a person and candidate you feel strongly about and whom you think is beseiged. I could say the same about Obama, who is constantly beseiged by conservative outlets for all kinds of things that are much more pernicious than his knowledge of SCOTUS decision or what Newspapers he reads.
The fact is that Sarah Palin alone was responsible not only for the content of her answer to the question, but also for the manner in which she responded. I don’t know how you can get around that fact. Now, you might think Sarah Palin was better than her performance at that moment, but her performance was cringe-worthy. And it had nothing to do with Couric. If Palin thought the question was nothing but “trivial pursuit,” then she could have said as much. But I don’t think any American would consider asking a candidate for the VP position a question about SCOTUS decision as “trivial,” which is why I think Palin felt compelled to try to respond to the question.
I’m not saying it’s laughable that Palin was smeared. That presumes that I agree she was smeared. Fact is, I dispute the entire premise that she was smeared. What is laugable is that you think she was smeared. It leads me to think that you are misunderstanding what it means to actually “smear” someone.
Severian – The SCOTUS question and the Newspaper questions — are they out of bounds in your opinion? What questions, then, are in bounds, especially if we want to get a sense of a candidate’s knowledge of a subject area or a glimpse into their intellectual curiosity?
- huckupchuck | 11/09/2010 @ 09:55Don’t you remember that Couric interviewed Biden at the same time? And she asked Biden the exact same questions about the SCOTUS decision. She also asked him plenty of questions you might consider “trivial pursuit” style questions.
You’re referring to this?
I’m not objecting to the idea that Palin handled that particular question badly…heck, I’m not objecting really to anything at all. Think whatever you want to think, for whatever reasons you want — it’s a free country.
What I do think is ripe for scrutiny, and is far overdue for it, is this notion that Palin’s credibility suffers some kind of mortal flesh wound when she handles a question badly…and when someone else puts out the same kind of performance it’s just an “oh well.” How many times would Biden have been over-and-done-with if his competence were assessed the same way? The “Three letters, J-O-B-S” alone would’ve done it. And let’s not even get started on Biden’s uh, er, ah, uh, um, uh, let me be clear make no mistake, uh, um, boss.
Ask a Palin hater when did they come to the conclusion that she’s “unqualified,” and nine times out of ten they’ll mention the Couric interview. Ask them why they think McCain lost, they’ll say it’s because Palin was unqualified. So in their world, Couric did pick our current administration…she’s a heroine for it…and hey, if you want to collect the mad props and high fives for being a kingmaker, you have to take the ownership and responsibility for the same thing. That’s only fair.
In this case, that’s going to have to mean accepting blame. Couric botched this thing. Nobody asked her to pick our leaders for us, and she sucks at it.
Fact is, I dispute the entire premise that she was smeared. What is laugable is that you think she was smeared. It leads me to think that you are misunderstanding what it means to actually “smear” someone.
Once it’s part of a prolonged campaign, especially one that continues a couple years after the real “campaign” is at an end…I must confess, my vocabulary is put to a test as I grasp for another word.
Maybe you can help me out. What’s a better word for this ongoing, prolonged, and might I add highly ineffective frenzied brain-dead obsessive-compulsive slander campaign against Palin? What would you call it? And what’s a better example, in your mind, of the word “smear”? I’d really like to know.
Think carefully on your answer and be prepared for judgment to be passed upon it.
- mkfreeberg | 11/09/2010 @ 11:37Huck,
no, I don’t think the SCOTUS and newspaper questions are out of bounds. As I said, examining candidates for their qualifications for office is a bedrock principle of democracy. You can ask candidates for their opinion on the designated hitter rule and the Critique of Pure Reason if you’ve a mind to. Bill Clinton was famously asked whether he wore boxers or briefs, for instance.
My complaint is twofold (and to be fair I didn’t make this as clear as I could). First, the ludicrous double standard applied to the candidates of different parties. The Palin interview you reference which started this whole thing is a bad example, since I think Palin actually did flub it rather badly. Republicans who agree to be interviewed by any network other than Fox have to know that they’ll be hit with questions like that; her preparation was piss poor. That question wasn’t a particularly hard one, by the standards routinely applied to conservatives. But there’s my point: conservatives get questions about jurisprudence; liberals get “boxers or briefs?”
My second complaint is related to the first: the persistent denial on the left that a double standard exists. For instance, you don’t think the SCOTUS question is quite a bit trickier for a sitting state governor than it is for a long-serving United States senator with a law degree? My opinion of Joe Biden’s intelligence couldn’t be lower, but even I would be shocked if a guy with a J.D. wasn’t able to bust out a few opinions about Supreme Court cases.
A better example of this, though, is your question to me: “What questions, then, are in bounds, especially if we want to get a sense of a candidate’s knowledge of a subject area or a glimpse into their intellectual curiosity?” Let me turn that one back on you. For instance, then-candidate Barack Obama published a positive review of one of William Ayers’ books. See here: http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=64. Are questions about this out of bounds? Apparently so, since we were told, often simultaneously, that Obama didn’t even know Ayers; he knew Ayers, but just as “some guy in the neighborhood;” Ayers wasn’t that bad anyway, and besides, he’d reformed; so what if Ayers had done some bad stuff, he was a passionate advocate for social justice; etc. etc. So far as I know, Obama never fielded a single Ayers-related question in any public forum. And note, please, that Ayers was never “just some guy” — he openly bragged about his involvement in the Weather Underground, and co-authored their manifesto: http://www.zombietime.com/prairie_fire/
Are these sufficient glimpses into Obama’s intellectual curiosity? If not, why not? And if so, why are questions about them out of bounds, as the media decided for us back in the 2008 campaign season? The fact remains that we know far more about how much Sarah Palin allegedly spent on dresses for the Republican National Convention than we do about Obama’s college career, his editorship of the Harvard Law Review (again, are these evidences of intellectual curiosity?), his teaching at Chicago, his activities as a community organizer, his associations during that time, and so forth. Moreover, I seem to recall questions hinting at any of these, posted on blogs or elsewhere, described as “smears” (and, of course, “racist”).
I would bet everything I own, everything I could borrow, and several internal organs that any Republican with an analogous record — or, more correctly, an analogous lack-of-record — would be grilled mercilessly about it at every opportunity. And rightly so. It never seems to work that way for the Democrats, though.
Just so we’re clear here: I am specifically advocating that the same questions be asked of candidates of both parties, word for word. Some of that will redound to the benefit of Democrats, no doubt — like I say, I’d expect that Joseph Biden, Esq., will have better answers to JD-type questions than Sarah Palin. But sometimes not. When word-for-word repetition would be impracticable — I don’t expect Biden to field technical questions about Alaska — I’m advocating that the same type of question be asked insofar as is practicable. As it stands, though, I know all sorts of juicy dirt about the Republicans, but very little about Democrats other than what kind of tree they’d be if they could be a tree….
- Severian | 11/09/2010 @ 11:38