Just Another Example: Palin the Manipulative Rhetoric King

A post from earlier today suggested that Sarah Palin:

...is not well informed, to say the least; is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven; has a fanastic gift for rhetoric; and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at it, in terms of convincing herself, and many others.

Almost all of these qualities is on display in this article in Politico, as Palin plays the Obama doesn't like or respect our troops card. It almost completely misstates Obama's positions and communications, and is otherwise also complete horsesh*t.

(Note that the phrase "obviously," was not put in front of the phrase "complete horsesh*t," because if it was that obvious, the media and others would not continue to pay attention to this person who is so caught up in her strangely twisted view of the world that she probably wouldn't recognize an objective fact if it jumped up and bit her in the nose.)

But it is a view that has a lot of appeal.  The sort of high rhetoric appeal that extreme authoritarian states tend to take, where the lack of constant national chauvenistic sentiment is taken as a sign of weakness or insult.  (See Fox news, for example, where "apparently they think the art of diplomacy is to get other countries to hate us for no good reason, and to pass up sensible opportunities to build rapore and communication with no attendant loss to our own interests or goals.")

Here, Palin madly spins the latter, very likely without ever even realizing she is doing so:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.

“There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”

“They’re making sacrifices,” said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. “They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”

Last year, Republican columnist Kathleeen Parker wrote that "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

And Palin just added a bunch more dollars to the till with her typical, ill informed and wildly misleading exploitation of troop politics.

The Politico article also notes that Palin "urged Obama to adopt the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal by adding 40,000 U.S. troops to the conflict in Afghanistan."

Which is good. Because Palin is such an expert on Afghanistan:

During the Vice Presidential Debate last Autumn, Palin claimed that “Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.“ Later, because of this, she called him “unfit to lead."

Here Palin lied to the American people about what Obama had stated, and was either outright pathological about what was going on in Afghanistan;, or, more likely, had nary a clue. Obama’s point wasn't, what Palin told the American people it was — that we were essentially in Afghanistan to kill civilians, but that our over reliance upon air raids was resulting in too many collateral casualties. This was not morally acceptable, nor strategically sound.

Back in mid August, 2007, when Obama had made the point that Palin looked straight into the eyes of America, and called “reckless, reckless, and untrue,” not only were too many civilians being killed by collateral damage, but more civilians were being killed unintentionally by U.S. forces collaterally, than were being killed by insurgents.

Nor was this a big secret (except, of course, perhaps to ex-Alaskan Governors who despite having a glib and adept rhetorical tongue, could not name a single source (see minute 3:30) of news and information that they read).

Eight days prior to Obama’s statement, Foreign Service Correspondent Pamela Constable had even reported on the Washington Post's Sunday front page that “a mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids… have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces, and further strained [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai’s credibility.”

Just not in Palin's world, where this reality does not exist, and all those innocent civilians dying must be like a fairy tale that we tell children; like the abominable snowman or something.

What makes Palin's profoundly ignorant assessment on Afghanistan even more mind blowing -- and mindblowing that Politico is giving Palin's "opinion" on what we should do with respect to the vexing Afghanistan challenge right now to the American people as if she is some sort of expert -- is that a month before the vice presidential debate "reckless, reckless,and untrue" Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized for the numerous civilian casualties in Afghanistan — the same casualties that according to Afghanistan expert Sarah Palin, were not occurring. And the day before that, Senior Afghanistan Commander David McKiernan (whom Palin identified in the debate as "McClellan") noted that an over reliance upon air power, due to a shortage in troop levels, was responsible for the rise in civilian casualties — the same civilian casualties that according to “Wasilla main street reality” Palin, were not occurring.

But now today America should listen to Palin's opinion on Afghanistan, because she is "popular;" and while she gratuitously and manipulatively proselytizes on America's troops, at that -- using them as pawns in her carefully crafted, seemingly subtle, yet wildly misleading, highly charged and emotionally manipulative attacks upon our current Commander in Chief.

Vintage Palin (for more on the blogger in the clip shown, see the recent post referred to at the outset). If BS were currency, she could bail out Wall Street herself. And our media just keeps putting her in the spotlight. And she just keeps getting away with it.

The Delusion of Rhetoric

Here is an example of the type of radically illogical "logic" that the far right wing (and very popular) Ann Althouse engages in. 

Here is another example on a substantive topic which Althouse, as a law professor, should be able to reasonably assess, where Althouse can't even correctly read the Washington Post article that she relies upon, much less assess the situation correctly. (Note, Althouse's Post was considerably altered, and shortened, after this critique of it went up; we are sure coincidentally.) Here Althouse asserts that Barack Obama called the Cambridge police stupid.  Obama did not. He said the police (clearly referring to the arresting officers) acted stupidly. This might seem like a minor miscue, but for a law professor it is anything but. 

Here, on Monday, is an example of a new form of game playing that passes for commentary these days.

Among some of the less radically far right comments to this highly manipulative post, are the following

1.  "I think people are starting to 'get' Ann. One person said she is masterful in picking out holes in arguments, and provoking others to lose it when they become frustrated in not being able to defend their positions."

Actually, Althouse is masterful at manipulating the issue from an ideological perspective, without having to bother with facts, or plain, objective non partisan reason, that cuts against it.This is what makes her wildly popular, among those with potentially similar ideological bent (just as it does Sarah Palin.)

2.   "Ann's a tease of sorts. She knows how to phrase things in such a manner as to call into question someone else's motives and actions in an enticing manner."
.
Actually, Althouse knows how to phrase things in such a manner so as to turn inside out, and outside in.

Consider what she does in this very same post.

In an earlier post, which famous blogger Andrew Sullivan noted here, Althouse took one of the weaker examples of Sarah Palin "lies" by Sullivan -- Palin's claim that the "only" flag that she has in her office is the Israeli flag -- and jumped all over it.

It was a pretty weak example of a lie.  But consider the logic that Althouse uses to address it:

What's odd is his definition of a lie. If I said I was just wearing jeans to a party, you wouldn't have exposed me as a liar if I turned up wearing a shirt and shoes as well. In fact, you'd sound like a dork — or, with good enough delivery, a comedian — if you said, "You liar. You said you were just wearing jeans!"

Except for one very big thing.  "Just wearing jeans" in terms of "going out" attire refers to the outfit, not just the jeans, and everyone knows this. Just as the statement that "I am going over" X's house does not mean that one is literally flying over X's house,and everyone knows this.

The statement "the only flag I have in my office" has no such connotation, whatsoever.  None.

Althouse is a law professor, and yet, apparently, could not see this distinction.  Or chose not to.

But then notice how Althouse failed to respond to Sullivan's point, which was to "debunk" what she bitterly complained of. Instead, she fantasized about just such a list of "lies" by Obama; but of course did not produce one.  And if and when Althouse does -- though it is likely this won't happen -- one can be certain it will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations. (And in the event Althouse does produce such a list, this statement that it "will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations" will be referred back to for support. One might wonder how this can be so comfortably predicted. Easy: it is the largely unwitting modus operandus of those who are patently driven by intense ideology.  Also, to believe that Palin and Obama engage in disseminating falsity on anywhere near the same level, or even in the same ball park, is either to be driven by such blind ideology, or to know very little of the facts of which Palin speaks.)

Should Sullivan be calling Palin clinically delusional? No, but then that's not the point of Althouse's post, either. 

What Sullivan may not get here is that people are partisanally driven -- the more ideologically so, the more they tend to filter facts to suit their own beliefs. Althouse is a far more educated version of this. Palin is not well informed, to say the least, is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven, has a fanastic gift for rhetoric, and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things, while grasping (albeit often in wildly distorted fashion) a few underlying fundamental truths, or half truths. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at this, in terms of convincing herself, and many others. 

Glenn Beck is clinically delusional.  Palin is not. And Sullivan should probably stay away from pop psychology.

Althouse, in the meantime, should follow her own fairly ironic statement in this same Post on Sullivan that she is "into pursuing the truth."  If she was, she would be a bit more concerned about why a good portion of the country is widly supportive of a women that knows very little about America and is often wildly misleading, rather than concerning herself with word and manipulative game playing over Republican Sullivan's list giving: And thus into finding out the truth or fiction of such assertions (and many other misrepresentations by Palin that Sullivan missed), rather than simply fantasizing the same over her professed deeply ingrained political enemy, Barack Obama.

But Perhaps Althouse is somewhat of a closet Palin supporter herself. After all, a careful read of her wildly popular blog aptly illustrates that with a gift for logical twisting in support of ideology, she is not all that different from her.

National Review's the Corner Out of Touch with Reality on Context

This post provides a pretty apt illustration of the types of mental and logical contortions that are engaged in by the pursuit of "fact" to fit pre conceived ideological purpose, rather than the purpose of fact in order to determine rational direction and response.

Yesterday, Johan Goldberg at the Corner blog at National Review Online suggests the following, regarding "climategate" 2009:

If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.

Really?

Well, no.

Instapundit Sources: When Facts Get in the Way, Make up Opposite Ones

Insta BS is all gleeful (and yesterday alone had no less than six other posts) about the largely irrelevant "climategate" scandal, that showed some old data was potentially compromised to support a determined position.

Jeez, where have we heard that before. It's only happened thousands of times with respect to climate change data by anti climate interests. But does a single instance of the latter prove that climate change therefore is as Al Gore claims? 

Of course not.  Nor is the fact of some old perhaps manipulated data scrunching by some concerned climate scientists very relevant to the opposite; that is, it has no bearing on the actual issue and the science and facts underlying it. 

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how?  By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect.

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer.  Graphs here. 

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years.  And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.  

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun.  Heat drives climate.  Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But none of that matters in the world of predetermined ideology.  Even though some scientists who acted improperly a while back really has almost no relevance to the scientific issue, data or question and challenge at hand.  As Reuters noted two days ago:

The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science,” said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington. “This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones.”

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, said the release of the e-mails will be remembered mostly as as embarrassment to the researchers.

“It shows that the process of science is not always pristine,” said Leiserowitz. “But there’s no smoking gun in the e-mails from what I’ve seen.”

Leiserowitz, who is a social scientist, said the e-mails would provide fodder for the 2 to 3 percent of the general public that are hard-core climate change doubters. “For that small group it is like meat to the wolves.”

No doubt.

Strange Freudian Slip on Pox News?

Courtesy of here:

At about 10:57 [EST] during a piece about NASA auctioning off some surplus equipment, ["Fox News"]Miami correspondent Phil Keating mistakenly referred to an Airstream camper van as an "Astroglide."

Here is a dodge Airstream camper van.

Here is what Astroglide is.

See the difference? 

One glides down the road. The other glides, um.....  

Palin's Not What?

Yes, there is some nice end of world action footage, and a half clever SNL Spoof of this and Palin; but catch the assertion here that "Palin is not really a political figure."

She just ran for Vice President. She was just governor of a State. She is constantly talked about in mainstream media political discussions. She is considered one of a handful of frontrunners of the GOP Political Party. She addresses policy and political issues publicly. She just wrote a book which is about her and politics.

But she's "not really a political figure." Of course not.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pox "News" -- Finally Someone Gets It

November 19, Jeff Bercovici, the Daily Finance:

Every news organization makes mistakes. But when Fox News makes mistakes, they seem to tilt in a suspiciously consistent direction, favoring Republicans and conservatives over Democrats and liberals.

No doubt.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what Fox engages in.

Even so, this pattern of ideologically-slanted errors illustrates the danger of packaging a news operation around a core of opinion programming. As long as Fox News is a network by and for conservatives, the people who produce its shows -- even its "objective" shows -- are going to see in the news what they expect to see rather than what it really is.

What happens is that Fox tends to present those things which those with a certain predisposed idea, or "belief" would want presented as news, and it tends to present them in the way that those with a certain predisposed idea or "belief" would want them presented. By reaffirming what one wants to think, that same audience actually views Fox as "fair and balanced" because it helps present to them their own world view, or the one that they think that they want to have. By posing as a "News" station, rather than as outright advocacy, Fox is far more effective in this regard than if it were openly an advocacy channel, because its viewers are led to believe that it is really a news organization giving them "all sides" and relevant facts, and letting viewers come to their own conclusions, when it is constantly manipulating them by presenting advocacy couched as "news."

As if this were not enough, many of Fox's major stalwarts almost constantly engage in misleading and erroneous information, to further this same end.

Sarcasm on Bush - More Insta BS

More manipulation and ideologically driven blindness from the highly influential and widely read "Insta BS" site -- more formally known as Instapundit.

Facing the reality of the Bush Administration's misunderstanding of the issues, and the facts, would require heavily ideologically driven sites like Instapundit to reconsider their own belief driven orientation. Or at least consider the possibility that belief is helping to shape interpretation of the facts, more so than the idea that facts are helping to shape belief.

One easy way to ignore the realities of the Bush Administration's heavily authoritarian, overly secretive, fiscally reckless, globally myopic and misfocused, constitutionally impinging, corporate favoring, environmentally destructive tenure is to mock the claim to any ties between the conditions that we face today, and the approaches and policies of the Bush Administration for most of this decade.

Thus today we see this little sardonic gem from Instapundit:

November 19, 2009

I BLAME THE FAILED POLICIES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Kellogg Co. warns of nationwide Eggo shortage.
Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 10:20 am

For the record, the "Eggo" Shortage is due to "interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them." One plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a n...historic amounts of rain in the area. At another plant, its largest, several production lines are closed down for repairs.

Perhaps Reynold's creepy sarcasm is based on the idea that bad storms played a role;one of the things that leading scientists have been saying for over two decades is that increasing the concentration of heat trapping molecules in the atmosphere will lead to more volatile weather patterns; and of course, the Bush Administration, as well as Congress while it was in office, largely ignored the issue of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Or perhaps it is based on pure air. 

Either way, it evinces an unwillingness to look objectively at facts which conflict with a predetermined, and largely ideological mindset. And one of the best ways to do this is to find ways to mock what in fact needs to be looked at, and see in others the very practices that are being engaged in by oneself.

As an example of the latter, Glenn Reynold's on Instapundit also put up this extraordinary, and rather ironic, post:

DAVID HARSANYI ON SARAH PALIN: “All you haters out there force me to root for her.” “The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to non-existent congressional districts — which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.”

Apart from capturing the over reliance upon crude and misleading stereotpyes, and one or two other points, Harsanyi's article in the Denver Post is sheer idiocy, from the very beginning, to the very end.  It is no wonder that Instapundit linked to it.

As for the "impelled" to write about Palin point, instapundit is promoting a Denver Post column which actually makes the argument that because Andrew Sullivan, who is not "CNN" but a blogger, chooses to write about Palin rather than a stimulus funding accouting snafu, must be unable to see things right in front of his nose.

This is a specious stretch, to say the least. And it was promoted by non other than a law professsor. (But then here's an even stronger example of Instapundit's law professor logic.)

So by this line of  reasoning one could bring up the many hundreds of key stories that famous blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit chooses not to write on each day, and thus argue this shows that Reynold's can not see what is in front of his nose, every day, hour after hour after hour? After all, we are not talking about one story here, but a constant stream of them, completely missed, by Instapundit. Every day. And Instapundit has dozens of little posts, so it does act more like a news source, than the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who is a true blogger in the sense that he writes columns, and covers more limited, select topics, rather than the scattershot approach that Instapundit takes. And still Instapundit puts up almost nothing on this site which cuts against its excessive ideological orientation. 

(With respect to the second part of this extraordinary post by Instanpundit, a reference to Megan McArdle writing yesterday in the Atlantic on this same general topic, see here.)

Sure We Can Condemn It While Supporting It

A Column in the National Review Online a few months ago called the claim that Obama was not an American citizen (the "birther" argument) "lunacy," and then proceeded nevertheless to spend most of the rest of that column supporting the legitimacy of that very same "lunacy" claim. 

Here is Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic, yesterday: 

Y’all well know that I really don’t like Sarah Palin. In fact, more than one of you has yelled at me about this. And I find the whole schtick about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her really grating. That’s why I really wish the media wouldn’t act like, well, a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her.

In other words, it is ridiculous to hear about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her, but the media, is, well, really just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her. Or, in McArdle's (weak) defense, only "act" like it.

The rest of McArdle's piece, very one sidedly, also omits a great deal of highly pertinent information. 

It's Goal is to "Mislead Citizens of West Virginia into Supporting its Outrageously Destructive Product"

We are clearly at the time where it simply does not make sense to proceed forward with fossil fuel reliance. The only real issue is how best to switch over our energy sources while maximizing overall economic growth by virtue of the industry and services attendant to new energy source development and implementation.

But those addicted to coal -- namely, the far right wing who see doing anything sensible wit respect to the environment or otherwise trying to lessen our destructive tendencies, as "meddling" and of course the coal industry itself, can't yet seem to see this glaringly lopsided, non partisan, non ideologically based reality.

And so they fight it, tooth and nail.

The latest comes from the "Friends of Coal," whose mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens  about the coal industry."  In the sometimes ideologically driven, and occassionally exaggerated or dismissive, but otherwise extraordinarily well researched and highly informative blog Climate Progress.org, physicist Joe Romm writes about how Friends of Coal is selling coal to children. 

Kind of trying to inspire them to make a pact with the devil early on, so to speak, while they are young and impressionable?

And why not. "Coal is cheap,"as it tells them, and coal "puts people to work," as it tells them (as does cleaning up disasters, but that point is unmentioned). And it tells them in user friendly fun filled coloring books, too!

Why not indoctrinate kids on the beauty of coal. After all, it's not like we are greatly increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which trap heat, or that heat drives climate, or that this is largely a result of fossil fuel use, or that mining coal often destroys entire mountain tops, poisons watersheds and often entire mini ecosystems, or that the burning of coal itself gives off a wonderful laundy list of other airborne pollutants (including being predominantly responsible for mercury toxicity in consumers of large game fish like tuna, shark, halibut and swordfish).

It's not like any of that stuff is true, so why not let Friends of Coal indoctrinate our kids on how great coal is!

Maybe next year friends of lead can sponsor children related school functions, scholarships, events (all of which Friends of Coal has done) and distribute coloring books showing kids how wonderful lead is. "Lead is cheap. Lead is heavy. This makes great fishing sinkers. Lead is our friend!" Maybe the year after that, we can start with Arsenic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we "need coal." Like we need a rotten tooth in order to eat, as opposed to building a replacement tooth or otherwise fixing it.

We need energy. Energy is all around us. By continuing to foolishly rely upon coal, we only undermine the necessary market motivations needed to move us productively into the development and implementation of job generating -- but not profoundly polluting, environmentaly destructive, or flat out dumb -- cleaner energy sources.

Instapundit Will Just Throw Anything Out There, no Matter How Absurdly Inconsistent

Here is a post today by the famous site Instapundit (aka, "InstaBS"), noting how Democrats have already stopped supporting the Obama Administration. 

Earlier in the day, In yet another post, Instapundit linked to this piece, noting it was now politically safe to criticize the President.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that his famous blog just criticized the Administration by pointing out how the administration is being criticized by Democrats, less than an hour later Instapundit links to this, as follows:

THOMAS SOWELL: Dismantling America, Part II. “This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.”

The dismantling of America that he quotes as "too serious for squeamish silence"? The outlandishly hypocritical contention that Obama Administration supporters don't let anyone criticize it. Directly contradicting the two earlier attacks on the Obama Administration.

Any attack, any claim, will work by the far right to throw out there. If it's anti the Obama administration, that's good enough, even if it directly contradicts an attack that the same far right indulgent just threw out there against the Obama Administration a half hour earlier.

Repeat:  The issue of not being allowed to criticize the administration is "too serious for squeamish silence." While on the other hand, quite unlike the Bush Administration situation, many supporters of the Obama Administration now not only don't suport it, but criticize, and it is also now "politically safe," to criticize the Obama Administration.

But that's okay. The issue of not being able to criticize the administration, and so few doing so, is "too serious for squeamish silence."

And those on the far right who criticize the administration, and who are responded to in terms far less divisive or insulting, view those responses as "stifling dissent;" but yet coincidentally enough, don't view their own, often more egregious, divisive, emotionally pandering, and often highly derogatory misrepresentations similarly. 

The far right --of which the ideologically driven and almost entirely subjective, and overly influential Instapundit site is a classic example-- is driven by a fierce, almost religiously partisan antipathy toward Obama, and any valid concerns (such as those that might be shared by supporters even) is only icing on the cake of self righteousnes that propels forward such blind hypocrisy as this:

It's ironic; propelled on by a few Liberals who foolishly fell into the trap and thought they were doing something productive by stating how they "hated Bush," almost no one could make a point against the Bush Administration for the better part of this decade, without being accused of simple hyper partisan ideology and/or just hatred of  Bush himself -- when in most instances, it simply wasn't true. But it was a way to avoid the substance of the points made about and against the Bush Administration.

Now almost blind attacks upon the Obama Administration, clinging to shards of evidence that could have been applied several fold over to the prior administration that the far right supported, similarly serve as a way to avoid the substance of points made that are inconvenient to objectively consider if one desires (whether realizing it or not) to cling to a fairly hyper ideological perspective.
As noted here, this is how the far right perpetuates its belief.

More Far Right Wing Projection -- "Real Clear Politics" Dismantling of Objectivity

Yesterday, in a "Real, Clear, Politics" piece ominously entitled "Dismantling of America, Part II," Thomas Sowell wrote:

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Even though the criminality has nothing to do with the Obama Administration, notice how Sowell reflects back on an earlier episode as a professor in academia, finishing up with that key word/concept that lingers in the mind, leading right into his "expose" of blind Obama administration loyalty. Making that subtle but not directly expressed connection.

It is what the far right does, subtly, over, and over, and over, and over.

But notice what else Sowell does here. He makes a decent enough point -- that is is fair to question the Obama Administration even if one was, or still is, an Obama Administration supporter. But he misses two things, which would make this piece rather humorous, if it were not going to be read by a lot of people shaking their head up and down in agreed outrage, and linked to by one of the most popular blogs in America in "serious" support of Sowell's "point."

And those two things are:

1) There are plenty of people who question the Obama administration, who voted for it,and even who still support it.  Less than one year in.

2) Several years into the Bush Administration, almost no one who voted for it still ever questioned it, and dismissed anything anybody ever said in opposition or disagrement with it as indignations of bad faith, or hatred. Almost constantly. Far more than we see from automatic Obama supporters today. And the Bush Administration, contrary to the constant propaganda by the far right's "news" advocacy station of choice, was not moderate, at all.  The Obama administration, overall, is. 

But once again, the far right sees beautifully in others what it can not see in itself, even though it is but a fraction elsewhere of the pattern that the far right, throught most of the Bush Administration, engaged in constantly.

It's called projection. And to the far right, it is as natural as swimming is to fish.

It is what they do, to perpetuate their beliefs.

Is Senator MItch McConnell Saying that Most Americans are Idiots?

Probably not, because not impugning voters is something that Republicans (and in particular the far right, from which framework McConnell emanates) tend to be much better at than Democrats. Still, Either he is saying this (unlikely), or he is being misleading or illogical (take your pick).

Mitch McConnell:

I think it is perfectly clear that most Americans will treat the vote to get on the bill as a vote on the substance of the bill. So our view is that cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill is a vote to endorse a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in new taxes, and higher insurance -- health insurance premiums for everyone else.

Putting aside McConnell's highly questionable framing of the health care bill, a vote to avoid a filibuster is not a vote in favor of Health Care. These are two entirely separate things. McConnell says most Americans -- perhaps taking their cues from him? -- will, falsely, view them the same.

Rasmussen Reports and Instapundit Both Mislead

Here is the entire Glenn Reynolds post:

POLL: 44% Favor Health Care Reform, 50% Oppose.

In Reynold's defense, he probably did not have time to read the piece. (We have noted this tendency before, particularly in support of the often highly illogical and wildly skewed Althouse site -- see the bottom of this piece here).

What was Rasmussen Reports' excuse? (See the headline to its piece).

Here is what the poll actually concluded:

Forty-four percent (44%) of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. ...The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% are opposed to the plan.

Putting aside whether the poll is accurate or not, is this "minor" technicality. Let's try not to put too fine a point on it, and then simultaneously ask how it is that famed law professor and blogger Reynolds did not get this (assuming the read it, which of course then begs the question as to why one of the most popular blogs in America relies in full for its posts upon pieces it does not read) and Rasmussen Reports not get this?

Namely: Support of health care reform, and support of the current health care reform "plan," are not the same thing.

Manipulative Trash to Reach a Pre-Desired End Result Will Attract Readers

The Althouse blog is pure, unadulterated, far right wing bias that often turns logic into sauerkraut. It is often linked to by Instapundit (aka, InstaBS), which alerted us to this little fact:

Althouse is the third most visited law professor blog, in America. (Or at least of those with publicly available site meters).

Here are just a few examples of how logically and politically skewed the Althouse blog is, and yet for the last 30 day period measured, there were over 13 million page views.

That's an awful lot of people being mislead.

Yeah, It's the Media that Harms Limbaugh, Not his Constant Falsities and Misrepresentations

Rush Limbaugh never said anything racist? His comments about Donovan McNabb were not at all racist, just good old common sense? Maybe not racist, but they were not very sensible, either. The fact is, plenty of black quarterbacks have been hammered by the media. And the reason McNabb has not been quite as hammered, is probably because he is extremely polite, and has been hammered by the Philly fans, ever since he was first introduced as the Eagles top draft choice. And he's also not on an elite level, but he's a pretty good quarterback, and always has been. (The media must constantly hammer onetime superstar Terrell Owens, nearly beyond belief, because "he's black and they want him to fail"?)

One from the vault -- another -- how do we put this nicely?? um, "genius" (yeah, that'll work), who doesn't seem to know jack squat about football but cites off a bunch of stats that he knows nothing about, to prove that Limbaugh was right that McNabb is just a bad quarterback and the media loves him because he is black!

Mathias Kawinuka is among those NFL players who say they would not play for the Rams if Limbaugh became an owner.

Limbaugh has a right to try and buy a team, and NFL players have the right to voice their opinions. Frankly, given the many extreme, often bigoted and even more often, wildly inaccurate comments that Limbaugh has made -- and not the ones allegedly discredited in this post linked above, and not to mention his miserable and short lived ESPN experience -- this seems like a rather well reasoned position.

What Limbaugh does, and apparently Ed Driscoll and InstaBS miss this, is that he makes something up that is wildly off the mark -- sometimes a hypothetical, sometimes declared as fact, and the bases almost his entire argument off of it.

One usually does not need to listen to Limbaugh for more than few minutes, often only a few seconds, before he does this. But to a far right audience, led by belief, this slips right on by. But then, this blog has documented other examples where things that might mess up a rigidly partisan, and often far right, orientation, slip right on by InstaBS.

Here is a clip of Limbaugh's rather ridiculous statement that "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up, with the black kids cheering." (The particular statement that Mathias Kiwanuka, noted above, wasn't all that down with).

But that's not the really problematic statement; at least it's kind of funny, if in poor taste and likely racist. The real problem statement, the one that routinely gets missed, and the types of statements that Limbaugh utters constantly in order to pull the BS that he pulls and have it go right by so many otherwise well meaning folk, is about 17 seconds in:

Everyone is saying, oh, the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he is
white.

No, everyone is not saying this. And in fact, most people are not. And anybody who is, is pretty out there. But then Limbaugh, in his very next statement, utters another falsity, in "support" of his prior inanity:

Newsweek magazine told us this.

In fact, if one listens carefully to what Limbaugh then says next, with respect to what Newsweek magazine said (exaggerating even that part as well), Newsweek magazine did not say anything of the sort.

But then, those that listen to Limbaugh, don't seem to listen too carefully.

All of this is in the first 25 seconds. And it is routine for Limbaugh: If the Olympics were for BS, rather than, say, sports, all Americans could once again be proud of Rush, as he would assuredly shatter Michael Phelps record of eight golds in one year.

Pull out any tape of any show, and this is what Limbaugh does, constantly. It is a disgrace to logic, and fact. But his audience does not want to be shown this; it's easier to just point fingers at those who "criticize" Limbaugh. But the fact is, Limbaugh is not really being "criticized;" it is simply being pointed out that Limbaugh is one of the most misleading, and manipulative, voices in America. And it would take an opposition with about one fourth his rhetorical skill about two days to make the case so effectively that Limbaugh's audience would essentially shrivel up to a few far right zealots. But Limbaugh's staunchest opposition, doesn't know how to make the case to outside of its own choir.

Meanwhile, inane pundits like David Brooks engage in logic that is almost as bad, in order to try and downplay Limbaugh's vast influence.

It's a wonder we have intelligent conversation in this country for our national discourse, and debate.

Oh, yeah. That's right. We don't anymore.

Obama, Baltimore Ravens on "Civility," and Biased Baltimore TV Critics

Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik on the 60 Minutes Obama Interview:

At the end of last night’s conversation, the president decided to play media critic again and use 24-hour cable news channels as the foil for making himself look like the would-be champion of civility. Kroft set the president up on this theme, and then let him run straight into the end zone untouched – where the interview ended.

Instead of ending the interview there with big smiles between the two as “60 Minutes” did, I would suggest that perhaps Kroft should have respectfully asked the president if he thought using the adverb “stupidly” at a press conference to describe the behavior of the Cambridge (Mass.) police officer who took Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. into custody was a good exampleof civility.

Speaking of running into the end zone untouched, his local Baltimore Ravens football team, despite dominating the still rather horrific Kansas City Chiefs, let them into the end zone 3 times: Once on a blocked punt. Once after a long pick return by former first round pick and current backup Derrick Johnson set them up at the two, and once after some nice passes by K.C QB Brodie Croyle, who shockingly managed to get through the entire game without being injured. This resulted in a rather close game until the end, despite the Baltimore team’s otherwise lopsided domination of the Chiefs.

(The Ravens had an interesting ”running into the end zone” situation themselves. With the game over, if Baltimore on 4th down elects to kick a field goal from inside the one yard line with 36 seconds remaining (thereby putting them up by two scores) Baltimore rather uncivilily opted to go for the touchdown on 4th down. Willis McGahee did “run it in.” But if they got stopped, Kansas City would still have had a shot at the game, which, with the field goal, they would not have. Granted, K.C. would have had around 34 seconds, and they had a long way to go. But still, why increase the other teams chances of pulling it out, when the game is all but over?)
Perhaps it is the many interesting end zone forays in this game that Zarowik could have been writing of, rather than of Kroft allowing the President to go “untouched” into the “end zone” by allowing him to make a well needed point about political discourse and civility without debating the the President about his own civility, because the President once earlier this summer, in a foolish (or, um, uh, err, “stupid”) political move, had called an action stupid, which in fact was stupid.

(Of course, Mr. Uncivility himself, then invited this same police officer, who had acted in a manner which raises significant questions about judgment, to the White House “for a beer.” Prompting us to wonder who else might be invited.)

Baltimore Sun "Critic" Can't take Criticism

Baltimore Sun Critic David Zurawik wrote a relatively dull, typical, non substantive, "gotcha" piece on Barack Obama's "60 Minutes" Interview, Sunday, September 13. In it, he made some fairly lame football analogies; perhaps because it was NFL Football opening Sunday.

And he called out 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft for enabling Obama to make a point about promoting civility, without having challenged Obama for having called the actions of the arresting officer in the Professor Henry Louis Gates Affair, "stupid" (not to mention subsequently inviting this same officer to to the White House for a beer.) This blog addressed it here.

His home team that day, the Ravens, had amassed over 500 total yards and largely dominated the Kansas City Chiefs, yet for a while were in danger of losing the game. Perhaps as a result, at the end of the game, the team engaged in some uncivil (and strategically ill-advised) behavior; by, with around 40 seconds to go, up by 7, from inside the one, going for the touchdown instead of the field goal on 4th down. Had they been stopped, K.C. would have had a chance (albeit a very small chance) to come back and win the game. Had they kicked the field goal, Kansas city would have had to had received a kickoff, scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick, and scored again, all within about 30 seconds. Virtually an impossibility.

An  Admin' from this blog posted the following comment to Zurawik's 60 Minutes critique:

Did you catch the Ravens game? Now there was some uncivil behavior, speaking of end zones.

I Agree Obama was very foolish to have used that term. I do not agree however, that calling actions that in fact were likely stupid, as stupid, is all that uncivil. [Once It was clear Gates had not broken into his home, and understandable that he would have been upset, whether he overreacted or not,THERE WAS NO ISSUE LEFT. Making it into one, rather than politely apologizing for the rather comical (or not, as far as Gates is concerned) mixup, was an extremely poor error of judgment and/or use of authoritative power.]

Or, at least not to the level of many months later taking issue with Obama's claim that we need more civility, when overall he has been on the receiving end of an enormous amount of uncivility, and otherwise been reasonably civil and courteous himself -- and was agreeing with a relatively important point.

With respect to your very last point, I don't believe Obama was "blaming it all" on the 24 hour news cycles. But, aside from, uh, "all of us," which I for one know is not accurate, who would you blame it on?"

Rather incredibly, this comment was apparently not "approved" by the "blog author" and professional critic Zurawik. Perhaps there was some sort of strange, blog error on the blog, so we can't be certain -- but Zurawik could certainly clarify this. Email is Admin@WeMisleadYouFollow.com  [Update: of course Zurawik never did.]

More Evidence That Fox's Sean Hannity Lives in a Separate Reality

Found here, in eight seconds.

Another fantastic Washington Post Editorial

Some people -- perhaps unfairly, perhaps not -- have taken to saying that the Washington Post editorial page has fallen somewhere below bird cage liner. (They maintain that it is below it, because bird cage liner is not normally of such a misleading and logically adulterated nature.)

This site does not necessarily agree -- but the Washington Post editorial pages does continue its march, ever onward, toward thought excrement poised as thoughtfulness.

Then along comes today's gem by none other than Richard Cohen, who perhaps best exemplifies the recent trend toward the appearance of wit over any semblance of underlying sense.

The same Richard Cohen who pronounced Al Gore unlikable, and more, then years later bemoaned the fact that Gore was not our President and declared him the 'perfect candidate;" even chiding, in his words, his "colleagues in the media" for promoting misleading caricatures of Gore in the past.

The Same Cohen who spent an entire paragraph --in a piece under 800 words no less -- explaining his "standing" to call Stephen Colbert's ('06) correspondents dinner speech "unfunny" (and lash out at and call him a "bully" if not an outright coward") -- namely, many decades earlier, in grade school, his teacher thought him "funny." Just ask anyone, he says.

The same Cohen, who when it comes to bullies, explained in yet another golden Washington Post op ed how he came to know that our decision in 2006 to share top secret nuclear technology with India "was a good move" because it was "stupidity" to treat "friends the same as enemies." Something he learned behind his high school one day while watching a hero get the better of a bully until the bully's friend jumped in. (Cohen bragged about the lesson he learned, but apparently not about getting the victims back or stopping the bully, something he apparently did not learn).

The same Cohen who was so in love with John McCain's inner hero that the he could practically do no wrong, until the evidence mounted so greatly that Cohen - A Democrat and once professed "liberal"-- finally ripped into McCain later in 2008, apparently forlorn that his long time love had so betrayed him, blind to the reality for over a year, when it is his only job, not to be.

The same Cohen who openly supported the Iraq war right upon until it started, then many moons later viciously ripped into the Bush Administraton over it -- even calling for Bush's impeachment, when all of the facts that needed to be known, were in fact public knowledge prior to the war. Namely that we had not credible data on WMDs, that legitimate weapons inspections had not taken place in Iraq since at least the mid 90s, and that in the winter of '03 viable weapons inspections were finally taking place any ever inspector to a tee said to "wait."

The list goes on. And on.

So here today is Cohen professing this wondeful line:

My love of these many years came into the room and asked what I was working on. I detailed some topics, enthralled as usual by my brilliance, but she
scoffed at them all.

So he wrote about the recent Nobel peace prize award, as she suggested. Fair enough. But here is what he wrote: the American people should get the award, because "we" voted for Obama.

It is not clear if this was a dis on white people, since Obama lost the election among whites; really bad satire; or even worse, non satire. You tell us.

What is clear it is that it is yet another inane column, from a vain, ridiculously self righteous columnist, from an increasingly inane, editorial page, from what used to be one of the country's premier newspapers.

Logic - NRO Style

A column in NRO yesterday smacks down the whole "birther" nonsense, and commends the NRO for (allegedly) "smacking down" the whole nonsense, because it is, in the words of this NRO columnist, "lunacy."

And then nevertheless proceeds to reproduce an extremely long email that in essence ressurects the question.

The reproduced email constituting most of this column claiming to condemn the birther thing as sheer lunacy, actually makes this twisted point: "If the question is so crazy.... why all the fuss?"

Apparently, this is truly not obvious to the NRO, or this emailer.

In other words, this NRO columnist notes his satisfaction with the "lunacy" birther thing having been smacked down, and then devotes some 90 percent of his column to an email, using contorted and disconnected logic, that resurrects it.

Accusing Obama of not having been born in the U.S.A, despite evidence to the contrary, is "sheer lunacy," on the one hand, but yet on the other hand, Obama is "getting a pass" because this "sheer lunacy" has not been investigated further?

There is also the strange notion -- surely absent in spades by this same e-mailer and columnist prior to January, 2009 -- that "transparency" in the White House somehow means (essentially) that every potentially troublesome, embarrasing or negative PR detail of every moment or fact of Obama's existence on this planet must be continually re-vetted -- just see the column, which references things which are now wholly irrelevant, and then complains how "Obama is getting a pass, whereas other Presidents have not.")

But the most interesting about this tied into knots logic so typical of NRO, is that the main claim in the cited piece that there is something to this, is the "hysteria" when this "lunacy" is brought up. In other words, why the annoyance when it is brought up? (Answer, because, in your words, it is "lunacy"?)

Yet other columns, while similarly dismissing the "lunacy" of the birthers claims, have used not "hysteria" but in fact, a rather unconcerned"dismissal" by the Administration as evidence that there is something to this "birther" issue after all!

In other words, why the lack of annoyance when it is brought up?" (Answer, because, in your words, it is "lunacy," and thus ridiculous, sidetracking, and has been vetted?)

To sum it all up. Here is what NRO and cohorts believe: The birther thing is sheer lunacy.

Except we really can't be sure. Because why all the concern on the part of the administration?

Except we really can't be sure. Because why all the lack of concern on the part of the administration.

It really doesn't matter what the facts are. They will be spun, torqued, twisted, manipulated, distorted beyond all recognition, to meet a predisposed set of beliefs. In NRO's case, those beliefs include the inherent dislike it must feel over Obama, even if the so called birthing "lunacy," as they put it, should have nothing to do with it.

Memo to the Wall Street Journal's Blog: When "After" Means Days, Not 22 Years.

Taking the concept of literalness, to ridiculous lengths, here's another oddity from the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto:

Even Including That, the Story Was Accurate
Here’s an odd correction from the Los Angeles Times:

"An article in Sunday’s Section A about Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s role in Congress’ healthcare debate said that Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) had urged his friend to stop drinking after the Massachusetts Democrat’s 1969 car accident at happaquiddick. Hatch gave the advice in 1991, after Kennedy spent an evening at a Florida bar with his nephew William Kennedy Smith, who subsequently was charged with rape and later acquitted."

Why the correction? We’re pretty sure 1991 was after 1969

Are we missing the satire here? Surely Taranto can not claim to mean that when the statement "I urged him to stop drinking after the [fill in very specific event]" somehow does not mean within an appropriate vicinity of time, but "technically" any time after, including decades after.

That would be like, to someone who said "We were over Taranto's house drinking Yuengling when he showed us this kind of crazy column he wrote," saying "so you were in a helicopter over his house drinking?" and meaning it. On second thought, it would be worse.

Here's another example, and one we hope someone can share with Mr. Taranto:

Q: "Why did you never correct your brother's tendency to turn his head away before connecting with the ball?

A: "I did, after the Kingsdale game, junior season."

Only the person did it, 22 years after, the Kingsdale game, junior season.

Of course a correction was necessary by the LA Times: The article unequivocally implied that Hatch had urged Kennedy to stop drinking in a reasonable vicinity of time "after" the 1969 accident, not 22 years later -- and no one reading the article would have thought otherwise. Taranto's logic here, or (to us) incomprehensible satire, is somewhat hard to fathom.

These two pieces were harsh on the NY Times Maureen Dowd -- and deservedly so. And it has been acknowledged that Pulitzers are routinely awarded based on politics, and little more. But as we noted in a link to the second piece, Dowd has had a distinguished career (including a Pulitzer), so we labored to find a column that was not atrocious.

The very first one we came across, on Gates, Crowley, and Obama a few days earlier, while not all of it was pinpoint, was reasonably perceptive. So to Maureen Dowd, who, we are sure, could give not a whit, we say "nice column."

NY TIMES MAUREEN DOWD, TAKES DOWN NY TIMES MAUREEN DOWD

Earlier, we noted that NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote the following:

Hillary, who so often in the past came across as aggrieved, paranoid and press-loathing, was confident and comfortable in her role as top diplomat, discussing the world with mastery and shrugging off suggestions that she has been disappeared by her former rival, the president.

And why it was a "wee" bit off the objective scale, and a "wee"bit onto the playing into hyperbolized and manipulated characterizations scale.

Since reading Dowd's superficial, conventionally parroting, and manufactured democrat chic opinions is fairly painful (and what's the point, really, though the country's leading newspaper apparently thinks there is one), we relied on The Daily Howler for this quote as well, from the same column by Dowd quoted from above.

Notice the irony:

The Alaskan [Palin] who shot to stardom a year ago as the tough embodiment of Diana the Huntress has now stepped down as governor and morphed into what theRepublicans always caricatured Hillary as—preachy, screechy and angry.

We'll ignore Maureen Dowd's dopey Diana characterization, and focus on this: "morphed into what the Republicans always caricatured Hillary as—preachy, screechy and angry."

"What the Republicans" (actually, only some Republicans -- namely, right wing Republicans) "caricaturized Hillary as - preachy, screechy,and angry."

Yet here is Dowd, in the very same column in which she later notes this fact, writing: "Hillary, who so often... came across as aggrieved, paranoid and press-loathing."

Ah, but that's not a "Republican caricature" of Hillary Clinton. Rather, it is just a Dowd observation, right? Or perhaps just a pandering, kowtowing media characterization --or should we say "caricature"?
-----------------

So we peeked at Dowd's column (sometimes one can't help looking at the car wreck across the highway.) Here is another incredible statement:

Sarah, who was once a blazingly confident media darling

Really? Conventional wisdom (namely, the "wisdom" that the far right has been screaming at the top of its lungs since the day after John McCain somewhat"spontaneously" announced little known -- including, to McCain himself, apparently -- Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate) has it that the press has had it in for Palin from almost the start. We don't agree with the "conventional wisdom" here. But to call Palin a media darling?

That is pretty funny.

Palin's coverage may have been favorable relative to the facts (a claim that even the " left" is content not to make - preferring, as always to fight the battle under the framing of its political opponents), but the facts were, and are, extraordinarly unfavorable. Yet to Dowd, Palin was a media darling? Her column only gets worse from there, to ridiculously drawing made up parrellels between the two women, besides, of course, the painfully obvious ones.

It seems this NY Times columnist simply makes things up, to arrange her prose in nice, flowing, sentences. This is what it seems, much editorilization in America has come to in the 21st century. Dowd just does a particularly good (or should we say "bad") job of it.

notes from althouse piece on scary logic of far right - obesity, divorce

There has long been a debate as to how much of a role the government should play in helping to promote health. Note also that helping to promote it is far different than dictating it. Obesity, according to some experts, is a health crisis in this country. And obesity is perhaps a relevant, practical inquiry in a nation that spends almost a fifth of its entire GNP, directly or indirectly (and we think, rather haphazardly), on health care; including more money shelled out by the government on it than on anything else save national defense. To inquire how to promote better health, does not necessarily mean infringement upon personal freedom. Can the government go too far in addressing obesity? Yes. But one could list an endless number of possibilities with respect to any statement made on any subject,in this vein. The question is what policies, and what is being stated?

SCARY LOGIC FROM THE FAR RIGHT ON GOVERMENT INTRUSION

One of the greater ironies of our time is how the far right appears to be only very selectively concerned with government intrusion into the lives of individuals in a country of liberty and checked, limited, government powers -- the founding premises of our nation.

That being said, selective concern is far better than no concern.

Except many of the instances of expressed concern seem to be misleading, or logically stretched. Curiously enough, they also almost always seem to be directly aimed at an overall policy, government or politician that the far right itself politically opposes.

Here's a quick example of both of these points, at once.

Yesterday, we noted how the very popular blog Althouse cited the Washington Post, while missing essentially the entire point of the linked piece, and then some.

Today, Althouse, presumably as non satire, promotes the following monstrosity:

Think about it. Yesterday, we were talking about how the government "has ways of changing behavior" to deal with the supposed medical expenses studies attribute to obesity.If studies show that divorce damages health, then horning into our marriages will become the government's business too. Obviously another blue pill. You expect us to pay for the red pill, when there's a blue pill?

We certainly understand the well warranted concern over government dictating what people can and can't do. But while the very general idea here, in theory, is solid, the example given is absurd.

The claim made in the first part of the above quote, that "yesterday, we were talking about how the government 'has ways of changing behavior'" regarding obesity and health, is extremely misleading. And the connection, after that, to the idea that therefore, studies show that "divorce might be bad" health wise, is incredibly specious, or simply flat out stone cold illogical (aka, preposterous.)

The Wall Street Journal article discussed "yesterday" quotes someone from a non profit Trust concerned with promoting health, not, "the government." Calling that "the goverment" is wildly irresponsible.

The relevant portion of the WSJ article:

Unless you address obesity, you're never going to address rising health-care costs." Obesity-related conditions now account for 9.1% of all medical spending, up from 6.5% in 1998, the study concluded.

Health economists have long warned that obesity is a driving force behind the rise in health spending. For example, diabetes costs the nation $190 billion a year to treat, and excess weight is the single biggest risk factor for developing diabetes. Moreover, obese diabetics are the hardest to treat, with higher rates of foot ulcers and amputations, among other things.

The new study's look at per-capita spending may offer a shock to the wallets of people who haven't yet heeded straight health warnings.

"Health care costs are dramatically higher for people who are obese and it doesn't have to be that way," said Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health, who wasn't involved in the new research. "We have ways of changing behavior and changing those health outcomes so that we don't have to deal with the medical
consequences of obesity," added Mr. Levi, who advocates community-based programs that promote physical activity and better nutrition.

It was awkwardly stated -- and maybe he even meant worse by it; but "ways to change" certainly can mean mean "ways" without compulsion. In any event, once again, it is a Trust for health, not the government.

But it was precisely that "chilling locution" that set off the wave of fright of the possibility of, say, "the government telling people they could not get divorced," because, like a million other things, divorces are correlated with slightly higher disease rates. (And we don't even know if the lack of a divorce in an otherwise unhealthy living situation, might or might not be similarly correlated, since there is no way to account for this variable, it seems.)

This leap to divorce -- aside from the over ominous reading of a non profit Trust analyst (who may or may not (but probably) meant promotional advocacy means), with the government itself -- is simply a ridiculous leap of logic. It helps illustrate how the far right's thinking is often grounded in hysteria and specious speculation, that the far right itself often confuses for "common sense.'

We see it done on a repeated basis.

Normally, it just goes right on unchecked, for the most part; even, sometimes, helping somewhat to frame our national discussion. (Since, as long as loud enough voices say it just convincingly enough, our media likes to then parrot it as reasonable and one "side" to some debate.)

On this little bit of "chilling locution"/divorce zaniness, it was of course promoted by that overly popular bit of horse malarkey, instapundit itself. Shocker, that. Note to Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds -- who actually teaches law -- perhaps you should read the things that you link to? Although, in quite a telling symmetry, it is clear that this site that you linked to, also does not.

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund is to Political and Media Objectivity, what Sarah Palin is to Serving out Full Terms as Governor

The chasm between prematurely ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's rhetoric, and reality, is so large given her status as one of the GOP frontrunners, that it is frightening.

Below is an example of precisely the type of media that Palin does not viciously condemn; does not blatantly mislead about; does not frighteningly misunderstand the entire purpose of and premise behind; and which, irony of ironies, is precisely what Palin likely envisions when she nevertheless speaks of something entirely disparate, about that very same media itself.

That is, media not doing its job, and not serving as an independent, objective, fourth estate check upon power and the powerful, upon government, upon groupthink run amuck, and upon misrepresentation and untruth, but rather a media that says what Palin wants to hear, in the way that she wants to hear it. In other words, exactly what defines a state run media in non democratic regimes.

The scary thing is Palin, and her followers -- like the Wall Street Journal's Fund -- do not seem to see the extraordinarily ignorant hypocrisy in Palin's statements, including this one - a statement that here Fund promotes as if it were quite reasonable, coming from Palin:

Ms. Palin appeared liberated by leaving office and used blunt words to take her media critics down a peg. “You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy,” she said. “Democracy depends on you, and that is why -- that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin’ things up.”

She didn’t stop there. “One other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone,” she told the enthusiastic crowd gathered at a picnic grounds in Fairbanks. Ms. Palin will no doubt have a future as a stump speaker and political commentator in the lower 48, and her media critique certainly will find receptive audiences.

For just the tip of the iceberg -- but enough to objectively (something that Fund routinely appears on the road to being incapable of doing) establish a bit of the case above, see this piece with respect to Palin's statement to the media to "quit making things up."

Perhaps Fund should read it. Along with a bit more in regard to the actual facts, the actual media coverage of Palin, and the rhetoric that Palin has repeatedly used. (It is almost like while the rest of us are composed of flesh and blood -- most of us anyway -- or, alternatively, a few key atoms in various combinations, Palin is composed of something entirely different: Pure, unadulterated rhetoric. It is like in the science fiction movies where "it" is not a being, but a pure energy field -- except Palin is instead a pure rhetoric field. )

It works, of course, because in that same media itself -- including those, like Fund, who might be about as politically (and journalistically) objective as as Fox guarding a hen house is on reporting about a missing hen -- are those who buy it.

Yet It is rhetoric like Palin's, and the sheep like mentality that does not look behind it at the facts, that has changed the nature (and, ultimately and quite ironically given Palin's constant yammering to the contrary, the freedom) of every once great nation or society the world has ever seen.

Fund, as an allegedly independent journalist, is a bit of a cheerleader for it, without even knowing it. Fund's bs meter is not only broken; so long as it meets his political orientations, he's got a bs feeder, which apparently sniffs it out and promotes it.

And then, of course, there are some others, such as conservative columnist Katherine Parker, who seems to want to like Palin, but nevertheless, aptly penned perhaps the most applicable line about Palin yet put to print.

Yet Parker is either not very objective; or, perhaps more likely, not excessively knowledgeable with respect to all the facts. And was "relieved" at Palin's vice presidential debate performance, and praised it -- as apparently, truthfulness, or again, knowledge, was not relevant to Parker's assessment (or again, more likely, unknown to her.) Yet contrast the absurd standard that Parker starts with; "What did they do with the other Sarah Palin? I mean the one who bases foreign policy experience on the proximity of Russia to Alaska" with this from the link just cited:

Most media outlets [etc.] repeated the [idea] that ...Palin “exceeded” expectations...and that there were no real gaffes. ...[And] there were no gaffes:...by the standard which expected Sarah Palin to be incapable of uttering a coherent sentence. But let’s apply a different standard, one which some might have the temerity to suggest is more applicable to the actual situation: That is, what might be expected and required of .... someone who's the right arm to, and a heartbeat away from, the most important job in the world.

Contrast that idea,with Parker's positive assessment of Palin's debate performance, because Palin did not (once again) say that she had relevant foreign policy experience because "Alaska is close to Russia." ("Close to" hundreds of hundreds of miles of some of the most barren, desolate, largely uninhabited tundra on earth, and further away from Moscow than Washington, D.C, is from London.)

And then Parker had this to say about Palin:

Does that mean she's ready to lead the free world should circumstances warrant? that question remains. Right next to same question about Barack Obama.

Granted, Parker is a conservative, so she is not supposed to be hawking Obama. Though -- unreported by the general media, and largely ignored by active Democrats, who somehow neglected to see the relevance in terms of building credibility with those whom the Democrats need to reach -- Obama was supported by an unusually high number of knowledgeable, leading Republicans. (Some of whom are now questioning that support, as are some Democrats, at least. But we forget that Obama inherited a lot of problems, that are quickly transitioning over to being "his." Particularly with Democrats once again losing the battle of framing -- or perhaps, not even fully knowing how to wage it, or recognizing its prominent existence in the first place.)

And Parker certainly was entitled to her legitimate doubts. But to place Palin, given the ex-Alaska Governor's incredibly poor grasp of facts, constant reliance upon almost zealous belief, continual habit of misrepresentations, lack of relevant experience and almost complete and utter lack of any world knowledge, equally alongside Obama in terms of being ready to lead the "free world," is a bit much.

Yet here is what a few days prior, Parker had, much more insightfully, penned about Palin, which pretty much sums it all up:

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

John Fund, who writes for the Wall Street Journal, and about Wall Street, apparently bought it; hook, line, and sinker.

IS RE-SHARING NEWS, ITSELF NEWS? HUFFINGTON POST TRANSCRIBES PART OF CNN AND LARRY KING'S INTERVIEW WITH FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL

As posted by Sonoma County Democracy for America, and reflective of various sites picking up the "story" that Colin Powell, "in an interview with CNN's Larry King," suggested that both Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates could have acted a bit differently:

by The Huffington Post News Team [courtesy of Politics on HuffingtonPost.com]

Technically, this is true. The "Huffington Post "news team"very briefly summarized this portion of the interview, and provided the video itself and a convenient transcript of it. Still, we are pretty comfortable with the impression that it was CNN that produced the actual news here.

This is not to say that the Huffington Post did not provide a valuable service, or that acknowledgements are not appropriate. But it seems that somewhat lost in this acknowledgement is the fact that CNN produced the relevant news; the Huffington Post then made the news on TV, easily available online.

The "By The Huffington Post News Team," along with "courtesy of Politics on Huffington Post," phrasing, might subtly suggest that the Huffington Post engaged in actual news reporting here. That is, we tend to think of the "news team" not as the team that gathers the news, but one that is the original reporter or, as in the case of CNN and Larry King's interview, creates it.

Perhaps that is no longer clearly the case.

The Huff Post indeed has a very cost efficient model. But could it be replicated, in the absence of the actual CNNs, the NY Times', and the scores of other "real" news" services? (Note, the Hufffinton Post also itself engages in reporting, serving a quasi blog -- news function; part of the reason why this question is more than esoteric.)

Below, we suggested (on the otherwise same topic of Professor Gates arrest in his own home):

As the wonderful Althouse re-reports (indulging in what, for the most part, passes for the reporting that the "online blogosphere" must over rely upon in order to replace traditional, necessary, hard hitting investigative journalism with -- a large part of the reason why we are sour on the claim that with the "rise" of the blogosphere, the demise of today's mainstream media is somehow less relevant) and we re-re-report..

Regarding the substance of what Powell said, see immediately below, here