Tag: idiocracy

“Context” is not a safe word that makes all your other horse-shit statements disappear. And horse-shit is the context in which Richard Cohen has, for all these years, wallowed. It is horse-shit to claim that store owners are right to discriminate against black males. It is horse-shit to claim Trayvon Martin was wearing the uniform of criminals. It is horse-shit to subject your young female co-workers to “a hostile work environment.” It is horse-shit to expend precious newsprint lamenting the days when slovenly old dudes had their pick of 20-year-old women. It is horse-shit to defend a rapist on the run because you like The Pianist. And it is horse-shit for Katharine Weymouth, the Post’s publisher, to praise a column with the kind of factual error that would embarrass a j-school student.

Richard Cohen’s unfortunate career is the proper context to understand his column today and the wide outrage that’s greeted it. We are being told that Cohen finds it “hurtful” to be called racist. I am sorry that people on the Internet have hurt Richard Cohen’s feelings. I find it “hurtful” that Cohen endorses the police profiling my son. I find it eternally “hurtful” that the police, following that same logic, killed one of my friends. I find it hurtful to tell my students that, even in this modern age, vending horse-shit is still an esteemed and lucrative profession.

Ta-Nehisi Coates puts Richard Cohen and a lot of other bullshit into crystalline context in 245 words. That, ladies and gentlemen, is writing.

History’s Greatest Monster

Reince Priebus (Chairman of the RNC): [Obama is] the king of golf and vacations!
Sad Reality: Obama would have to take off the next 2.5 years in order to catch up with President George W. Bush’s vacation record. By this time, Bush had taken 349 days off, Obama has taken 96. Even Saint Reagan took 180 days off, about twice Obama’s current tally. The GOP controlled House is out for 5 weeks. Obama is taking 8 days. Move over Jimmy Carter, we’ve truly found History’s Greatest Monster.

It’s not so easy to see Perry’s path to the GOP nomination in 2016. He may have to deal with an intrastate rival, Ted Cruz, who excites conservatives at home and everywhere else immensely more than the Perry. Cruz and Chris Christie can outdo Perry at macho bluster; Rand Paul has a far more devoted following; there’s no obvious “Establishment front-runner” to which Perry could pose as an alternative; and virtually everyone on the Mentioned list of 2016 candidates looks a lot smarter than the Texas governor (i.e., there’s no parade of clown-car candidates like Bachmann, Cain and Gingrich to lend Perry some comparative gravitas).

Ed Kilgore on Governor Rick “Good Hair” Perry’s relative chances. Agree completely. Should he run, I think 2016 will make Perry long for his superlative performance of 2012.

Also, points for credibly working “Perry” and “some comparative gravitas” into a single phrase. Kilgore showing us how it’s done, yet again.

…maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, ‘You know, this is what’s important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage.’

Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday. These are the views of the people that are holding the country hostage. And the hostages can’t seem to find a way of effectively countering any of it.
Source: maddowblog.msnbc.com

Up words

Chris Hayes moves to msnbc weekday prime time. Nice. But I can’t help but notice this:

“Up” doesn’t have a huge audience […] but it consistently beats CNN on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and it has been praised by media critics for allowing long, thoughtful conversations about politics and public policy, the kind rarely seen elsewhere on television.

These conversations usually project a liberal worldview, in line with MSNBC as a whole. But Mr. Hayes and his producers also try to book guests who don’t often get on television, including conservatives; a recent discussion with Mr. Hayes and four conservatives lit up the blogosphere. “Add this segment to the list of reasons Chris Hayes’ Up has become the most interesting weekend political show in America”

Emphasis added to help me ask exactly which feature of Up do you assume is the least likely to survive the massive transition to a “prime time audience”? Right this very second in some boardroom somewhere, somebody is saying “all that thoughtfulness may work on a Saturday morning, but…”

Up words

If you stabilize the debt in some reasonable way, we’re going to have growth. The unemployment rate should come down.

Bob Woodward, very serious person, opines on the economic situation during a Meet the Press appearance.

While I certainly don’t anticipate David Gregory will ever produce a substantive followup, one could at least assume anyone in the employ of a major media conglomerate could muster the five whys. You wouldn’t even have to break out all five to demonstrate that Woodward is comically wrong and furthermore has not one fucking idea about what he’s saying.

We’ll have to leave it there…