"Yet they fail to understand that this will appear to conservatives as an attempt"

"...to use the emotion of the moment to stigmatize them. The mania of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party must be dealt with on their own terms."

With some caveats, this sounds about right, I think. Let's be clear: Neither Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, any conservative talker you can name, the Tea Party, or whatever, can be blamed for this act of violent horror. The problem of our toxic political discourse is real and frankly, distinct from this. Both sides, and this secnario is no different, have a rather tragic tendency to try and score political points on this tragedies, and it's wrong. The Left has done it, and it's wrong. The Right has done it, and it's wrong. Besides the fact that Loughner's ideological leanings appear to be a incoherent mess of nihilistic, antigovernment rage, I don't think the lack of Sarah Palin's map, or the DNC's map, or Kos's map, or Obama's inapt Untouchables reference would have stopped this guy.

More on this later. I'll ger pushback here, but I think Chait is right on this:

Now, I do believe there is a problem with the current political moment. Both extremes of the political spectrum can embrace apocalyptic thinking and rejection of the democratic process. The left-wing version came to the fore during the 1960s, but it is tiny and almost completely disconnected from Democratic politics. The right-wing version, on the other hand, is drawing ever more tightly into an embrace with putatively respectable Republican politics. Since the closing stages of the 2008 election, conservatives have regularly described President Obama as an alien figure and his policies a fundamental threat to American liberty. It has become normal for conservatives to hint that they will take up arms if they don't get their way politically -- a violation of the cultural norm of respecting democratic outcomes that forms the basis for the stability of our political system. Sharron Angle, not just a fringe activist but the GOP's candidate in a major Senate race, rhetorically flirted with outright sedition, and Republicans paid no attention to this, because they wanted to beat Harry Reid.

Oh, and by the way, I freely admit that as the Right has taken it to the next level under OBama, the Left did many of the same things under Bush. I could get into a discussion of who is worse, but that would be fruitless at this point.

And Around Again We Go...

In light of the latest media-circus scandal fueled by hysteria and fake outrage, over Harry Reid's inartful, inelegant, and sloppy comments, I just wanted to add some quick thoughts, and this, from the indispensable John McWhorter:

First of all, we need not pretend that by “Negro dialect” Reid meant the cartoon minstrel talk of Amos n Andy. After all, why would Reid, a rational human being under any analysis, be under the impression that any black person talks like Uncle Remus, much less be surprised that one of them does not? My guess is that he said “negro” in a passing attempt to name Black English in a detached, professional way, randomly choosing a slightly arcane and outdated term. Or, consider that Negro English was what scholars called “Ebonics” until the early seventies. Reid likely caught wind of that terminology -- he's been around a while, after all.

and this:

Indeed Reid implied that black dialect is less prestigious than standard, such that not speaking it made Obama more likely to become President. That is, he implied what we all think too: Black English is, to the typical American ear, warm, honest -- and mistaken. If that’s wrong, okay – but since when are most Americans, including black ones, at all shy about dissing Black English? And who among us -- including black people -- thinks someone with what I call a "black-cent" who occasionally popped up with double negatives and things like aks could be elected President, whether it's fair or not? Reid, again, deserves no censure for what he said unless we're ready to censure ourselves too.

and he closes out:

Reid implied that Black English is lesser than standard English and that it’s therefore good that Obama doesn’t use it in public. This is not about whether black people have to sweat to speak standard English; it’s about whether Black English is as good as standard English. Most of America black as well as white is at the exact same point in understanding vernacular speech and its proper evaluation as Reid is.

For which reason most of America should leave him alone about this and move on.

Indeed. Read the whole thing. Now for my money, Reid's comments were a messy, inartful, and off-putting way of touching on a debate that Americans of all colors are having to this day. It would be great if that debate could be furthered somehow, yet as usual, that debate has been replaced by the usual sideshow.


Two things: First off, the GOP equation of this with the Trent Lott incident is spectacularly, mind-numbingly off-base. Can smeone explain to me, even if you shine Reid's comments in tht e worst possible light, how acknowledging the fact that Obama is light-skinned, and doesn't speak Black English, compares to waxing poetically about voting for a segregationist in 1948? It's not even close, and what makes this worse, is that I think the GOP leadership knows this.

Secondly, one could ignore all this, and simply do as Liz Cheney does, and simply see this as liberals excusing other liberals. Or one could be sensible, and acknowledge context, much like unhinged left-winger George Will.

Now, make no mistake, politics is surely involved on the Democratic side as well, as I suspect a substantial factor in the rally behind Reid has to do with needing him in the Senate. That being said, the Dems have the benefit of being right on the merits, while the GOP's political cynicism is so obvious as not need pointing out. Michael Steele's own past efforts are proof of that.

Seeing Through The Fog

My political dispositions ought to be well known by now, so I don't think I need to bring them up again, but I did want to briefly address the recent revelations in the much-discussed so-caled Troopergate scandal. One of the big problems with the Palinsanity that ensued in the weeks following her announcement as Veep, besides the general sleaziness of many of the attacks, was the problem of crying wolf, that Simon dealt with earlier.

Let me say that I still like Sarah Palin (although my opinion of her has diminished somewhat), and yet I've always had concerns about some of her policy positions, and certain aspects of her record. Surely, even the most committed Palinites have to recognize that there are valid criticisms that can be made about her. Many press outlets, and various anti-Palin outfits have made such fools of themselves over the past few weeks, that when legit stories come up, they are treated with an amount of skepticism they otherwise wouldn't be.

In case you didn't know, a 263-page report was released by Alaska lawmakers investigating the scandal, that basically accuses Palin of abusing her power, in firing Mike Wooten. The McCain-Palin camp has called it a partisan witch hunt, and have issued a "clarification," that they assume will put the issue to rest. The thing is, I'm not at all prepared to call it a witch hunt run by pro-Obama partisans, just because Palin says it's a witch hunt. I agree with Ann, that even Palin fans ought not dismiss this outright.

First off, let me clear two things up right away: I am not saying that this report is valid, or that Palin did in fact abuse her power. It should be noted that as the Governor she has the perogative to fire Wooten, for basically any reason, so there's no criminality involved here. However, there is an alleged issue of credibility at play.

The point is, with the MSM's predispositions regarding Palin, and the aforementioned history of unfair attacks, Palin can cry "partisan witch hunt" with much more credibility than she would've had otherwise, because there was (and in certain quarters still is) a partisan witch hunt going on. People are more inclined to believe she's the victim of unfair attacks, even when she's not, and the media's reputation becomes so damaged that everything that comes out, is treated with a grain of salt. Everything.

The First (and Last) Time I Address The Limbaugh Controversy

OK, I'm only blogging on this once, because I'm already worn out. It's clear that there has a been a susbstantial amount of heat about comments that Limbaugh made regarding soldiers in Iraq, and dissent, and "phony soldiers." The Left has piled on, and the right has piled on the pile on. Let me say this: I don't consider myself a Limbaugh fan by any means, but I think it's clear that his words were at least ambiguous, and most likely didn't mean to assert that troops who oppose the war are phony. That being said, whatever one thinks of his comments, the context of the comments, the justification of ignoring said context based on past statements Rush has made, or whatever, there was no reason whatsoever to bring this foolishness to the floor of Congress. What a spectacular waste of time that was.

Before anyone brings this up, let me say that as vicious and low-class as the MoveOn ad was, I still asserted that it was also something of a waste to bring a resolution condemning it to the Senate floor. Congress has more important things to deal with. It's clear why the Dems chose to do this, to distract from the MoveOn mess, and because Limbaugh is an easy target, being the combative partisan that he is. Keep in mind that there have been other worse instances of attacks on the troops, from the Left (William Arkin, anyone?), and the Right (Limbaugh and others have said worse things in the past), but nothing was done. When the Swiftboating of Kerry was on display, there were no resolutions on the Senate floor. This is going on right now because of politics, and the whole bit of business is silly.

And, I'm done with this.

The Foibles of Modern Journalism Notwithstanding,

This isn't just an overstatement, this is outright bomb-throwing hysteria. Don't get me wrong, the media truly needs to do a better job in practically every area, but the way Dick McDonald tells it, you'd think..well I'll just let you read it.