Frum, on the other hand, is still trying to get on board the conservative-bashing gravy train. We can expect plenty of mischief from eDF as he tries to catch the attention of the MSM.
Daily Caller A Failure
But dude, it's Tucker Carlson. He's made a career of being the frat boy liberals have in mind when they talk about Conservatives.
Tucker Carlson: The willing degradation of the reservation conservative
Joy Behar questions John McCain's courage for declining her TV invite
The Paranoid Center
How the panic over right-wing violence is being used to marginalize peaceful dissent
When panicky centrists aren't willing to draw an unbroken line from peaceful conservatives to the violent fringe, they posit a somewhat subtler link. The killers, they acknowledge, aren't taking their marching orders directly from Fox News and AM radio. But by giving serious attention to theories associated with the fringe right—that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing concentration camps, that Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen—Glenn Beck and other broadcasters are validating the grievances of potential killers, giving them the impression that they aren't alone. This validation is buttressed by the sweeping, sometimes violent rhetoric about "liberals" that you hear from partisan celebrities, such as Ann Coulter's joke that McVeigh should have blown up the New York Times building instead. In The Eliminationists and on his blog, David Neiwert tries to establish a chain linking "eliminationist" behavior in American history (lynchings of blacks and Asians, the slaughter of American Indians), eliminationist rhetoric on the mainstream right (the Coulter wisecrack), and von Brunn–style efforts to eliminate people directly.
The theory is interesting, but it has two enormous problems. The first is that it ignores the autonomy of people on the fringe. Not just the radicals who commit the crimes, but the radicals who don't commit crimes. There's a complex ecology at work here, one demonstrated most clearly in those cases when militiamen alerted authorities to terrorist plots in their midst. Words have influence, but they influence different people in different ways; you can't reduce media effects to simple push-pull reactions. Accusing Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly of validating right-wing violence isn't so different from accusing pornography of validating rape, Ozzy Osbourne of validating teen suicide, or Marilyn Manson of validating school massacres.
Charles Johnson "Fairly Sure" the Tennesee State Flag is a Neo-Nazi Logo...
[Human Rights Watch] is an association that is all about influence — an influence that depends on a carefully honed image of objectivity, expertise and high moral tone. So it was perhaps a little awkward that a key member of staff was found to have such a treasure trove of Nazi regalia.
Faced with what would become the greatest fraud in the history of the New York Times, Gerald Boyd did not want his own reporters to investigate.
"A handoff is a dereliction of duty," he told his boss, Howell Raines, as they grappled with the fallout from Jayson Blair's fabrications. Boyd could not have been more wrong.
But, unlike Khrushchev, Duranty, a Pulitzer Prize winner, no less, was keeping count — in the autumn of 1933 he is recorded as having told the British Embassy that ten million had died. ** "The Ukraine," he said, "had been bled white," remarkable words from the journalist who had, only days earlier, described talk of a famine as "a sheer absurdity," remarkable words from the journalist who, in a 1935 memoir had dismayingly little to say about one of history's greatest crimes. Writing about his two visits to the Ukraine in 1933, Duranty was content to describe how "the people looked healthier and more cheerful than [he] had expected, although they told grim tales of their sufferings in the past two years." As Duranty had explained (writing about his trip to the Ukraine in April that year), he "had no doubt that the solution to the agrarian problem had been found".
Well, at least he didn't refer to it as a "final" solution.
The Conservative the Right Loves to Hate
He is a good and energetic man, and has, in the years since he left service at the White House, dedicated himself to being what I call a “polite-company conservative” (or PCC), much like David Brooks and Sam Tanenhaus at the New York Times (where the precocious Ross Douthat is shaping up to be a baby version of the species). A PCC is a conservative who yearns for the goodwill of the liberal elite in the media and in the Beltway—who wishes, always, to have their ear, to be at their dinner parties, to be comforted by a sense that liberal interlocutors believe that they are not like other conservatives, with their intolerance and boorishness, their shrillness and their talk radio. The PCC, in fact, distinguishes himself from other conservatives not so much ideologically—though there is an element of that—as aesthetically.
I have a somewhat different take on Frum. I notice that Frum is not actually terribly policy-oriented or policy-informed. He is not a wonk. Or, if it is, he seems to hide it well enough on his blog. I don't see a lot of deep policy analysis on his site.
Frum, of course, is constantly castigating conservatives like Limbaugh for supposedly-simplistic thinking, sloganeering, etc. Not doing their homework. Not pouring over the policy details and arriving at a good policy position, but instead preferring easier, gut-level attitudinal posturing.
The thing is -- That's all that Frum does, too. He may criticize Limbaugh for simplifying arguments into easy-to-repeat gut-level impulses and attitudes, rather than going into great detail about policy, but that's all Frum does, too. Except instead of copping one attitude -- "Don't negotiate; stay firm; remain true to principles" -- he cops the opposite attitude -- "Always negotiate; stay flexible; compromise on principles."
But because his attitude is viewed more favorably by the liberal retardentsia whose approval he so craves, he deems that his attitude is the more sophisticated and intellectualized one.
The recent Tea Parties really put the lie to Frum’s posturing. By all rights, he should love this essentially libertarian grass roots movement. His great bugaboo--the Religious Right--is not driving the movement. The Tea Parties focus on economics not the social issues that Frum detests.
But Frum is luke warm. Fox News jumped on the board the bandwagon, you see. The people at MSNBC and CNN are making fun of the demonstrators. People might think that David Frum a dork like Sean Hannity if he supports the Tea Parties.
That really is the bottom line with Frum. He cares a lot about what the right people think.
Not Right as in conservative. Not Right as in correct. No, right as in popular in the cool circles and cool in the popular circles.
In California, Killers Sit on 'Symbolic' Death Row for Decades, Costing Billions
The state of California is losing billions of dollars keeping hundreds of prisoners on death row -- but the ultimate punishment is mostly symbolic in the state, where inmates ply the appeals process for decade after decade and are more likely to die of old age than by execution.
By law, every death sentence in California has to be appealed and reviewed by the state's Supreme Court to ensure that no one who is innocent faces the ultimate penalty.
It is a slow process that begins with a very long delay. According to Minsker and other experts, it generally takes as many as five years after a conviction before a lawyer is even appointed to file a mandatory appeal. "Nothing happens in those five years," she said. The reason, according to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a panel appointed to look at the state's death penalty system, is that there are just too few experienced lawyers available to handle the growing number of appeals.
Amazing! It turns out that putting people through "training" modeled on political indoctrination programs in dictatorships is productivity-draining make-work for a subset of the political class. Fortunately, it impairs its own stated objectives, thus creating more "demand" for the political class' "work."
Mad About Obamacare? Blame Bush
The question conservatives should be asking though, is how did we get in this position in the first place? How come, over the course of two elections, Democrats were able to take back the White House and amass substantial majorities in both chambers of Congress, allowing them to enact this sweeping legislation with no Republican votes – and huge defections in their own party? How could a generally right-of-center nation be taken over by liberals from Chicago and San Francisco?
The answer, of course, is that none of this would have been possible without George W. Bush -- or more broadly speaking, Bush era Republicanism. While they were in power, Republicans squandered an opportunity to push free market health care solutions. When they did use their power to pass major legislation, it was for policies like the big government Medicare prescription drug plan, which was (until today) the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society. They took earmarks and doled out farm and energy subsidies. They earned a reputation for fiscal recklessness and corruption and incompetent governance. President Obama ultimately forced through the health care bill in spite of the political consequences to his party because he’s ultimately a true believing liberal. But it was only because of the failures of Bush-era Republicanism that an ideological liberal with little experience was able to capture the presidency on the abstract notion of change.
GWB:The man in full
Karl Rove appeared on ABC's This Week with a chart full of facts about the Obama health care bill and what it would do to the U.S. economy. Obama political consultant David Plouffe appeared with several humorous talking points provided him by the White House.
"We wanted him to be ready," says a White House communications aide. When Rove raised the issue of the damage the health care bill would cause the U.S. economy, Plouffe jumped in, saying, "Karl and the Republicans would be familiar with that. Under their leadership, they took us from big budget surpluses to a $1.3 trillion deficit."
Later, he used the line: "Karl and the Republicans have zero credibility -- about as much credibility as the country of Greece does to talk about fiscal responsibility."
Cinderella smacks Georgetown in the mouth
Ohio, a team that had posted a losing record in its Mid American Conference, snuck into the Big Dance by putting together a four-game conference tournament championship run.
And on Thursday, the suddenly unstoppable Bobcats seemed a step quicker than the Hoyas on offense and defense all night. The Hoyas had no answer for two Bobcats guards who delivered a couple of steely-eyed Big Dance performances that will be talked about for years.
Brooks is turning out to be like Big Bird to Obama's Snuffaluffagus! He's the only one who can see the real Obama and nobody believes him.
Federal Bureau of Invention: CASE CLOSED (and Ivins did it)
Actually, the 96 page FBI report is predicated on the assumption that the anthrax letters attack was carried out by a "lone nut." The FBI report fails to entertain the possibility that the letters attack could have involved more than one actor. The FBI admits that about 400 people may have had access to Ivins' RMR-1029 anthrax preparation, but asserts all were "ruled out" as lone perpetrators. FBI never tried to rule any out as part of a conspiracy, however.
Additional details emerge to challenge the FBI's anthrax letter scenario
The point, as one scientist specializing in fine particle chemistry told me, blows a large hole through the 92-page summary of the investigation released last week by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, the main conclusion of which is that Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, in Maryland, was the anthrax mailer.
“Note that the proprietary azeotropic drying technique and the pneumatic mill are both superspecialized pieces of equipment, neither of which is at Detrick,” the specialist in fine particles, Stuart Jacobsen, said in an e-mail message.
But the F.B.I.’s entire case against Mr. Ivins is that he was able to manufacture the anthrax used in the attacks at his Fort Detrick lab, working late at night on the days before the actual anthrax mailings so nobody would see what he was doing.
Jean Duley emerges from undisclosed location after 18 months to bolster FBI's case against Ivins
Remember, Duley had only just received a Bachelors Degree when she was put in the position of counselling Ivins for substance abuse. She has neither the training nor experience to comment to the media on Ivins' psychological pathologies, let alone treat them. She was not qualified to do anything more than substance abuse work, and as someone who had fallen off the wagon, was not even qualified for that.
My summary of unresolved issues in the anthrax letters case
Amanda Knox was not convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher because she did cartwheels in the police station or owned a vibrator, as her supporters suggest., Knox, 22, along with her 25-year-old former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty by a jury in Perugia, Italy, based on hard forensic evidence, according to the sentencing judge’s 427-page reasoning, which was issued Thursday and obtained by The Daily Beast. The two judges and six jury members for the 11-month trial agreed with the prosecution’s case, calling it a “comprehensive and complete picture without gaps and inconsistencies.
[The jury] convicted her unanimously, the disagreement was only on whether or not to give her a life sentence. “A life sentence would have been a death penalty,” one juror said. “They were too young and there was no motivation for the murder.”
Still, they believed wholeheartedly that she was involved. They valued the forensic evidence that Amanda’s parents say does not exist. They wondered why Amanda’s DNA and Meredith’s blood was wiped away and recovered with Luminol. They thought it was Raffaele’s bloody footprint on the bathroom rug and his DNA on Meredith’s bra clasp. They believed the prosecutor’s testimony that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade of the knife that had Amanda’s DNA on the handle. They had the forensic evidence they needed to tie her to the murder, they said in off-the-record interviews after the hearing. They believed that if she did not kill her, she knew enough about who did to warrant the conviction. The inconsistencies in Knox’s story were too many. Her lack of corroborated alibi just too much to overlook. How Amanda explained these same things to her parents is a well-kept secret. “She says she wasn’t there,” her father claims. “We just know she wasn’t there.”
Meacham of Newsweek in Talks for Weekly PBS Show
The Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, is negotiating to add a television job to his schedule. He is in final talks to be the co-host of a new PBS Friday night public affairs series called “Need to Know,” said several executives with knowledge of the production who declined to be named because the contracts had not been signed.
The co-anchor for the program, which begins May 7 at 8:30 p.m., is expected to be Alison Stewart, formerly of NPR’s short-lived “The Bryant Park Project” morning show and, before that, anchor of MSNBC’s “The Most.”
These attacks are not only wrong, but short-sighted as well. Nominees and appointees in Republican adminsitrations are routinely attacked for having represented politically unpopular clients. Suggesting that attorneys who performed pro bono work for detainees necessarily share the political sympathies of their clients is scurrilous — and no more grounded than claims that an attoreny who represented an oil company or accused white-collar criminal approves of his or her client’s conduct. Everyone is entitled to vigorous representation, even those accused of polluting our environment or planning to attack our nation.
A final note: There’s perhaps some irony that Peter Keisler is defending Obama Administration nominees from such attacks, when he himself was subject to scurrilous attacks when he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. More evidence Keisler is more honorable than those who kept him off the bench.
All probably true.
But note that, while maintaining that honor, Peter Keisler is “Mr. Keisler” and not “Judge Keisler.” And the allegedly dishonorable people who kept him that way are running the country.
The problem with giving the Left a free pass on this kind of stuff is that the Left is so relentless in blaming the the Right for all the world’s evils, both specific and general.
Giannoulias seeks to blunt damage, says family bank likely to fail
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias sought to blunt a potentially damaging political issue today about questions regarding his involvement in his family’s struggling bank, which he said he expects will likely fail in the coming months.
Rove admits to error on Iraq as Bush strategist
NEW YORK — Republican strategist Karl Rove says in a new memoir that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq badly damaged the Bush administration's credibility and led to dwindling public support for the war.
The former White House political adviser blames himself for not pushing back against claims that President George W. Bush had taken the country to war under false pretenses, calling it one of the worst mistakes he made during the Bush presidency. The president, he adds, did not knowingly mislead the American public about the existence of such weapons.
The Libby case
The Bush governing style
Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman
By the appraisal of any normal mind, there can be little doubt that William Edward Hickman was a vicious psychopath of the worst order. That Ayn Rand saw something heroic, brilliant, and romantic in this despicable creature is perhaps the single worst indictment of her that I have come across. It is enough to make me question not only her judgment, but her sanity.
Nonetheless, people such as Ayn Rand—and the nerds and geeks who cling to her in the naive belief that her rotten novels will turn them into supermen—could never understand the fact that human beings are social animals.
The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
(Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols)
Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of of vices; but it is the most unpardonable of virtues. Nietzsche, who represents most prominently this pretentious claim of the fastidious, has a description somewhere-- a very powerful description in a purely literary sense-- of the disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common people with their common faces, common voices, and their common minds. As I have said, this attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic. Nietzsche's aristocracy has about it all the sacredness that belongs to the weak. When he makes us feel that he cannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the overpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have the sympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus. Every man has hated mankind when he was less than a man. Every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell. But when Nietzsche has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an aristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. It is an aristocracy of weak nerves.
