The (conservative) case for financial reform

Matthew Continetti:

Because the Republicans have paid no cost for opposing this president, they may be tempted to stand athwart any financial reform bill that comes up for a vote, no matter how sensible some of its ideas may be. That would be misguided. The public may not like the solutions the Democrats have put forward to address America's problems, but that does not mean it suddenly has fallen in love with Vikram Pandit, Jamie Dimon, and Lloyd Blankfein.

When Joe Six Pack reads the paper, he learns about a group of insiders at one end of the DC-NYC megalopolis bailing out insiders at the other end. He has little affection for both. If the GOP is serious about becoming the party of the people, serious about shifting power from Washington and New York, serious about unleashing competition and favoring the innovator over the incumbent, why not back free-market measures against an entrenched financial elite?

Arnold Kling:

Big banks are bad for free markets. Far from being engines of free enterprise, they are conducive to what might be called “crony capitalism,” “corporatism,” or, in Jonah Goldberg’s provocative phrase, “liberal fascism.” There is a free-market case for breaking up large financial institutions: that our big banks are the product, not of economics, but of politics.

Saving CNN

Politico took a look at the ratings and thought the guys at the most trusted name in news could use a little help:

How to fix CNN

The future of CNN, never exactly bright the past couple of years, suddenly looked dire this week when ratings came out showing a 40 percent decline in prime-time viewers since 2009.

Jon Klein, the network's president, has consistently defended its down-the-middle news strategy, despite the increasingly large ratings leads opened up by MSNBC and particularly Fox, with their ideological slants and big personalities.

So is it time for a radical rethinking of “the most trusted name in news,” the network of Larry King Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown and Wolf Blitzer? We asked a dozen or so prominent media watchers, former industry executives and CNN personalities for their recommendations.

Both Jay Rosen and Michael Hirschorn posted longer discussions of the question on their websites.

What CNN Should Do With Itself in Prime-Time
A media beat reporter asked me if I had any advice for CNN about what to do in prime-time. Just so happens I do. Ditch the View from Nowhere but don't go aping your rivals. Here's my alt line-up for CNN from 7 to 11 pm.


Don't Cry for CNN
Thirty years ago, CNN, now in decline, was as revolutionary as Google. It had a pretty good run.

The blogger Spook86 at In from the Cold also had an astute post that raised a couple of relevant points not made by Calderone’s panel.


Like most formerly great organizations, CNN’s Big Problem grows out of a bunch of smaller problems.

1. It has rejected or forgotten some of the things that made it great in the first place.

2. At the same time, it clings to useless artifacts of its glory days.

3. It has been slow to cope with changes in the external environment (technology, competitors, demographics). This may be the inevitable consequence of being the market leader: there is no where to go but down. As I’ve argued before, outside changes occur more rapidly than organizations can transform themselves or even understand what is happening outside their office walls.


4. The people who lead CNN are woefully out of touch with their customers (current, former, and potential) and how those customers perceive their product.

Hirschorn reminds us of what CNN once represented:

it was, in terms of cultural impact, the Google of its day. Its gonzo “fluid news” style, low-cost methods, and disdain for the woolly orthodoxies of traditional TV news- gathering terrified the big three, and attracted their most forward-thinking journos.

Spook86 makes the important point that this broadcast style grew out of a new business model and it was driven by the personnel strategy of that business model.

When the cable network made its debut 30 years ago, it offered extended newscasts in prime time and even late night. If there was breaking news, CNN was inevitably on top of it, and stayed with the story for hours (or days) on end.

And more importantly, the network generally played it straight. Back in those days, most of the anchors and producers were graduates of local stations, more concerned about getting the story on the air than providing a particular a particular slant or perspective. The network also recognized that some outlets could do a better job in covering a story and occasionally carried newscasts or special reports from its local affiliates.

Now CNN uses the same obsolete model that has failed at CBS, ABC, and NBC. The anchor as star attraction just does not seem to work for anybody any more. Not for CBS with Katie Couric and not for CNN with Anderson Cooper, Rick Sanchez, et. al.

Spook86 thinks the problem started with the first Gulf War (usually seen as the start of CNN’s glory days):

But all of that changed with the first Gulf War, when CNN's round-the-clock coverage was a media sensation. With critical acclaim (and a bigger audience), the cable news outlet began acting like the rest of the MSM. Many of the original anchors and reporters were replaced by talent that previously worked for the broadcast networks. And the long slide began.

The Gulf War had another deleterious effect on CNN’s mindset. They fell in love with and then became addicted to “LIVE--Breaking News” and real time on-the-scene reporting. They tried to cover everything the way they “covered” Baghdad the first night the bombs fell.

Unfortunately for CNN, most stories do not demand that sort of treatment and in many cases it is counterproductive. The technology is expensive (driving up the CNN’s costs) while the resulting stories are often disjointed, devoid of background and context, and plagued by technical glitches that annoy any sentient creature who actually cares about the matter under discussion.

(The addiction to “Live!” Real Time Reporting left CNN vulnerable to opportunistic infections such as Twitter Fever. Why does the “most trusted name in news” waste its viewer’s time with Fabgrl98’s 140 character effusions on the economic consequences of cap-and-trade?)

Worst of all, the audience is unimpressed. The more CNN strove for immediacy and spotlighted their commitment to journalism, the more viewers fled to its talk radio competition (FNC and MSNBC) with their canned talking points.

CNN probably blames the audience for rejecting quality journalism. Hirschorn explains why CNN is wrong:

In an era when news flows like water--available everywhere, all the time, instantly--a network devoted to providing headlines topped with a touch of analysis no longer seems quite so useful. If anything, sitting down for 22 minutes to watch a middlebrow mix of politics and weather that’s too proud to dabble more than passingly in the latest Hollywood crack-whoredom seems … inefficient. What was very urgent in 1980 or on 9/11 no longer seems crucial when we’re drowning in news. CNN’s decline may be, in Wall Street analyst-speak, secular as opposed to cyclical.

The Web makes CNN look foolish as it covers a breaking story. By the time a story is an hour old, a reader can learn more by clicking her mouse than she can from the breathless irriatated gushing droning snarky ignorant knowing monologues of CampbellAndersonWolfRickJohn.

On a normal newsday, the audience already knows what CNN strives to tell them. They’ve been reading about it since noon. At least Fox and MSNBC offer more than an abbreviated recapitulation; amid the flood of partisan talking points there is a dollop of smart commentary. CNN seems constitutionally afraid of smart partisans so their commentators tend toward the Brooksianglib, boring, and ill-informed or the Carvillianclownish, irritating, and unthinking.

I actually think CNN could rise again. There is a substantial audience for non-fiction television that currently ignores the news channels. Networks like National Geographic, The History Channel, The Military Channel, A&E, manage to attract an audience interested in factual stories and biographies. CNN could try to become their television news source.

CNN’s biggest millstone lies within their corporate headquarters. As with most companies, the men who must solve the problems are the same ones who created them. No surprise that success is rare.

Hirschorn:

But it’s always easy to pontificate when you’re not weighed down by decades of process, staff, relationships, and cash flow. Would you want to tell Larry King it’s time to retire?

Exactly.

Add to that the problem of convincing a skeptical, information saturated audience that CNN really is worthy of their time and trust.


Small changes are not going to help CNN. Big, sweeping changes cause too much pain.

Sounds like a recipe for "catastrophic failure" as described by Cohen and Gooch.

Catastrophic failure produces an eerie calm at the highest levels of an organization-- a calm which grows out of disbelief, helplessness, and cognitive overload. Because of this, the end is no fiery Gotterdammerung. Instead, there is resignation and surrender to the inevitable.

The Times and the Pope

The End of History and the Last Pope

For an elite drunk on its own enlightenment, the ends will always justify the means against religion. So what, Keller figured, if my reporters could only come up with straining, half-baked pieces that cast fragments of information about Benedict in the worst possible light? Let's run them anyways, so that the forces of tolerance can triumph over the forces of absolutism!

And if it turns out that the forces of tolerance are largely responsible for mishandling these abuse cases (the ousted homosexual Archbishop Rembert Weakland, the subject of flattering profiles over the years in the New Yorker and New York Times, is the person most responsible for dereliction in the Milwaukee case the Times claims to find so outrageous), well, let's blame it on Benedict anyways. He could have done more!

Too big to fail means big enough to bully

Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan on the Dole

How the bank puts politicians and taxpayers over a barrel

It's a must read.

What a difference a -D makes

Red States has an almost unbelievable post:

The Left-Wing World is Upside Down

Tim Russo was charged with and convicted of being a felony sex offender, charged with importuning (a fancy way of soliciting sex with a minor), attempted disseminating matter harmful to a juvenile, and possessing criminal tools.

Yeah one little detail — how could they ever have forgotten to put that in. But it’s okay. Russo wants everyone to know he did not have to register as a child predator. Seriously.

So because he did not have to register as a child predator, it is okay now? It is okay to serve in elected office?

Funny thing, Arianna was not nearly this forgiving when she had Mark Foley in her sights.

UPDATE: [4-8-10] Excitable Andy actually gave this guy Quote of the Day honors for a piece Pope-bashing blather.

News flash: The Times gets sloppy and shows its bias

The Pope, the Scandal, and the Crib Notes for Journalism 101

But in trying to undercut the moral witness of the pope by suggesting that as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger he was too forgiving of the monstrous Fr. Murphy, Goodstein committed errors of fact, interpretation, context, and journalistic procedure that together make nonsense of any claim to objectivity on the part of the New York Times.

Here (for the benefit of Maureen Dowd and others who have forgotten Journalism 101) are some of the ways that Goodstein and her editors botched the "Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys" story

He is Risen

This passage is from Martin Bell's remarkable little book The Way of the Wolf: The Gospel in New Images.

God raised Jesus from the dead to the end that we should be clear-once and for all-that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one-absolutely no one-is expendable.

Colored Eggs

Some human beings are fortunate enough to be able to color eggs on Easter. If you have a pair of hands to hold the eggs, or if you are fortunate enough to be able to see the brilliant colors, then you are twice blessed.

This Easter some of us cannot hold the eggs, others of us cannot see the colors, many of us are unable to move at all and so it will be necessary to color the eggs in our hearts.

This Easter there is a hydrocephalic child lying very still in a hospital bed nearby with a head the size of his pillow and vacant, unmoving eyes, and he will not be able to color Easter eggs, and he will not be able to color Easter eggs in his heart, and so God will have to color eggs for him.

And God will color eggs for him. You can bet your life and the life of the created universe on that.

At the cross of Calvary God reconsecrated and sanctified wood and nails and absurdity and helplessness to be continuing vehicles of his love. And then he simply raised Jesus from the dead. And they both went home and colored eggs.

Another victory for justice

Pressler Lawsuit Settled

Duke has settled its lawsuit with former lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. Having tried (and failed) to get the case thrown out before discovery, the University had little choice--I can't imagine the discovery in this case would have been pleasant.

More Frum Fall-out

Odious Conservatives

A major proposition that I advance in a book that will be published later this month, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, is that there exists an odious subgroup of conservatives who since the beginning of the conservative movement have made their way to prominence in the mainstream media by a cheap act. They disparage with great melodrama other conservatives. Liberals love it -- and for a while love the disparagers. In the late 1990s Arianna Huffington exploited this instrument of self-promotion brazenly. For several years David Frum has been doing it haltingly, even timorously. However, in the last two weeks he has been pulling a Huffington with unusual boldness.

First he smeared Sean Hannity. Then he reproached conservative opponents of the Democrats' healthcare monstrosity. Now he is claiming martyrdom at the hands of Arthur Brooks, the head of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) that housed him as a resident fellow for seven years, reportedly at a salary of $100,000 a year. Brooks was willing to let him stay on at AEI but without a salary. Very theatrically Frum(p) quit, and the Liberals pronounced him a great man. My thesis is again vindicated, and you will understand my satisfaction in reporting that in Hangover I have embalmed Frum(p) as a perfect example of the conservative hustler, manipulating Liberal approval. I call his type the Reformed Conservatives (RCs).

Frum’s Firing


By now, many Chronicles readers have no doubt heard that David Frum was fired from his cushy job at the American Enterprise Institute, following an online column claiming that the passage of Obamacare was the GOP’s “Waterloo,” which could have been avoided if the GOP had been more willing to negotiate with Obama. Frum is now charging that AEI tossed him because it was responding to pressure from its donors, a charge eminent AEI scholar Charles Murray has denounced at National Review Online as “despicable,” since it is unsupported by evidence and is calculated to appeal to the leftist media. But if Murray is only now discovering the nature of Frum, he has not been paying attention.

From the beginning, the Canadian carpetbagger has sought to climb the greasy pole by attacking those on his right, in ways designed to curry favor with the left. As an undergraduate at Yale, he joined leftists at Yale in urging the university to take control of the Yale Literary Magazine, then run by future Chronicles editor Andrei Navrozov.

A bad news, good news sort of thing

Last year i wrote this about David Frum:

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.

That turned out to be correct and Frum has become a regular on cable. (That's the bad news.)

The bad news is that he is the leading resercon for a cable news network.

The good news is that it is the ratings-challenged CNN.

The essential Tucker Carlson

William Jacobson notes that Carlson's website The Daily Caller isn't quite living up to its mission statement:

Daily Caller A Failure

A commenter summed up Carlson's career nicely:

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.

See also:

Tucker Carlson: The willing degradation of the reservation conservative

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Unfortunately for Joy Behar, she can't be silent and make a living at the same time.

Joy Behar questions John McCain's courage for declining her TV invite

Especially timely

From last fall, but even more relevant today.

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.

Related: Paranoia also makes you stoopid:

Charles Johnson "Fairly Sure" the Tennesee State Flag is a Neo-Nazi Logo...

Gee, ya' think?

[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.

More here.

Perspective (or lack thereof)

Howard Kurtz takes a look a Gerald Boyd's posthumous memoir:

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.

In Kurtz's mind, Jayson Blair is the worst fabricator in the hisotry of the Times.

Remind me again, which genocide did Blair cover-up?

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.

Frum-smacking: A game everyone can (should) play

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.

Ace:

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.

Here's something i wrote a year ago:

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.

A broken system

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.

It seems that California has created a perverse system of capital punishment appeals. It let's a monster like Richard Ramirez spend decades on death row. At the same time, a truly innocent man is likely to spend decades on death row.

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.

Bug or feature?

Joe Katzman:

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."

Credit where due

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.

(HT: R. S. McCain)

Related:

GWB:The man in full

UPDATE: Klein left out maybe the biggest Bush failure of all: his inept handling of the two wars he launched but did not win.

UPDATE (3/24): Stand by your man was a great song; it is lousy politics.

Many of the comments at Am Spec and TOM attack Klein for criticizing Bush. I don't know which worries me more: the whiff of totalitarian party-lining implicit in the idea that true conservatives must only attack liberals and never Republicans or mounting evidence that for most commenters the 'net brings out their inner idiot. (Fortunately, the only commenters i have are reasonable or spam-bots. I delete the latter and appreciate the former so read what CJinPA wrote on this post.)

If conservatives and free-marketers don't criticize the Bush/Rove record, then three bad things happen. One, we look like hypocrites when we criticize liberals and Democrats. Two, the Bush years (and their disasters) get chalked up conservative ideas. Who could be surprised if the public was less than eager for a repeat. Three, Bushites end up appearing on TV as conservative spokesmen and get their heads handed to them.

For item 3 check out this:

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."

Rove may have had the facts on his side but television is all about soundbites. Right now, any Democrat will win the soundbite battle if the issue is economics and his opponent made his bones serving Bush II.

I prefer The Blues Brothers myself

But R. S. McCain is apparently an Animal House fan:

Democrats in the Deathmobile

Here is your headline of the day

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.

Remembering the glory days of the Pirates

by The Last Hollywood Star



As the Pittsburgh Pirates embark on the team's 50th Anniversary celebratory season of its historic 1960 World Series triumph over the New York Yankees, fans have good reason to reach back in time to when the Buccos were truly great.

For too many fans, a 17-year sub-.500 Pirate record has blotted out the Bucco's rich history.

Others of a younger generation know nothing of previous Pirate glory days.

The place to begin your review of the early Pirates is a wonderful new book by James Forr and David Proctor, "Pie Traynor: A Baseball Biography"

The book naturally focuses on Traynor and his sixteen-year Hall of Fame playing career from 1920 to 1937 (BA: .320) during which time he was widely considered to be baseball's best third baseman. The honor was officially bestowed on him in 1969 when Traynor was voted as the third baseman on baseball's all-time team.

In most of Traynor's Pirate seasons the team contended for the National League pennant.

An extraordinarily skilled fielder and a great hitter, Traynor once drove in more than 100 runs in five consecutive seasons (1927-1931). The only other third baseman to match that feat is the Atlanta Braves' Chipper Jones. I'll save you the trouble of looking it up. Neither 500 home run sluggers Eddie Matthews nor Mike Schmidt did it.

Forr and Proctor also devote chapters to Traynor's post-playing years as the Pirates manager, an evening sports talk show host and an announcer for the old "Studio Wrestling" program back in the days when wrestling was more or less legitimate.

Traynor was a widely recognized and beloved figure in Pittsburgh. Since he never learned to drive, Traynor walked everywhere and was more than willing to stop and chat with his admiring fans. Unlike many of today's stars, Traynor never turned down a request to appear at a youth group or address a charitable organization.

The book is rich with Pirate history that will fascinate even the most casual fan.

Here are two examples:

-- For years, some baseball analysts claim that when the Pirates met the New York Yankees in the 1927 World Series, the Bucs were so overwhelmed when they watched "Murderer's Row" take batting practice that they knew they would lose and played accordingly.

Traynor debunks that theory completely. According to Traynor, the Pirates took batting practice first and never even watched the Yankees warm up.

Lloyd Waner, Traynor's Hall of Fame teammate, confirms it. According to Waner: "We had our workout first and I...was just leaving the field as they were coming onto the field."

--- In 1938, when Traynor was manager and the team badly needed pitchers and catchers, Chester Washington of the black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier sent Traynor the following telegram: "KNOW YOUR CLUB NEEDS PLAYERS STOP HAVE ANSWER TO YOUR PRAYERS RIGHT HERE IN PITTSBURGH STOP JOSH GIBSON CATCHER FIRST BASE B. LEONARD AND RAY BROWN PITCHER OF HOMESTEAD GRAYS AND S. PAIGE PITCHER COOL PAPA BELL OF PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS. ALL AVAILABLE AT REASONABLE FIGURES STOP WOULD MAKE PIRATES FORMIDABLE PENNANT CONTENDERS STOP WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE? STOP WIRE ANSWER"

Years later, that Traynor never answered Washington puzzles many especially since if the Pirates had acquired Gibson, Leonard, Bell and Paige they likely would have run off a string of World Championships.

But in retrospect, the consensus is that Traynor's silence was not motivated by racism but that he acting individually did not have the authority from the Pirates' administration to integrate baseball.

Not quite a decade later, when Traynor was working as a sportscaster, he urged the Pirates to follow the lead of the Brooklyn Dodgers and sign black players.

What I also enjoy about Forr and Proctor's book is the insight into less well known early Buccos who had enormously productive careers.

Have you ever heard of Lee Meadows? In addition to being the first major league player to wear eye glasses, Meadows was the fastest working pitcher ever to take to the mound. In 1919, as a Philadelphia Phillie, Meadows was the 6-1 loser in a 51 minute complete game (!) against the New York Giants. Meadows anchored the Buc's staff from 1924 to 1928 when he won 20 games once and 19 games twice.

Did you ever wonder how Trayner's Hall of Fame teammate Hazen Shirley Cuyler became known as "Kiki"? Some think it was because of his slight speech impediment that often made it difficult for Cuyler to pronounce his name completely on his first attempt.

Others say that Cuyler was such an outstanding outfielder that players would call "Ki, Ki" for any fly ball within his reach.

How about the left-handed Cy Blanton who debuted for the Pirates in 1935 and after two and a half weeks had a 4-0 record with a 0.75 ERA. By the season's end, Blanton was 18-4 and led the league in ERA with 2.58.

Banton's story ends sadly, however. He never matched his early success and after being traded to the Phillies, was released in 1942. In 1945, Blanton died in a mental institution.

"Pie Traynor: A Baseball Biography" is the first comprehensive study of Traynor's career. And the book offers many interesting and amusing anecdotes about the great Pirate teams and players from those wonderful days gone by.

Copies are available from Amazon.com and can also be ordered at http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/ or by calling 1-800-253-2187

Today on Sesame Street: David Brooks

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.

Jonah Goldberg in The Corner.

Anthrax doubts

The Department of Justice and the FBI think the anthrax letters case is now closed. Dr. Meryl Nass disagrees. She has posted a series of valuable questions and rebuttals to the FBI's case against Dr. Bruce Ivins.

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.

That strikes me as a serious blindspot in an eight year investigation.

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.

In the aftermath of the FBI report, Ivins "therapist" hit the media trail with tales of the evil Bruce Ivins and his twisted psyche:

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.

Nass also notes that Duley is the only medical professional to come forward with these tales.

She has a round-up of other questions here:

My summary of unresolved issues in the anthrax letters case

Amanda Knox

Tabloid TV generally displays a "guily when charged" mentality. For some reason, they made an exception in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

The cable screamers were convinced that Amanda Knox was a poor innocent girl railroaded without evidence.

One journalist who broke from the pack was Barbie Latza Nadeau of The Daily Beast. Unlike the cable pundits,she actually attended the trial in Italy.

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.

And this:

[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.”

Hat Tip

Not quite must see TV

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.”

So let me get this straight. When PBS decides they need a new show, they turn to a guy whose magazine is losing readers by the boatload. Then they toss in a co-host who has already failed twice before.

Maybe the guild thought they might need a lifeline. That's the only thing that makes sense.

Politics ain't bean bag

Over at Volokh they decry the the attacks on the DOJ officials who once represented al-Qaeda detainees:

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.

A commenter, though, makes the critical point and takes the match:

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.

Same point, but in a different context from R. S. McCain:

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.

As for me, i'm old enough to remember when Carville and Begala were defending Clinton by smearing Ken Starr as a "lawyer for Big Tobacco".

So that explains why Dylan Ratigan is an obnoxious jerk

“I guess it sucks doing Rachel Maddow’s laundry.”

Wow. How did this guy get on the ticket?

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.

His family pulls $70 million out of the bank in 2007 and 2008. Now it looks like it will fail at great cost to the FDIC. And he thinks Illinois should send him to Washington.


Oh yeah, his family business helped bankroll Tony Rezko and made loans to Michael “Jaws” Giorango,, a bookmaker and pimp.

(HT: Cap'n Ed at Hot Air)

Karl Rove: The not so smart political genius

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.

Gee, ya' think?

The "Bush lied, people died" meme pollutes the public debate on the Iraq War. Now it finally dawns on Karl Rove that the White House should have pushed back against that libel. Truly Rove is one of the great minds of his generation.



See also:

The Libby case


The Bush governing style

That could be the MSM's epitaph

Apparatchiks who pretend to be revolutionaries — that’s an awful lot of the press these days.

Who is John Galt?

Apparently he was a child-killing psychopath:

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.

No surprise that libertarianism starts as applied autism and easily slides into something worse.


How can anyone be a Randian after reading Prescott's essay?

Maybe this helps explain it.

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.

Prescott blames Nietzsche's influence for Rand's disturbing fondness for sick killers. That is, at best, only a partial explanation. No one who took Nietzsche seriously could create Objectivism:

The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
(Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols)

As is usually the case, Chesterton had the best response to the bad parts of Nietzsche and his dime-store disciples:

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.

Words that deserve repeating

I like Beck, but Teddy Roosevelt, faults and all, is not the enemy.

I'm not sure i like Beck much, but i am sure that TR is not the enemy.

Hey big man, glad you decided to stay

Hampton agrees to Steelers contract

The Steelers and nose tackle Casey Hampton have come to a a three-year contract agreement worth $21.3 million this morning.

A long-time anchor of one of the best defenses in the NFL. What's not to like?

Kornheiser suspended

ESPN suspends Tony Kornheiser for comments about SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm's wardrobe

HT: JWF

Jack Shafer mounts a defense of TK. (Well, as much of a defense as an honest man can mount for someone like Kornheiser).

Sympathy for Tony Kornheiser
He may be a rotten bastard, but his ESPN bosses are idiots for suspending him.

Reports say that Kornheiser is suspended for two weeks. I think that tells us a lot about the "values" at Bristol. ESPN was happy to make Kornheiser a television star despite his cruel mockery of twelve year olds. When Dana Jacobson unleashed a drunken, obscene and blasphemous tirade at an ESPN function, she was suspended for a week.

In ESPN's world, mocking Hannah Storm's fashion choices is twice as bad as hurling obscenities at Jesus Christ.

Ben Stein has questions about the MSM's obsession with Tiger Woods

Why is The Tiger being made a spectacle in front of the world?

Why can movie stars and rock stars and billionaire playboys have this kind of love life every day for their whole lives and no one says a word, and when one of the great athletes of all time does it, he gets crucified? Why, in the most basic sense, is it anything but gossip and why does it deserve this much attention, not to say this much torment of the Tiger and his wife?

There are big issues in the world today: wars, terrorism, a major, big recession, terrible unemployment, people losing their homes, serious fraud on Wall Street. Have we forgotten all of this?

Here.

I understand that reaction

Boos as Ron Paul wins CPAC straw poll

From Confederate Yankee:

Never underestimate the power of crazy people to warp the outcome of small group events.

Very true. On the other hand, it seems that CPAC was trying very hard to attract crazy people this year. The freaking John Birch Society was a co-sponser.

Follow the fallout at memeorandum.

Remember this name: Robin Dehaven

A quick-thinking glass worker who happened to be driving by when a pilot with a grudge smashed his plane into a Texas building is being hailed as a hero after helping many people escape the inferno that followed the crash.

Rest of the story here.

The world would be a much better place if the heroes who saved lives were as famous as the pathetic losers who take them.

Wow

Duke lacrosse accuser charged with arson


Mangum set clothing on fire in the bathroom tub in a bathroom located in the middle of the apartment. The apartment sustained heavy smoke damage, according to the Durham Fire Department.

The suspect reportedly filled the bathtub with clothes and set fire to it. Three children and the two adults were evacuated from the apartment at 2220 Lincoln St.

Monument to a pompous fraud

RSM pretty much nails Keith Olbermann's epitaph:

Here Lies Keith Olbermann, Who Was Even Less Popular Than Rachel Maddow

UPDATE: The future of newsweeklies

Last year, Howard Kurtz looked at Time and Newsweek as they struggled to remain relevant and solvent:

The rival editors are turning out weeklies that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal.

So far, the results of the new strategies are less than awe-inspiring.

Magazines’ Newsstand Sales Fall 9.1 Percent

Newsweek, down 41.3 percent to about 62,000 (Newsweek had decreased the number of copies on sale, noted a spokesman);

Time, down 34.9 percent to about 90,000.

(HT: JWF )

What happened to Team Obama

Michael Barone:

How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic Party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

How's that global warming thing working out for you guys?

Not to be missed

Something Wicked This Way Emotes: Andrew Sullivan Bashed as Anti-Semite By... Magazine He Formerly Edited, TNR

Bonus: Sullivan Gives Up Vagina-Blogging to Start... Breast-Blogging!

From Ace of Spades

Tim Tebow

From the always impressive Jemele Hill:

Laud the courage in Tim Tebow's stand


Tebow's decision to appear in this ad should be considered just as courageous as Muhammad Ali's decision to not enter the draft, or Tommie Smith's and John Carlos' black power salute at the 1968 summer Olympics.

When hysterics self-analyze

Andrew Sullivan's Heroic Self-Appraisal

Is there some world championship for self-deceit and puffery of which I am unaware? Andrew Sullivan seems to have penned a winning entry.

Lessons from the Gipper

1. Conventional wisdom and establishment pundits will underestimate the size of a new coalition. They obsess about changes at the margin and are oblivious to radical realignment until it happens. No one saw the landslide in the Texas caucus in 1976 and few predicted that Carter would lose most of his southern states in 1980.


2. Hold on to your principles, but do not be afraid to change your platform or your mind.

In 1976, RR was a fairly conventional Republican on economics (deficits are bad and spending cuts were needed to balance the budget.) He was a an anti- detente hawk on foregn policy but his breakthrough issue was the Panama Canal.

In 1980 he was still a hawk, but the Panama Canal treaty was a fait accompli. On domestic policy, however, Reagan was now an enthusiastic supply-sider. Spending cuts took a back seat to Kemp-Roth. Deficits were of less concern than jump starting the economy by increasing incentives.

In addition, social issues (especially abortion) were a much bigger part of the platform and message.

3. Do not be afraid to upset you party's apple cart.

Balanced budgets were a GOP mantra in the 60s and 70s, yet Reagan was willing to embrace supply-side policies. Detente and the SALT process were the center piece of the Nixon, Ford, Kissinger foreign policy. Reagan was happy to oppose both the policy and the process head-on.

This "divisive" stance should have weakened the party. It should have doomed him in 1980. Instead he won two smashing victories and did more for his party than any president since FDR.

Is it Speaker Pelosi or Queen Nancy?

Can Nan

Pelosi Racks Up $101,000 Bar Tab on Taxpayer-Funded Flights



Pelosi's Children and Grandchildren Used Military Jets As Cross-Country Shuttle Service So They Could Avoid Dealing With the Rabble

How far can Sully sink?

The man shows no sign of touching bottom

Andrew Sullivan hits new low in attacking Palin

The Atlantic should be ashamed to give a platform to this sort of craziness.

(HT: R. S. McCain)


Don't miss Ace of Spades.

Now that's smart coaching

Former Steelers coach Moore guiding Colts' offense

"There are lots of systems, there are tons of systems," Moore said. "But the trick is no systems, the trick is players and making sure you take something that the players can do and not get into, 'Well, this is mine and this is what we're going to do.' It's what's best for the players."

No wonder the Colts are always near the top of the league in offense no matter how much the roster changes.

More on the Tim Tebow Super Bowl controversy

Today's must read from Sally Jenkins:

Tebow's Super Bowl ad isn't intolerant; its critics are

I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.


As statements at Super Bowls go, I prefer the idea of Tebow's pro-life ad to, say, Jim McMahon dropping his pants, as the former Chicago Bears quarterback once did in response to a question. We're always harping on athletes to be more responsible and engaged in the issues of their day, and less concerned with just cashing checks. It therefore seems more than a little hypocritical to insist on it only if it means criticizing sneaker companies, and to stifle them when they take a stance that might make us uncomfortable.

Considering James O'Keefe

Ben Stein

Patterico


Ann Althouse

It's worth noting the MSM has shown more zeal in pursuing the O'Keefe/Landrieu story than they did when Sarah Palin's email was hacked.

Tim Tebow

Turns out that it is not just degenerate Alabama fans [redundant. ed.] who hate Tim Tebow.

Thank you, Tim Tebow

Par for the course

Pelosi stopped one CIA operation. So why not waterboarding?

As one of the top four leaders on Capitol Hill, Pelosi had numerous tools at her disposal if she had truly wanted to block waterboarding. She could have threatened to put a hold on funding for the CIA interrogation program, or held up funding for other administration priorities, or worked with her Senate counterparts to hold up nominees for senior CIA positions, or simply called the national security adviser -- as she reportedly did in the case of the Iraq program. Pelosi did none of those things when she learned about waterboarding. By her silence, Pelosi gave her consent -- and then misled the media by claiming she was powerless to act.

Journalists did not question Pelosi's claims -- and then they stopped questioning her. Pelosi announced that she would not take more questions on the topic, and the media complied. Reporters who relentlessly chased the Valerie Plame leak let the story drop. Pelosi's role in stopping another covert operation gives lie to her claims that she was powerless to stop waterboarding -- but the Washington press corps failed to "connect the dots." Now that the truth is out, will they continue to let her get away with not answering questions? We'll learn the answer at her next press briefing.

I don't think she means it in a good way

Obama Is Katy Perry

Unbelievably good

Matt Taibbi takes down David Brooks:

Populism: Just Like Racism!

And even if I were to accept the Brooksian view of an upper class that must be looked to to fix things and take care of the lower classes and create the needed wealth to help us escape our economic crisis, the whole point is that this upper class he is talking about has abdicated that very responsibility — and, perhaps having reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not worth saving, has taken on a new mission that involves not creating wealth for all but simply absconding with whatever wealth is remaining.

It’s not pessimism or “combative divisiveness” to talk about these problems and insist that they get fixed. On the contrary, it’s a very positive view of what citizenship is to believe that everyone has a real role in fixing his country’s problems, and that when we identify problems, we should try to do something about them because we might actually succeed.

On the other hand, telling oneself that when powerful people “rig the game” one should just tolerate it, because one’s best hope for seeing the situation fixed rests in hoping those same powerful people fix it themselves — I would describe that as pessimism, or something worse than pessimism. The whole point of America is that we are all supposed to be our own masters, never viewing anyone as being by birth or situation inherently better or more capable than ourselves, and so the notion of relying upon some nebulous class of investment bankers to “channel opportunity” from on high strikes me as being un-American.

If there is a Republican who aspires to be Reagan 2.0, the best thing they can do is read Taibbi's reporting on the Bubble and Crash. The game-changing candidate will be the one who combines an intelligent appreciation of Hayek with a clear-eyed willingness to address the need for financial reform.

Hint-- Jamie Gorelick, Larry Summers, and Barney Frank are gifts that keep on giving.,

Note that Ann Coulter gets it.

As bad as 1974?

Michael Barone thinks Democrats could lose big in this year's elections:

The victory of a Democrat in the special election to fill Vice President Gerald Ford's House seat in February 1974 was a clear indication that the bottom had fallen out for the Republican Party. Brown's victory last week looks as if something similar has happened to the Democratic Party.

Ace has some thoughts on why Obama's mandate was so fleeting.

If i worked for the RNC, i'd worry about a repeat of 1998. Over-confidence can be a killer. (Just as Former Speaker Gingrich.)

That's gonna' leave a mark

Fox leads for trust

Americans do not trust the major tv news operations in the country- except for Fox News.Our newest survey looking at perceptions of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News finds Fox as the only one that more people say they trust than distrust. 49% say they trust it to 37% who do not.

I hope he writes a book

'Mole-hunter' breaks 30-year silence

For 30 years Stephen De Mowbray has maintained a self-imposed silence on a career that once took him to the heart of one of British intelligence's most controversial episodes.

In 1979 he quit his job with the Secret Service because he believed officials had failed to take seriously the claim that British intelligence had been further penetrated by its enemy - the Soviet Union's KGB.

A number of spies had been discovered in the 1960s but De Mowbray believed there were more. But he found no-one at the top willing to listen.

Oliver Stone: A Martyr in his own mind

Speaking of his 1991 film JFK, Stone said he thought it was “a good thing” to revisit the JFK assassination but was surprised when historians and film reviewers jumped on him for fudging facts, inventing characters and elevating speculation to truth in an effort to back up his own belief that Kennedy was killed by a CIA-led cabal masterminded by the “evil genius” Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman.

“It’s an amazing story and I did it,” Stone said. “I thought I would be respected for it, and I was lambasted in the establishment press. I was called a myth-maker, a propagandist. I didn’t see it coming. I thought the Kennedy murder was safe.”

Dale K. Myers provides the appropriate commentary:

Anyone with a half-nut knows that Stone’s JFK, while fabulous and provocative filmmaking, doesn’t have anything to do with reality when it comes to the JFK assassination. For Stone to pretend that it does shows just how bankrupt the conspiracy crowd is when it comes to dethroning the case against Lee Harvey Oswald. That doesn’t stop them from trying though, does it?

For forty-six years we’ve been hearing about the big conspiracy that killed Kennedy and still we’ve seen not one shred of believable evidence that anyone other than Oswald was behind the deed.

RTWT.

An endorsement worth getting

It's not every day that a Nobel Prize winner becomes involved in a U.S. election, but Lech Walesa -- famed for his Cold War leadership of the Solidarity movement in Poland -- will be campaigning this week for a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Illinois.

The former Polish president will be the keynote speaker Friday at a Chicago luncheon fundraiser for Adam Andrzejewski, one of five Republican candidates for governor in Illinois.

More here.

Ellie Light

An editor she conned responds here:

The saga of "Ellie Light"

It is hard to see what else his paper could have done. When they tried to verify her information, Ellie Light lied to them. I give them a lot of credit for addressing the issue in a forthright manner.

I'm still curious about the choice of newspapers. How many of these emails did "Ellie Light" send out? She hit a lot of small newspapers in small cities/towns. She must have a lot of time on her hands.


Patterico is still on the beat and moving the story forward.

Follow the blog reaction on this memeorandum thread.

Counter 34 Pike

A play dear to all Steelers fans.

Longest run in SuperBowl history.

Memories will last if Steelers' Parker doesn't

I hope Fast Willie Parker gets a chance to have many more years in the NFL.

It's all about the legacy

Add another chapter to the BrettFavre legend – the legend of colossal mistakes in critical moments of huge games.

More at the Cold Hard Football Facts

The problem with "24"

Lileks:

I don’t know why I still watch, because experience has taught me it’ll be a shadowy cabal of fat-necked Amway distributors in Omaha who are behind the Sarin gas attack on the Saudi oilfields.

Good point

JWF on the Edwards and slow (really slow) reporting:

Within a week of Sarah Palin ascending to national prominence in 2008 we knew every intimate detail of her life, most of it portrayed in unflattering fashion by the Washington press corps. Meanwhile, you had an "an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman" and her cheating husband still getting good press even after these writers knew the truth.

Little Green Footballs

The profile that has the blogosphere a-buzzing. Charles Johnson in the New York Times.

I especially like the reactions over at Ace of Spades and Patterico.

Howard Kurtz gets it

I'm pretty predictable on the subject: Local elections turn on local personalities and parochial factors and should not be hyped by the media into some sort of national trend.

Except for this one.

The Massachusetts Senate race is different because Martha Coakley should have won it without breaking a sweat. For all her flaws as a candidate--who takes a week's vacation in a five-week race?--it shouldn't have been close. And whatever Scott Brown's strengths as a candidate (other than once being Cosmo's "sexiest man"), he was clearly boosted by growing resentment of Obamacare and the nation's direction in the bluest of blue states.

More here.

Hollywood's funky math

Edward Jay Epstein

No matter how well a movie appears to fare in the box office race reported by the media, it is usually in the red at that point. So where does the money that sustains Hollywood come from? In 2007, the major studios had combined revenues of $42.3 billion, of which about one-tenth came from American theaters; the rest came from the so-called back end, which includes DVD sales, multi-picture output deals with foreign distributors, pay TV, and network television licensing.

How we got stuck with Janet Napolitano

Mickey Kaus thinks it goes back to the Clarence Thomas hearings.

(HT: JustOneMinute)

Hook em horns!

Look, i want to like Alabama. i used to like Alabama. i have friends who went to Alabama. i like that Bart Starr and Joe Namath went to Alabama.

But there is no way i can root for Nick Saban.

Plus, they bear the taint of MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.

Tonight, there is only one team that right thinking Americans can support.

UPDATE: More proof that the football gods do not always favor the good guys. This is turning into a pigskin annus horribilis.

That's our Sully

Usually wrong but always confident.

Sullivan's Credibility Escapes With A Literal "Woosh" - With Photo!

Seven years and he still does not know his limitations.

Lessons of this War

On the other hand, maybe Excitable Andy can't help it.

News Flash!!!

David Brooks is still a pompous jerk.

Ace has the best take down.


Follow the discussion at Memeorandum.


I have a theory about why the Times still publishes a dope like Brooks. It goes back to this passage from David Gelernter:

Today's elite loathes the public. Nothing personal, just a fundamental difference in world view, but the hatred is unmistakable. Occaissionally it escapes in scorching geysers. Michael Lewis reports in the New Republic on the '96 Dole presidential campaign: 'The crowd flips the finger at the busloads of journalists and chant rude things at them as they enter each arena. The journalists, for their part, wear buttons that say 'yeah, i'm the Media. Screw You.' The crowd hates the reporters, the reporters hate the crowd-- an even matchup, except that the reporters wield power and the crowed (in effect) wields none.

Drawing Life

David Brooks -- just one more Freddie Uncle from the New York Times.

Autopsy on a failed season

From Jim Wexell, for my money, the best reporter covering the Steelers:

Arians’ offense put up great numbers ... in the sunshine of Miami. But back in Cleveland, where the season was lost, Arians had called 42 pass plays and only 20 runs in zero-degree weather with 30-35 mph winds gusting over 40 mph. The protective Pittsburgh media blasted the effort of the Steelers instead of Arians’ ridiculous game plan as the season died on the vine.

The Steelers still need a fullback and an interior lineman or two, but those have always been easy positions to fill, nothing like the FS-CB-MLB-NT quartet looming on defense. The other position to fill should be offensive coordinator.

Does Tomlin have the courage to fire a man with whom he won a ring?

I posted this two years ago.

Fear and dread in Steeler Nation

I think the larger reason is that the team that wins does not look like the Steelers teams we are used to watching. No longer do we pound the ball on the ground and play suffocating defense. Now our victories are keyed to big plays in the passing game and a desperate hope that the defense can make a couple of stops. Classic Steerlers football was a 20-7 game that never felt close. This years version is perfectly captured by the second Cleveland game and the win over the Rams. No lead felt safe because no lead was safe.

The same problems that bedeviled the team in 2007 and 2009 were also present in 2008 when we won the SuperBowl. As this blogger noted, there was a razon thin difference between winning it all and sitting out the playoffs.

The 2009 Steelers have played 13 games this year; 9 of those games have been decided by one possession (they’ve only won 2 of these “close games”).

Last year the team only lost 2 of their close games and won 7 of them.

The sad thing is, many of those games should not have been close. The offense frittered away opportunities with Arians's wicky-wacky play-calling. The symbol for the season should be the third-and-one in Cleveland.

And it wasn’t just the mental errors, it was the alignments and the playcalling and the poor timing of each. A third-and-one shotgun snap to start the game, deep in your own territory, on the road in gale-force December winds, is not what Art Rooney II wanted to see in THE game of his very first season alone at the helm.

Do you think he missed the stark contrast that in those conditions, in his division, his Steelers played finesse ball and the Browns came right at them with a beastly wildcat quarterback and a couple of young, mobile, strong and highly-drafted linemen?

This could be a problem

"This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," says the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue."

More here.


Toby Harnden of The Telegraph:

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama's treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

Whitewashing terrorism

An old story (2007) but still relevant.

Rehabbing The D.C. Snipers

Now the network [CNN] has completely scrubbed Islam from the picture, offering child abuse (boo-hoo) and spousal revenge as alternative motives for the snipers' bloody rampage.

Nowhere in its one-hour special - promoted as "The Minds of the D.C. Snipers" - is Islamist brainwashing even hinted as a motivating factor behind their serial assassinations. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that they were on a jihad.

In their own words, Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo traveled across the country to terrorize Washingtonians on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks - first by picking off random people and then by blowing up school buses using plastic explosives loaded with ball bearings.

As time passes, CNN's take has become increasingly prevalent in the MSM. The ideological motive is ignored while the spousal revenge plot is given currency despite the lack of evidence for it. (Basically, his ex-wife claims he was out to kill her and the media takes her at her word.)

I wonder how authorities and the media came to believe her and reject the evidence that she was less than a fearful innocent hiding from her crazy ex-soldier spouse?

But a simple check of local news stories at the time would have revealed that neighbors reported seeing Muhammad visit with his former wife and children at their Maryland town house before and during the shootings. One neighbor said he even jogged with him.

Police even staked out her house in the hope he would visit again.

The blogger formerly known as The Other McCain

is still known as The Other McCain. But he has new cyber digs here.