No one can hear you because I have my ears covered

Every little kid I’ve known went through a phase where they closed their eyes when hiding. They think that if they cannot see you, then you cannot see them.

Sometimes I think the MSM is a little like these kids. Many reporters and editors think that if they don’t tell their readers about it, the reader will not find out.

Just a musing sparked by this from Ace writing about the “flood the zone" coverage of Van Jone:

This is definitely true of the New York Times -- the first time the Paper of Record "scoops" the competition that a scandal is brewing, the scandal is already over. (Mostly.)

Why? What exactly do they believe themselves to be accomplishing? They all read Drudge and know that 90% of the news-hawking public reads Drudge, and yet they continue to think that if they just ignore a story they somehow make it go away.

UPDATE:

This from the Hot Air Greenroom is outstanding:

What the Van Jones Story Is Really About

Michelle Malkin's roundup/reaction post is also excellent:

The resignation (and coming MSM/left-wing martyrdom) of Van Jones; Obama “thanks him for his service”

Byron York:

There was a day, not too long ago, when the Times and other influential news organizations could kill a story -- could deny the bad guys a win -- simply by ignoring it. Sometimes they still try. But it just won't work anymore.

Credit where due

I've done my share of Kurtz bashing, so it's only fair to take note when he gets something right. This week on Reliable Sources he discussed Levi Johnson and Vanity Fair.

This is a quality magazine paying a high school dropout, whose only conceivable credential is that he knocked up a governor's daughter, who has been called a liar by Sarah Palin, engaging in payback by trashing the family. This is supposed to be what? Journalism. I felt like taking a shower afterwards.

The limits of charisma

Obama's Summer of Discontent

American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.

Those protesters in those town-hall meetings have served notice that Mr. Obama's charismatic moment has passed. Once again, the belief in that American exception that set this nation apart from other lands is re-emerging. Health care is the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it is an unease with the way the verdict of the 2008 election was read by those who prevailed. It shall be seen whether the man swept into office in the moment of national panic will adjust to the nation's recovery of its self-confidence.

Kent Tekulve: Middle Relief the Key

by The Last Hollywood Star

One of the few good reasons to watch the Pirates on Fox Sports Network is to tune in to the post-game wrap up with Rob King and Kent Tekulve.

Their analysis is top notch.

A few weeks ago after one of the Pirates defeats---can’t remember which one among the many---Tekulve (184 saves; 2.95 ERA) said that most games are won or lost in the middle innings, that is the sixth and seventh.

Tekulve argued that with starters on pitch counts that normally limit them to about one hundred pitches and with closers usually dominant, middle relief is the key.

In the Friday night 14-7 blow out to the St. Louis Cardinals, here’s who manager John Russell called into the game starting the sixth inning: Denny Baustista (4.05 ERA); Joel Hanrahan (5. 07); Phil Dumatrait (13.50); Steve Jackson (3.94) and Chris Bootcheck (12.97)

When parade of failures from the bull pen started, the Pirates were ahead 6-5!

The relief pitchers summoned to put out the fire instead threw gasoline on it.

And, in the grand scheme of things, even thought the Pirates have had precious late game leads to protect lately, closer Matt Capps is 3-8, 6.02.

The Pirates march is no longer toward its seventeenth consecutive losing season. That’s a lock. The new low will be 100 losses for the season, a strong possibility, and only eighth in team history.

Van Jones resigns

Round-ups at Ed Driscoll and Gateway Pundit.

No rest for the wicked

POTUS gets a vacation. Smitty at The Other McCain gets to compile the latest FMJRA. The nation is better off on both counts.

Frontin' Muh'man Jones: Royally Aggravatin'

Crazies left and right

As usual Mark Steyn slices to the heart of the matter:

Megan McArdle writes:

If the right ever wants to get back in power, it needs to start policing its lunatic fringe.

Er, okay. But the left is in power, and it's got Van Jones the Truther in the White House. Which isn't exactly the "fringe". More of a lunatic mainstream, isn't it? Which may be why The New York Times et al have decided there's no story.

Funny, isn't it, that while Henke, Frum, et. al. do Axelrod's work in demonizing conservatives, they missed one of the biggest blog stories ever?

Gateway Pundit owned the the story and he has not stopped blogging on the many facets of the Green Czar.

Ace has some interesting posts. He is having too much fun puncturing the lame defenses/explanations offered on Jones's behalf.



Legal Insurrection catches MSNBC in a moment of cluelessness that would shame even Chris Matthews.

Van Jones Sends Thrill Up MSNBC's Leg

Powerline looks at the meaning of Van Jones.

What Van Jones signifies

Doctor Zero:

The media is trying to ignore the Van Jones outrage. Don’t let them. This is not a “mistake.” A mistake is a matter of chance, a momentary failure of reason and wisdom. This is part of a pattern.

Watching greatness

by The Last Hollywood Star

Albert Pujols wasn’t the most destructive Cardinal in Friday night’s 14-7 rout of the woeful Pirates. Even though Pujols went 2-4 with a home run and three RBIs, the destroyer was Ryan Ludwick, 5-5, two home runs and five RBIs.

Still if you go to PNC Park either Saturday or Sunday, be aware of where Pujols ranks among the all-time greats.

Pujols is one of only five major league players who have a slugging percentage over .600 an on-base percentage of over .400 and a batting average over .300.

The others are: Jimmy Foxx, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams.

The urge to purge

R. S. McCain has a couple of good items on the latest kerfuffle:

Do we need a purge? I don't think so

Birthers, Ruffini and the Urge to Purge

He's actually easier on the instigators than they deserve. (I suspect that Mr. McCain is a bit of a squish when it comes to squishes he knows personally.)

Me? I'm heartily sick of these pointless public fatwas. Don't like World Net Daily? Fine, don't go there. (I've managed to not go there for months and months and even years at a time.)

Think WND is posting nonsense? Fine, say so. Fisk them. That's what blogs are for.

But to demand that WND AND ITS READERS should be publically shunned and denounced?

Please, your ego is showing.

Besides, as McCain points out, there is a little Beltway career management at work here.

Attacking small fry like WND in order to bolster the old brand image is mean and small and probably worse than anything Joseph Farrah has done.

If they believe their bilge and really think their outrage is justified then we have a different problem Perhaps Ruffini and Henke should ponder a thought from a couple of great conservative thinkers:

From the outset the eminence of this new creature, the intellectual, who was to play such a tremendous role in the history of the twentieth century, was inseperable from his necessary indignation. It was his indignation that elevated him to a plateau of moral superiority. Once up there, he was in a position to look down on the rest of humanity. And it did not cost him any effort, intellectual or otherwise. As Marshall McLuhan would put it years later: 'Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.'

Tom Wolfe, Hooking Up

These politcal professionals also have a cart and horse problem. What was it that the genius Michael Barone said?

Oh yeah---

There are more conservatives than Republicans.

If Republicans have a problem, it's that the party professionals desert the base, not that its base is a tail that wags the dog.

Finally, just talking practical politics: if Palin, Limbaugh, Levin, and Beck are so toxic, why are the Obama approval numbers dropping? The heros of the great unwashed lead the charge, and the GOP's fortunes improve. It seems to me that the Frum model fails based on these results.

If i won the lottery tomorrow...

...i'd attend every one of these:

Our guilty pleasure

Words of wisdom

That whole Respectable Republican thing, where they turn off the lights to change into their jammies and never, ever admit they might excrete and adopted, as near as I can tell, so their supposed cultural betters on the Left won't sneer down at 'em, is annoying to me. I think it is complete and utter bullshit. Look, it's nice to stick your pinky out when drinking tea but I will take one competent, unpolished individual with a functioning brain and an independent will for every ten nicely-civilized "New Right" types you can muster. Nobody cares who's in your damn bridge club.

More good sense where that came from:

The New Right: Freedom Of The Press, Ew

The Most Shocking Pirate Trade Of All: Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner For A Bunch of Broken Bats!

by The Last Hollywood Star


Pirate rookie Garrett Jones has been one of the few productive hitters on an otherwise dismal offensive.

On Thursday, Jones hit the 10,000th home run in Pirate history. One of the stops along the way to 10,000 was Ralph Kiner’s 3,000th.

Kiner’s story and his relationship in the late 1940s and early 1950s with then-general manager Branch Rickey has a familiar ring to it. See if you can guess the story’s outcome before I get to the end of my tale.

Kiner debuted with the Pirates in 1946 and promptly won the National League home run title. From 1947 though 1952, Kiner won seven consecutive home run titles, a record unmatched in the major leagues.

In 1950, Kiner was at the zenith of his power (he hit 54 home runs the preceding year) and a fan favorite. Many spoke of Kiner as the Pirates’ Babe Ruth.

That same year, Rickey left the Brooklyn Dodgers to assume the general manager’s position in Pittsburgh.

Rickey was charged by owner John Galbreath with revamping a perennial cellar dwelling team. For reasons not entirely clear, Rickey felt that the first move in the overhaul was getting rid of Kiner.

For the next two years at every opportunity, Rickey demeaned Kiner. According to Rickey, Kiner couldn’t run, throw or field his position. Rickey also compared Kiner to Ruth but always critically.

Once Rickey said: “Kiner has so many weaknesses that if you had eight Ralph Kiners on an American Association team, it would finish last.”

Rickey’s disapproval of Kiner was part of his carefully laid plan to trade the superstar when he thought he could convince the fans of the wisdom of his thinking.

Finally in June 1953, the Pirates traded their first home run champion since 1909 along with Joe Garagiola, Catfish Metkovich, and Howie Pollet to the Chicago Cubs for Toby Atwell, Bob Schultz, Preston Ward, George Freese, Bob Addis, Gene Hermanski, and $150,000 cash.

Disgusted Pirate fans correctly assessed the mammoth ten player trade as merely an exchange of second string bench warmers except for their hero Kiner.

And the fans were right. The acquired Cubs never amounted to much as Pirates.

Although Rickey could never speak well about Kiner, Pirate manager Billy Meyer was pleased to have him on his team.

Said Meyer: “During all the time I managed the Pirates, there was never a time that Kiner didn’t do everything I asked him to for the general good of the club. No matter what I said it was perfectly okay with him.”

Of all the Pirates’ trades over the years, including this summer’s housecleaning, none were as unpopular as the dumping of Hall of Fame-bound Ralph Kiner.

Tarzan economics

If some form of socialism every takes hold in the US, conservative and rightwing pundits will deserve some of the blame.

Grunting "market good, government bad" is not a persuasive argument.

"Suzanne researched this"

Steve Sailer wonders if we can call this an "estrogen recession"? (Hey,that's why he's the bravest man on the internet.)

The Pirates Need Neil Walker To Succeed!

By The Last Hollywood Star


Neil Walker’s September 2nd Pirate debut came up short. In his first full game, Walker went 0-4 and made a throwing error that lead directly to the Bucs’ 5-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

The Pirates need Walker to succeed. With the outlook for the team so bleak, Pirate fans yearn for a reason to come out to PNC Park and root for at least individual successes if outright team victories are too much to hope for.

Walker is only twentieth Pittsburgh native to play for the Pirates. Some like Dick Groat and Frank Thomas were stars. Others like Pirate broadcaster John Wehner played competently.

They were local heroes.

In 2004, Walker out of Pine-Richland High School was the Pirates first round draft choice. Now 24, he could have a long productive career for the Pirates.

During the season, fans have heard Pirate management talk proudly of its investment in the Dominican Republic.

This may or may not prove to be a good long term strategy. Stocking teams with foreign-born players hasn’t panned out for the New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs or the Seattle Mariners, to name a few.

On the other hand, the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, the runner up Tampa Bay Rays and the perennial winning Boston Red Sox’s roster are dominated by Americans.

I urge the Bucs to adopt what I’ll call an Ohio Valley strategy. Besides combing the globe for international talent, the Pirates should seek out homegrown players like Walker and develop them into stars.

If Walker produces, its good for the team, the management and the fans. All of us could use some positive Pirate developments news.

Bravo Mr. Levin

“Frum is a crude and troubled exhibitionist unencumbered by integrity or judgment,” says Levin, “a self-destructive intellectual lightweight who craves attention with increasingly shrill attacks on real conservatives, which makes him a favorite with Bill Moyers, MSNBC, Newsweek and their ilk. For the nation generally and the conservative movement specifically, he is irrelevant.”



Found here:

Despite setbacks, David Frum beats on

UPDATE:

For some unknown reason R.S. McCain keeps defending Frum. A commenter asked the question all his readers want to know:

You have to come clean. What was the favor this chump Frum did for you a while back? CPR? Covered up a moral crime? Pay gambling debts? What?

President Obama sends his regrets

Obama not smooth on Gdansk

The Polish 70th anniversary commemorations of the beginning of World War II take place in Gdansk today. This unfortunately involves the latest in a long series of U.S. snubs felt keenly in Poland. On Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, resulting in six years of war in Europe, the Holocaust and the deaths of 20 million people. The leaders of Russia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and other countries will attend the ceremony, presided over by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The head of the United States government -- unbelievably -- will be absent.

The initial answer from the White House almost defied belief. The head of the official U.S. delegation was not to be a member of the Obama administration but former Clinton Defense Secretary William J. Perry. Over the weekend, a change was announced, and the U.S. delegation is to be headed by National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones. Gen. Jones will head the U.S. delegation, rather than President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gen. Jones will stand alongside Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Anyone want to play "who doesn't belong in this picture?"

Can 100 Losses Be Avoided?

by The Last Hollywood Star

Charlie Morton is one excellent example, among many, of why Pirate fans have so little faith in the team’s management.

Morton, one of three minor league players acquired from the Atlanta Braves for Nate McClouth, got shelled again last night and took the Pirates out of the game in the first inning when he gave up 4 runs to the Reds. Morton for the night: 6IP, 9H, 6ER, 4BB, 1K. For the season: 3-7 with a 5.46 ERA.

When the Pirates fall behind 4-0 in the first inning on the road, the game is over.

So weak was Morton’s performance that Manager John Russell picked up the bull pen phone to order Virgil Vasquez (2-5; 6.43) to warm up!

The most fundamental task of any pitcher is to throw strikes, something that Morton can’t do when he needs to.

Yet throughout the rash of mid-season trades, Pirate management has crowed about “adding talent”. On the field though, there’s been no sign of it.

Last night’s loss to the Reds gave the Pirates the major league’s worst road record, 18-49. Much of the game talk by the Pirate announcing crew tried to determine why the Pirates play “so well” at home but so poorly on the road.

First, the Pirates are not that good at home. The team is six games over .500 Compare that to some of the quality teams like the New York Yankees (+25), the St. Louis Cardinals (+17) or the Los Angeles Dodgers (+15).

Even some of the also-rans are significantly better at home than the Pirates: the Tampa Bay Rays (+20), the Chicago Cubs (+13) and Seattle Mariners (+8).

Simply stated, the Pirates lose on the road because the team is bad.

When the starting pitcher has an ERA over 5.00 and the clean up batter (Ryan Doumit) hits .215, the team is not going to win many games.

Last week, the Pirates inched into the heady territory of fifth place. Now, after six straight losses, they’re back in the cellar---an insurmountable 5-1/2 games behind the resurgent Reds, 8-2 in their last ten games.

The Pirates (53-78) goal now is to avoid one hundred losses. Most of September will be at home but playing against two of the leagues best teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as another team the Bucs historically do not have much success with, the Chicago Cubs.

Are the Pirates up to the task? Odds are no more than 50-50 that they will avoid the dreaded one hundred loss season.

A love that knows no limit

If Brett Favre drowned, the talking heads on ESPN would explain that he chose not to walk on water.

Just how “Burkean” are the Obamacons?

As he tells the story, David Brooks fell for Obama while the two discussed Edmund Burke. (Who knew creased pants were so Burkean?)

Resercons are quite fond of name checking Burke when defending their right-wing bona fides. They explain their differences with the majority of conservatives by appealing to the father of modern conservatism. Brooks goes farther than most by declaring Obama a conservative as well:

“the war in Iraq has caused me to rethink things in a much more modest [way], and that is Burkean, too.”

He recognizes something similar in the current president. “Obama sees himself as a Burkean,” Brooks says.

Maybe I’m overly cynical, but I wonder just how important Burke’s thought is to Brooks and Co.

Dropping his name is useful, no doubt. It hints at wide-reading and intellectual heft. It scores status point against the Palin fans. Since few reporters have studied Burke, there is little chance that the resercons will have to explain themselves.

Detailed explanations might be uncomfortable. It is pretty hard to reconcile Burke's principles with Obama’s actions. At the core of Burkean conservatism is a rejection of , even revulsion for, the grand plans of ambitious intellectuals who wield power.

Brooks, of course, celebrates what Burke disdained. He loves the Obama administration because it is filled with intellectuals with grand plans and great power. Where Burke sees a crisis as a problem to be solved with sober common sense and a humble understanding of human limits, the new administration sees a crisis as an opportunity to enact all their dream projects with limited scrutiny and less debate.

One could blog for days illustrating just how un-Burkean the Obamacons are.

There is one biographical point, however, that is telling. Through out his career Burke paid a price for his principles and patriotism. He lost elections and high office because of his public stands. His opposition to the French Revolution cost him one of his greatest friends-- Charles James Fox.

The Obamacons have followed a different path. Their estrangement from (or rejection of) the conservative mainstream opens doors. Each blast against their erstwhile allies leads to more lucrative opportunities in the MSM.