Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Words Matter

10 Comments

Some thoughts on the president’s petulance and its effect on Tuesday’s electorate. I disagree with this, though:

Our 44th president is a man who has an excellent brain and a not-infrequently childish disposition and who thinks he knows what is best for everyone but has neither the patience nor the humility to deal with those who preach a different way. He’s both brilliant – and exceedingly petulant.

I continue to fail to see the evidence for his “excellent brain” or his “brilliance.” I think that both are highly overrated, and always have. My esteem for his intelligence has dropped, however, along with that of the now-unentranced public. They now realize he isn’t as smart as the media insisted he was. I now think him an ideologically blinded fool.

[Update a couple minutes later]

See, here’s a perfect example: “Obama Calls For Compromise, Won’t Budge On Tax Cuts.” Democrats think that “compromise” means “going along with what the Democrats want.”

And as usual, he demagogues and lies:

“At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans,” the president said. “We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children.”

No one, least of all Barack Obama, knows how much it will cost to keep those rates in place, or if it will “cost” anything at all.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Thoughts On Facts And Science

31 Comments

…from an unwashed hillbilly:

Those words mean two things to this unwashed hillbilly: (1) I have doubts that Obama is “the smartest guy ever to become President,” and (2) he lies.

When Obama was trying to sell the plan, he said it would bring the cost curve down. Once his plan was signed into law, he said he knew that it was “going to increase our costs.” At least that sure looks like a lie to this ignorant know-nothing. Maybe there’s some nuance I don’t understand. Or does “down” mean “up” in actuarial science? Maybe Katie Couric could enlighten me; she knows pretty much everything about climate science.

I guess I’m an unwashed hillbilly, too.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

How Do We Tell The Stupid From The Smart?

28 Comments

Some useful thoughts from Frank J.:

How smart do you have to be to tell if someone else is smart? Hopefully not very smart, because a lot of life — and especially politics — involves asking people to separate the bright from the dimwitted. We can’t figure out or do everything ourselves, so we need to know who the smart people are so we know whom to listen to and entrust with important jobs. But if we incorrectly think morons are smart and listen to them and put them in charge, that would be a disaster.

You could also call it election year 2008.

For some reason, many people thought certain other people — who we can now clearly see are idiots — were smart and should be in charge. So how do we prevent such an error from happening again?

Actually, it was clear to some of us at the time.

Smart people, really smart people, understand the limitations of their knowledge. The tragedy of stupid is that it renders one incapable of recognizing how little they know. One of the endearing features of Forrest Gump was that he understood his limitations. One of the most appalling features of Joe Biden is that he really thinks that he’s the smartest guy in the room (as he told one congressional witness) when it is clear that he is an idiot.

You know how I know that someone is a few ears short of a bushel in the smarts department? When they brag about their IQ. And tell us all how smart they are. To paraphrase Forrest, smart is as smart does. And fortunately, a lot of “smart” people are going to have to go out and get a real job in January, if the voters do what the polls say they will.

Kind of tough being out of work in this economy, though. Particularly when you’re not as smart as you thought you were.

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, I posted the link and wrote the above before I Read The Whole Thing. So I wasn’t really plagiarizing Frank on the “smart is as smart does” thing (seriously, how dumb would one have to be to plagiarize from a linked article?). It’s just that great (or, errrr…some kind of) minds think alike.

[Late afternoon update]

This discussion (and Ken Anthony’s comment) reminds me of an interesting question that I read once from a conservative (probably over at The Corner). If you had to make a choice (and not to imply that it must be one), which would you rather — that your child be good, or smart? This was a, if not the, major theme of Forrest Gump. It’s also one of the reasons that people who criticized Sarah Palin for not aborting her son are so off base. I have little personal experience, but I’ve heard that sufferers from Down’s Syndrome are generally very nice people. Again, though, not to imply that there is an implicit choice.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Neither Can I

4 Comments

This morning, I heard Bill Handel on KFI say that the Arizona law, despite the fact that he liked it, was going to be struck down because it clearly preempts federal law, which has sole jurisdiction over immigration. I will note, for the record, that Bill Handel is often an idiot on the law, at least when it comes to Constitutional issues like this (he may be very good on the real-estate and litigation stuff, what would I know?).

Well, the Judge who is deciding the case can’t understand this argument. And I don’t think it’s because he’s stupid. As the second commenter notes (and far be it from me to sound cynical), we have to take seriously the possibility that the lawsuit was brought for purely political purposes, despite the fact that they have absolutely no legal case. Not to mention the fact that they completely ignore “sanctuary cities,” which do in fact preempt, and even interfere with, federal law, instead picking on a state that is simply helping them enforce it.