Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Our Incompetent Government

13 Comments

Some thoughts:

One of the reasons Big Government is so helpless in the face of an actual crisis is that it never learns anything, because it evades blame and consequence for its failures. The politicians who brought you the subprime crisis are richer and more powerful than ever before. The Gulf oil crisis may well end the same way, if the Democrats use a lame-duck session of Congress, plus resources from their new minions at BP, to shove cap-and-trade legislation down America’s throat. Like ObamaCare, such a bill can inflict serious wounds to American liberty during the two years it will take to replace a President determined to veto repeal attempts.

Indulging the urge of politicians to increase their power and wealth produces a government that spends all its time feeding, instead of doing the things it’s supposed to be doing. It is blinded by hunger, and uninterested in duties that yield no direct political reward. The lavishly funded agency in charge of regulating offshore drilling scarcely bothered to inspect the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. It’s painfully obvious that the Administration didn’t notice the Gulf crisis until it became a political problem. Our vast government apparatus was completely unaware of a large supply of containment boom until Jake Tapper, an ABC reporter, told them about it.

This is what comes from a government that tries to do too many things that aren’t its business, and neglecting the ones that are.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Now He Tells Us

7 Comments

Mort Zuckerman has figured out that he was one of the rubes:

Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well. But he is one of those people who believe that the world was born with the word and exists by means of persuasion, such that there is no person or country that you cannot, by means of logical and moral argument, bring around to your side. He speaks as a teacher, as someone imparting values and generalities appropriate for a Sunday morning sermon, not as a tough-minded leader. He urges that things “must be done” and “should be done” and that “it is time” to do them. As the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Les Gelb, put it, there is “the impression that Obama might confuse speeches with policy.” Another journalist put it differently when he described Obama as an “NPR [National Public Radio] president who gives wonderful speeches.” In other words, he talks the talk but doesn’t know how to walk the walk. The Obama presidency has so far been characterized by a well-intentioned but excessive belief in the power of rhetoric with too little appreciation of reality and loyalty.

Well, I suppose he wishes to “do good,” by his definition of “good.” Of course, that’s kind of meaningless. So did Adolf Hitler, after all. And we know what the paving stones of the road to Hell are. Of course, I’ve never thought his speeches were particularly wonderful, either, unless by “wonderful” one means gaseous if not vacuous.

[Late afternoon update]

Bill Quick isn’t very impressed by Peggy Noonan’s and Zuckerman’s uptake speed:

Listen up, you punked, chumped boobs: We looked at Obama not through your rose colored hallucinations, but through the cold, clear spectacles of reality. None of what he’s done since has surprised us one bit. In fact, many of us, myself included, predicted it even before his coronation by people like you. Yes, it’s nice that after a year and a half of horrible examples, the truth about him is finally beginning to penetrate your skulls. But why, for the love of god, couldn’t you see it at the beginning, when it was no less obvious, but your understanding of it might have done some good?

Though, as he points out, useful idiots like them did prevent a McCain presidency, which would have been a disaster for small-government libertarianism. I wish that I were as optimistic as Bill, though, that Obama has wrecked the socialist project for decades.

Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

So Publish The Damn Iowahawk Book Already

1 Comment

Go sign the petition. The background is that Dave was in negotiations with a publisher, but they decided not to go for it, because they didn’t think it would sell ten thousand copies.

[Friday morning update]

If you go to the petition site, DO NOT DONATE any money, at least with the intent of getting it to Burge, because he won’t get a dime. That’s the petition site’s business model.

[Update mid morning]

Iowahawk has shut down the petition, lest anyone else get fooled.

It’s still a good idea, though. Maybe I should set one up here. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a market test of a space policy book.

Media Criticism

An Immodest Journalist

9 Comments

…with much to be modest about. As one commenter says, what is this, 2004?

[Update a few minutes later]

Jeez. Here’s another one:

Is journalism 100 unpaid bloggers all talking and yattering at once, or a city filled with amateur citizen journalists uncoordinated in all their efforts? Those bloggers and citizen reporters are as close to real reporters as karaoke is to Frank Sinatra live and in person.

Never mind that most of those “real reporters” are clueless about most of the subjects on which they report, and most of whom have “educations” that have imparted little of real-world value.