Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Shocked, Shocked

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Obama isn’t what they thought he was:

…the heavy hitters who thought that Barack Obama would end up being the second coming of Bill Clinton should have known better. First, due to large, unaccountable flows of money and an ideological determination not seen 16 years ago, the formal and informal organizations Obama and his handlers (not necessarily in that order) have built and maintained are far more sophisticated than anything Clinton, James Carville, and his other advisers ever assembled. More important, Obama’s core radicalism far exceeds that of even Clinton’s wife Hillary on her worst day. The fact that the media mostly covered up Obama’s extreme positions and associations to dumpster-dive in Alaska may excuse the ignorance of the masses; but it doesn’t excuse that of the elites.

Idiots. Useful ones.

[Mid-morning update]

Rules for a radical president:

After Obama took office, the pundit class found itself debating the ideology and sensibility of the new president — an indication of how scarcely the media had bothered to examine him beforehand. But after 100 days, few observers can say that Obama hasn’t surprised them with at least one call. Gays wonder why Obama won’t take a stand on gay marriage when state legislatures will. Union bosses wonder what happened to the man who sounded more protectionist than Hillary Clinton in the primary. Some liberals have been stunned by the serial about-faces on extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention without trial, military-tribunal trials, the state-secrets doctrine, and other policies they associate with the Bush administration. Former supporters of Obama, including David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Jim Cramer, and Warren Buffett, have expressed varying degrees of criticism of his early moves, surprised that he is more hostile to the free market than they had thought.

Obama’s defenders would no doubt insist this is a reflection of his pragmatism, his willingness to eschew ideology to focus on what solutions work best. This view assumes that nominating Bill Richardson as commerce secretary, running up a $1.8 trillion deficit, approving the AIG bonuses, signing 9,000 earmarks into law, adopting Senator McCain’s idea of taxing health benefits, and giving U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown 25 DVDs that don’t work in Britain constitute “what works best.” Obama is a pragmatist, but a pragmatist as understood by Alinsky: One who applies pragmatism to achieving and keeping power.

I fear that’s one thing that he’ll be competent at.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

They Should Have Thought Of That Before They Released The Memos

7 Comments

The Democrats don’t have a waterboarding exit strategy:

For Democrats…the damage could be significant. Nancy Pelosi already has lost a great deal of credibility from her changing stories. Dozens of other Democrats, including such senior Senators as Jay Rockefeller, apparently also were briefed on the interrogation methods and either were silent, approved, or encouraged the policy.

The irony is that a full blown investigation and hearings will turn mostly on what the Democrats knew, and when they knew it. The Republicans mostly couldn’t care less if they were “blamed” for keeping the country safe even if it necessitated waterboarding the mastermind of 9/11 to prevent further attacks. When faced with sacrificing a city versus using harsh interrogation methods, most voters would opt for harsh interrogation.

That the Democrats have more to lose is demonstrated by the looming fight between Democrats in Congress and the CIA. The Democrats are complaining that the CIA is out to get them through selective leaks of documents. These are the same Democrats who cheered when the CIA leaked information damaging to Bush administration policies. So that complaining is going to go nowhere.

Other foot, meet shoe. Frankly, I find this hilarious.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Medicare Is Going To Bankrupt Us

7 Comments

…therefore, we need universal care. Megan McArdle, on the insanity of that “argument”:

I hear this argument quite often, and it’s gibberish in a prom dress. Any cost savings you want to wring out of Medicare can be wrung out of Medicare right now: the program is large and powerful enough, and costly enough, that they are worth doing without adding a single new person to the mix. Conversely, if there is some political or institutional barrier which is preventing you from controlling Medicare cost inflation, than that barrier probably is not going away merely because the program covers more people. Indeed, to the extent that seniors themselves are the people blocking change (as they often are), adding more users makes it harder, not easier, to get things done.

It’s not an argument. It’s sophistry in the service of socialism.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Choking Off Recovery

14 Comments

One of the disengenuous tactics of the Democrats in support of Porkulus was to imply that conservative economists agreed with it, and in fact they actually lie about this. For instance, the other day, I heard Governor Rendell defending Arlen Spector’s vote on it by saying that. But what conservative economists agreed on was that some sort of stimulus was needed, not that legislative atrocity. One of the economists slandered thus was Martin Feldstein, who has a piece in the Journal today on the potentially disastrous effects of upcoming tax cutsincreases on the economy.

The current outlook for an economic recovery remains precarious. Although the stimulus package will give a temporary boost to growth in the current quarter, it will not be enough to offset the combined effect of lower consumer spending, the decline in residential construction, the weakness of exports, the limited availability of bank credit and the downward spiral of house prices. A sustained economic upturn is far from a sure thing. This is no time for tax increases that will reduce spending by households and businesses.

As Tigerhawk notes, “You cannot spread wealth that hasn’t bee created in the first place.” But so-called liberals think that wealth is something that just happens, and that all that need be done is to properly distribute it.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Keep Bleeding The Patient

15 Comments

The Democrats want to return to the days of bad loans and too-easy credit:

Am I missing something here, or have our elites already erased from their consciousness the fact that easy credit and the lack of responsible budgeting by consumers contributed mightily to our current economic mess? In the fourth quarter of 2008, 13.9% of consumers’ disposable income went to servicing credit-card debt, reports the Wall Street Journal. No shortage of credit there.

Apparently the self-righteous glow that comes from forcing capitalists to make bad bets on preferred victim groups is too strong a legislative addiction to be reined in by the prospect of further economic collapse.

The problem was that it was never in their consciousness to begin with. They find it politically convenient to lie to us and themselves (as they did throughout the campaign) that the problem was caused by “deregulation” and “tax cuts.”

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

War Atrocities

41 Comments

Over at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg is having a discussion about intentionality. I think this is a little off:

Whether it was necessary or not is a serious debate, but I am personally at a loss to understand why the shortcut of firebombing Dresden was less outrageous than waterboarding some SS offficer would be. Likewise, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved the deliberate killing of civilians. It was deemed necessary, and in my mind justifiable, to avoid (i.e. shortcut) the deaths of American and Allied soldiers via a conventional invasion.

Not exactly. The civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were collateral casualties. The actual targets were military facilities and arms factories.

Bill Whittle has a devastating video riposte to Jon Stewart’s historical ignorance on this issue.

As an aside, had Roosevelt still been alive that summer, the war might have dragged on for much longer, because his policy was unconditional surrender. He had already probably extended the war in Europe with this policy, because if he had accepted terms from Mussolini, they might have been able to take Italy at much lower cost of life. The extended weeks of negotiations entailed by the Italians’ unwillingness to accept unconditionally gave the Germans time to occupy Italy, which resulted in a bloody conquest, whereas a surrender with terms could have resulted in a more rapid Allied takeover with few casualties, and more reserves for attacking Germany from the south much earlier than Normandy.

Roosevelt wouldn’t have allowed the Japanese to (among other things) keep the emperor, and he might have run out of bombs before the Japanese would have surrendered (they only had three, and it would have taken a while to make more plutonium) and had to invade.

Truman was more reasonable. He just wanted to end the war, and would have been happy to let them have a dozen emperors if that’s all they wanted.

So FDR extended the depression by meddling in the economy right up until the war started, at which point he left it alone to focus on the war (and of course with able-bodied men in uniform, the unemployment rate finally dropped). Then he meddled in the war and probably lengthened it as well (and it would have been even worse had he not died in the spring of ’45). One wonders in the cases of both Wilson and Roosevelt how long they would have remained in power if they hadn’t been struck down by their health. Truman tried to tinker with the economy after the war, but the Republican Congress wouldn’t let him, so the economy finally recovered completely, after fifteen years.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems a little related. Will Barack Obama apologize for World War II?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Comforting Myths

20 Comments

…about gun control:

The news account doesn’t tell us if this “semi-automatic rifle” is one of those terrifying “assault weapons” or a more common semi-automatic hunting rifle. The next time that someone asks why anyone would need an assault weapon, here’s your answer: four armed criminals forcing entry into a home that they know is occupied. The invaders knew that the inhabitants were probably going to be able to identify them later. What do you think these home invaders were going to do to potential witnesses before they left? Against a crew like this, a weapon that lets you fire 20 to 30 shots without reloading suddenly sounds useful.

I agree with him that gun controllers are not necessarily evil, that they sincerely believe the cognitive dissonant nonsense that they spout. As he says, it’s an hysterical combination of hoplophobia and a need to control an uncertain and (to them, at least) scary world. But I also don’t think that it’s just a coincidence that the largest mass murders, whether by madmen in universities, or governments committing genocide, occur when the populace has been disarmed. If we believe that the First Amendment should be expanded to the rest of the world, the right to self defense should be universal as well, as a fundamental human right.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Budget…

2 Comments

…with no shortage of lies:

A truly serious president would not be fiddling around while our future burns. He would be addressing entitlements (mainly, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid), which have tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities and constitute 60 percent of the budget. The day of reckoning on this government-generated mess is not all that far off, and when it comes, the economic crisis of the moment will seem small potatoes.

It’s a shame that we don’t have a serious president. It’s amazing that people report on this thing with a straight face. It’s like the coverage of Saddam Hussein’s “election” in which he got 99.9% of the vote.