Dear David Frum

Just to prevent any misunderstanding on the part of anyone on Team Romney who have mistaken your occasional expressions of faux horror at the shambling, Gorgon killbot your Party has become for an unwillingness to go immediately and enthusiastically back to work for the shambling, Gorgon killbot Party, have you considered just going all the way and renaming your Daily Beast column, "Please for the love of God and the Angel Moroni why won't Mitt Romney hire me already?!?" 

I mean, since it's loyalty first and everything else second with you guys anyway it won't cost you anything: you'll still be able to use your position to smuggle wingnut goofs like Ramesh Ponnuru and Ann Coulter back into mainstream acceptability (for which they will, in turn, owe you big once they get their own shows on CNN) and Andrew Sullivan has made it clear that he'll continue to drive ten thousand people to your site every day, rain or shine, no matter how big a fool you make of yourself, so what's to lose?

 Yours in Christ,

 driftglass

Professional Left Podcast #113

“Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice is hard.

-- Adlai E. Stevenson

Links:

• Link to New Yorker page where homeschooling Mom votes for Newt while unaware of his marital history here.

Da' money goes here:

And Now, Bob Cesca:

“The Lesser of Two Evils” -- Why Progressives Lose Posted on 02/02/2012 at 7:02 am by Bob Cesca
[My latest for The Huffington Post] 

There comes a time during just about every general election cycle when a faction of progressive Democratic voters begin to harrumph and gripe about the two party system. Specifically, the following remark jumps back into popular discourse: “we’re choosing between the lesser of two evils.”


The off-handed rejection of the Democrats as “less evil” rapidly descends into hectoring and in-fighting on the left about either supporting a third party or drafting a primary challenger to oppose the Democratic nominee, presidential or otherwise. In fact, this time around, some progressives are even considering a vote for Ron Paul, the most conservative member of Congress in the last 75 years, even though his positions on a variety of issues, namely civil rights and reproductive rights, are indefensible.


Naturally, much of this point of view can be attributed to generalized frustration with the two party system and the ugliness of electoral politics. But there’s a trend among influential progressives that’s almost as frustrating as the system itself. Whenever the Republicans are in charge, progressives unite to defeat and replace the Republican leadership with Democrats. But when the Democrats are in charge, progressives have a tendency to hypnotically lapse into contrarian, too-hip-for-the-room ambivalence, apathy and an “everyone is evil” defeatism. Thus, support for Democratic Leader X is weakened — often with disastrous consequences, the least tragic of which being a reemergence of the previously ousted Republican leadership.


In 2000, this attitude won enough progressive votes for Ralph Nader to literally change the course of history. Widespread voter fraud aside, Nader achieved 97,488 votes in Florida. If just 538 of those votes for Nader had been for Al Gore instead, the history of the last 10 years might have been significantly different. But Nader’s involvement, along with high profile endorsements from progressive heroes like Michael Moore, delivered an election-altering percentage of votes to Nader.


The word on the street was the familiar and laughable notion that Gore and Bush were basically the same person. Both candidates and both parties were painted as equally crooked and corrupt, and the system was irrevocably stacked against the people. So otherwise smart progressives backed Nader as an antidote to the crippled system — a truly “progressive” antidote, unlike Gore.


Knowing what we know now, how seriously naive was that?


Even though he ran a flawed campaign, Gore would have been a vastly different president than George W. Bush in almost every respect. Of course he might have been impeached by the Republicans after 9/11, but I don’t want to skew too deeply into an alternate timeline. The point is that Nader has since disintegrated into a careerist troll and Al Gore has become a progressive lion.
...

The rest is here.

Now That Star Wars: Episode I, The Incoherent Mess

 

is being re-released in 3D (so the boring awfulness will now shamble right off the screen and into you lap) I figured it was time to re-release the one good thing inspired by the "Phantom Menace": the best online movie review in the history of online movie reviews.


Part 2:




Part 3 here.

Part 4 here.

Part 5 here.

Part 6 here.

Part 7 here.

David Brooks Speaks

In his weekly, cringe-inducing "Conversation" with Gail Collins, David Brooks states the following as fact:

Finally let me vent some frustration about the Democrats. I open up Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook this morning and I see the big headline, “Administration To Make Digital Textbook Push.”

That’s what the Obama revolution has come to. The country is facing decline and trillion-dollar deficits and the administration has decided to focus its energies on digital textbooks. What about the nation’s pressing eraser shortage? Or the way parking spaces at the mall seem to get narrower year by year? Surely there are dozens of completely trivial issues they can latch on to in order to mask their absence of larger plans.

The Obama Administration has already proposed some very large and ambitious undertakings. Some you may agree with. Some you may not. Some you may thing don't go nearly far enough (I, for example, understand just how ambitious, deeply-focused and multidimensional the White House's manufacturing initiative could be if the are really going to get behind it and push.)

But it doesn't matter because nothing Obama Administration proposes (with the following, "everybody diving for cover" exception) is ever going to make it through the legislative abbatoire that is the Republican congress.

I could pound this simple fact home with example after example for hours, but really, why bother?

Mr. Brooks already knows all this, just as Mr. Brooks also knows that these facts doesn't matter because Mr. Brooks is not in the "truth" businesses.

He is in the "telling politically comforting Conservative lies" business.

And business is good.

Business is always good.

And if you have noticed that this post is nearly identical to the previous post regarding the lies of David Frum, you are correct.

Mr. Frum and Mr. Brooks both consistently lie about the same things in the same way and are both richly rewarded for doing so, so why not?

David Frum Speaks

In "Who Wrecked Obama's Post-Partisanship?", former Bush-speechwriter David Frum states the following as fact:

The troubles faced by President Obama are not very different from the troubles faced by the presidents before him. Yet with each successive presidency these similar problems become more extreme in nature. Focusing on the particular personality of a particular president will miss the point—as we'll see again in obverse at whatever time the next president takes office.

Except there is no Liberal Hate Radio.

There is no Liberal Fox News.

There is no Liberal Regnery Press.

There is no Liberal wingnut welfare system that makes sure that its writers get paid.

There is no Liberal Grover Norquist.

There were no years and years of sham hearings and kneecapping special prosecutors used to grind the Bush Administration to a halt.

And despite richly deserving it, George W. Bush was never impeached.

I could go on for hours, but really, why bother?

Mr. Frum already knows all this, just as Mr. Frum also knows that is doesn't matter because Mr. Frum is not in the "truth" businesses. He is in the "telling politically comforting Conservative lies" business.

And business is good.

Business is always good.

"Rebirth of a Nation"

...is what the title of an awesome vivisection of David Brooks' latest op-ed piece should be.

Just in case there is anyone left who has not already reacted to Mr. Brooks' column on how America's "upper tribe" has selfishly horded all of he country's virtues and values.

Or, to quote Monty Python, "Even the police began to sit up and take notice."

Mr. Pierce Writes About -- UPDATE

Mr. Brooks here.

Balloon Juice links to Mr. Pierce here.

Real Clear Politics links to Mr. Brooks' column here.

Digg fires Mr. Brooks' column across the planet here.

New York magazine writes about Mr. Brooks here.

Mahablog regarding Mr. Brooks here.

Duncan Black's comments about Mr. Brooks now have elicited 145 comments and read as follows:

No Stomach For It Today
And a bit busy with some stuff. So outsourcing to Pierce...

Marginal Revolution regarding Mr. Brooks here.

Alicublog's brief commentary on Mr. Brooks now has 144 comments.

Since Jonathan Chait and Tyler Cowen have written about Mr. Brooks, I assume Mr. Sullivan will be summarizing what other people have to say about Mr. Brooks for the Daily Beast and/or Newsweek magazine presently.

And so forth.

++++++

UPDATE:

Business Insider weighs in.

Forbes is heard from.

The Big Think.

And so forth