Month: June 2007

Be warned: this is, for the second consecutive day, a commentary-within-the-commentary post.

I would like to draw your attention to this little gem from noted right-wing intellectual heavyweight Jonah Goldberg. As with my last post, I'm not terribly bothered by the content of this piece. It's pretty standard boilerplate wouldn't-everything-be-better-if-we-privatized-it dreck.

The Cato Institute craps out a dozen of these little rants every week, at which point they're swiftly consigned to the Irrelevant bin in public discourse. No biggie. No, there is something else about this article that bugged me. Upon my first read I could not quite figure out what was odd about it. After a re-reading, it hit me.

This reads like it was written by a college sophomore.

I spend a good majority of my time evaluating the intellectual output of 18-20 year old undergraduates.

I've read hundreds – probably thousands by this point – of papers from college kids.

So I feel that I have some relevant authority upon which to base this admittedly subjective judgment. I can honestly say that Goldberg's commentary is virtually indistinguishable from most of what I read. All of the stock dialogue of the average College Republican's argument are present.

I can't help but get really, really sad when I read stories like this. Not because of the latest embarassing rhetorical performance by our jack-assed idiot of a president ("First of all, I don't think I called for a deadline. I thought I said, time — I did? What exactly did I say? I said, 'deadline'? Okay, yes, then I meant what I said."). Those are, of course, sad too.

But really think about that CNN story for a moment. Is this what we're reduced to? Really? Can you even imagine this story running in 1960?
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The President of the United States is off on a tour to strengthen alliances with 4th-rate ex-Warsaw Pact powers. That's bad enough. Headlines like "Bush hails Bulgaria as valued ally" are enough to make you sit up and wonder "What the fuck happened to this country?" Is this really it? Is this what the United States is reduced to in 2007: kissing ass in Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, and so on?

As if that's not bad enough, the President then makes a policy-oriented statement about international affairs by asserting our support for Kosovo's independence.

Fine. Whatever. And the response? Serbia tells us to go fuck ourselves. Serbia. A country without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. A country that didn't exist independently 12 months ago. The kind of country that used to do everything it could to curry favor with us.
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Yes, that is how little is thought of the U.S. in today's world – so little that Serbia can blow us off. It used to be that only the Soviet Union could get away with taking those sorts of potshots at us.

Now every crackpot named Chavez and post-Soviet shithole can just fire away. That's what happens when you have zero credibility.

And this all happened in one generation. People who lived during the days in which everyone kissed our ass are alive to see us reduced to kissing ass (i.e. Bulgaria) or being told to shove it by afterthought states.

I'm going to warn you, reading some of this may be hard on your stomach.
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Isn't it amazing how quickly the Get Tough On Crime ™ right wing reverses course when one of its own is roasted by the criminal justice system? Check out the nauseating, effusive paeans written by some of the leading conservative figures in Washington pleading for mercy re: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. My favorite:

He and his family have endured crushing public humiliation as a result of unceasing press coverage. The media commentary about Mr. Libby has often been particularly unfair.

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Although he did not "out" Ms. Wilson, Mr. Libby has been continually blamed with leaking or orchestrating the leak of her identity. As the evidence at trial showed, as far back as September 2003, reporters were insinuating that Mr.
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Libby was the leaker. Indeed, based on such false assumptions, Mr. Libby has been repeatedly and wrongfully accused by some people of serious crimes including treason. The burden of relentless and unfair media coverage has fallen heaviest on Mr.

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Libby's young children, and imprisonment would separate him from them at a particularly formative time in their lives.

*sniff* *sniff*

Well that just broke my fucking heart. We'll be very lucky, as the Shellac song goes, if I don't bust out crying before I can type any more.

See, let's get this straight. The criminal justice system is for poor people. And more specifically, it is for poor brown people. Scooter Libby may have committed a felony or two, but he's such a good guy! People like him just don't go to prison. Sure, he violated the law with serious adverse consequences, but all the "good things" he's done (like apparently bringing democracy to the peoples of Eastern Europe single-handedly) mean that it's only right for the justice system to give him a pass. That's how it works, right? You just tell the judge "But I've done some good things too!" and then they let you go….right? Or just tell him you have kids.

The justice system has never separated parent from child before.

This is the most incredible U-turn in correctional philosophies since Rush "One strike and you're out, mandatory life for drug dealers" Limbaugh had his opiate addiction exposed. If you'll recall the response to that situation, Rush didn't deserve to be punished. He admitted that he had a problem and sought help. All those black people in jail must just want to be in jail. All you need to do to avoid jail is say you're sorry, dummies.

Here is a loosely-organized group of thoughts about the overhyped Democratic Primary debate on CNN last night.

First and foremost, Wolf Blitzer needs a tall glass of Shut the Fuck Up. His handling of the debate made Gwen Ifill's unbelievably embarassing Bush-Kerry 2004 performance look like Edward R. Murrow on performance-enhancing drugs. Dodd's campaign made this amusing graphic to highlight Wolf's verbal diarrhea.

Second, Hillary Clinton is dangerous and the other candidates should take her seriously. Her record is a litany of idiotic statements, centrist waffling, and failure, but much like her husband she eats up these televised connect-with-the-voters opportunities. There's no substance, but she clearly has presence that the others lack.

Third, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden are just wanking themselves off by entering this race.
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It is probably the strongest Democratic field in 30 years and they are absolutely wasting time and money. They are non-entities compared to the big guns.

Fourth, John Edwards' loss in 2004 is really working to his advantage. He's been "outside" the game for three years and is now in the enviable position of being able to take potshots at the "Washington insiders" who have been in the Senate tying themselves to a track record since 2004. He will hammer Clinton and Obama on their Senate records and there's nothing they can do about it.

Fifth, Bill Richardson made a tremendous mistake by not running (and getting killed) in 2004. A guy like him needs one candidacy just to get his name out there. Had he run in 2004 and gotten his name in the ring as an early 2008 candidate, he'd be getting more out of this race.

Sixth, the past several weeks have convinced me of a point that a Republican friend brought up with me several years ago: the Democrats' strongest candidate in 2008 is Al Gore running an "I told you so" campaign. He won't do it. It's too late and there are too many strong horses in the race. But he has really hit his stride in the past seven years and I think he'd be mopping the floor with these people.

Seventh, nothing could be worse than getting cocky at this point, but I can realistically see four candidates – Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson – who would absolutely slaughter any of the C-list jackasses being trotted out by the GOP. Then again, this was true in 2004.
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But John Kerry and his friend Bob "Kiss of Death" Shrum found a way to lose anyhow. The Republican field in 2008 is as bad as any field in recent memory – only the 1984 Democratic field comes to mind as an equivalent example.

Eighth, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich are going to come to blows when a debate moderator finally asks the question, "Who in this field is closest to being insane? I don't mean eccentric, I mean pickin'-peanuts-out-of-crap crazy."

And now, on to the GOP cavalcade of errors.

I have always believed that homosexuality is innate and not "a choice" as some would argue. I have changed my opinion. It can be willfully chosen. In support of my new argument I submit the following bit of hilarious Michelle Malkin "satire":

This video made me gay. Seriously, I was all about pussy like 12 hours ago, and now I am devoting the rest of my life to the male form.
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Actually, fuck being gay. This video makes me want to cut my penis off, roast it in an industrial-grade incinerator at 2000 degrees for 90 minutes, put the ashes in a small capsule, pay vast sums of money to put the capsule on a Russian space rocket, and fire it directly into the sun.

This video makes me want to become a test subject for a multi-national effort on the part of the world's top medical scientists to create a human being who has no gender.
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I want all the testosterone to be removed from my body and replaced with Yoo Hoo. I want what little estrogen I naturally produce to be chemically altered in a way that will ensure that, if I should someday cease to be male, I will not become a lesbian if I find myself female.

This video makes me want to stare directly into a high-powered arc lamp for 6 to 8 hours with my eyes pried open Clockwork Orange-style. After that, I want the high-powered laser that DARPA uses to shoot down satellites to be aimed directly into my retinae and fired at full power.
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After my eyes and gonads are irrecovably destroyed, I want to become a monk in some religion where the holy men really are celibate (not one of the "wink wink" celibate religions). Once initiated, I want to be confined to a small, locked room for 23.
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5 hours per day to make sure I never get out.

In short, this video is bad. But you've got to hand it to those right-wingers – they're hilarious!