Month: December 2010

A reader writes:

The three guys who run the loading dock at my work are, variously, Cambodian, Dominican and Tibetan. Imagine my shock, as a lilly-white, sheltered, PC North-eastern liberal, when I found them one day laughing uncontrollably at a very un-PC YouTube clip of Canadian comic Russell Peters ripping on people's accents. It didn't take long before they were ripping each other's accents and eventually ripping my (possibly heavy) Boston accent. Everyone had a laugh and a good part of my liberal guilt died that day.

I recommend this in the same vein:

Try not to laugh.

"I concluded from the review that Obama has signed on as being committed to a four-year war. That’s devastating news to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda, disturbing news to feckless Pakistani and Afghan leaders, and terrific news for America’s security," – Bing West, NRO.

"Remember the question after Election Day: Can Obama move to the center to win back the independents who had abandoned the party in November? And if so, how long would it take? Answer: Five weeks. An indoor record, although an asterisk should denote that he had help – Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals …

The greatest mistake Ronald Reagan's opponents ever made – and they made it over and over again – was to underestimate him. Same with Obama. The difference is that Reagan was so deeply self-assured that he invited underestimation – low expectations are a priceless political asset – whereas Obama's vanity makes him always needing to appear the smartest guy in the room. Hence that display of prickliness in his disastrous post-deal news conference last week.

But don't be fooled by defensive style or thin-skinned temperament. The president is a very smart man. How smart? His comeback is already a year ahead of Clinton's," – Charles Krauthammer, in a rare, recent congruence with the Dish.

The folks at Reason asked the guests who attended their recent event in New York City to define it. Their answers:

Interesting responses from a diverse crowd. But did anyone else raise an eyebrow at what Breitbart said?

I've always said it was political correctness, because if you can't speak openly and freely without being accused in a reactionary manner of being a fascist, or a racist, or a sexist, or a homophobe, or an anti-Muslim, what it does is it chills free speech.

This from the man who used a misleadingly edited version of Shirley Sherrod's speech to the NAACP in order to accuse the people listening to it of racism. This isn't to say that he is being disingenuous when he objects to false accusations of racism. Take a look at this clip from Bill Maher's show. He isn't acting. He is genuinely outraged at what he believes is a culture where liberals are constantly using the charge as a cudgel.

But look how he has chosen to respond to that belief: by in turn using accusations of racism as an ideological cudgel. It's a cycle without end. Until you end it.

After more digging, The Los Angeles Times publishes yet another devastating story:

The city of Bell extracted tens of thousands of dollars from plumbers, carpet cleaners, even people scavenging for bottles and cans, by seizing vehicles for alleged code violations and then pressuring the owners to pay arbitrary fines. In hundreds of cases, city officials created documents that looked like official court papers declaring individuals were making a payment to the city as part of a "civil compromise." Normally, such cases would be reviewed by a judge to ensure that they had been settled fairly. But the vast majority of these cases do not appear to have been presented to a court. Times reporters reviewed 164 cases, roughly one-third of those located in the city's records, and found only three that were filed. All three were dismissed.

The practice took place for at least eight years until The Times inquired about it recently. Interim Chief Administrative Officer Pedro Carrillo, who said he had been unaware of the scheme, has now stopped it and said code enforcement officials were no longer impounding vehicles. He also said he is looking into allegations that some confiscated property disappeared.

Feel the excitement. Or how many middle-aged pudgy white guys can you see not even drunk in one room?

There's a fascinating, and rather devastating, new University of Maryland study out there, detailing how  misinformed voters were in the last election. Some issues of fact were pretty straightforward: the 2009 stimulus, for examle, was about one-third tax cuts; Obama was born in the US; the recovery had been underway for a while, if anemically; the auto bailout and TARP began under Bush. And yet large numbers of voters believed the opposite and acted on that false knowledge.

The primary fault is with the appalling failure of the Democrats and Obama to comunicate the truth about what they'd done. But what's interesting in the study is how it shows that Fox News, more than any other source, distorted the truth and created a false reality, for all its viewers, Democrats and Republicans. Money finding (I've focused on indisputable factual errors):

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that: 

most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)

the economy is getting worse (26 points)

the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)

their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)

the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)

when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)

and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

Let's be clear about this. One alleged news network fed its audience a diet of lies, while contributing financially to the party that benefited from those lies.

Those who work for Fox News are not working for a journalistic enterprise. They are working for the communications department of a political party. And that's a fact.

(Photo: Roger Ailes by Frederick M Brown.)

"Whatever one thinks of the current strategy in this war, Obama is prosecuting it with a vigor that indicates a refusal to allow political calculations to condition national security policy," – George Will, still flailing in the Obama era as surely as he kept his wits about him under Bush.

Linda Greenhouse looks back at the Rehnquist court and its legacy.

Sargent collects the latest evidence:

Sarah Palin said this morning that prayer is helping her decide whether to run in 2012. She’s going to have to do a lot of praying. It turns out that six in 10 voters would not even consider voting for Palin for president, the new Post/ABC News poll finds. And it gets better. Sixty-two percent of independents would definitely not vote for her. The grand total of voters who would definitely support her? Eight percent.

Weigel sees a pattern:

1) A poll comes out showing that Sarah Palin is one of the least popular figures in national politics.

2) Conservative supporters of Palin argue that Ronald Reagan didn’t poll well, either, before he won the presidency. So there.

3) Another poll comes out showing that Sarah Palin is one of the least popular figures in national politics.

The Dish remains vigilant. Who beats her?