How Scared Is Fox? Ctd

Another segment attacking my essay. Still a refusal to have me on to defend my arguments – despite now talking about my essay several times. And this misrepresentation from Greg Gutfeld:

Bob, do you think this was a good idea? I mean, just insulting half of America?

You would think by now that the fact that the article devotes half its criticism toward the left might have been absorbed by Gutfeld. And there is no debate whatever about the substance of the piece. Then this:

GUTFELD: The ultimate hypocrisy here, Kimberly, is that Sullivan is calling critics dumb when, in fact, he is the most obsessed critic of Sarah Palin's children.

GUILFOYLE: Remember that?

GUTFELD: I don't want to get into it. He's got an amazing blind spot.

GUILFOYLE: Yes, and talking about her children. I mean, it's totally inappropriate. And he has no credibility because of that. That's what's so problematic about it. In fact, how do you expect this magazine to have any kind of credibility either when you have writers putting forth stuff like this? With the background that he does. Leftist propaganda.

Where to start? Hypocrisy? How? Have I not been forthright about my last pregnancy? Criticism of Palin's children? Nope. Skepticism toward Palin's loopy stories about her last pregnancy. But they won't go into that. The facts might unsettle their readers. Then the undertone of homophobia – "amazing blind spot." And then the refusal to address the substance of the essay at all, because I have no credibility as a journalist – because I asked a candidate for president for evidence of a major campaign story-line and bizarre story in her book. 

And I am the propagandist.

The Nostalgia Zeitgeist

Jesse Hassenger reads the spirit of our time in an exhaustive analysis of the past year in film:

Eighties nostalgia has been building for so long that it has threatened to turn into ‘90s nostalgia. In 2011, it expanded to encompass a whole series of throwbacks to all sorts of time periods. The geeky cultural sifting of Quentin Tarantino has gone mainstream. This could be troubling, an expansion by definition self-limiting, based on a generation re-buying its favorite toys on eBay, but many of the year’s best films indulged in fascinatingly varied degrees of nostalgia, homage, and occasional skepticism.

The Limits Of Political Prescience

Larry Sabato emphasizes them:

Almost everything can change, and frequently does, during the course of the election year. The economy can get decidedly better or worse. International crises can pop up — or peace can break out. Unexpected scandals can engulf one or both major party candidates. One or more independents or third-party candidates may prove influential in the presidential tally. So enjoy the primaries, savor the polls, watch the campaigns like a multiring circus. But don't believe you really know anything about November.

And while you're in the thick of it, there's always time for some singing:

He doesn't look too rattled, does he?

Fighting The Smears

Bob Wright defends a think tank from the slurs in the Washington Post:

Is Abe Foxman, head of the ADL, saying that you're anti-Semitic, or anti-Israel, if you judge that a nuclear-armed Iran wouldn't launch a suicidal strike against Israel? Or if you judge that Israel has missed as many (or more) peacemaking opportunities as the Palestinians have? Sign me up, Abe.

How Democracies Survive – And Die

Jay Ulfelder lists 9 things we know about the topic. One of them:

The most likely outcome of a democratic transition nowadays is a competitive authoritarian regime, either because initial elections will be unfair by design or because the party that wins those elections will quickly use state resources to advantage itself in future contests. [We know this with the h]ighest confidence. Democracy is hard to produce and relatively easy to undo. Just ask the Iraqis, or the Nicaraguans, or the Hungarians, or…