Category: Awards

by Patrick Appel

"The jury [in the Oscar Grant case] got it right. There's ample evidence that Mesehrle was negligent—likely criminally negligent. There's evidence that Mehserle and his fellow officers may have used excessive force the night Grant was killed. There's also evidence that Mesehrle's fellow officers tried to cover up the shooting by confiscating the cell phones of BART passengers who recorded the incident (generally speaking, police can ask for your name and address to later obtain a court order for video of evidentiary value, but they aren't permitted to take your cell phone or camera at the scene). There's evidence that one of Mehserle's fellow officers used a racial slur just before Grant's death. But there simply isn't any evidence that Mehserle is a murderer," – Radley Balko, Reason. Serwer differs on a couple points.

by Chris Bodenner

"They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. I'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It's a moral crime," – Fox News host Andrew Napolitano, on Cheney and Bush.

"The greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution of the United States, the greatest threat to our way of life; everything we believe in. The greatest threat to the country that our founding fathers put together is the man that's sitting in the White House today," – Tom Tancredo, citing the Cold War and al Qaeda.

"I have a soft spot for gritty old leftists. Don’t get me wrong: I’m fully aware of the horrors their beliefs and activities brought upon the world. It’s just that when I’ve met them in person, I’ve always found them likeable, even simpatico. Being right about politics is one thing; having personal qualities such as integrity, honor, and courage is another. These are, as we math geeks say, orthogonal variables. You can be dramatically wrong yet filled with admirable personal qualities. Contrariwise, you can be right (which is to say, Right) in your opinions while none the less being a repulsive creep," – the Derb.

"Who is Obama? Why is he doing this? Why? Why is he doing it? Is he stupid? Is it an accident? Is he doing it on purpose or what have you? … I think we face something we've never faced before in the country — and that is, we're now governed by people who do not like the country, who do not have the same reverence for it that we do. Our greatest threat (and this is saying something) is internal… That word 'payback' is not mine, [but] it is exactly how I think Obama looks at the country: It's payback time… There's no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily," – Rush Limbaugh, accusing the president of treason on racial grounds.

When will decent Republicans or conservatives actually disown this flaming bigot?

Mark Thompson fisks torture enthusiast Marc Thiessen's soccer-is-socialism nonsense. A reader writes:

Soccer really has very few rules compared to other sports. There are no regulations on how the players can be aligned, the clock doesn't stop once the game starts, etc.  It sounds like a conservative's paradise to me.  Football – which I assume Thiessen believes is more "American" – has an incredible array of rules and regulations.  There are rules about where the offensive players can line up before the play starts; defenders aren't allowed to touch receivers more than five yards from the line of scrimmage; defensive players can't hit an defenseless player, etc.  There are even regulations on what number you can have, how you wear your socks and the league office is constantly tweaking the rules to favor one side of the ball over the other.  And they even punish players for off-the-field actions that are unpleasant but not against the law.  I don't know how a conservative could love such a tightly regulated sport.

Another writes:

Funny, our PBS station aired the “Shadow Ball” episode of Ken Burns’ Baseball last night it opened with the following:

"It is a community activity. You need all nine people helping one another. I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice. Even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole. That's Jeremiah. That's thousands of years of wisdom. You find your own good in the good of the whole. You find your own individual fulfillment in the success of the community — the Bible tried to do that and didn't teach you. Baseball did," – Mario Cuomo.

Another:

Thiessen's post might be a ripoff of the great Chuck Klosterman's take on soccer, excerpted here. (Of course, if you know his work, Chuck meant to be light-hearted, whereas I'm sure that idiot Thiessen means it.)

Another:

I know you have a very low opinion if Marc as a columnist/reporter, but I detect a very strong tongue-in-cheek from Marc on this one.

Another:

Can we just pretend he doesn't exist?

"We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal," – the new platform of the Montana Republican party.

A couple of things: "keeping" private homosexual acts illegal is impossible, since the Montana Supreme Court decriminalized them in 1997 and the US Supreme Court struck them down as unconstitutional in Lawrence vs Texas. And, really? This is 2010, and one of the major parties want to make criminals of 2 percent of the population for private consensual, adult behavior. 

"Soccer is a socialist sport," – Marc Thiessen, AEI.

Yglesias dutifully counters.