The Dish

Bernstein interjects:

[W]here Douthat's classification runs into trouble, is that on the conservative side the "entertainers" are far more prominent than anyone else, and certainly far more prominent than what he calls "the elite world of pundits and intellectuals."  In other words, what Rush and company talk about — which is driven by what drives ratings and sells books — then becomes the only thing that conservatives talk about. 

Moreover, as far as anyone can tell, there's just a lot of money to be had by being a conservative entertainer, which creates strong pressures on talented conservatives to be more Levin than Manzi, more Coulter than Friedersdorf, more Beck than Larison.  And that leaves people such as Manzi or Larison or Bartlett or even Frum marginalized by people such as Lopez or McCarthy. 

So it's a bit disingenuous for Ross Douthat to say that Mark Levin's book is just entertainment.  He's correct…except that it's entertainment that's driving the party, entertainment that makes it hard for Republicans in Congress to acknowledge widely-understood facts about climate change, entertainment that drives the conservative conversation so that if there's no market, there's no conversation.

An antidote – spiritual, beautiful singing, broadcast to millions and millions.

A reader writes:

I'm not so sure Comedy Central is a deserving target of anger over the South Park flap.  Put aside the free speech principle for a moment (it's hard, but try), and just focus on the safety issue.  Comedy Central is a large corporation that employs many hundreds (thousands?) of people. 

Do each of those employees wish to risk his or her life to make the valid point that free speech is important and that religious zealots shouldn't be able to bully the rest of us into submission with threats to our lives?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Does Comedy Central have the right to make that decision for all of its employees, or does it have an obligation to ensure (to the best of its ability) the safety of its employees in the face of known, explicit threats?  I'm not sure what the answers are to these questions, but I think they're worth asking.

The only actual threats have been against Matt and Trey personally.

Uber-Tory Charles Moore in the Telegraph:

Hard-headed people in the two main parties send me grim dispatches. "I fear we've blown it," says a Tory candidate. For Labour, it is worse. "This is absolute death," says one of the party's best brains. …

Voters care little about the Liberal record. They have come to detest anyone who can plausibly be identified with power – bankers, bureaucrats, Labour and, despite 13 years without it, the Tories. The Liberals do not have this taint. In the political wilderness of debt, Vince Cable could be made to look like John the Baptist, paving the way for Mr Clegg. Clegg, I can exclusively reveal, is not the Messiah, but voters are not much impressed when told this by the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Christopher Montgomery on Cameron's big mistake:

What the debates are proving beyond doubt is that there has been an unadmitted consensus in British politics. And that's what has been central to Clegg's success, for only in The Election with No Issues could the Lib Dem leader prosper. That Cameron has not been able to delineate dividing lines sums up his failure in making this his "change election". Surrendering that claim of right to the emptiness of Clegg has been worse than a mistake, it's been embarrassing.

A reader writes:

Nauseatingly, Super Best Friends has been removed from Netflix streaming as well.  Overreaction does not even come close to covering this nonsense.

I would love to, at the very least, read the closing speech that was bleeped out of 201.  If it did not mention Mohammed, I am dying to know what Viacom was worried about – or did they just think it would underline their own cowardice?

Sweeeet.

We'll keep chronicling the odd lies of the whackjob from Wasilla, but there is another category that she has been peddling in that requires real scrutiny. The odd lies are demonstrable denials of empirical reality. Her novella, Going Rogue, was riddled with them. But she is also adept at putting lies out there that are much more familiar – classic political lies, either to defend allies or attack opponents. Ben Smith captures this Facebook quote:

My, have things changed. I was honored to have Rev. Franklin Graham speak at my Governor’s Prayer Breakfasts. His good work in Alaska’s Native villages and his charitable efforts all over the world stem from his servant’s heart. In my years of knowing him, I’ve never found his tempered and biblically-based comments to be offensive – in fact his words have been encouraging and full of real hope.

It’s truly a sad day when such a fine patriotic man, whose son is serving on his fourth deployment in Afghanistan to protect our freedom of speech and religion, is dis-invited from speaking at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service.

His comments in 2001 were aimed at those who are so radical that they would kill innocent people and subjugate women in the name of religion. Are we really so hyper-politically correct that we can’t abide a Christian minister who expresses his views on matters of faith? What a shame. Yes, things have changed.

But there is no way to parse Graham's 2001 statements the way Palin does. Here they are verbatim:

"We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God, and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."

He reiterated this view in 2006. Palin lies. All the time. Keep your eyes and ears peeled and we'll keep her under the scrutiny she deserves.

Johann Hari's view of the debates:

The British media is overwhelmingly owned by right-wing billionaires who order their newspapers to build up the politicians who serve their interests, and marginalise or rubbish the politicians who serve the public interest. David Yelland, the former editor of The Sun, bravely confessed this week that as soon as he took his post, he was told the Lib Dems had to be "the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper's pages and ignored". Only a tiny spectrum of opinion was permitted. Everyone to the left of Tony Blair (not hard) had to be rubbished – even when their policies spoke for a majority of British people.

Both TV debates, then, have been a very rare moment in which a slightly more liberal-left voice could speak to the public without the distorting frame of pre-emptive abuse and smears. When, for example, have you ever heard the EU defended as plainly and clearly? The window of permissible opinion was opened a little – and people responded with a wave of enthusiasm. It could've been opened wider still – to the Greens, say – and found a receptive audience too.