Thanksgiving Open Thread
By Bronwyn's Harbor on November 25, 2010 at 7:00 PM in Current Affairs
A toast to a classy Republican congressman who lost his office on November 2nd because he refused to play the character assassination game (even though we do sometimes, eh?) … a choice list of the 30 worst “hacks” in the op-ed business …
This conservative Republican gave me pause when I caught his interview on CNN’s Parker/Spitzer last night. Check out this remark from Inglis: “Sadly, the times demand being conservative and mad about it. I’m of the Reagan school—that one can be conservative and glad about it.” Is this true? And are we part of the problem? More about that below. First, this intro and video:
In this Parker Spitzer blog exclusive, we talk with Rep. Bob Inglis. The South Carolina Republican lost in a June primary to another Republican, who accused Inglis of not being conservative enough. That loss ended his second turn at serving in the United States Congress. …
Here’s more about Inglis from the Parker/Spitzer blog:
From 1993-1998, Inglis represented the Fourth District of South Carolina) in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected again to Congress in 2004 and to a sixth term overall in 2008. He serves on the Science & Technology Committee and is Ranking Member on the Energy & Environment Subcommittee and he co-chairs the House Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Caucus.
[...]In the Republican primary, an opponent basically accused you of not being conservative enough. After your many years of service—and a 93 lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union—did you find it bizarre that you had to prove your conservatism?
Sadly, the times demand being conservative and mad about it. I’m of the Reagan school—that one can be conservative and glad about it. It’s all the rage in “conservative” (really “populist,” not “conservative”) circles to say that America is done for. I don’t believe that. I’m certain that—once we’re over this temper tantrum—we’re going to believe again that America’s best days are still ahead.
Why is it that only two House Republicans are on the record as believing in the science of climate change?
I’m not certain of the actual count of House Republicans who accept the science of climate change, but I know that I’m in a small minority within the Republican conference who do accept the science of climate change. The others are either honesty skeptical or frightened of the loud voices of the climate deniers. In this climate, if you oppose the mob, they chop off your head. It’s the French Revolution, citizen!
Do you think Republican leaders should be doing more to advance environmentalism than they are doing?
I’m optimistic that Republicans will return to our heritage as Teddy Roosevelt conservationists once this populist denial of science has run its course. We’ll come back to reason and rationality. We’ll come back to offering solutions rather than scapegoats. And when we do, we’ll serve the nation well.
To what degree do you think Republicans should spend the next two years bashing President Obama?
Bashing an opponent works for a while but you can’t build a movement on it. Movements are built on love, not hate.
Do Tea Party candidates generally give you hope or make you question the direction in which the country is headed?
It’s bewildering to me to see Social Security and Medicare recipients with an elderly relative on a Medicaid bed unaware of their own dependence on government. But that may be where the anger is coming from. Maybe deep down they are aware of their need, and that’s what makes them mad. In humility we need to hold up the mirror, take an honest look and say to ourselves, “We have found the problem, and the problem is us.” Then we should tip the mirror to our neighbor and say to ourselves, “There, now, we’ve found the solution—me and my neighbor working together to find a solution.”
Yes, we have a great deal to be angry about. But it’s also true that our staying at a boiling point means that we cannot cool off enough to work with others — because this is, after all, a democracy — to find solutions.
This line by Inglis got to me: Bashing an opponent works for a while but you can’t build a movement on it. Movements are built on love, not hate.
This makes me wonder about our strategies. During the 2007-2008 primaries, were we too ferociously against Obama, so much so that it just seemed to people outside our enclave that we were disturbingly angry?
Would we have fared better if we had refrained from attacking Obama in a mocking or angry tone?
I don’t know. But it is something we perhaps should consider. Especially since 2012 looms, and we will want to work hard to rid the White House of Barack Obama.
Last night, I was browsing around the Web, and ended up at Salon where I noticed a link to a series on the 30 worst “hacks” in the commentary business. This list is a riot to read. Here’s how Salon describes the project:
We’re listing the worst columnists and cable news commentators America has to offer. Think of this as our all-star team — of the most predictable, dishonest and just plain stupid pundits in the media.
Who’s among them? Mark Halperin. Maureen Dowd. Thomas Friedman. David Ignatius. And 26 other “hacks.” Here’s a sampling from the “The War Room Hack Thirty“:
Oh, MoDo. Maybe there are still people who thrill to her dated pop culture references and tiresome “wicked” nicknames for politicians. Maybe somewhere there’s a reader who still finds it illuminating to examine elections as battles between effeminate girly Democrats and straight-shooting Republican cavemen. Maybe someone’s glad that the most prominent female political columnist in the nation tends to consider every powerful female politician a castrating bitch.
But I don’t think even Maureen Dowd is still into Maureen Dowd anymore. Dumb insults mysteriously scrubbed from a column, the “plagiarism” scandal in which Dowd revealed that she “weaves” unedited e-mails from friends into her column, the equally stupid “dateline” incident in which she had an uncredited assistant do the reporting while she filed from Jerusalem, all of these point to a hack whose heart isn’t even in it anymore. How best to respond to the news that Obambi won a Nobel Prize? Sigh, how about an imagined conversation between unconvincing versions of Clinton and Bush, in which they both occasionally stop sounding like cartoon hicks and begin speaking in the unmistakable vernacular of Maureen Dowd. (Sorkin, get me rewrite!)
Dowd played an important part in the character assassination of Al Gore, and she still has a hot key for the phrase “earth tones,” for use whenever she needs to round out a column on the essential femininity of some Democratic pol. Well, any Democratic pol besides Hillary Clinton, who is constantly painted as an emasculating, ball-breaking, hysterical harpy who plays the victim card to get ahead. Called on her sexism by the Times public editor, Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes,” by which she means that she has always strongly reinforced them.
Oh god. Would I love to buy the ad space at the top of the front page of the New York Times containing those sentences about Dowd’s odious treatment of Hillary Clinton.
Anyway, as you can see, the list of the 30 hacks makes for some fascinating reading.
Oh heck. Hang on for a few more seconds. I just have to share some of what they write about Tom Friedman (who, you’ll recall, is Larry’s neighbor):
Thomas Friedman is an environmentalist, now. When he’s not jetting around the world on the literally unlimited expense account his money-bleeding newspaper provides him, pondering KFC billboards he spots outside the windows of gleaming office towers in Delhi — or when he’s not lounging beside the pool at his absurd home — the second-most-influential business thinker in the country is worrying about carbon emissions. Which is, I freely admit, a nice change of pace from back when he was telling the world that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would lead to a glorious new dawn of freedom/democracy/whiskey/iPods/Old Navy in the Middle East as a whole.
(Oh wait, what’s that? What Obama needs to deal with Iran is “a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm”? Hm. And your message to the people of Iraq? Oh, right, it was, “suck on this.”)
Matt Taibbi’s reviews of Friedman’s “The World Is Flat” and its follow-up, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded, are essential reading for anyone baffled by Friedman’s apparent inability to construct sentences without falling into three metaphor-shaped holes, whereupon he commences digging deeper with his many shovels.
… The man has lately decided that he is done with democracy itself, and he’d much prefer it if “reasonably enlightened” people (like the Chinese Communist Party) could just impose “politically difficult but critically important policies” from on high. This is the secret wish of nearly every “moderate” pundit on this list, but — confidential to Tom, you’re not supposed to wish for totalitarianism out loud.
He’s a silly, simple-minded man whose success leads a cynic to the conclusion that the world is run by similarly silly, simple-minded men.
Repeat offenses: Conflation of wealth with virtue, horrible jokes, repetition, warmongering, easy generalizations in lieu of research or analysis, cabdriver-on-the-street columns, mixed metaphors, generally awful prose, random capitalization of Certain Words when he’s Trying to Coin a Catchphrase.
Representative quote:“And now the icing on the cake, the ubersteroid that makes it all mobile: wireless. Wireless is what allows you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere.”
How ’bout them apples?
by Ronald Scott
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