The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Will Althouse Praise ‘His Steely Nerve, His Intelligence, and His Groundedness’?

Posted on | July 11, 2011 | 35 Comments

“In a 75-minute meeting Sunday night, President Obama once again demanded that more than $1 trillion in tax increases be part of any deficit reduction package attached to a vote on the debt ceiling. In the session, Obama rejected a Republican proposal to seek $2.5 trillion in spending cuts and reforms, and insisted on higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals. . . .”
– Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

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Category: Barack Obama, Budget, Taxes

Comments

  • Joe

    Doubling down. 

  • Joe
  • http://twitter.com/Discursions Alarms & Discursions

    Man, I sure hope conservatives war on each other instead of keeping their eye on the ball…  Sigh.

  • Joe

    I am not sure I would call Ann Althouse a conservative, but I guess for Madison, WI she passes as one.  But I suspect Stacy’s post is more about blogwhoring than anything else.  Hey if it drives up traffic (and I am sure that is what RSM noted from last time) he is going to try it again. 

  • Joe

    And she does have this post on Tiger Woods stepin on Obama’s news conference. 

  • Anonymous

    She was wrong, wrong, wrong. I was right, right, right. And she arrogantly refuses to own up to her wrongness.

    It’s that simple. It is not trivial nor merely personal.

    That I am apparently the only one to resent the backhand insult of her asterisk-footnote self-defense, I accept. But I do not believe my resentment to be mistaken, and the fact that so many of my friends — Smitty evidently included — would prefer to praise Her Wrongness is a somewhat traumatic evidence of my complete failure as a writer of persuasive prose.

  • http://www.redstateeclectic.typepad.com AngelaTC

    The thing is, when Stacy is blogwhoring he openly confesses to blogwhoring.  His legendary “How To Get A Million Hits…” is practically the definitive lesson in blogwhoring.

  • Joe

    She was wrong, wrong, wrong. I was right, right, right.

    Are you channelling Daffy Duck?   The scene is at 6:17)

  • Joe

    I admire his shameless blogwhoring.  He is like Trump, without the combover (and sadly the money). 

  • Jeff S.

    Lookit. Althouse made what she calls a rational analysis that indicated Obama was the better candidate. That her analysis was (very) faulty really bears no discussion. And lots of other seemingly intelligent people made the same faulty decision in 2008.

    The reason RSM is correct to not roll over on this is that it could happen again. It is chilling to note that these otherwise successful and intelligent people deluded themselves so badly in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Their feet must be held up to the fire of reality to prevent them from drifting off on another dreamy unicorn-hunting expedition in 2012–an expedition that will be more like Scott’s  jaunt to Antarctica.

  • JeffS

    I don’t speak for Stacy — he has his own (perfectly valid) take on this — but Ann Althouse sounds like a female David Brooks in the making, sans looking at Obama’s pant leg and his perfectly creased pant.

  • Joe

    I totally agree this sort of nonsense could happen again.  But you have to understand that Ann Althouse is not a conservative.  She is not even a Republican.  She is a squishy libertarian hippie indie moderate who sometimes leans right.  Do you really think holding their feet to the fire will do anything? 

    There are people who can be persuaded and others who the effort to do so is not worth it.  I would not be surprised if…say Palin or Cain were the nominee, Althouse would announce in October that after lots of careful consideration she could not support the GOP nominee because of lack of experience.   Of course, she might suprise me and go the other way.  We will see. 

  • Joe

    http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/obama-pull-off-band-aid-eat-our-peas.html

    Obama uses cliche metaphors, but the first comment in the thread is the one that fits the best. 

  • wordygirl

    I read her response post on this.  What I found ironic is that she mentions not ever reading you unless following a link from Instapundit, that otherwise, she never reads your blog (or something to that effect).  Well, I’d never even HEARD of her until I followed a link from Prof. Reynolds at some point during the election, and  it left me wondering why in the world he would link to her other than the fact that she’s a law professor.  Frankly she can’t touch your blog when it comes to analysis and quality of writing, but then as a lawyer myself, I’m not surprised.  You know what they say, those that can’t…..teach.

  • Joe

    Ouch.  But where did you see Althouse’s response to this post?  Or are you referring to the earlier one? 

  • Joe

    Ann Alhtouse is not trying to be Ms. Conservative.  She is a liberal who has a vague sense that conservatives may be right on some things, but she can’t quite make the jump.  I have liberal friends and even some family like that.  I love them, but their politics and thinking are screwed up. 

    But David Brooks is a different animal altogether.  He is a varmit.  Brookie likes playing the conservative in the same way I supposed you can find whores in Las Vegas who can play the french maid or any other role play you request. 

  • Pilfy

    I’m running into the same thing with my parents.  After enduring 8 years of “Bush is evil/immoral/dumb/etc” and then  “Obama is wonderful/a genius/etc” while ignoring the facts of Obama (I provided links, arguments,…), they have now decided, since BHO has been proven to be the socialist he always was,  that politics is not an acceptable topic of conversation.  I called bulls&^$ for the exact same reasons RSM calls bullshit on Althouse.  When you are provided with facts that you ignore in favor of some irrational belief, you deserve to be reminded of your stupidity, so that maybe 1) other people will know that your “informed opinion” isn’t based on fact; and 2) maybe next time you won’t be decieved. 

    Forgiving stupid decisions, especially when facts were available, only begets more stupid decisions.

      

  • wordygirl

    Her original post.  I meant “on this issue”.  Sorry for the confusion.

  • JeffS

    Ann Althouse, in refusing to admit her errors, is headed down the same path as David Brooks towards RINO-hood, with two differences.  

    The first difference is that Ann Althouse implicitly insults our intelligence and integrity, whereas David Brooks does so explicitly.

    The second is that she hasn’t quite reached the fork in the road.  She can still choose to acknowledge her error in supporting Obama in the first place. 

    But I don’t think she has far to go, not with this latest claptrap. 

  • Tennwriter

    Like Jeff S. above you, I agree with both of you.  And unlike Joe, its not just personal.  Joe, if I were Althouse’s bud instead of Just some guy who occasionally reads her blog, I’d put it down to people are unreasonable and blockheaded, and with good humor, leave it at that.  But Althouse is a blogress of some importance, and as a matter of improving politics in this nation we need to remind the I’m So Cute and Stylish that they cannot lead us over a cliff without consequence.

    Responsibility.

  • Jeff S.

    I read an article recently (probably by Jay Cost) that concluded that the vast cloud of “independent” voters in the middle are not really that independent.  They’re just leaners who wind up voting with the party they’ve always voted with. I like Althouse, and I think she is in a much more narrow group. I do believe she made a good faith effort to analyze the candidates, and that’s what is so scary.

    I agree that she’s probably not going to be persuaded by RSM, though I think he should keep it up anyway.  In any event, I’m relying more and more on your last statement as my only response to my liberal friends: We will see. There’s really nothing else I can say at this point.

  • Joe

    I totally agree.  So called independents are leaners who tend to vote the same way they always have, although they tend to vote with emotion rather than reason so they can sometimes go for an alternative candidate if the wind is blowing real hard in the that direction. 

    As far as persuading her, her readership tried in 2008 and she still did what she did. 

  • Joe

    I call her on it all the time on her blog (I am not Joe there BTW because there is another Joe already registered).  So do many other of her readers.   I have no problem with that.  

  • Jeff S.

    Dana Loesch said it perfectly this morning on Twitter: “I’m tired of hearing this admin say that these are ‘ideological differences.’ No, they’re observations based on economic history and fact.”

    Which is, of course, exactly why the progs embrace postmodern relativism: it’s the only way they can square their beliefs with their own lying eyes.

  • Tennwriter

    One possible solution for the systemic lack of cash among Conservative bloggers and Conservative SF/F writers (that’s me!) is to attack the Wall Street Journal and all its friends.

    Shocking I know. 

    After all, we generally agree with them most of the time except for Immigration, Wall-street Bailouts, Gay Marriage, the Worth of the Country vs. the City, Abortion, and paying Big Boondoggles to Big Business.

    Hmm, maybe they are not such good friends after all.

    Now you are wondering where I’m heading.  I’ll tell ya’.

    WSJ Friends enjoy being rich, and one of the prerogatives of wealth is to ignore the little people’s morality.  And hey, its fun, I gather to take your mistress to Spago’s. 

    Thus there is a natural desire for the rich to be socially liberal.

    This is why the wealthy Republican donor wastes his money on Newt.

    As long as I and a thousand other writer/analysts carry water for the rich, even when not strictly needed to defend the Greatness of Capitalism, the thoughtless rich are going to be free riders.

  • Joe
  • http://laughingconservative.blogspot.com Hugh Vaughan-Williams

    Psychologists say  that we tend to  make a decision emotionally first, then find a  rationale .  In  Althouses’s footnote we  have her rationale.    Next question.

  • Joe

    Top 10 Reasons Why Ann Althouse Will Vote for Obama in 2012.Because running off the cliff with the other lemmings is a rational decision.Because the guy who screwed up is the only one who’s able to fix what’s wrong.Because voting against the black man would make her a racist.Because the rest of the faculty of UW Madison knows where she lives.Because Obama won’t come out in favor of gay marriage until the next election.Because Obama’s soooo dreamy and sends a thrill up her leg.Because Palin’s a Republican.Because of Obama’s steely nerveBecause of Obama’s groundednessBecause not voting for Obama would be admitting she’s a rube.

  • Joe
  • Joe
  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_AGE6OEUWTPLTC5CTIFGDFLCQFM William

    Like it or don’t like it– but recognize the fact that if the GOP
    doesn’t seem reasonable and caring and supportive and  attractive and metro sexual and non-aggressive to the
    Educated American White Woman– you know, the ones who just know they  are more
    intelligent and more compassionate and, well shit, just admit it,

    morons, THEY ARE FUCKING SPECIAL!!1!!!11!

    You bomb throwing horde just swallow it and vote the issues. We superior white women of America vote feelings!11!!!11

    SRSLY how Althouse goes, so goes the nation’s white women. Don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful.

  • Anonymous

    You’re making a very common mistake in thinking that the WSJ is a monolithic Wall Street Conservative paper, which it isn’t. Unlike the New York Times, which is wall-to-wall Upper East Side Noo Yawk Socialist Democrat, the Journal has for decades been divided sharply between the news staff (standard issue liberal journalists, but good ones who can actually write and know what the 5 W’s are) and the editorial staff, who are on *most* issues somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. They are playing to their audience, which is middle/upper-management at Fortune 500 companies or companies trying like hell to get there. If you want a paper that’s more consistently conservative on the issues, you want Investor’s Business Daily.

  • Nospam

    It’s when we DON’T ‘war with each other’ that we get saddled with ‘leaders’ like John McCain and Arlen Spector and “spokesmen” like David Brooks and Meggie McCain. 

    Besides, I have a real real hard time thinking of someone who said that voting for Barry Obama was the rational decision (and still does today, after all that’s passed) as “one of us”.

  • Tennwriter

    Good reply.

    But I knew of the WSJ Editorial Page Split, but not in sufficient detail.

    I am thinking that much of the Fortune 500 types you talk of may be the financial resources for the RINOs.

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