The Other McCain

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

The Country’s Going Straight to Hell, But at Least We’ve Got a ‘Likeable’ President

Posted on | January 18, 2013 | 9 Comments

Random adults:

[M]ore than seven in 10 are dissatisfied with the current state of the economy, and just more than a third are either “very” or “fairly” confident in Obama’s ability to promote a strong and growing economy.
And 60 percent believe the coming year will be a time to hold back and save because of harder times ahead . . .
As for views on Obama’s qualities as president, he gets the best marks for being easygoing and likeable (61 percent give him high marks here)

Pete Da Tech Guy’s non-random response:

So let’s get this straight, Over seventy percent of the public are dissatisfied with the economy, just over a third of the people are confident in the president’s ability to fix it, and 60% of the folks are battening down the hatches for rough weather.
Yet this man just two months ago won 300+ electoral votes?

Exactly: When the media deliberately mislead the public, we can expect widespread confusion to prevail. Welcome to Low-Information Nation.

Category: Barack Obama, Da Tech Guy, Polls

#LennayKekuaFacts: What You Don’t Know About Manti Te’o’s Fake Girlfriend

Posted on | January 18, 2013 | 18 Comments

From the “Too Good to Check” file:

The Times was not among the most prominent offenders in taking at face value what turned out to be a hoax, as revealed by the Web site Deadspin.com on Wednesday.
But Times reporters still wrote about the Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te’o’s girlfriend at least five times in recent months.
A Nov. 25 article said that  Te’o was “dealt a full deck of adversity when his grandmother and his girlfriend died within hours of each other.”
Another, on Oct. 14, noted, “His girlfriend, who lost a long fight with leukemia, was a Stanford alumnus.”

Five mentions! The non-existent girlfriend of Manti Te’o has actually gotten more New York Times coverage than the “Fast and Furious” scandal. Think what it means that Deadspin.com did more thorough fact-checking than the nation’s most prestigious newspaper:

Deadspin Editor-in-Chief Tommy Craggs says Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey were faced with a tough question when reporting their now famous Manti Te’o story: “What lengths do we go to to try and prove a negative?”
When asked about his reaction to The Boston Globe calling Deadspin “a website that has broken some high-profile stories but not an outlet regarded for journalistic standards,” Craggs says: “Whatever. Why should I care what a craven, slipshod outfit like the Boston Globe thinks of my ‘journalistic standards’?”
In an email Q&A, Craggs elaborates on Burke’s explanation of how Deadspin got the story that all other journalists missed . . .
From the start, Tim Burke and Jack Dickey kept a running notes file in Google Docs that acted as a skeleton for both their reporting and for the story itself. They asked themselves the obvious questions, Socratically: Who is the person in the photos? Where was Lennay Kekua born? When was Lennay Kekua born? Where did Lennay Kekua live? Did Lennay Kekua attend Stanford? When was Lennay Kekua’s car accident? When did Lennay Kekua die? . . .
We began reporting on Friday. By Monday, Burke had found and contacted the woman in the Lennay photos. Once we had her on the record, we knew we had enough for a story. . . .

She was a cyber-fiction, and yet she was mentioned five times in the New York Times and got quoted on the CBS Morning News.


 

(Hat-tip: MediaGazer.com.)

Category: CBS, Journalism, New York Times

LIVE AT FIVE: 01.18.13

Posted on | January 18, 2013 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Death Toll Unclear After Algerian Raid To Free Hostages

The Amenas gas field, site of the hostage situation

Algeria’s Communications Minister: “Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional…Those who think we will surrender to their blackmail are delusional.”


Florida Supreme Court Approves State Worker Pension Levy
State may require 3% contribution from workers’ pay to state pension fund

No Deal In Iran-IAEA Talks
New meeting set for February 12



POLITICS
Senator Angus King Reluctant To Embrace Assault Weapon Ban

Senator-elect Angus King (I-ME)

Favors universal background checks, limits on “clip” sizes
Also sees no reason to oppose Hagel for Defense

NYC, Teachers Union At Impasse On Evaluations; $450 Million In State Aid At Risk

Former Chicago Businessman Gets 14 Years In Terror Case

FBI: No Arrest For Passenger Pulled From Alaska Air Flight

Latino Voters Push Obama To Keep Immigration Promise

Panel Of Experts Questions Effectiveness Of Food Stamp Program

White House Enlisting Doctors In Gun Control Fight?



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Extends Advance, For Now: NYMEX $95.64, Brent $111.26
PRC Economy Posts Slowest Growth Since 1999
asia Stocks Rise Amid Strong PRC Data, Weak Yen
Citibank Falls Short Of Earnings Estimates, Blames New Regulations
Major Benchmarks Advance Ahead Of Wall Street Open
American Airlines Reveals Long-Awaited Makeover
Sony To Sell NY Headquarters For $1.1 Billion
Facebook Becoming Online Love Connection?
Sony Xperia Z Tablet May Debut In Japan Next Week
Dish Asks FCC To Pause Review Of Softbank’s Sprint Purchase
Apple Offering Early Access To Hearst Magazines Via Newsstand
MEDL Mobile Releases Practice Range App To help Teach Gun Safety
Blackberry 10 Nets 15,000 Apps In Just Two Days
Nokia Cutting Another 300 Jobs



SPORTS
Who Got Snubbed From NBA All-Star Starting Lineups?

Six of the ten starters, including these four guys, were gold medalists at the 2012 Olympics.

Starting lineups and other guys

Te’oing Becomes Web Craze

Lance Armstrong Admits To Doping

LeBron James, Strong Heat Defense Crush Lakers 99-90


Wolverines Ride Hot Start By Tim Hardaway Jr. To Victory Over Gophers, 83-75

Epic Mike Napoli Saga Coming To A Close

Anthony, Stoudemire Lead Knicks Over Pistons In London

Cardinals Hire Bruce Arian Away From Colts To Coach

NHL Apologizes To Hockey Fans In Newspaper Ads

Don Cherry Gets More Time On “Hockey Night In Canada”

Nats Avoid Arbitration With Drew Storen, Sign $2.5 Million Deal With $1 Million In Incentives



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Pauline Phillips Dead At 94

Mrs. Phillips with her twin sister Eppie Lederer (a/k/a Ann Landers)

The advice columnist formerly known as Abigail Van Buren, later “Dear Abby”, died Wednesday after a long illness

Michael J. Fox Doesn’t Want Taylor Swift Dating His Son Sam

Manti Te’o Hoax: All Roads Lead To Ronaiah Tuiasosopo?

“American Idol” Posts Lowest Season Debut Numbers, Down 19% From 2012

Zac Efron Freaks Out After Being Photographed Near Display Of Dildos

Latest SWATting Victim: Tom Cruise

Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson To Return For Season 3 Of  “American Horror Story”

Apparently Doing A Sex Scene With Lindsay Lohan Is Awful And Tedious

The “Karlie” Cut Is Turning Heads

“Teen Mom 2″‘s Jenelle Evans Confirms Second Baby On The Way



FOREIGNERS
Triumphant Imam Qadri Refuses To Relent
11 Dead As Floods Swamp Jakarta
India Gang Rape/Murder Case Moved To Fast Track
Tens Of Thousands Gather In Diyarbakir For Kurdish Activists’ Funeral
Likud/Beitenu Alliance Leading Israeli Polls As January 22 Election Nears
Support For Germany’s SDP Continues To Slide
US Recognizes First Somali Government Since 1991
Greek Parliament Votes To Investigate Former Finance Minister



BLOGS & STUFF
Twitchy: Effort To Akin-ize GOP Continues Apace
Weekly Standard Blog: Rep. Cole Says He Won’t Vote For Debt Limit Increase Without Spending Cuts
Freedom Works: End The Debt Ceiling Shenanigans
PJ Tatler: Debt Ceiling Strategery
Weasel Zippers: RINO Chris Christie Slams “Reprehensible” NRA For “Dragging Other Peoples’ Children” Into Gun Control Debate
John Fund: Gun Sales And Background Checks – Obama’s Bogus 40% Stat
Brian Doherty: Post-Sandy Hook Support For Gun Control Already Slipping
Michael Walsh: High-Magazine Clip Capacity
John Hinderaker: Obama’s Unserious Gun Proposals
JustOneMinute: Is There A Calm, Rational Explanation Of The Merits Of The Proposed Assault Weapons Ban?
Ed Morrissey: Al Franken’s Not So Sure About The Assault Weapons Ban
Gateway Pundit: Texas AG Runs Ads In NY Urging Gun Owners To Pack Up Their Gun Racks, Move To Texas
Jawa Report: Holder begs Court To Stop Document Release On Fast & Furious
Volokh Conspiracy: The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz
P.J. O’Rourke: Dear Mr. President, Zero Sum Makes Zero Sense

Category: Live at Five

Lance Armstrong For President

Posted on | January 18, 2013 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Watch me take a contrary position on the famous cyclist, who is demonstrating more integrity than many public figures in circulation: Lance’s confessional comes at an interesting time.

For more than a decade, Armstrong dared anybody who challenged his version of events to prove it. Finally, he told the tale himself after promising over the weekend to answer Winfrey’s questions “directly, honestly and candidly.”
Winfrey tweeted shortly after the interview: “Just wrapped with @lancearmstrong More than 2½ hours. He came READY!”
The cyclist was stripped of his Tour de France titles, lost most of his endorsements and was forced to leave Livestrong last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a damning 1,000-page report that accused him of masterminding a long-running doping scheme.

Everybody is lining up to hate Lance, and sue the wheels off of him.

The Daily News has obtained and reviewed the sealed lawsuit Landis filed under the False Claims Act, a 33-page document that accuses Armstrong and his associates at Tailwind Sports of defrauding the government out of millions of taxpayer dollars by operating a sophisticated doping program over many years. The suit claims Armstrong’s use of banned and illegal drugs to dominate the Tour de France was in clear violation of the sponsorship agreement between the team and the United States Postal Service, which sponsored Armstrong’s teams from 1998 to 2004.

But is Lance a metaphor for the general problem of too much money and power and pressure concentrated in a small area? We go to Tea Party rallies and elect variations on the theme of Lance Armstrong at Every. Single. Election, and then we are SHOCKED! Shocked! when they get into office, expand government, and crank up the debt.

(Reference) What I’m getting at is that, while Lance merits whatever justice the courts mete out, we ought to question the game as much as the player. However, what we can expect not to occur is any thoughtful analysis about why putting as much money and pressure on sports (cycling, baseball, football &c) tends to crush sportsmanship and turn so many into thugs. It’s timely that Lance goes under the bus, bike and all, as the century of fiscal doping reaches its climax in this Congress. Is the Union going to go under the twin busses of History and Economics in the near future, like Mr. Armstrong? Can any elected official come clean like Lance admit that these ‘balanced approaches’ and ‘Roadmap Plans’ are just so much toast? Look at the cretinous alternative: (via Weasel Zippers) You know you’ve done well, as has Moran, when you get to lead off a chapter in a book like Throw Them All Out. There is ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran, yucking it up with notorious racist Joan Walsh (no link to www.salon.com/2013/01/16/the_rights_colin_powell_freakout), who came after Stacy Washington for calling it like she saw it on Colin Powell’s non-commitment to anything resembling conservativism. I would trade ‘Gentleman’ Jim in a heartbeat for Lance Armstrong; both are flawed, fallen humans. But one of them knows how to man-up and confess. To defend Moran slightly, though, no one is asking why our system drives more or less everyone who spends any amount of time in office down to diabolical depths. When our political system has a blip, as with the Tea Party in 2010, and an Allen West creeps in, the system has to circle the wagons and reject him via gerrymandering. The Mike Pences run for state governor. The Jim DeMints repair to Heritage. The likes of Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz seem a fringe. Will they amount to a fart amidst a thunderous collapse?

Certainly, Lance is too flawed for public office. This post is not seriously advocating him for President. But one wonders how we break the cycle of abuse without ever asking harder questions about why things are so jacked up. I say it’s the centralization. Power tends to corrupt, noted Acton. Should American Exceptionalism mean anything, let’s see some GOP reform ideas, pronto. The movement to Audit the Fed is a great place to start, as there seems to be some relationship between power, money, and corruption. But is that House bill so much tissue paper without support in the Senate, and courage in the Executive?

Without the courage to confess, there seems scant hope of repentance, both of which are key to start making any reform.

Category: Jim Moran, Sports, Virginia

Five Years Ago Today …

Posted on | January 17, 2013 | 13 Comments

. . . I tendered my resignation at The Washington Times:

You may recall that I attempted to quit The Washington Times in August 2007, and was persuaded not to do so by Wes Pruden and Fran Coombs. Well, Wes and Fran are leaving now, so I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to go.
My last work day in the office will be Wednesday, Jan. 23, though cleaning out my desk may take a few days longer. . . .

As I said at the time, it was as if God said, “Go.” If nothing else, this spared me the bizarre dramas that have ensued at The Washington Times, which is now on its fourth editor in five years, after wave after wave of layoffs and sundry other embarrassments at what I’ve begun calling the People’s Democratic Republic of 3600 New York Avenue.

A totalitarian ethos of paranoia has evidently taken hold in management, prompting one staffer to remark to Fishbowl DC’s Betsy Rothstein:

“Don’t you just love a media company that has an absolutely strict policy against ever talking to the press ever?”

It’s weird. Other news organizations that didn’t even exist five years ago have started from scratch and eclipsed the Times in importance, despite the triumphant air with which the paper announced the hiring of John Solomon as editor in January 2008, heralding what management proclaimed would be a new era of glorious success.

The newspaper was in utter disarray by the time Solomon left in 2009, and now — further demonstrating the brilliance of management — Solomon is back with the title of “Chief Digital Officer.”

Chief Digital Officer.

Let’s think about this. While getting paid as CDO by the Times, Solomon has been promoting his own project, The Washington Guardian — which you never heard of until you read this, right?

As of 8 p.m., the Twitter feed for the Guardian had 512 followers.

The Twitter feed for Twitchy Team has 70,391 followers. FishbowlDC has 22,860 Twitter followers. I’ve got 17.602.

Maybe you see what I’m getting at here.

It’s not really pleasant to watch a news organization being “managed” into oblivion, but it is what it is. And God said, “Go.”

 

Category: Journalism

The Filthy Rotten Party of Corruption, Treason, Fraud, Sodomy and Abortion

Posted on | January 17, 2013 | 31 Comments

Charles Rangel: Why ‘corrupt Democrat’ is a redundancy

In a Twitter colloquy with Susan Cloud, producer of the Mark Davis radio show, I found myself compelled to explain and defend my previous criticisms of National Review. The problem, really, is that Republicans just don’t hate Democrats the way Democrats hate Republicans.

Most Republicans are born and raised Republicans, and are spiritually attuned to the sentiments of bourgeois respectability that are core values to the decent, honest people the GOP represents. By contrast, Democrats owe their power to the vilest dregs of humanity — corrupt union goons, Marxist academics, criminals, drug addicts, sexual perverts and race hustlers — who have no respect for the values of decent, honest people.

In politics, this represents a tremendous advantage to Democrats, who elect to high office vicious thieves like Charlie Rangel without any sense of embarrassment, and then applaud Rangel’s lies without shame. The Democrats are a gang of brazen criminals who have contempt for their victims — you, the respectable citizens who vote Republican.

Having been born and raised a Democrat, I was never taught to be embarrassed of my politics the way most Republican children seem to be taught. And these nice Republican types who grew up groveling and apologizing — “Please, Professor, don’t give me a bad grade for diagreeing with you!” — are the weak link in the chain, the essential cause of the Republican Party’s feebleness.

What these practicioners of Republican niceness lack is the boldness to speak the blunt truth about what a despicable organization the Democratic Party has become. No moral, honest and intelligent American would associate themselves with the Democrats. Therefore the question we should ask our friends who might be tempted to vote Democrat is, “Are you immoral and dishonest, or merely stupid?”

The truth may sometimes seem rude, but it is still the truth.

 

Category: Abortion, Corruption, Crime, Democrats

Crisis in Algeria: More ‘Arab Spring’ Consequences; U.S. Hostages Seized

Posted on | January 17, 2013 | 12 Comments

Over the weekend, I mentioned the al-Qaeda-backed rebellion in Mali, and now there’s more Islamic trouble in neighboring Algeria:

Six hostages, 8 kidnappers killed
in Algeria siege; 7 still held
— Reuters

US confirms Americans among hostages
taken by militants in Algeria
— The Hill

Militants Grab U.S. Hostages
— Wall Street Journal

Militants: 35 hostages dead
in Algerian copter attack
— CBS News

The facts of this emerging crisis are not entirely clear, but it looks a lot like further evidence of the bankruptcy of Obama’s foreign policy:

Donald Douglas at American Power is aggregating developments, including this confession of impotence from the White House:

 

Category: Uncategorized

Jonah Goldberg, Professional Loser?

Posted on | January 17, 2013 | 115 Comments

“We lost. We are losers. . . . Our operatives are incompetent and we live in a dream world.”
— Rob Long of National Review, in an interview with Joe Hagan of New York magazine during a Caribbean cruise in November

Has National Review, an institution founded in opposition to liberalism, become part of the problem it was intended to solve? This thought has occurred to me with increasing frequency in recent years.

Last January, immediately after Rick Santorum’s stunning upset victory in the Iowa caucuses, I attended a debate-night event in Manchester, New Hampshire hosted by National Review and was stunned at their cheerful acquiescence in The Inevitability of Mitt Romney. The primary campaign had just begun, and it took another three months for Romney to lock up the nomination, yet the NR crowd were ready and willing to applaud the coronation of the GOP Establishment choice.

This apparent unwillingness to fight tough battles against long odds disturbed me then, and at Christmas, I was further disturbed to read the New York magazine account of National Review‘s post-election Caribbean cruise, which I summarized thus:

[A]n article you should read in its entirety, if you want to be thoroughly depressed about the uselessness of our conservative elite: Wonks, pundits, pollsters and consultants on a free tropical vacation paid for by elderly magazine subscribers who, we presume, were grateful to be in the intellectual presence of the presumed heirs of Bill Buckley.

Unless you consider pre-emptive surrender to be a clever strategy, there is clearly something wrong when a political movement’s flagship institution shows such a willing acceptance of defeat.

The problem is not merely that National Review was aboard the Romney bandwagon early, nor that Romney was subsequently defeated, but rather that no one at National Review seems ashamed of themselves for their roles in helping to bring about this disaster. If they are leaders of the conservative movement, and if the conservative movement has failed — which it quite obviously has, or otherwise Obama would not be ruling by executive fiat — where is the accountability?

While I’m not saying that Rich Lowry must commit seppuku, why is there no admission by anyone at National Review that they have failed the movement they presumed to lead? A contemplation of these dark thoughts was inspired by Jonah Goldberg’s latest column:

[The conservative] movement has an unhealthy share of hucksters eager to make money from stirring rage, paranoia, and an ill-defined sense of betrayal with little concern for the real political success that can come only with persuading the unconverted.
A conservative journalist or activist can now make a decent living while never once bothering to persuade a liberal. Telling people only what they want to hear has become a vocation. Worse, it’s possible to be a rank-and-file conservative without once being exposed to a good liberal argument.

OK, a few questions immediately come to mind:

  • Who are these “hucksters”? If they are merely “stirring rage, paranoia, and an ill-defined sense of betrayal” for their own selfish purposes, they must be eliminated. Name names, please.
  • How much of this “bothering to persuade a liberal” has Jonah Goldberg done? Where is this legion of converts to conservatism — the Goldbergites, as it were — to whom he may point as evidence of his successful persuasion?
  • To which “good liberal argument” do we need to be exposed? Because the very fact that an argument is liberal would seem to me sufficient evidence that it is wrong, and so I’m having trouble with the concept of arguments that are both liberal and “good.”

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding Jonah’s argument. Maybe I’m just a huckster “stirring rage, paranoia, and an ill-defined sense of betrayal.” However, Goldberg seems to be on more solid ground here:

To listen to many grassroots conservatives, the GOP establishment is a cabal of weak-kneed sellouts who regularly light votive candles to a poster of liberal Republican icon Nelson Rockefeller.
This is not only not true, it’s a destructive myth. . . .
It’s not that the GOP isn’t conservative enough, it’s that it isn’t tactically smart or persuasive enough to move the rest of the nation in a more conservative direction.

Because Goldberg is insufficiently explicit — he won’t name the “hucksters” — it is only by inference that we may deduce that this is a reference to the embarrassingly ineffective “Dump Boehner” movement that sought to unseat the Republican Speaker of the House. And if that’s the case, I agree: Boehner and the House GOP aren’t the problem. The real problem is the gross ineptitude of Senate Republicans, whose warped political judgment was manifested in the May 2009 decision of NRSC Chairman John Cornyn to back Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio, and which has been further evidenced in their multiple blunders of the 2010 and 2012 campaigns. But I digress . . .

While Goldberg’s vague jab at “hucksters” is likely aimed at those who organized the “Dump Boehner” movement, perhaps it is also retroactive excuse-making for National Review‘s Romney bandwagon trip that so disturbed me last January in New Hampshire. The unwillingness of the NR crowd to consider Santorum as a viable alternative to Romney bugged me then, and it still bugs me now.

Look at the exit polls: In Ohio, Romney got only 81% of the conservative vote, while Obama got 88% of the liberal vote. Thirty-five percent of Ohio voters called themselves conservative, as compared to 22% who identified as liberal. If Romney had gotten a larger share of the conservative vote, he would have won Ohio. Now, here are the truly frightening numbers: Obama got 44% of the Catholic vote in Ohio, and 29% of the evangelical (or “born again”) Protestant vote.

Is Jonah Goldberg willing to admit what seems obvious to me, namely that nominating a moderate Mormon contributed to the weakening of GOP support among conservative Christians? Isn’t it possible that an adamantly pro-life Catholic would have done better?

Understand that this isn’t an argument about “purity.” It’s an argument about competence: How do you win in politics?

The fact that the Romney campaign failed to win a sufficient share of conservative voters cannot be blamed on “hucksters.”

Scapegoating and blame-shifting are not attributes of responsible leadership, and if National Review claims to be leading a movement, shouldn’t the recent electoral catastrophe cause them to reflect on their own role in this defeat?

Losing makes me angry. It enrages me. Defeat is a humiliation that insults my sense of personal honor. And what I’m hearing from Jonah Goldberg and his National Review colleagues does not convey a similar feeling of outrage. They have been beaten, embarrassed and publicly shamed, and yet they don’t seem even slightly bothered by their current status as ineffectual laughingstocks, objects of scorn and ridicule.

Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you . . . a loser.

The National Review Institute Summit will convene Jan. 25 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC., and while I deny any intention to stir up rage, paranoia and so forth, I sure hope some pissed-off conservatives will show up and ask tough questions of those who claim to be the rightful heirs of Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan.

Oh — did I mention Joe Scarborough will be there?

 


Category: Jonah Goldberg
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