The Other McCain

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

Epistemic Closure Redux: The Campaign, the Debate and the Jobs Report

Posted on | October 6, 2012 | 19 Comments

The Left’s reaction to Wednesday’s debate and Friday’s job report illustrates why the political conversation in America has become so hopelessly discordant. We are not arguing about two candidates or two parties, but two worldviews. Bad news for President Obama challenges the belief system of the Left; it is not enough for them merely to dispute facts, they must destroy the bearers of bad news — accuse them of deceit and ridicule them as fools.

Go back to Julian Sanchez’s much-discussed 2010 musings about “epistemic closure” in conservative thought. Sanchez’s idea was embraced by the Left at a time when the true size of the backlash against Obama’s agenda had not yet been determined. Republicans had won the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, and Scott Brown had been elected to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, but the mid-term elections were still months in the future.

It was therefore still possible, in early 2010, for Sanchez and others on the Left to believe that conservative hopes of a resurgence were wishful thinking, and that the chatter coming from the Right’s alternative media (“a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News”) could be safely ignored.

One might have thought that the 2010 mid-term elections in which the GOP gained a net 62 House seats — “The Republican Mandate” — would have convinced the Left that they had miscalculated. Instead, they placed their confidence in Obama’s ability to navigate the new environment, to neutralize the Republican House majority, and then to win re-election, just as Clinton had done in 1995-96.

Everything seemed to be proceeding in accordance with those beliefs until Romney dismantled Obama in Wednesday’s debate — a psychological shock that has unhinged the Left, causing them to begin lashing out furiously and rather erratically at anyone who suggests that the dam has broken and that the “preference cascade” may doom Obama to defeat in November.

Instead of a re-play of 1996  (with Romney playing the Bob Dole role), the Left is suddenly confronted with the possibility of an election much more like 1980, and with the burden of humiliating failure that a one-term presidency signifies. So they began claiming that Romney had “won” the debate by lying and cheating, and they continued the theme — “Don’t trust those Republicans!” — in their attacks Friday on those who were dubious about the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Jack Welch and Rick Santelli are not crackpots. The possibility that the BLS report was deliberately manipulated for political purposes — as an “October Surprise” — is one matter, but the continued weakness of the economy is simply a fact. And it is this fact, the failure of Obama’s economic policies, that also accounts for Romney’s easy win in Wednesday’s debate.

The failure of neo-Keynesianism cannot be accepted by the Left. It challenges their worldview and so, in what looks very much like “epistemic closure,” they attack the bearers of disconcerting facts, preferring their ideological theory to the truth.

UPDATE: Linked by William Hoge — thanks! — and welcome Instapundit/Ed Driscoll readers!

Category: Economics, Election 2012

A Different Spin On Obama’s Denver Clock-Cleaning

Posted on | October 6, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Daily Pundit links VDH in yet another rational review of What Went Wrong In Denver. Sure, as far as it goes. But if I may “. . .think of a man, and. . .take away reason and accountability“, maybe we need to recall that the Obama Administration is nothing if not the ultimate Vagina Monologue.

Viewed through that tunnel, if you will, what you saw was the Longsuffering Black Man endure Yet Another Beating from the Usual Male Suspect of European Extraction. If you’re a dunce who is the most oversold thing since Java, you have to assume the lamb-like, sacrificial role, as you fearlessly stand for Progress and Prefixed Justice (racial-, reproductive-, class-, economic-, voting-, sexual- –it doesn’t matter).  You have to turn Mitt into a preppy Pontius Pilate, out to crucify the Chicago Savior for being unable to overcome the sins of BeelzeBush the anti-Clinton. In other words, avoid any head-on, factual confrontation, where your naked nethers would be too glaringly obvious, and go for the passive-aggressive play.

That sounds like 47 kinds of stupid, and borders on 57 flavors of insane. But this Administration has taught nothing if not the lesson that, at least tactically, you can go a long way on a line of pure hooey. Note that Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton aren’t all over the news, despite Fast & Furious and Benghazi.

Look for a nonsensical blend of “You Don’t Know The Burdens I Carry”, and “Since You Can’t Know My Burdens, Any Criticism Is Unreasonable” at the foreign policy town hall. Romney is going to have to do a lot of homework to retain that “snappy but not snippy” rhythm he nailed in Denver while talking about #OccupyResoluteDesk’s abysmal record overseas. Unlike John McCain in ’08, though, Romney is as serious as lung cancer about winning.

American Glob explores the ‘Romney cheated’ meme.

Update: linked at The Camp of the Saints and Dustbury

Category: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney

Not Since Johannes Gutenberg …

Posted on | October 6, 2012 | 9 Comments

. . . published the Bible has any book deserved more enthusiastic hype than does Evan Sayet’s new book The Kindergarten of Eden: How the Modern Liberal Thinks and Why He’s Convinced That Ignorance Is Bliss.

You will click this link. You will buy this book. You will read it, and your mind will be enlightened by the experience.

Why do I say this so confidently? Why am I not afraid that I am praising Evan’s book too effusively? Because this book — click now and buy the e-book for $4.99 — is based on a speech that Evan Sayet gave at the Heritage Foundation, which Andrew Breitbart called “one of the five most important talks in conservatism.”

Did you know that the first time I met Evan Sayet was also the first time I met Andrew Breitbart? Did you know that I just got off the phone with Evan, talking about who Andrew was and what Andrew meant to our movement? Do you know what I owe Evan?

Trust me. Andrew Breitbart’s ghost will haunt you if you do not click this link and buy Evan’s book right now. And if you will click now and buy this book, a blessing upon you. Selah.

Category: Books

Is America Ready For A President Who Can Humbly Say I Was ‘Completely Wrong’?

Posted on | October 5, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

NRO hasn’t got any embed code I can find, but Mitt on Hannity definitely mowed on crow for his 47% remark. What a refreshing development, after four years of “There is no personality conflict: I’ve got the personality, you’ve got the conflict” from #OccupyResoluteDesk.

The Romney campaign should find subtle ways to underscore the idea that, unlike the incumbent, Mitt is not an insufferable, peevish clown.

Category: Mitt Romney

If An Authority On The Bigger Digger Rigger Trigger, Like Snoop Dogg, Says This, Then The Case Is Closed

Posted on | October 5, 2012 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Source: The Blaze.

If everyone can successfully be labeled using the adjectiveepithet ‘nigger’, then the word has achieved the innocuousness of a three-letter word for a young man.

I am so fed up with those who pervert the language with follow-on, pejorative meaning the speaker never intended, I could just scream. It’s one thing for one person to offer sincere criticism, and edifying feedback. It is quite another for an adjectivea word such as ‘nigger’ to take on near-magical significance, such that a member of Niggaz With Attitude  is an ‘artist’, and I am some kind of raaaaacist for giving my boy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Once upon a time I gave credence to these arguments. I thought, ‘Well, these trained professionals must know something. Perhaps I have some subconscious raaaaacism in my thinking.’

Now I grasp that this is a deliberate, diabolical lie. Godless Commies in academia and the media are crapflooding the public discourse. The motive is to build power by silencing opposition with guild or confusion.

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

It’s time for a great awakening in this country, where we kick Commies curb-ward, and re-assert liberty and mutual respect. Let these Commies return to hell, and take their lies, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity Officers with them.

Update: more at The Lonely Conservative

Category: Racism

The New Yorker Cover Lays Down A Stone Cold #Eastwooding

Posted on | October 5, 2012 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

Via Drudge, here’s one for the books:

Debating from an angry chair
Angry pout that steals the air
Ego hurts and I don’t care

What do I see across the way, hey
See my job molded in clay, oh
Stares at me, yeah I’m afraid, hey
Changing the shape of his face, ah yeah

Commies red I have a pair
Numbers dancing everywhere
Polling on the angry chair

Little boy made a mistake, hey
Racist reference to young Craig, oh
All that he wants is to play, hey
Get on your knees, time to pray, oh

[Chorus]
I don’t mind, yeah
I don’t mind, I-I-I
I don’t mind, yeah
I don’t mind, I-I-I
Lost my mind, yeah
I don’t mind, I-I-I
Can’t find it anywhere
I don’t mind, I-I-I

Dodd-Frank prison, we stay, hey
I’m a dull boy, work all day, oh
Racist reference to young Tagg, hey
Loneliness is not a phase
Field of pain is where I graze

Shoulda prepared debate side
Saw my reflection, no pride, hey
So little hope that polls died, oh
But Matthews lies, mouth so wide, hey
Weight of ideology, not the size, oh

[chorus]

Pink cloud has now turned to ralph
All that I want is to golf
Get on your knees cry to Wolf, boy

Update: more at Evil Blogger Lady

Category: Barack Obama, humor, Mitt Romney, Video

Screaming Falsehoods, Silent Reality

Posted on | October 5, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

The Obama Administration continues to publish job numbers no one believes or takes seriously. AFP offers a rebuttal:

Category: Blogging

ROMNEY IN COAL COUNTRY
UPDATE: You Call This a ‘Recovery’?

Posted on | October 5, 2012 | 8 Comments

ABINGDON, Virginia
Mitt Romney spoke to a crowd of nearly 4,000 people here in a midday rally, where he emphasized for the coal industry, a vital part of the economy in southwest Virginia. There was a strong representation at the rally from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

While at the rally, I got a chance to talk with an award-winning local reporter, Debra McCown, who explained that some 1,200 coal workers in the area had been laid off recently because of EPA regulations that have curbed the use of coal in electrical power plants. McCown explained that during the 2008 campaign, Obama made two trips to the area, as did his running mate Joe Biden, while John McCain’s only visit to the area was an airport stop at the Tri-Cities Airport in Sullivan County, Tennessee — just south of the Virginia border — the day before Election Day.

During his speech, Mitt got a cheer from the crowd when he mentioned the debate, and said that Obama’s statements during Wednesday’s debates were essentially “a reiteration of the status quo.” The biggest cheer during the entire rally was when Romney promised to repeal ObamaCare. Citing the latest employment report, Romney said, “We can do better.”

Ali Akbar gave me a ride to the event and has posted an entire Facebook page of photos from the rally.

UPDATE: Romney’s rapid response press operation is  already online with this video clip of Mitt’s speech at Abingdon:

“My priority is creating jobs. I will help small business do that with everything I can do. Now, we can do better. We don’t have to stay on the path we have been on. We can do better. There was a report that just came out this morning on job creation this last month. There were fewer new jobs created this month than last month. The unemployment rate, as you know, this year has come down very, very slowly, but it has come down nonetheless. The reason it has come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. And if you just drop out of the workforce, if you just give up and say, look, I can’t go back to work, I’m just going to stay home, if you just drop out altogether, why, you’re no longer part of the employment statistics. So, it looks like unemployment is getting better, but the truth is if the same share of people were participating in the workforce today, as on the day the President got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11%. That’s the real reality of what’s happening out there. And then, of course, even those that have jobs are having tough times. The middle class is being squeezed with higher and higher costs and with incomes that have gone down by $4,300 a family. This can’t go on. I’ll tell you this: when I’m President of the United States, when I’m President of the United States, that unemployment rate is going to come down, not because people are giving up and dropping out of the workforce, but because we are creating more jobs. I will create jobs and get America working again.”

The Left is now claiming that criticism of the economy — the decline in the official unemployment rate caused by people dropping out of the work force, a statistical oddity — is “job trutherism,” as if Jack Welch doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Look, I mentioned this same phenomenon, as demonstrated by recent reports of employment in Crawford County, Ohio, earlier this week:

Americans have become accustomed to this sort of “good news” in the Obama era, and there was more of it in that small-town Ohio paper. “Unemployment remains the same,” declared the headline across the top of the front page. The story explained that, although the official unemployment rate in Crawford County, Ohio (population 43,389) declined from 9 percent in July to 8 percent in August, it wasn’t because more people were working. “Since the number of employed stayed the same, 200 people went off of unemployment because their time limit is up and they have not found work yet,” Dave Williamson, director of the Crawford County Economic Development Partnership, told the Bucyrus paper. “We have no more people working than we did last month.”
Extrapolate such statistical hocus-pocus at the local level across the entire state of Ohio, or nationwide, and you understand how some people might be deceived into believing that the Obama administration has actually produced an economic recovery.

Statistics that “hide the decline” (i.e., the shrinking workforce, as more and more discouraged workers cease to be counted in the official unemployment number) do not fool anyone who actually looks at the underlying data. Anyone who is confused about this should consult James Pethokoukis at The American Enterprise Institute.

 





 


Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Virginia
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