The Other McCain

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

Clarifying Friday’s Trayvon Martin Post

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 22 Comments

by Smitty

On Friday I posted, pertinent to the charging instrument in the case of George Zimmerman “If The Strategy Was Always Propaganda, Why Is A Charging Instrument That Sounds Like The Squawk Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask A Surprise?”
Once again, this time with emphasis:

Law is based upon reason, and a reasonable person sees through the farce at work, as the truly sad death of a little boy is molded, claylike, into something completely different. The judge is going to apply reason, and reject this, and the Left is going to cry foul. And there will be an appeal. And it will fail upward, rolling up to the SCOTUS, if possible.

Referring to a teenager as a ‘little boy’ is a bit off, I admit. A bit more editing would have substituted ‘young man’. But the point here is that there are two threads afoot:

  1. the sad demise of Trayvon Martin, whom George Martin killed, and
  2. the disgusting, propaganda-driven spectacle to which I was reacting in the post.

Blind to point #2, the concern trolls come out:

Zimmerman isn’t charged with “raaaaacism” and he isn’t charged with Crimes Against Obama. He’s charged with second degree murder because he shot and killed somebody. As it turns out, Bill Ayers isn’t the governor of Florida and Saul Alinsky isn’t the prosecutor—Florida’s Republican Governor, Rick Scott appointed Angela Corey to investigate the case.
From the available evidence, the conservative movement these days is little more than a tribe and the important issue in any public dispute is who is Us and who is Them. Smitty and his fellow rightwingers seem to have decided that George Zimmerman is one of Us.

The question thus moves to whether Clark Stooksbury is oblivious to the Orwellian assault on Western Civilization being undertaken by the Progressives. Or maybe the President’s personal involvement, “If I’d had a son. . .”, and the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, to the detriment of justice for the case, is just beanbag. Also, I have yet to hear anybody attempt to claim that GZ is one of ‘us’. Though perhaps a trip through the belly of the Progressive Cthulhu will help clarify matters.

Thanks, Clark, for the prompt to clarify a post which, admittedly, could have been stronger the first go-round.

Update: via Fishersville Mike, here are myths surrounding the case.

Category: Florida, Racism

Turbo-Tax Tim Does 3 Sunday Shows UPDATE: Geithner Praises Obama’s ‘Incredibly Effective’ Economic Policies

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 17 Comments

The Treasury Secretary is ubiquitous on Tax Day:

  • ABC This Week: Timothy Geithner.
  • NBC Meet the Press: Timothy Geithner; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
  • CBS Face the Nation: Timothy Geithner; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
  • CNN State of the Union: Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee; Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.
  • Fox News Sunday: Ed Gillespie, adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney; David Axelrod, adviser to President Obama’s re-election campaign.

UPDATE: Kool-Aid? Anybody want some Kool-Aid?

President Obama’s economic policies “were incredibly effective,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday, crediting the president with having prevented a depression.
While admitting it is “still a very tough economy out there,” Geithner said the administration is “making a lot of progress” and said “the broad indicators are pretty encouraging.”
Interviewed on ABC’s This Week, Geithner was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the gloomy forecasts from economists such as New York University professor Nouriel Roubini, who called the current recovery “anemic, subpar, below trend, below potential.”
Geithner suggested Obama could not be blamed for that, saying “if he’d had more support from his opponents in Congress, then we could have got more things passed that would have put more people back to work more quickly.” . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator, which I hope citizen-journalists will study as a lesson in Neutral Objective Journalism. One of the basic jobs of a D.C. political reporter is the Sunday show round-up: What did the “newsmakers” (government officials, party leaders, candidates, etc.) say on the Sunday shows?

If you can do nothing else from the comfort of home, you can always report What People Say on TV. The key to doing that effectively, however, is to write it as straight news: “Joe Friday, Just-the-Facts-Ma’am” is a style that anyone can learn by study and practice. Repress your bloggerly temptation to snark it up, resist any urge you might have toward sensationalism, and just tell it straight. Identify the key quotes and facts and assemble them into the kind of basic reporting that wire services do.

When doing a Sunday show roundup, you generally want to work pretty quick: If your version isn’t online by noon or 1 p.m. Eastern, you might as well not bother. But on other occasions and with other kinds of What People Say on TV stories, you may have time — if you think nobody else saw the significance of the interview, news story or C-SPAN segment you saw — to fill in the background from other sources.

Some may ask, “Where’s the value-added? Anybody can see what people say on TV. Why should I do my own version of the story? Why not just link the Associated Press or Politico story and add my own caustic ideological sarcasm?” I reply that the way other sources assemble the quotes and facts — the way they do Neutral Objective Journalism — inevitably introduces a certain angle or bias to the story.

You will discover, if you try your hand at writing the What People Say on TV story, that there is no such thing as neutrality, no matter how straightforward and factual your account may be. Other than transcripts, every news story on a subject of political controversy (and what Tim Geithner said Sunday was obviously such a case) includes elements of selection and emphasis that amount to a slant. Read more

Category: ABC, Barack Obama, CBS, Economics, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Neutral Objective Journalism, R.S. McCain School of Journalism, Timothy Geithner

FMJRA 2.0: Social Meltdown

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

A million thanks to Smitty for picking up the slack last week while I was being scourged by the Swedish Death Flu I acquired in Minnesota while visiting my son and 4,998 other anime fans…

SANTORUM DROPS OUT

Ashley Judd, Victim of the War on Women

Feminism, Careerism, Lesbianism

Use ‘Derbyshire’ as a Verb

Profiles in Narcissism: Charles Johnson Blinded by His Own Self-Righteousness

They Told Me If I Voted For McCain, ‘White Folks’ Would ‘Keep’ Charter Schools For Themselves!

Does The ‘NBC Editor’ Really Exist?

Rich Lowry’s Editorial Impotence?

FMJRA 2.0: Some Other Time

The Con Science Of A Liberal

Predictable: Gingrich Admits He Owes More Than $4 Million Campaign Debt

Rule 5 Sunday: Lobo Town

North Dakota GOP Screws Over Santorum

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.09.12

The Science Is Settled!

This Would Only Matter If It Was, Say, A Ron Paul Campaign Office

In Case You Haven’t Noticed Yet, Everybody Recently Went Crazy

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.10.12

Do We Now Know Why Media Matters Dumped M.J. Rosenberg?

Derbyshire, Goldstein and Lowry

Dean Clancy At FreedomWorks Didn’t Get The Memo

Most Evil Human Being In Known Universe Speaks, Sounds Semi-Sensible

‘Most Beautiful Woman in Canada’ Is …

Our Double-Secret Strategy To Ensure GOP Triumph

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.11.12

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Foreboding Gloom Pervades Vanuatu

Let’s Try To Help Hah-vuhd Further Beclown Itself

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.12.12

The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’

Maslow And The Conversation On Race

No, Whoopi, Rosen Said Precisely What She Was To Say

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.13.12

GOOD NEWS!

Lena Dunham, Sandra Fluke, Joy McCann

Warning: Brain-Bleach Shortage!

Helping Instapundit See The Sense In What We’re Doing Right Now

Top linkers this week:

  1. The Guy Who Named The Blogosphere (14)
  2. The Lonely Conservative (8)
  3. Don Surber (7)
  4. (tied) The Camp Of The Saints and DaleyGator (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next week’s FMJRA will be Friday, April 20.

Category: FMJRA Award

Another Starlet in ‘Downward Spiral’

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 12 Comments

The former star of All That and The Amanda Show is alleged to be the latest victim of Britney/Lindsay Syndrome:

Amanda Bynes isn’t letting her recent DUI arrest slow her down. The former Nickelodeon star hit both the Chateau Marmont and the hip nightclub Greystone Manor Thursday night, despite pleadings from some around her to go into rehab.
“Amanda has been in a downward spiral for the last six months. Even though her dad publicly said she doesn’t drink, he knows she has a problem. It’s truly sad to witness. Amanda has been told she must go to rehab, but she is refusing,” a source close to Bynes tells RadarOnline.com exclusively.

She sidewiped a cop car at 3 a.m., which is pretty bad, but does every 20-something who gets a DUI have to go to rehab? Or does this rule only apply to Hollywood starlets?

Amanda’s larger problem is that her career is in the tank: She hasn’t been in a movie since the 2010 teen comedy Easy A and, at 26, she’s past the age to be playing schoolgirls, but still too young to be writing feminist rants about being objectified by the effin’ patriarchy.

Category: Celebrities

Bee Gee Stayin’ Alive — Barely

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 4 Comments

Singer Robin Gibb is reportedly in a coma after being hospitalized for pneumonia while being treated for colon cancer:

The 62-year-old singer’s family have been keeping vigil at his bedside at a hospital in Chelsea, west London.
They are understood to include his wife Dwina, brother Barry, 65, daughter Melissa, 37, and sons Spencer, 39, and Robin-John, 29.
Gibb had surgery on his bowel 18 months ago for an unrelated condition, but a tumour was discovered and he was diagnosed with cancer of the colon and, subsequently, of the liver. It had been thought his cancer was in remission as early as last month, but the latest deterioration in his health coincides with reports of a secondary tumour. . . .
Gibb’s twin brother and bandmate Maurice died from the same bowel condition that initially led doctors to operate on Robin.
Gibb’s younger brother Andy, who was not part of the Bee Gees but a successful singer in his own right, died in 1988 from heart failure at 30.

Category: Celebrities

What Happens in Cartagena …

Posted on | April 15, 2012 | 38 Comments

. . . doesn’t stay in Cartagena:

Most of the Secret Service agents embroiled in a prostitution scandal brought women back to their Colombia hotel rooms before President Obama arrived in town for an international summit, Rep. Pete King said Saturday.
King said the raunchy rendezvous involved 11 agents and went sour when an agent refused to pay one of the women, who were presumed to be hookers.
“The agent said, ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ but gave the woman some money,” said King (R-L.I.),the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, who was briefed on the matter. “I don’t know how much, and it was settled right there.”
As it turned out, the agents’ troubles were just beginning. Local cops were called to the hotel in Cartagena and, because the matter involved foreigners, a report was written up and sent to the U.S. Embassy, King said.

Five U.S. military personnel were also involved in the scandal.

Category: Scandal, Sex

Can Anyone Help Parse Dick Cheney’s Opinion Of Barack Obama?

Posted on | April 14, 2012 | 63 Comments

by Smitty

It’s really hard to grasp Cheney’s position on the fellow, under all the spin and whitewash:

“He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country,” Cheney said of President Barack Obama.

via Liz Cheney

Update: thank you, Instapundit!

Update II:

Category: Barack Obama, Republicans

Santelli To Liesman: You Can’t Drink Yourself To Sobriety

Posted on | April 14, 2012 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

The title is a summary of Santelli’s point here:

Santelli points out that there is no way to keep Zimbabwe Ben from quaffing away at his bottle of Jethro’s 120 Proof Market Fixer-Upper And Hinge Lubricant. Liesman asks, metaphorically, what else Zimbabwe Ben should drink, and Santelli repeats that the market is going to take the bottle away.

Liesman seems incapable of grasping that there is any market left to force this turn of events.

Santelli’s facial expression seems to convey the dismay of being the only sane man on the show.

via Charliemax on Twitter

Update: linked at Sentry Journal

Category: Weimar America
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