The W-Word: Fringe Journalism Is Fun!

Posted on Comments

Yes, the W is for “Weigel,” which term seems to have become as offensive (or boring) to some readers as “epistemic closure” or even “Elena Kagan Sex Tape” — the latter being a sort of satire of Rule 5, for which Marty Eisenstadt disclaims any responsibility.

Summer is a great time for blog-fights because traffic always goes down during the summer anyway, and you might as well be in a pissing match as trying to get people to pay attention to politics on the cusp of the Fourth of July. (Why do you think Pat Leahy scheduled the Kagan hearings now, anyway?)

This summer’s Weigelian Götterdämmerung generated some interesting spin-offs, including John Hawkins’ feud with David Frum, Dan Riehl’s kiss-my-ass to the D.C. Republican establishment, and Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 “Let’s Make a Deal” bid for the Journolist archives:

Does anybody really care about this stuff? Frankly, we don’t know, because nobody’s reading blogs three days before Fourth of July. Obviously, the traffic-suckage has reached critical mass when even Instapundit resorts to traffic-baiting with an Andrew Sullivan beatdown.

Not that I’m against Sully beatdowns, but at some point, you get tired of repeating that the obstetric-obsessed marijuana-addicted immigrant poofter appears to be descending into AIDS-related dementia. Even Ace of Spades seems to be growing weary of rolling Sissy Fuss up that hill.

Dale Robertson and Chuckles the Clown

OK, so . . . David Weigel. People who say that Weigel never did the Right any favors are giving short shrift to an episode recounted by Ikeonic:

I didn’t know Dave Weigel from a hole in the wall until January 2010. At that time, I was researching and blogging about an idiot named Dale Robertson — who was caught holding this sign at a Houston Tea Party event.  Dave Weigel broke the story for a wider audience and it was picked up by Chuckles at Little Green Footballs . . .
Weigel’s original story reported this reaction from the Houston Tea Party Society:

Update: Josh Parker of the Houston Tea Party Society tells me that Robertson was booted out of the event for this sign.I thought to myself: Wow, now there’s a newsworthy nugget that Chuckles seems to find irrelevant in his zeal to tar and feather all Tea Partiers as racists. . . .

Even Media Matters reported the Houston Tea Party Society’s repudiation of Robertson because Dave Weigel reported on it!  Some folks at Houston TPS were kind enough to give me some praise for blogging on their behalf, but it was really Dave Weigel who got the Houston TPS their due in a way I never could have with my miniscule following.

When the online Left, and even the Washington Times, tried to elevate Robertson as a “Tea Party Leader,” Weigel pushed back against this clearly erroneous meme. Dave didn’t do that to curry favor with anyone, but simply because this raaaaacism smear was a bogus hit-job, an illegitimate narrative that was being exploited to perpetuate a falsehood.

From the Fringe to the Mainstream

Several of my friends have pointed to Weigel’s habit of covering the fringes of the conservative movement, the goofs and nutballs and tinfoil-hatters. “He’s just interested in making us look bad,” seems to be the basic complaint.

Actually, I think this points to Weigel having the same Hit-‘Em-Where-They-Ain’t instinct that drives a lot of my reporting expeditions. Rather than engaging in pack journalism — jumping on the big Story Of The Day that everybody and his mother is already covering — there’s more news opportunity (and a lot more fun) in reporting stuff that isn’t yet on the radar of the mainstream press.

Why, after all, did I go racing off to Kentucky to debunk the “Lower Glennbeckistan” angle on the Census worker hanging? Why did I start rattling the tip-jar to go cover Doug Hoffman in NY-23 almost as soon as I got off the phone with his campaign?

Hit ’em where they ain’t: Find a developing story that deserves more coverage and then jump into it neck-deep.

That approach to reporting works no matter what the story is. Who was the first music critic to see the breakthrough potential of the Ramones or REM or Nirvana? Better yet, who set out on an expedition to North Wilkesboro, N.C., in 1965 to cover a hillbilly pastime that now rivals the NFL as America’s favorite sport?

In politics, the hit-’em-where-they-ain’t approach means keeping an eye out for long-shot candidates and marginalized movements. The nature of American politics is that today’s kooky fringe is tomorrow’s rising insurgency and perhaps next year’s power structure.

Obama’s early association with the fringe leftovers of the ’60s New Left (Bill Ayers, et al.) led to a successful campaign fueled in large measure by the same anti-American kooks who thought Ned Lamont would make a good senator. Glenn Beck has become a TV star and bestselling author in large measure by chronicling shady connections among members of today’s Democratic/Progressive coalition — connections once known only to readers of  publications that most reporters would dismiss as “right-wing fringe” — including WorldNetDaily, David Horowitz’s Discover the Networks and the John Birch Society’s New American magazine. (Hey, who has the lowdown when the story is a Russian spy?)

Whatever Weigel’s sins, his reporting on the Dale Robertson meme shows that at times he performed the valuable journalistic service of separating the factual wheat from the bogus chaff in MSM coverage of the Right. I’ll also remind you of Liz Mair’s suspicion that Weigel got burned by a progressive on Journolist for the “sin” of defending Rand Paul.

And by doing such things, Weigel pissed in Charles Johnson’s cornflakes.

So he can’t be all bad, can he?

Obamanomics: Failure Is The New Success

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Heritage has a piece entitled: ‘Why Obamanomics Has Failed – Annotated’. Questions beginning with ‘Why’ being quite a Smitty-magnet, let’s see what these esteemed think-tankers are swimming in.
They pick up with Meltzer at the WSJ: ‘Why Obamanomics Has Failed’. RTWT, but I’ll summarize here.

. . .they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed.
. . .
Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics.
First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions.
Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
. . .
Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems.
. . .
Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits.
. . .
The Obama economic team ignored past history.
. . .
Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back.
. . .
Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law.

The value added by the Heritage post is the thorough annotation of the points I’ve cribbed above.
These are some of the tactical aspects of the failure, as President Vuvuzela cruised his domain, popping up in Racine, Wisconsin today (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Meanwhile, the political wrecking ball swings on, as the House approved the Wall Street overhaul legislation, again, emphasis mine:

The House of Representatives passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s financial system Wednesday setting the stage for a final vote in the Senate where votes for the far-reaching bill remained in flux.
The party-line vote, 237-192, came after Democrats backed down from a $19 billion tax of major banks and hedge funds in hopes of securing Senate Republican votes.
President Barack Obama says House passage of a massive overhaul of financial regulations is a victory for everyone who was hurt by what he is calling Wall Street “recklessness and irresponsibility” that caused the financial meltdown and millions of job losses.
“Never again, never again should Wall Street greed bring such suffering to our country,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., declared.

Now, I don’t think Steny quite as big as tool as Gentleman Jim Moran, but a crescent wrench is as good as a socket set when you’re getting nailed.
All of this farce and theater, again, is purely tactical. None of it bespeaks the entitlement worm gnawing the heart out of the budget. If you want some real doom and gloom, check out Perot Charts. Gore, un-elected, went toys-in-the-attic. Ross just hoists an analytic middle finger at everyone.
I, for one, like this chart that shows the cancer of mandatory spending (entitlements) as an increasingly fat chicken we just keep on pluckin’:

Megan McArdle bemoans that there is ‘No Easy Way to Fix Social Security’.

I confess, I fail to see the liberal romance with Social Security. I don’t mean the notion of making sure that old people don’t go hungry. I mean an attachment to Social Security in its current form so strong that it interprets any change in benefit levels as tantamount to implementing an ice floe strategy. The program was implemented in 1935. What are the odds that its structure and retirement age are suitable for the current era?
I am strongly in favor of generous progressive programs to care for the indigent and disabled. But surely it’s at least arguable that there are better ways to provide for most peoples’ old age than a massive government-run system whose PAYGO structure would be criminal fraud if it had been implemented by a private firm? I mean, I understand the arguments that “a program for the poor is a poor program.” I don’t agree with them, but I understand them, and I think the worries are legitimate. But so is the conservative argument that we can’t make everything a universal entitlement in order to make sure that the poor get a little bit of the action.

The conceptual problem, Megan, is that social programs are not a Federal task. Progressive sodomization of the 9th and 10th Amendments, which we can perhaps admire from the academic vantage of the question “How would you, over time, trick the US Constitution into eating itself?”, has wrought a level of debt that is difficult to conceptualize.
Do debt and entitlements make it such that even Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is an exercise in wishful thinking?
Smitty’s Laundry List, while not detailed, includes the following:

  1. Blow this Keynesian taco stand STAT, like, in four months.
  2. Continue to educate Tea Parties. For all the impatience in the blogs with the GOP of late, we’re all talk until we are shaping opinion for the 2016 election. The memory of Perot voters being subsumed into the 1994 Republican Revolution must be put to bed before the party heads will pay attention. Sorry, Riehl. While I enjoy blogging, there are things I’d rather do, like harass the wife. But I have to do this, because the government is untrustworthy.
  3. Shape the Tea Parties into an educated movement that is willing to support budgetary courage. When leadership comes along that has the fortitude to make hard policy, that leadership will require backup. You want something other than President Vuvuzela? You’re going to have to support cutting entitlements and having your state governor make up the difference from wallets nearer to home.

In summary, Obamanomics is based upon a theoretical foundation of failure. However, a proper theoretical foundation will, initially, look as bad or worse. We The People have to knuckle down and support that theoretically successful approach.

PREVIOUSLY:

Gibbs Removes Any Shred Of Doubt That He Is A Propaganda Tool

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (via Blogprof)

Now, if Gibbs is such a buffoon that he (a) didn’t watch Brown directly, and instead (b) repeated what a subordinate related, then (c) we should hear of someone getting fired over this.

Listen, Gibbs, the White House has a tremendous credibility deficit as it is. Shameful performances such as this simply worsen the problem. You’ve got four months, clown. I hear Stanley McChrystal is a free agent. Maybe we can see about getting a Press Secretary who is packin’ the gear, and send you, Gibbs, to a street sweeping outfit or some other menial form of labor commensurate with your integrity.

Kagan Fight Could Go Late Tonight; UPDATE: Video of ACOG Testimony; UPDATE II: Kagan Lobbied AMA, Too UPDATE III: ‘Late’? Recessed at 5:35

Posted on Comments

UPDATE 5:45 p.m. ET: Yeah. Three days, very few tough questions, and Pat Leahy closed by congratulating her that this would likely be the last time she ever had to testify. But is it really?

Funeral plans for the late Sen. Robert Byrd will affect the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings schedule Thursday and Friday, and Republican sources say it is very unlikely that the committee will vote on Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination until after the Fourth of July recess. . . .

PREVIOUSLY: Here’s today’s earlier exchange between Sen. Orrin Hatch and Elena Kagan:

Via the Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack, who is the Joe Jonas of DC political reporters. (By that analogy, Byron York would be Roger Daltrey and I suppose I’d be the scraggly bass guitarist in Molly Hatchet.)

Philip Klein of the American Spectator has a transcript of the exchange between Hatch and Kagan.

UPDATE: American United for Life says Kagan also intervened to influence the American Medical Association’s position on partial-birth abortion:

During Elena Kagan’s service in the Clinton White House, she urged the President to oppose any meaningful restrictions on partial-birth abortion.  As part of this effort, our attorneys have learned that Kagan worked to change the positions of two major medical groups – the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association (AMA).
Kagan’s lobbying for changes to medical associations’ positions while in the White House is further evidenced by an email found in her White House documents, where Kagan clearly tried to change the position of another medical group, the American Medical Association (AMA):
When discussing whether the AMA could reverse its policy that there is not an identified situation in which partial-birth abortion is the only appropriate method of abortion, ethical concerns surround it, and that it should not be used unless it is absolutely necessary, Kagan stated: “We agreed to do a bit of thinking about whether we (in truth, HHS) could contribute to that effort [convincing the AMA to reverse their policy]. Chuck and I are meeting with the AG on Tuesday; Donna offered to send over some doctors this week (though we don’t know who or when) to give a medical briefing.”
In other words, Kagan was so opposed to the passage of a ban on partial-birth abortion, she hoped that ACOG and the AMA would suppress or modify their views and aggressively worked to make that happen.

More at Americans United for Life.

UPDATE 3:55 p.m. ET: Steve Ertelt of LifeSiteNews:

The pressure on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has jumped this week thanks to a memo she wrote during the Clinton administration showing her pressuring a medical group to change its position on partial-birth abortion. Now, new files indicated Kagan also pressured a second group. . . .
The email has Kagan clearly trying to change the position of another medical group, the American Medical Association.

And you gotta love Ace of Spades:

If the law’s on your side, argue the law.
If the facts are on your side, argue the facts.
If neither is on your side — lobby friendly industry groups to change their reporting of the facts.

PREVIOUSLY: Sources on Capitol Hill tell me that today’s second round of questioning for Elena Kagan in the Senate Judiciary Committee may go as late as 9 p.m. tonight. So far — it’s just past noon — neither Jeff Sessions nor Orrin Hatch has brought up the “smoking gun” memo.

Ed Morrissey has more.

Uh-oh. Spoke too soon — Hatch just brought it up.

UPDATE: The Underground Conservative has a good round-up on the Kagan-ACOG memo.

UPDATE II: Orrin Hatch raised the question bluntly: “Did you write that memo?” After some dancing around, Kagan finally admitted, “The document is certainly in my handwriting,” but then said that what she was trying to do was to make sure the document from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists accurately reflected their views.

That explanation seems kind of wacky to me. Why would ACOG be coordinating its policy statement with the White House in the first place? Didn’t ACOG already know what it wanted to say without feedback from a White House staffer? So why was ACOG “clearing” its message with the Clinton administration?

Kagan can obviously expect more questioning about this.

UPDATE III: The blogosphere is slamming today:

The Judiciary Committee just recessed for lunch. Human Events reporter Elisabeth Meinecke offers an inside glimpse of the NASCAR-style operations that go on behind the scene during these “pit stops.”

UPDATE IV: They’re back from lunch now, and Sen. Kyl just finished raking Kagan over the coals on the Commerce Clause. Meanwhile, we’re linked in a round-up by Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints, and Cassy Fiano asks the basic question about the ACOG memo:

Why would ACOG need to be coordinating their statement with the White House before it was released if there was not a pro-abortion agenda being advanced?

The Two Things I Want From Farrakhan

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Gateway Pundit links a recent bloviation from Mr. Farrakhan attempting a shakedown of Jewish leaders.
At the risk of raising Stacy’s hackles, I’ll reveal that my in-country ancestors fought for the North those years ago.
Thus, if LF feels comfortable trying to hold contemporary leaders of any stripe accountable for purported past persecutions, then it must be OK of me to ask him for:

  1. thanks, followed by
  2. silence

I’ve no interest in any of Farrakhan’s means, nor interest in seeing him take interest in mine.
If silence is too heavy a weight, perhaps he can do something useful and theraputic, a la Keb’ Mo’:

Won’t you take be back in time
And free me from this crime
Well I have no shame and I have no blame
Its time for us to be moving on

Moving on, of course, would be fatal for the Raaaaacism Industrial Complex, so figure the odds on that happening. Creeps.

Aside: “Henry” refers to Taj Mahal.

My Question To Terry Jones Was Featured On ‘Front Page With Allen Barton’

Posted on Comments

by Smitty


My highly important question was addressed starting at 10:10.
PJTV continues its gradual world conquest.

Related, via Insty: Time to shut down the US Federal Reserve?
When someone says, as Evans-Pritchard quotes, and I gently VodkaPundit-ize. . .

“Economics is hahrd. Really hahrd. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-boggingly hahrd it is. I mean you may think doing the Sunday Times crossword is difficult, but that’s just peanuts to economics. And because it is so hahrd, people shouldn’t blithely go shooting their mouths off about it, and pretending like it’s so easy. In fact, we would all be better off if we just ignored these clowns.”

. . .my response to Dr Athreya is that

  • really good teachers can bridge the gap between hahrd material and the audience, and
  • really bad teachers obfuscate to compensate for their inadequacy.

Elena Kagan, M.D.

Posted on Comments

Excuse me if  I fail to see how a Harvard Law diploma qualifies Elena Kagan to draft a medical paper on partial-birth abortion:

It seems that the most important statement in the famous position paper of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists—a 1996 document that was central to the case of partial-birth-abortion defenders for the subsequent decade and played a major role in a number of court cases and political battles—was drafted not by an impartial committee of physicians, as both ACOG and the pro-abortion lobby claimed for years, but by Elena Kagan, who was then the deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy.

The full article by Shannen W. Coffin explains this political manipulation of medical authority. I’m reminded of Animal House:

Otter: Take it easy, I’m pre-law.
Boon: I thought you were pre-med.
Otter: What’s the difference?

Human Events calls it “the ‘ClimateGate’ of the abortion debate.” And Melissa Clouthier says:

The Republicans should filibuster. This should be over.

More at Memeorandum.

Boehner Clings To The New Deal

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (via Hot Air)

My headline is slightly unfair. I should credit Boehner for courageously opening the discussion on managing the sacred cow, rather than having it meander through our future, spreading cowflop in all directions.

However, let’s talk butchery. As the bovine flop of FDR’s New Deal, combined with LBJ’s (not so) Great Society, and BHO’s chainsaw-prostate-check of a healthcare plan continue to threaten the economic vitality of a nation near you, maybe it’s time to greet Leftie radicalism, and its herd of sacred brahman bureaucracies, with a trip to the slaughterhouse.

It’s the Information Age. FDR, LBJ, and BHO belong to a legacy bureaucratic tradition that involves lots of people pushing paper. I’d like to see the next President elected on a platform to unload Federal tasking on the states according to a multi-year timetable. Here, Virginia: here are your residents, their records, the services they’re used to receiving (10th Amendment be damned) from DC. If the voters deem it important, fund it. Otherwise, grind that sacred cow down for hamburger.

That’s vision. That’s what we need. Oh, here comes a politician to explain: