Stuff to Read

Charles Pierce on David Brooks. A feast of snark. Enjoy.

And the GOP wonders why Latinos don’t like them?

The knives come out for Cain. Interesting that the other GOP candidates had to do the stabbing, though. Unless I missed something, the GOP establishment has been oddly silent. They must really hate Mittens.

Speaking of Cain, do see the very long graph.

Speaking of Romney, see “The Dangers of Accidental Candor.”

Bill Keller learns that OWS is the new sacred cow of the Left. Two things Leftie Groupthink does not allow — criticism, even skepticism, of OWS or the opinion that four more years of President Obama really would be a whole lot better than whoever the GOP might nominate.

Note to Justin Elliott and Marina Sitrin: There’s no time for this. Sitrin’s “process” amounts to calling a meeting to re-design the sprinkler system after the building has caught on fire. I’d say if OWS doesn’t get over itself and turn into an actual movement pretty soon, they’re going to find the days of reasonably sympathetic media coverage turning into the days of no media coverage at all.

5 thoughts on “Stuff to Read

  1. God, Pierce is a word surgeon. Especially skilled around the ‘funny bone.’

    I still love Bobo’s hysteric and epic gaffe about Applebee’s salad bars, when he tried to show how much of a man of the people he was, and Obama wasn’t, and wrote, “Obama‘s problem is he doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there. He has to change to be more like that Applebee‘s guy…”
    Applebee’s did not then, does not now, nor ever has had, salad bars.
    Bobo – EPIC ‘Man of the People” FAIL!!!
    http://crooksandliars.com/2008/06/03/memo-to-david-brooks-applebees-doesnt-have-a-salad-bar/

    I see that not much has changed.
    Now, as then, when Bobo fells he wants to tell us the pulse of the country, he checks his own.
    “What a dope. What a maroon!!!”

  2. The OWS people seem to be driven primarily by anger, a destructive force rather than a constructive force. Borrowing from an article I just read over at TPM Cafe, Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream,” not I have a nightmare. His speeches were never angry, at least not as I remember them. They were positive, constructive hopes he had for a nation where black and white could live in harmony and equally.

    OWS people could do a 180 and turn their anger into hope as a way of keeping their message alive. I have no idea how, but maybe someone else does?

  3. Felicity,
    I don’t get that sense.
    I think the Teabaggers were far, far angrier than anything I’ve seen from the OWS crowd.
    Oh, sure there’s some anger there, but I get more of a sense of futility, or a lack of hope. But, I’m no there, that’s just my perception, so I’d like to hear from those who are.
    And yeah, I sure wish we had a Martin Luther King Jr. But don’t you think that those are some mighty big shoes to fill? 🙂

    • What great leadership can do is channel anger and turn it into something positive. But anger also is a demagogue’s best friend. In the tea party anger is cultivated, because angry people are easier to lie to and manipulate.

      Americans right and left have a mistaken notion that anger by itself is a virtue, or carries some kind of mystical power. But the group dynamics of anger can get nasty. That’s why a leader who can inspire people to keep their heads and not turn into a mob is a great thing to have. Unfortunately, it’s very rare.

  4. Off-topic; but, this is truly horrifying (from ThinkProgress):

    Anti-choice Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) just filed an anti-choice amendment to a bill related to agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs. The DeMint amendment could bar discussion of abortion over the Internet and through videoconferencing, even if a woman’s health is at risk and if this kind of communication with her doctor is her best option to receive care.

    Under this amendment, women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors.

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