Miss Originality

Megan McArdle has a new post up called "America and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Jobs Numbers." Something sounds vaguely familiar about that phrasing....

Elizabeth Warren and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Utterly Misleading Bankruptcy Study (6/4/09)

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ideas about the minimum wage (5/12/08)

This is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad argument in favor of more healthcare spending. (10/16/09)

As for Marc Rich . . . okay, so a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. (12/8/08)

Starting with a disastrous land reform that placed land into the hands of political cronies, rather than those who knew anything about farming, or needed sustenance, he has turned a huge net food exporter into a net importer . . . when they can get the hard currency to import. Each successive foolhardy economic policy, designed to cover up some of the problems that have sprung up due to his last terrible, horrible, no good, very bad economic idea, has made things hideously worse. (6/3/07)

This is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. (2/24/08)

Her answer is a litany of silliness, showcasing her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mortgage plan. (2/21/08)

What's with the Judith Viorst obsession? Or maybe she just considers herself a cruel victim of fate, who gets the shaft while everyone else cruises into lucrative bank jobs.

First In The Land, First In Our Hearts

From a society item in the Houston Chronicle, by Heather Staible:

Former first lady Laura Bush provided star power for the Communities in Schools 30th anniversary gala this past Thursday at the Hilton Post Oak, but a high school senior stole the show.

In Houston for only the second time since moving back to Texas, Bush graciously chatted with guests at a V. I. P. reception then received two standing ovations when she entered the ballroom.

Her aged in-laws live in Houston, you know.

During her keynote talk to the chatty crowd of 550, she shared the stage with 18-year-old Brittany Coleman, a Lamar High School student who described how CIS had changed her life and future.

The guests talked all through Bush's speech? It must have been a little less than engrossing.

"It's a Cinderella-type story, and your dreams really can come true," Coleman said. Bush slipped out before the steak dinner was served, but the line to chat with Coleman was four people deep.

From first lady to rotary club wife, in just a year. It's better than she deserves.

Less Thoughtful Megan McArdle

Less Citified Megan: Farmers are hard-working people who wrestle with the plow and milk the cows and who deserve their welfare subsidies, unlike the poor, who are lazy. What? Industrial agriculture? Never heard of it.

More Yankee Megan: Southerners should shut up and let the more cultured, sophisticated Northerners take the lead in politics.

Public Teat Megan: New York public works, paid for with tax-payer dollars, help the economy. although otherwise the government should stay out of our economy. Yes, my daddy was a lobbyist for the New York construction industry. Why do you ask?

Mental Vacation

I need to take a break for a few days. Any posting will be devoid of meaningful content. (K-Lo is due for another confession.)

Fooled Me Again

Shorter Jonah Goldberg: If conservatives just had a chance they'd win elections. Instead we had to watch Bush give out TARP money.

That's right, schmuck. Bush is one of them, you are not. The elite paid wingnuttia to do a job, they didn't adopt them.

Elements Of A Business Plan

Shorter Megan McArdle: The tea-baggers are the real winners.

Longer McArdle:

Andrew argues that the races today are not about Obama. Who said they were? They're about Democrats and Republicans. They're about whose base is more energized.

[yip]

If two states with Democratic governors lose them, that signals that the Republicans can move motivated bodies to the polls . . . and while voters may be saying they like Obama as much as ever, they're also saying that they think their taxes are too high and government spending is out of control, issues that polled way higher than "Obama issues" like health care.

All of this makes it tempting to tack right.

A quick survey of the print and web punditospheres reveals Democrats chin-pulling about the mixed message of last night's events, or wanly saying that this wasn't a referendum on Obama....It's kind of a problem that this election wasn't a referendum on Obama, or more importantly, on Bush. Obama's coattails are supposed to give them the spine they need to enact sweeping change. The bad news of last night wasn't that they lost the New Jersey governorship. It's that the era of running against George Bush, or for Barack Obama, is over. They just lost the two best campaign planks they've had in decades.

It's about winning and losing for McArdle, not about finding appropriate people to run the country. Public "proof" that your tribe is superior to other tribes fills authoritarians with enormous satisfaction and self-confidence. It never makes up for the emptiness inside but they're compelled to crave acceptance and unconditional love, and they take what they can get.

Why dwell on psychological motives for little bits of spite and hopeful thinking? Because it's easy to manipulate an authoritarian and they are being manipulated. There is a pattern to these events that needs to be traced back to its source.

Failure: The Beginning

My generation of nice upper middle class white kids was given a ferocious sense of entitlement by our parents and teachers. As long as we played by the rules we were taught in school--do your work on time, study hard, put work first--we were supposed to have wonderful jobs, terrific spouses, adorable children, a house whose tasteful bibelots and appropriately offbeat furniture all our friends could admire.

Read the rest, because it is deeper than you might have thought possible. But what resonates in her words is her need to belong, to feel of value. Either we find that within ourselves or we're doomed to an eternal, external search for meaning. We can do good to feel good and reinforce our good image of ourselves, or we can ask others to tell us we are good. The Little Villagers On The Potomac (and Hudson) spent their late 20s praising each other and talking each other up, until they depended on public approval to do what they could not--approve of themselves.