Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Friday, June 29, 2012

A Tiny Note On An Old Friend

It would be a crying shame to ignore Megan McArdle's reaction to the successful upholding of her bete noir, "Obamacare." Since her new little blog is up and running, let's take a peek.

McArdle states that the ruling didn't make much sense and didn't matter much anyway. Life goes on, tra la la. Her attitude is very different from her earlier views, in which Obamacare meant the death of millions and the end of the nation as we know it.
I'm not super surprised that they voted to uphold--though I suspect that Justice Roberts has ducked outrage from liberals only to now get just as much outrage from his own side. This is the political environment we now live in. The age when liberal academics could comfortably expect to see their dominance of the academy translate into a broad progressive consensus on the court are over. We'll be battling over the composition of the court for a long time—and if a liberal or conservative justice is forced to retire while the other party holds the presidency, I expect to see things get vicious indeed.
In McArdleland, the Supreme Court does not reliably side with corporations; it is progressive and, for some reason that McArdle does not share with the little people, a liberal academia directly leads to a liberal Supreme Court. McArdle is still bitter that academia cannot entirely be overtaken by conservatives and provide her friends and family with (magically lucrative) jobs. But she does find a silver lining in the Obamanation.
Some people, maybe including me, will be helped by the bill. Even if you think that this bill will, on net, make more people worse off, you should still be glad for the people who are being helped.
Odd. McArdle told us earlier that she wanted Obamacare gone even if she would suffer for it, as she has a pre-existing condition. Her job change (and therefore health insurance change) must have made her reconsider her earlier position. It's amazing how reality can turn a frown upside down. Other conservatives might disagree. They think people like McArdle should simply suffer and die if she can't buy insurance. True, Mr. Cowen was just thinking about the poor, not about a real person who actually counts like McArdle, but the general principle still holds--some die so the rich can be richer.

McArdle, however, chooses to make lemons into lemonade. McArdle now thinks the conservatives can crow about Obama's "tax increase" because evidently it never occurred to conservatives to claim that liberals want to raise taxes. My goodness, liberals sure will be sorry that they dangled that bait before conservatives. Republicans might not have thought of it otherwise.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, maybe they should have called it a "revenue enhancement." Y'know, like Bush the First did when "Read my lips, no new taxes," turned out to be a flop, in view of grim realities.

Susan of Texas said...

Isn't the right glad to force people to buy insurance so they can't leech off of the hard work of the long-suffering white conservative middle class man?

Downpuppy said...

The Beast has a really sterile, anonymous look (Red, White & Black - they should know better) & a lousy comment system. Put them together, they spell failure.

spencer said...

I see she still doesn't proofread anything: "The age [weird conservative fantasy about the power of liberal academics excised] are over."

Mr.Wonderful said...

The age when liberal academics could comfortably expect to see their dominance of the academy translate into a broad progressive consensus on the court are over.

It sure are. It's been over for twenty years. By which I mean thirty.

Anonymous said...

Well, that didn't take long.

Ms. Megan of Donnybrook Farm already fucked up a major fact in her first blog post at Tina's Rag.

Waiting for the Supremes
by Megan McArdle
Jun 27, 2012 10:00 PM EDT

"Since the argument that justices aren’t allowed to overturn laws passed by the legislature, or that they aren’t allowed to overturn long-standing precedent, or that 5-4 decisions aren’t legitimate, would undercut a vast body of laws liberals love—from Miranda to Roe to Boumediene—I tend to think they’ll give up on this line fairly quickly."

Roe wasn't a 5-4 decision.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZS.html/

410 U.S. 113
Roe v. Wade
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
No. 70-18
Argued: December 13, 1971
Decided: January 22, 1973

BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, STEWART, MARSHALL, and POWELL, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J., post, p. 207, DOUGLAS, J., post, p. 209, and STEWART, J., post, p. 167, filed concurring opinions. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 221. REHNQUIST, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 171.

That's seven justices for and two against, otherwise known as 7-2 - not 5-4. Glad to have you back, Ms. Megan.

Of course, Ms. Tina knows my feelings about giving morons blogs. Give one moron a blog and we've got to give every moron a blog - otherwise it wouldn't be good sport.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I thought every moron did have a blog.

I've got one!
~

Chris J said...

She gets shredded pretty thoroughly today by historian of the New Deal Eric Rauchway over on the excellent Edge of the American West blog.

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2012/06/29/megan-mcardle-calls-someone-an-economic-idiot/

Ken Houghton said...

Didn't she say earlier that she would still be contributing to The Atlantic when the ruling came down, since she's still officially "on leave"?

I vaguely remember seeing that, perhaps on this blog, but I could be wrong. After all, the rampantly Liberal Rehnquist Court--and of course the Fortas Court before it, not to mention the Tribe Court that followed--has ruined the best minds of my generation.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Megan got booted out of The Atlantic. Just read the whining lead to her first piece at Downtown Tina's operation:

"For the last five months, I’ve been on leave from blogging. Whatever the financial and emotional strains, I’m
terrifically grateful to have ..."

And then follow the ... with something along the lines of:

"Daddy's connections in the New York City construction biz bail my sorry ass out, land me a gig at Downtown Tina's, get Downtown Tina a new kitchen at 40 percent below market cost, and allow me to whine about the agonies of four-figure food processors and the petty urchins who expect me to know how to use a calculator."

Downpuppy said...

We had some discussion here about whether she got booted, and whether the Beast was a move up or down.

There's a huge tell in Susan's linked piece. Apparently, Special Correspondents don't get health insurance.

Plug to my ramblings : http://downpuppy.blogspot.com/2012/06/feather-footed-through-plashy-fen.html

Batocchio said...

The age when liberal academics could comfortably expect to see their dominance of the academy translate into a broad progressive consensus on the court are over.

Apparently, McArdle was asleep in 2000 and has been stoned ever since.

Both Sides Do It said...

Downpuppy,

If that's true, then it would be irresponsible not to speculate why The Atlantic booted her after such an investment of time, money and institutional grooming.

Susan has long maintained that we (the rank and file citizens foaming at the mouth on the internet at the mendacity of McArdle's prose, thought and verily her general existence) can't do a damn thing about the progress of her career.

Since from the information we have it doesn't make much sense for The Atlantic to have booted her when they did, I'd like to think the complete evisceration of everything she writes had something to do with it.

Downpuppy said...

We know what we saw. Last fall McArdle pulled her act together and posted coherently for a few months. After that, she started backsliding into sloppiness & incoherence.

Of course, we don't know a lot.

We don't know who was bitching to Bradley.

We don't know what she was supposed to do for the magazine, and how she messed up.

We don't know if they put an editor on her posts.

We don't know how ofen she showed up at the office stinking drunk.

But we do know the general outline, the changes in titles, and the ultimate result. We can all be pleased with the small parts we played, exposing her stupidities and sticking in the needle to set her off.

Heck, for all we know it was the nickname "Blenderella" that tipped the kitchen scales.

Anonymous said...

"We don't know how ofen she showed up at the office stinking drunk."

We don't, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Megan McArdle
The Atlantic - Expense Report
For January 2012

Glen Fiddich, Research Assistant - $500
Glen Livet, Research Assistant - $400
Al Phroaig, Research Assistant - $650
...

fish said...

She has excellent taste in assistants at least. Although I prefer the way Mr. Talisker edits my prose.

Anonymous said...

Your site is really good and the posts are just wonderful. Thank you and keep doing your great work.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure 80% of her irresponsible speculation comes from gastritis pain.

Anonymous said...

We all seem to LURV us this quote: "The age when liberal academics could comfortably expect to see their dominance of the academy translate into a broad progressive consensus on the court are over. " and I want to harp on the fact that she is accepting/espousing/?dogwhistling? a right wing viewpoint that the whole of the 'academy' of the law is liberal. This may also refer to the ABA now 'unfairly' pushing the senate to get off their A#$$$#$ and confirm some appointees, which is unfair because they didn't do that during the Bush2 utopian era.

Lurking Canadian said...

She's convinced that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy to keep conservatives out of academic positions.

I am 80% certain that her evidence for this claim is that Suderman still doesn't have a tenure-track position.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if you're not tracking McMegan, you should track McSuderman since he writes horrible crap at Reason.

Downpuppy said...

I only got political in late 2002 when I realized the Press knew there was no reason to sack Iraq but didn't care enough to point this out. Media criticism & me on the internet are pretty much intertwined.

Good thing is, by now there are a lot of people doing it, including a fair number who are finally approaching mainstream. Steve Benen's weekly list of Romney lies, for example, are gold. So who gives a rats patootie about Suderdooderman?

I got all Cultural at the RUN today - http://downpuppy.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-sing-of-roland-glad-big.html

Anonymous said...

Well Downpuppy, the reason I mentioned Suderman is he's got the connections and pull to get relinked endlessly
Sullivan's been linking Veronica De Rugy for a while now.

Basically a lot of the shit on the web comes out of Reason and Mercatus/George Mason U.

If you've been tracking since 2002 also, then you can actually pick out who is going to get big because of being upblogged by Sullivan and other bigger names in the political blogosphere, and it's best to quash it fast with facts or they get positions at the atlantic econoblogging.

Downpuppy said...

Matt Yglesias has been getting extra stupid lately.

Crooked Timber & Angry Bear are idly kicking the crap out of him, so I don't need to join the pile.

Anonymous said...

Lately? Yglesias is almost always stupid.

He's the poster child for this generation know-nothing Harvard grad punditry except maybe zoning issues.

Anonymous said...

@downpuppy: you can track matty yglesias' downfall to one night. the night that he ate thermomixed bechamel and then got mugged on the way back from the mcsudermans. coincidence? i think not.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-it-be-intellectually-humble

oddly enough, posted by sullivan.

Anonymous said...

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/07/good-beat-reporters.html#comments