They're Talking About You Too

Andrew Sullivan sneers at Bush and quotes an article about cognition in the devout:

"We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

The adorable thing about Andrew Sullivan is that he never realizes that the nasty things he thinks about other religious people are the same things non-religious people think about him. He talks as if calling himself a Christian intellectual actually means he is a thinking, reasoning man.

Children's Books: A discussion

Aimai and I started a discussion of children's literature at alicublog and agreed to move it here. The topic is: children's literature from a political perspective.

We Need Zombie Brains Declares Pundit

Pundit Jonah Goldberg has a suggestion for how to improve the state of the Republican Party--disinter their former leader and give him his own talk show.

Bring back Firing Line. William F. Buckley Jr., who died almost exactly a year
ago, hosted the program for PBS for 33 years. He performed an incalculable
service at a time when conservatives were more associated with yahoos than they
are today. He demonstrated that intellectual fluency and good manners weren’t uniquely liberal qualities. More important, the Firing Line debates (models of decorum) demonstrated that conservatives were unafraid to examine their own assumptions or to battle liberal ones.

Goldberg, conservative intellectual, best-selling author, and political "porn" distributor, says that conservatives cannot depend on Rush Limbaugh's live brains; they must have the more popular zombie brains.

Limbaugh and other right-wing talkers are popular with a third of the country.
Fairly or not, they turn off moderates and self-described independents (and, for
the left, conservative talk radio is the font of all evil). Most politicians
would prefer to have 70 percent of the public on their side at the cost of
losing 30 percent, even if that requires being less than fair to the 30 percent.

The drug-addled state of Limbaugh's brain is not enough, Goldberg said. Only zombie brains will garner attention and respect. Goldberg added that Limbaugh is not to blame; all live brains are being rejected, even by those who normally do not call for zombie brains.

The more interesting war on Limbaugh comes from the right. My National
Review colleague John Derbyshire has written a thoughtful article for The
American Conservative disparaging the “lowbrow conservatism” of talk radio. His
brush is a bit too broad at times. Some right-wing talkers, such as Bill Bennett
and Dennis Prager,
can be almost professorial. Michael Savage, meanwhile, sounds like the orderlies
are about to break through the barricades with straitjacket in hand. Derbyshire is nonetheless right that conservatism is top-heavy with talk-radio talent, giving the
impression the right is deficient in other areas and adding to the shrillness of
public discourse.

Another point of attack comes from “reformist” conservative writers, such
as blogger Ross Douthat of The Atlantic and former Bush speechwriter
David Frum. They argue that conservatism is too attached to talk-show platitudes and Reagan kitsch. They want conservatives and Republicans to become more entrepreneurial, less reflexively opposed to government action. Hence, the New Reformers object to Limbaugh’s role as an enforcer of ideological conformity. What’s good for Limbaugh, many of them argue, guarantees that the GOP will become a powerless rump party only for conservative true believers..

Therefore, Goldberg says, it is time to dig up William F. Buckley and put him back on television so his zombified corpse can give conservatism intellectual weight and dignity.

Dear Megan

Dearest Megan,

You are not British, you elitist wanna-be. Every single time you use a British term, America rolls its eyes and Great Britain sniggers.

Love and kisses,

Susan of Texas

FreedomWorks, That Grass-Stained Organization

You've all read that Megan McArdle is supporting her boyfriend's former organization, FreedomWorks, an ostensibly grass-roots organization.

Some background on FreedomWorks, from Right Wing Watch:

In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America
merged to form FreedomWorks.

CSE
was founded by prominent right-wing funder David Koch in 1984. In the 1990s the group
"won plaudits from both the business community and GOP leaders" for its role in
mobilizing grassroots opposition against Clinton administration proposals on an
energy tax and health care, according to National Journal, which noted that
"Even some business lobbyists acknowledged that CSE has at times served as a fig leaf for corporate
lobbying efforts." CSE spent $1 million on a 1993 campaign against the
proposed energy tax, including advertising and bringing grassroots pressure on
Congress; most of the money came from corporations and trade groups such as the
American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers. CSE spent $5 million
against Clinton's health care proposal, dogging the White House's nationwide bus
tour with its own bus and rallies. For a 1997 campaign, CSE spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars per week running radio ads in 20 markets against proposed
new EPA air standards.
An internal CSE document obtained by The Washington Post in 2000 outlined the close correlation
between corporate donations and issue advocacy.

Empower America was founded in 1993, after Bill Clinton's election to
the presidency, as a kind of "shadow government" of policy advocacy, in the
words of co-founder Jack Kemp, a former congressman and Housing secretary and
future vice-presidential candidate. Gathering Kemp, Bush "drug czar" William
Bennett, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and former Minnesota
congressman Vin Weber, The Wall Street Journal said the group "illustrates how
such tax-exempt nonprofits have become safe harbors for elite figures in the
conservative movement." Leading up to Kemp's 1996 bid, the group provided a
"base" for him "to make $1 million to $2 million a year" giving speeches, and it
played a key role in the Dole-Kemp campaign.

Its early activities included operating "candidate schools" for
Republicans in the 1994 elections, running attack ads against Clinton's health
plan, and opposing from the right an early Republican plan for welfare
reform.

Its agenda:

Its "freedom agenda" is headed by privatizing Social Security, implementing a flat tax and abolishing the estate tax, limiting tort liability, and expanding school vouchers. Other issues FreedomWorks is involved in include judicial nominations (it favors eliminating the filibuster), industrial and environmental regulation, immigration, and welfare.

FreedomWorks is supported at least in part by Bob Perry, who also funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Its chairman is Dick Armey and its vice chairman is Steve Forbes, both famously anti-tax for the rich. This grassroots organization is run by and funded by the richest people in America, for the richest people in America. They are implementing Step 2 of the plan to take all your money.

Step 1: Steal all the money you invested.
Step 2: Stop paying any taxes at all.
Step 3: Steal Social Security and Medicare.
Step4: Force you to work for third world wages.

This is not an evil scheme of world domination. This is corporations taking their interests to the next level, never stopping, never satisfied. Never stopped. And Megan's boyfriend was part of it, and probably will be again in the future. As she is now, working for the Atlantic.

Tool of the ruling elite, and proud of it.

ADDED: More on Freedomworks.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Poor, stupid Jonah Goldberg. Here (via) Jonah congratulates himself for being the rock and the altar on which democracy is built, because he believes in a god. He is moral because he believes in a god, his culture is moral because it believes in a god, and his nation is a nation of god-believing, moral people. (Goldberg forgets about the other argument regarding religion, that it is needed because man is inherently sinful and must be watched every second lest he lapse into sexual abandon, but no doubt it will arise anew when it's needed.)

Somewhere in our discussion, I raise the point that most people don't
subscribe to their political views out of a serious and deep understanding
of political philosophy and policy. They believe what they believe because
that's how they were raised, not just by their parents but by their society.
The constitution may be an intellectual backstop against tyranny, but the
first line of defense is the heart and conscience of the average American.
Ours is a democratic and constitutional culture and the social capital
imbedded in culture is often far more valuable than written law. The
importance of this insight is no less formidible because it is so widely recognized, from Burke and Hayek to de Tocqueville to Samuel Huntington and countless others. So parents install belief in a god and society reinforces that belief. Belief in God leads to developing a conscience and a good heart. These, in turn, lead to a democratic and constitutional culture. If you were to jettison belief, you would also reject everything else that is good in society and mankind.

What a moron. What a crock. Although it is nice of him to admit that he's hopelessly authoritarian. Goldberg approving quotes Charles Kessler, who says:

Unfortunately, [Samuel Huntington's] Anglo-Protestant culturalism, like any
merely cultural conservatism, is no match for its liberal opponents. He persists
in thinking of liberals as devotees of the old American creed who push its
universal principles too far, who rely on reason to the exclusion of a strong
national culture. When they abjured individualism and natural rights decades
ago, however, liberals broke with that creed, and did so proudly. When they
abandoned nature as the ground of right, liberals broke as well with reason,
understood as a natural capacity for seeking truth, in favor of reason as a
servant of culture, history, fate, power, and finally nothingness. In short,
Huntington fails to grasp that latter-day liberals attack American culture
because they reject the American creed, around which that culture has formed and
developed from the very beginning.

Which are many more words that also say belief in their god is the basis for everything good in the world. Liberals use reason, not belief. They are without gods and morals. They dare to choose what they want to believe, which leads to horrors like multiculturalism. They are not One Of Us. And since they are not Us, they are weak and will not be able to defend us.

Not that Goldberg's conservative, moral strength gave him enough bravery to join up and fight the infidels in Iraq that attacked us on 9/11 because they hate our freedoms.

But let's say Goldberg gets his wish and magically (for isn't that how all things happen in ConservativeLand?) liberal influence ends, by the grace and favor of God. Who will conservatives defend themselves against? There must be an enemy, for God and the US always have enemies who envy and hate them. Who better than the infidels who reject Jesus Christ as their personal savior, thereby going through life without the magical love of Jesus in their hearts? And we all know that if you don't love Jesus, you can't be moral, or even American.

Priorities

While the Dow is dropping to unbelievable lows, Megan McArdle has become obsessed about whether the crazy right is getting enough credit for its protests. Are they truly grass roots or are they shills for the elite? McArdle has four posts up trying to ferret out the truth. She'll let us know what she finds out.

Megan thinks it's perfectly natural for the right to heave themselves off the couch or abandon work in the middle of the day to complain about paying taxes and bailing out corporations. I am less sanguine. The heaving masses sat quite comfortably while their investments were stolen, so I doubt they'll do much now. But it doesn't matter if the protesters are genuine fools or paid fools. Either way the middle class is still a lot poorer. So let the right stage protests, let them vent their anger at their losses. McArdle and Michelle Malkin and Dick Armey and Steve Job's Forbes' Freedomwatch will help stir up the little people against Obama. And if they get violent, I'm sure McArdle will say that the right wingers should be preemptively hit with a 2x4, to teach them a lesson about coming in from Jersey to smash up New York.

Would You Like To Play A Game?

I have two quotes from two fans of Bobby Jindal. The two candidates are both women, both in their thirties, both unmarried, both Catholic. You can see that their viewpoints are, unsurprisingly, similar. Who said them?

Here's the first one:

I saw Bobby Jindal talk last week at the National Press Club.
He's being widely touted as McCain's potential running mate,
though I agree withRoss that this would bea mistake--for Jindal.
No one should run for office this year as aRepublican who
doesn't have to. Mostly I was incredibly impressed. He looks
like the president of the high school chess club, so it's something
of a shock to my elitist coastal ears to hear a rich good-old-boy
southern accent issuing from him. But he's a hell of a talker, and
most of what he says actually makes sense.

[yap yap]

Of course, I'm just in that first flush of puppy love, when a journalist
meets a handsome young politician who just might be The One. Soon enough, I'll undoubtedly find things about him to hate. But frankly, it's rare enough to
meet one I like. True love may have to wait.

Here's the second quote:

[yap]

Last summer, the charismatic former congressman had been much buzzed about
as the great hope of the GOP, touted as a potential running mate for its
presidential candidate, Arizona senator John McCain....It’s true that the
brilliant, hardworking Jindal did not bring the impassioned verbiage and
lofty rhetoric that seems to have so entranced the Democrats and much of the
American public these days.

Jindal, who can give a good, substantive speech off the cuff, looked uncomfortable in front of a teleprompter, probably frustrated at the inadequacy of “responding” to apresidential address to Congress from the relatively modest confines of the
governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge. A fiend for wonky detail, he was most likely
also annoyed that he didn’t have the time to rebut the president’s
arguments point by point.

[yap]

Jindal has along, bright political future. Right now, he ought to focus on rebuilding and reforming the disaster-and-corruption-riddled state that he so loves. And he should fight his battles as he faces them — making clear, as he did on Meet the Press recently, that he’ll only take money from the federal government if it
helps the residents of Louisiana, and refusing to create new, unsustainable
bureaucratic entities. When he does that, and does it in his element, he sings.
And it’s a song — of responsibility and principle and common sense — that we
thrill to hear.

The first quote is Megan McArdle, the second is Miss Kathryn Jean Lopez. One is a pseudo-intellectual and the other is a pseudo sane person, yet they both share the need to elevate a rather strange little man to the presidency. Politics make very, very strange bedfellows at times.

Jindal is smart and hard driving and has the mannerisms of a bad Mr. Rogers impressionist. His meteoric rise was very meteoric. He leap-frogged from post to post, going from student to governor in only ten years. He went from Oxford to consulting in 1994,. Two years later he was Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Two years after that he was Executive Director of the National Bipartisan Comission on the Future of Medicare. Three years later he was Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Education. Two years later (once again), he quit to run for governor, lost, ran for State Representative, and won. Three years later he was governor, and two years later he was talked-up as vice president. I am reminded of the scene in The Court Jester, where Danny Kaye was rushed through his knight training in about five minutes, the quicker to elevate him when the king needed him. The effect is even more ludicrous when they try to make him out to be an impressive man in the process.

It's Jindal's personal beliefs which are the most repulsive, however. That's a bonus for Lopez but it's strange that McArdle is able to overlook his non-elite religious beliefs. One simply doesn't associate with the sort of people who actually believe what the Church tells them, who is afraid of demons and thinks women must suffer because of the sins of Eve. It's enough to make one's cheeks flush to think of it.

Here's more raving from McArdle. I know you've already seen it, but please humor me.

[...T]he guy just has skills. His message, like Obama's, is one of
hope and actual change; he tends to emphasize the work he's done reforming
Louisiana's notoriously corrupt political culture. And like Obama, he has
the charisma to put it over. Nearly all prominent politicians are
extremely charismatic. Being in a room with them is like being in a room
with the sun; you can't really look anywhere else. But some have it more
than others, and Jindal has a lot of it.

He's also a really good political organizer, which is how a Republican
carries Louisiana (to be sure, the Democratic governor's monstrously incompetent
performance during Hurricane Katrina helped quite a bit.) And on the other
metrics by which Obama stands out--his academic chops, his meteoric rise--Jindal
actually betters Obama. The guy was accepted to both Harvard Medical
School and Yale Law School, but decided to go for a political career, and
accepted his Rhodes Scholarship instead. At 25 he was appointed Lousiana's
Secretary of Health and Hospitals; at 28, he became the youngest-ever president
of the University of Louisiana system.

You can say many things about him--he's written some nutty things about
Protestants, and participated in an exorcism, which means he's gonna have some
'splaining to do if he runs for President. But he is not George W. Bush,
or John Kerry, or Al Gore, or any of the other range of uninspired sons of the
gentry who have graced our political landscape recently. He is
phenomenally smart, and phenomenally talented, and phenomenally likeable.
And I'm sure that complacent Democrats dismissing him as a goober with a God
complex suits his current plans just fine.

No doubt it does, but I think people are beginning to see the merits of having reality-based leaders instead of purely faith-based ones.

Gone Fishing

We will not be hunting for snark today, as we are going camping. If we are not eaten by an alligator we will be back tomorrow.

Oh, Megan!

In this week's episode of Oh, Megan!, Megan doesn't do her homework and must face the music. Co-starring Matthew Yglesias as the Professor.

Matthew Yglesias: It would be a great idea for the government to cut out the middle man and make more direct student loans.

Megan McArdle: The government is not a bank. Starting a bank is very expensive, so banks should make student loans, not the government.

Commenter: The government already makes student loans.

Megan McArdle: "Yes, I'm aware the government makes direct loans. I'm sure it's lovely. I just don't think it will be particularly cheap to expand."

THE END

Wrong, elitist and snide. A trifecta!

Overheard On the Internet

Honey, I know exactly what we'll tell the folks and the neighbors. It's not that we're poorer, we're just, uh, making a lifestyle change!

From the Corner:

Re: I Don't Want To Pay For It (Either) [Steve Hayward]

[yap yap]

[M]y bigger idea is to go all Randian and literally go on
strike (and I've never really been much of a Rand fan, by the way—Whittaker
Chambers had her down right). I'm going to start converting income opportunities
into more leisure by deliberately reducing my income. Already between federal
and state income taxes, self-employment taxes, the AMT, and phased-out dependent
deductions as income rises, I'm at a marginal rate of about 50% on my last
dollars earned from writing or anything else. So it will pay to keep below
Obama's high income threshold. I suspect a lot of self-employed people will make
similar calculations and adjustments, and the revenue yield will be far below
what Obama's people project. Welcome to Europe.

A Note

No matter what Jonah Goldberg is writing about, the shorter version is always, "I know you are but what am I?"

Less Tall Megan

Shorter Megan McArdle: Don't trust what economists tell you. They lie.

Bonus McArdle (Implied): I do not have to back up anything I say with facts.

So why would anyone read her? Besides the chuckles, of course, which I admit are numerous.

Second Shorter, Added: Daddy will save us.

Megan McArdle Wins Prize

Congratulations to Megan McArdle, who won the Warwick Prize for her complex, hip book The Shock Doctrine.

What's that? Naomi Klein wrote The Shock Doctrine? The same Naomi Klein that McArdle said was "completely ignorant" and "economically quasi-literate"? How can it be that McArdle's imaginary rivals get all these huge prizes and McArdle gets nothing?

From the same post, on Klein's interview of Alan Greenspan (Via):

I have to give Alan Greenspan props for doing this. The host is hostile, economically quasi-literate, allows the other guest to act as co-interrogator, interrupts him every time he says anything sensible in a desperate attempt to stop the flow of information, and beats Greenspan with weird & untrue "facts" (the Iraq war has cost trillions) that have nothing to do with his job as chairman of the Federal Reserve. My favorite moment is when Naomi Klein accuses Greenspan of having pursued a crisis of faith in capitalism through his income-inequality producing policies of privatisation, deregulation, and free trade, which is a terrific twofer: not only have none of these things been convincingly linked to income inequality; but also, none of them have anything to do with Alan Greenspan's job at the Federal Reserve Nonetheless, Greenspan a) doesn't point out that she's completely ignorant b) keeps his temper and c) tries to actually explain the problems of income inequality. I doubt I'd be so well behaved.

I, too, doubt it, having seen her blogginheads videos. But the important thing is that I was wrong; McArdle didn't win a prize after all. I deeply regret the error, although I also claim that my reasoning process was flawless and therefore the fault lies with the facts, and not with myself.

We Have A Winner!

Ladies and gentlemen, the Right has somehow, without their knowledge or participation, been stuck with the reputation for being unable to govern. Nobody knows how this occurred. Yesterday the country was booming, with two wars, a surging stock market, and a fat-and-happy populace, driving new cars into their new homes.

But something happened. Nobody knows what, they just know that the world isn't quite as sunny as it used to be. People suddenly have less money and more fear, and Americans hate having less money. They really, really hate having less money. It makes them extraordinarily angry. They elect Republicans over and over to make sure they have more money, not less, yet here they are after many years of unfettered Republicanism, with less money. Someone must be to blame for this extraordinary and totally unforeseen situation.

And so, after some futile attempts to blame liberals and even some Republicans, the true culprit has been found. The person who single-handed brought down the American government has been revealed, in all his hideous glory. The culprit is none other than.........Rush Limbaugh!

Yes, America, Rush Limbaugh is totally to blame for our current situation. When Obama tried to explain his plan for staunching the economic bleeding, Limbaugh said that he hoped Obama failed. Failing liberals normally a good thing for conservatives, who need to be told that they are right and everyone else is wrong, since they can't figure such things out for themselves. But if Obama fails conservatives lose money, and that is a very, very bad thing.

So it's Limbaugh's fault that people are getting poorer. If Bush is blamed all conservatives will look bad. If evangelicals are blamed there will be nobody to pay for or do the menial work for Republicans to get elected. If the brain trust at Cato or the Heritage Foundation or National Review is blamed, there will be nobody to do the thinking for the party. That leaves the media, who naturally can't blame themselves. But there is Limbaugh, sticking his enormous neck out criticizing everyone but his listeners. He's very very rich, which makes him a target now that the base has realized that the trickle-down theory is actually the trickle-up theory. He's getting older and sicker. He's perfect.

This is going to be fun.

Can't---Stay---Away

Megan McArdle on the crises:

There is a very real possibility that in two or three years, America will be in worse shape than it is now--unemployment in the double digits, GDP down by same, corporate and government budgets peeling apart at the seams.

Really? You think? Sure looks like Republicans can't govern, doesn't it? Too bad you didn't admit this when people were warning the collapse was imminent. You just mocked them instead.

I will be curious to see whether the new armchair empiricists of the left see this as casting any doubt on their central theories, or whether they will simply argue the counterfactual.

This is not implementing Keynesian policies. This is yanking out the diseased cancer cells and hoping the patient will survive long enough to recover. This is triage, and nobody cares whose theories keep the economy alive, except the people who are trying to cover their asses.

It's A Poser

Shorter Right Wing: Why is "Bobby" Jindal running on the Republican platform instead of lying to us and pretending to run on the Republican platform like Reagan used to?

Megan Picks Up A Parasite

Megan McArdle's site appears to have a virus, so we'll stay away until she's de-wormed.

Megan Scolds

Megan wags her finger at people who are afraid the housing bust will bring down the entire economy.

Of course, falling house prices make things harder because you can't sell or refinance your way to stability. But unless you just suddenly lost your job--in which case, you probably can't be helped by a workout, because you don't have any income--then it's not reasonable to say that all the information was on the banking side. People knew a lot. They just chose not to think about it.

Bob Altemeyer says the way to neutralize an authority is to have a competing authority. People get confused and give up. There were lots of people confusing the issue, declaring that the situation was simply too complicated to understand. For every Krugman who warned that ARMs were dangerous there was a Megan McArdle claiming that bankers managed risk better than ever before, computer modeling made loans safer, and Greenspan knew exactly what he was doing.

And now she wants to claim that it's all the homeowner's fault, so they won't question her bad advice.

The Office Channel

God help me, reading The Atlantic has become like watching an episode of The Office. McArdle is having sex with Conservatism while pretending to be engaged to Libertarianism. Ta-Nehsi Coates has encased Ross Douthat's crucifix in Jello. Jeffrey Goldberg has a beet farm in the (Middle Eastern) countryside and can skin a Gazan in ten minutes. And Andrew Sullivan lords over them all, his core decency lost under a cloud of self-doubt and assumptions of male privilege.