No Socialists Here!

Via the esteemable and gentlemanly Wolcott, we see that the Republicans live up to their mottos; if you want something, you better not expect someone to give it to you. "Mittens" Romeny got people to show up by feeding them, but McCain quite rightly can't get many people to show up to give their time and labor for free. How dare McCain expect otherwise!

Socialist Nightmare

Some people fear the coming election of Barack "Jesus" Obama will send this country on a path to socialist ruin. Tonight, their nightmare will come true as hordes of socialists will flood the country, seeking by brute force to redistribute wealth from the middle class and wealthy to those who have no money, do not pay Social Security, and would not even be Americans if they were not born to parents of this country. They depend on the those who actually make money for everything, demanding to be fed, educated, entertained, clothed, and given transportation, in return for nothing at all. They don't work or contribute anything; they are the biggest leaches ever to suck the wealth of a country dry.

Who are these scofflaws, these drains on the country's welfare? Children. They contribute nothing and demand everything. And tonight they will go from house to house, demanding that the homeowner give them the sugary fruits of their hard labor. Did these "children" earn that candy? No! They simply will take it from you, redistributing your candy from your own front porch or living room into their own pockets. They might even bring sacks to carry away the spoils of their thefts. Don't let it happen to you. Tell those little socialist bastards to buy their own candy, or go live in Europe!

The Master Shows How It's Done

The great Glenn Greenwald:

There's one final point worth making here as well. Before the bailout, [Stephen] Pearlstein's writing during the prior year on the looming housing and credit crises was actually quite good, at times even prescient. Everything changed when he turned himself into the chief defender of the original Paulson plan and thus became the target of substantial criticism from bloggers and their readers. Once that happened, the comment sections to his columns and his weekly chats became filled with negative feedback -- most of it substantive, some of it pure invective -- while Google searches of his name now produce conspicuous and aggressive critiques of his work. After that, Pearlstein became single-mindedly fixated on railing against bloggers and proving them to be ill-informed cretins, even at the expense of minimal coherence and consistency.

That happens quite frequently. People like Pearlstein are entirely unaccustomed to hearing widespread criticisms of their work, especially from the lowly masses (also known as his "readers" or, more distasteful still, from prize-less "bloggers"). When thin-skinned establishment mavens encounter such criticisms for the first time, they often develop resentment over their treatment and devote themselves to a crusade against those whom they blame for their terrible plight (nasty, disrespectful "bloggers"). Behind virtually every vocal establishment critic of "blogs" is some episode in the past where they were widely criticized by bloggers and their readers, and their lashing out -- though masquerading as devotion to high-minded, well-informed and civil discourse -- is, in reality, nothing more than self-absorbed and inextinguishable fury over being mistreated (i.e., criticized or opposed).

As these recent Pearlstein columns illustrate, those crusades almost always reflect far worse on the crusader than on anything or anyone else. People like Pearlstein have influential platforms. Criticisms of their arguments and behaviors are part of the price for that influence, and those criticisms ought to be engaged, not resented as improper disruptions of the proper social order.

These words apply to so many people who think they're above criticism, self-reflection, and improvement.

"a term for a malicious, spiteful, domineering, intrusive, or unpleasant person, especially a woman"

The first time, you think Megan has a tin ear for insulting and potentially damaging comparisons.

Barack Obama will break 90%--or do really well, with third-world dictator
popularity levels.

But by the second time, you know it's deliberate.

This is not particularly urgent, since my voting "options" were New York
and DC; in both places, the question is not who will carry the state, but
whether Obama will get a mere 80% or so of the vote, or achieve Saddam
Hussein-like vote totals*. *Before you say it--no, not by fixing the
election, by being so popular that he achieves fairly what Saddam achieved by
force.

You stay classy, McArdle.

Let Them Eat Rental Housing

Megan "Marie Antoinette" McArdle rejects a plan to help homeowners stay in their homes. She says,"Nor can the government do as some Democrats propose, and simply cram down the value of the mortgages, force a debt-for-equity swap, or one of the more exotic plans to make the banks subsidize homeowners in over their heads." Megan does not mention that just such a plan is recommended by Bernanke, for homes that owe more than they are worth. Those details might hurt her "argument." Why would Megan not follow Bernanke's advice now, when she was so very eager to follow his advice regarding the initial, open-ended bailout?

I'm glad you asked.

On the other hand, it [the plan Megan recommends] wouldn't do what a lot
of people want, which is to help people with unaffordable mortgages stay in
homes above their pay grade.

"Above their pay grade." Charming. Getting above themselves, were they? How dare the little people forget their place?

Why Is Hackdom Dangerous?

Why should anyone waste her valuable time complaining and detailing the hackdom of a small character in the public sphere? It's a good question, and one that is difficult to answer in good times when most people feel successful. It's difficult to answer in an era of the prosperity gospel. And it's especially difficult to answer when the public has a whipping boy to bear the brunt of their actions. But times have changed, and the darker side of conservative intellectual thought has crawled up out of the basement to take its rightful place, a place bought and paid for by decades of service by the faithful. Bloggers such as Megan McArdle intone in careful phrases cloaked in pseudo-intellectual jargon, but the less-circumspect bray their loathing to the skies.

On his radio show yesterday, far right talker Bill Cunningham — who Sean Hannity
considers a “great American” — claimed that people who are poor in America are
not poor “because they lack money.” “They’re poor because they lack values,
morals, and ethics,” said Cunningham.

This is the second day in a row
that Cunningham has verbally attacked the poor. On his Monday show, he declared,
“Among the so-called noble poor in America…[b]irth control is not used so
illegitimate children can be brought into the world, so the mom can get more
checks in the mail from the government.”

At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg approving posts e-mails that carefully explain that helping the poor is good, but being forced by the government to help the poor is bad. (Therefore if your church demands that you tithe, they are stealing from you and violating the Ten Commandments.) However, Jonah would post e-mails suggesting everyone stuff and roast their mothers instead of Thanksgiving Day turkeys if it would make him a buck. Only the gullible take Jonah seriously. The Atlantic, Reason, and The Economist took McArdle seriously, and so do a lot of bloggers.

Does it really take nothing but a university degree and a carefully cultivated upper-class accent to fool people into taking an immoral dilettante seriously? Does an overpriced pair of shoes transform one into a caring person? Does a Land's End dress confer intellectual heft?

Look at this. Look at how lovingly McArdle describes the lives of herself and her friends. Look at the disgust she shows, the disdain and absurd, insulting assumptions she makes about people on welfare.

It is undoubtedly easier to stay thin if you have nicely cooked low-calorie
prepared food at easy disposal, a shiny gym with a personal trainer to go to,
some control over your schedule so that you can use it, and lovely clothes to
show off a well-toned figure. The life of a welfare mother affords few pleasures
beyond television, comfort food, and whatever entertainment she can get up with
friends on a $0 budget.

The nice (morally superior) meals, shiny (clean) gyms, the lovely (slender) flowing clothes. Versus the cheap, common, low-life pursuits of television and fatty food and desperate search for entertainment. The cheap, nasty, brutish, immoral, obese life versus the moral, refined, slender, sophisticated, educated life. Could it possibly be any more obvious? Why would anyone listen to these people?

Flagpoles

Time constraints force me to be brief, when this post deserves otherwise. Megan contemplates a thinness pill, and rambles a strangely contradictory post. She seems to lament the loss of thinness as a marker of upper class, and also laments that people who look like her would no longer be considered to have the ideal body. I am reminded of high-school girls who tried to discourage unpopular girls from shopping at the same stores, for fear their exclusive ensembles might become a shade less exclusive.

Which Came First, the Callousness Or the Libertarianism?

Megan McArdle's feelings about chickens:

I haven't mentioned it until now, but I'd like to urge California voters to support Proposition 2, which bans excessively confining situations for farm animals. It is not perfect, but it does provide some protection for animals from the most grotesque penning practices.

Megan McArdle's feelings about the poor:

I've lived on a very tight budget, but even in my most impecunious student days, I wouldn't have freaked out if my eggs had suddenly cost 5 cents more apiece. I'm sure I could have found a few beverage containers to return for the deposit. If there are really people so poor that paying 50 cents more for a dozen eggs will push them into starvation, then they need an increase in their food stamps.

Somehow I doubt McArdle spent her college days wondering how she was going to be able to pay for groceries for her kids and the gas to go buy them. Eggs have already increased in price the last year from about $1/dozen to almost two dollars. Megan thinks it's fine; just return soda bottles or get an increase in food stamps to help the poor, confined chickens.

Say, didn't Megan downplay torture of human beings? And didn't she say that people shouldn't get more food stamps because they'll just buy more food? I don't understand how someone can have compassion for cows, chickens, and pigs, yet can't dredge up an ounce of concern for her fellow man. A bird kept in a cage is far more important to her than a man hooded, bound, tortured, and kept in a cage. Maybe if he laid eggs Megan would care, but I'm not sure even that would do it.

How can this be? Is there anything even resembling a logical explanation for this?

K-Lo Goes To Confession

VIII Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

K-Lo: Bless me father, for I have sinned. It's been three hours since my last confession, and I just want to say Father that it's been a great honor to tell you my sins, and my only regret for the future is that I won't have any more sins to tell you so we won't get to have these little chats anymore.

Father: What? Kathryn Jean, for the love of Heaven, what's wrong? What's happened?

K-Lo: It's okay, Father, don't be sad. We'll be in the arms of Baby Jesus.

Father: Is there a bomb?!? Where is it?? Kathryn Jean, what have you done?

K-Lo: No, Father, it's the Rapture. The R-A-P-T-U-R-E. The Second Coming.

Father: Oh, thank God. Now, what is this about the Rapture?

K-Lo: It's coming, Father, on November fifth. Jesus will descend and lift us all to heaven and the unworthy will remain, and boy will they all be sorry then.

Father: Kathryn Jean, you promised me you would stop reading those Left Behind books. Remember, the nightmares? The crying? The ice cream binges? The theology is dreadfully unsound as well. Those Protestants think they can pull any nonsense out of their--uh, please continue.

K-Lo: Father, when Barack "Hussein" Obama wins the election, the--the--colored men will riot in the streets and hippies will fornicate during daylight and Jesus will finally return to carry me--I mean us--in his soft yet manly arms to Heaven, to sit by his side and hold his hand for all eternity. (Sigh.) Amen.

Father: Kathryn Jean, perhaps you are taking an unduly pessimistic view of the future. There is no evidence that Mr. Obama will bring on the Second Coming. Try to have faith.

K-Lo: Always, Father, always. And there's so much to be hopeful for. Gov. Palin finally is telling the world that Obama is a commie, Andy McCarthy talks about Ayers--gosh--all the time, Mark Steyn is reminding everyone that Obama is a crook, and Mark Krick--Krakrak--Mark K. said Palestinians love Obama. If that, and the hopes and prayers of our Conservative Nation Under God, don't work, nothing will! (Sings.) The sun'll come up tomorrow/bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun....

Father: Kathryn Jean? Calm down, please. Kathryn Jean, can you hear me at all?

K-Lo: ...I pick up my chin, and grin, and say:/Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow/ you're only a day awaaaaaaaay!

Father: Kathryn Jean, is your mother waiting outside?

K-Lo: Yes, Father.

Father: Good girl. I'm glad to see you're obeying the judge. Send her in, will you dear? We need to have a few words.

In Which Megan Is A Hack--Again

Today, Megan McArdle writes a post about the economy that actually gives information and explains what she's talking about. Three paragraphs go by and it seems that she might, despite all odds, write a good post, but then reality descends, like a slap across the face with a slimy wet fish.

All of this seems like a pretty stinging rejoinder to the notion that the problem is simply a failure of regulatory stringence. The problems have spread across regulatory regimes, currencies, and banking systems; besides Canada, not a single large economy has escaped. Perhaps the problem is Basel II--having a unified standard may have left us more vulnerable. But there's something here deeper and more frightening than a lack of adequate rules.

Nobody is saying the problem "is simply a failure of reguatory stringence." It's a failure with multiple sources, including and especially lack of regulation. Not just stringence--actual existance of any regulation of the shadow financial system. It's a stupid strawman argument, like so many others of Megan's, and why her words cannot be trusted. You never know if she speaks out of training and knowledge or out of ideology. Some pundits like Jonah Goldberg always slip in ideological nonsense because that is their job, but McArdle is supposed to be more independent than a National Review lackey and bootlicker. Of course she is not, and she's too poor of a writer to disguise it.

While defending Alan Greenspan Megan states:

The alternative question for the liberals: if regulation is so great, how come one guy, or one fairly minor bill, can apparently single-handedly destroy the most heavily regulated industry in America that doesn't actively involve radioactive material? If your preferred system is really that fragile, then maybe we should be looking into alternatives.

Again, nobody says one thing caused the crash. Unless McArdle can back up accusations with facts she can't be taken seriously. To continue her theme, McArdle calls corruption at the Long Island Rail Road "Regulatory capture at its finest," criticizes "social spending" in Venezuela. She also lowers herself to say that Naomi Klein is an idiot and Matt Taibbi is ignorant. Such personal attacks make her look very petty and self-indulgent, and McArdle might want to take care that she doesn't wander further into Ann Althouse territory.

Her output is impressive in quantity, if not in quality. She seems to have spontaneously decided that the mere fourteen posts she made last week were an insufficient output.

Jesus "Barack Obama" Christ's Lost Years

By Stanley "Joseph Conrad" Kurtz

Jesus' neighborhood newspaper, the Bible, has a longstanding tradition of opening its pages to apostles, prophets, and rabbis. Jesus himself, as a rabbi, wrote much of the New Testament. Read in isolation, Jesus's words tell us little. Placed in the context of political and policy battles then raging in the Middle East, however, the young rabbi's dispatches powerfully illuminate his political beliefs. Even more revealing are hundreds of sermons not only of the Bible, but also of Biblical Fan Fiction.

Jesus moved to Nazareth in order to place himself in what he understood to be the de facto "capital" of Jewish Romans. For well over 100 years, the Bible has been the voice of that capital, and therefore a paper of national significance for Jewish Romans. Early on in his political career, Jesus complained of being slighted by major media, like the Old Testament. Yet extensive and continuous coverage in the Bible presents a remarkable resource for understanding who Jesus is. Reportage is particularly significant because Jesus's early political career-the time between his teenage years and his thirtieth birthday-can fairly be called the "lost years," the period Jesus seems least eager to talk about, in contrast to his formative years in Bethlehem. The pages of the Old Testament thus offer entrée into Jesus's heretofore hidden world.

What they portray is a Jesus sharply at variance with the image of the thunder-and-brimstone savior familiar from Biblical prophecy. As details of Jesus's early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, lepers, and Samaritans look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political and religious partnerships. At his core, in other words, the rabbi chronicled here is profoundly religion-conscious, exceedingly liberal, money-hating even in the face of widespread poverty, and partisan. Elected King of the Jews, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day-culture-war issues included. It's no wonder Jesus has passed over his middle years in relative silence.

Any rounded treatment of Jesus's early career has got to give prominence to the issue of religion. Jesus has recently made efforts to preemptively blunt discussion of the religion issue, warning that his critics will highlight the fact that he is Jewish. Yet the question of religion plays so large a role in Jesus's own thought and action that it is all but impossible to discuss his trajectory without acknowledging the extent to which it engrosses him. Obama settled in Nazareth with the declared intention of "organizing Jewish folks." Understanding Jesus's thinking on religion, for example, is a prerequisite to grasping his views on spending and taxation. Thus, we have no alternative but to puzzle out the place of religion in Jesus's broader political outlook as well as in his career.

A Night Before The Election

T'was the night before the election and all through the house
All the eyeballs were rolling at poor Ann Althouse.

All the bloggers were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of linkfests danced in their heads.

When in The New Yorker there arose such a clatter
The bloggers all sprang to see what was the matter.

When what to their wondering eyes did appear
but a drunken law teacher and eight tiny "hear, hear!"s

She was blond with a page-boy, a right jolly old prof
And I laughed when I saw her in spite of myself.

She spoke many words, going straight to her work
And filled all her posts with ideas from jerks.

And then tipping her wineglass to empty last drops,
she blogged that Obama will persecute sops.

And I heard her exclaim as she faded from sight,
Obama is wired! I saw with my sight!

Althouse's Bankruptcy

Lordy, lordy, the New Yoker called Ann Althouse a nutcase, in the least pleasant way possible. There'll be nutcases-a-poppin' today. So, how is Ann "I don't spoonfeed." Althouse taking it?

Ah, not well, which is why Althouse is so much fun. In her first blog post about the Packer post, which demands to be reproduced in its entirety, Althouse says:

Friday, October 24, 2008

I am shocked at the substandard ethics displayed by The New Yorker's blogger
George Packer.

This New Yorker blogger, George Packer, names me and slams me, but doesn't link,
so there's no way for readers to see the context. The context is here.

I didn't "push[] the plastic-device story," I genuinely thought I saw
something, something that wasn't a "story" anywhere else -- I took my own
freeze-frame photograph. Within 5 minutes, I looked more closely in the
surrounding frames and decided it wasn't there and said so. That's all my post
was. So what the hell is George Packer talking about?

Shame on you, George Packer! That is truly sleazy! You are so eager to push
your little theory that you have lost sight of ethics and fairness. Packer
writes:

The problem isn’t lack of education—it’s that of a self-isolating political
subculture gone rancid.

Look in a mirror, man. Look in a damn mirror, loser.

ADDED: What Packer seems to have done is to have adopted another blogger's
summary of what a lot of bloggers, including me, have done over the course of
the election season. That other blogger paid no attention to my year of balanced
blogging, under an explicit vow of cruel neutrality. And Packer, I bet, did not perform an independent check to figure out what my blog is really like. It is this failure,
even more than the failure to link to the particular post he purported to
describe, that is really a failure of ethics. What absurd irony that he behaved
like this to reach the conclusion that the other side of the blogophere is
"self-isolating" and "rancid"!

Packer, I demand an abject confession of your self-isolation and
rancidity.

ADDED: Thanks to Instapundit for linking. There's also a separate post called "I got so mad at George Packer last night."

No boxed wine was safe that night, I bet.

Ms. Althouse has published in the New York Times and is often linked to by Instapundit. Her postion give her authority before the public. Yet her emotional, capricious posts, written to elicit attention and sympathy from anyone needing to rescue an ageing damsel, are meddling and snide, albeit not exactly dangerous. The last thing Althouse should do is demand further exploration of the content of her posts, but of course she does, since one of the first ways she attempts to fight back is to say that she is misunderstood or her words are being twisted. In the comments, she and Jon Swift exchange words about just that excuse.

Jon Swift said...
Well, he does link to my story, which is what his post is about, and I had the
courtesy to link to you, so readers can in fact see the context.

Ann Althouse said...
Yes, you're a [loser and a] shithead too, Swift, but thanks for the tip. Are you saying Packer didn't bother to read the original source, that he just poached off your lame-ass post?

Ann Althouse said...
"The problem isn’t lack of education—it’s that of a self-isolating political subculture gone rancid."Swift's comment underscores my point about Packer's observation. You
folks have been stewing in your own juices too long.

Ann Althouse said...
And Swift distorts to suit his purposes too. Congratulations for being a less devious than Packer.

Jon Swift said...
I'm saying, in fact, the opposite, Ms. Althouse. Since I linked to you in my story he most likely did see your story and still reached the same conclusion.

Ann Althouse said...
Swift, I get the point that you linked
and that he linked to you, but as a matter of the most basic blogger ethics, he
needed to put a link where he made an assertion about what I said, particularly
since what he said was completely distorted. He libeled me in The New Yorker,
one of the most important magazines. The fact that the link is on your little
blog is insufficient. You know the readers aren't going to find their way back
to my site via that circuitous route.And you got it wrong too, so if you have
any decency, you would fix your twisted post. You are not concerned with
fairness and accuracy. You should see the ridiculous irony of your post. YOU are
doing the very thing you are supposedly shedding light on. Hypocrite!

Jon Swift said...
I would be most interested to know Ms. Althouse what specifically was inaccurate about my post and how what he wrote and what I wrote rises to the level of libel.

Ann Althouse said...
Swift, I haven't read your post other than the sentence I emailed you about. Read my email. I said that Packer libeled me when he said I "pushed" a story after I posted a photograph of a freeze-frame and then in 5 minutes said it wasn't what it had originally looked like to me. That is not pushing. It is not true. And he went on to slime me and insult me in The New Yorker. That is harmful and shameful and I'm extremely angry about it. As for what you do on your blog, I don't bother to read it, and I didn't call it libel. I can't be bothered to read it, frankly. I think you're boring, but you do apparently appeal to people in your "self-isolating political subculture gone rancid." Good for you. Asshole.

Jon Swift said...
How did you manage to read only one sentence of my post, Ms. Althouse, while skipping all the other words? And which sentence was that? Your emails contain no mention of a specific sentence. I did not email you a specific sentence, only a link, which you must have clicked on because I did not describe the piece in my email and no one had linked to it when I emailed you as a courtesy, not even Mr. Packer. And I'm not sure why you feel the need to claim that you haven't read my piece and then
proceed to characterize it and me. Wouldn't that be unfair and in fact what you
accused Mr. Packer of doing?

Ann Althouse said...
"Wouldn't that be unfair and in fact what you accused Mr. Packer of doing?"I had read the sentence that had my name it it after seeing a Google alert. YOU emailed me to point out your work, and I responded to you by email based on the one sentence I had read. Then you came over here to talk about yourself -- I get it, you do self-promotion like mad -- and I responded here. It was never my idea to write about you on my blog, because I wasn't interested in reading what you had to say, since I could see from the sentence about me that you were being unfair. I'm not going to comb over what you said about everyone else, and I'm not going to write a post about you. I don't like you, and screw you. The idea that I'm doing anything to you that is comparable to what Packer and you did to me is flat-out bullshit. But
you are not interested in honesty. So pimp your posts to Sullivan and Packer and
get your traffic. Good for you, you little prick.

Ann Althouse said...
I don't mind people attacking me for doing that post itself, which was done at the end of a long session of live-blogging. But what angers me are these broad statements about how insular and narrow-minded I've been, when I have spent the last year (and more) being incredibly balanced, to the point where my readers really didn't know which candidate I was going to vote for. You know, I'm going to vote for Obama (94.67% chance), but these assholes make it a really distasteful exercise.

Ann Althouse said...
Now I feel like voting for McCain... and pushing the inside the ear transmitter theory...

Jon Swift said... Isn't it a wee bit hypocritical, Ms. Althouse, to complain of Mr. Packer's not linking to you, and then to refer to me and my piece and not link to me or even name me?

Ann must have passed out at that point, for there are no further posts from her in that thread. No doubt any day now she will decry her "enemies" for their sexism.


(edited for redundancy)

God, Damn Us To Hell

Ta'i's sentiments appear to be widespread in Iraq, right down to the exaggerated estimate (it is usually put at 500,000, not 2 million) for the number of Iraqi children that were killed by US and UN sanctions (the interdiction of chlorine made it
impossible to do water purification, which in turn caused infant and toddler deaths from gastrointestinal diseases and consequent dehydration). Yep, the Neocons called that one, about Iraqi gratitude to the US, right on the money, they did. [My bolding-s/t]

Kathleen Parker: The Petite Mort of John McCain

Kathleen Parker says that McCain's penis led him to choose Palin, something I've said as well, more or less.

As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palin tells crowds that he is ‘exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief.’ This, notes [writer Robert] Draper, ‘seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party faithful.’

It's all about McCain's manhood. Everything, from Palin to Iran to "that one." It was taken away in Vietnam, and he can't rest until he erases the past.

Girl Crush

Do you remember girl crushes from junior high, when you saw another girl who seemed so cool and successful that you actually wanted to be her, from her hairstyle to her politics?

Neither do I, but evidently Moanin' Charen does.

Yes the figure of $150,000 is eye-popping, but don't forget it that it included the whole Palin clan. And finally, I cannot escape the suspicion that one reason everyone is so exercised (other than the obvious, i.e. that she's a Republican) is that she is so gorgeous in those clothes. There is simply no other woman in political life to match her. The green-eyed monster strikes! [My bolding-S/T]

Isn't that sweet, in a slightly creepy way, as Jonah Goldberg would say? Palin is the prettiest, coolest girl ever, and Charen, with her spare frame and sensible haircut, is in looooove.

And people in love do foolish things, such as tell America that they just ponied up their donations to the Republican party to buy expensive maternity dresses for teenaged Bristol Palin.

Less Tall Megan

If you ignore the actual definition of libertarianism and let me make shit up, libertarianism isn't dead at all!

Your Daily Hack Attack:

Nor is there any particular proposal for preventing that institution from falling prey to the same forces that grip the regulated industry. I have said it before, but it is worth repeating: the regulators became overconfident in the same way, and for the same reasons, that the bankers became overconfident. Just as a long and unusually rosy period in the housing market convinced the bankers that they had gotten better at pricing credit risk, a long period without a large bank failure persuaded the regulators that they had gotten better at regulation. They believed that their computer models, and an improved understanding of how markets and the economy worked, would allow them to see problems in time and halt them. Obviously, they were wrong.

This paragraph encapsulates why McArdle is so useless. Her banking friend told her that banks have become better at pricing risk, so she believed him. But what makes it even worse is she ignores the fact that the problem arose from the shadow financial institutions that were not regulated because she wants to undercut any possible future regulations. The banks are suffering because of the mortgage-backed securities, not just the mortgages, which were divided up according to risk and sold. Everyone said that spreading risk would eliminate risk, and nobody really cared if that was true as long as people were making money in the financial sector.

Always remember, several people warned the world that the current practices would lead to ruin. They were called doom-and-gloomers and generally dismissed, including by McArdle. She'll throw in caveats and hem and haw, but in the end she serves her Wall Street masters, both from ideology and elitist inclination.

No Megan McArdle Report Today

As she has spat out a grand total of three sentences, there will be no Megan Report. Instead I will go outside and admire God's green and melodious world, where nobody is babbling that the poor are too fat and teachers are lazy leeches on society.

We Are a Joke

Item the first:

More on Biden vs. Palin [Ed Whelan]
In this NRO essay today, Michelle Malkin gets Biden right:

Biden’s erratic and gaffetastic behavior is the least of America’s worries. He’s worse than a blunderbuss. He’s an incurable narcissist with chronic diarrhea of the
mouth. He’s a phony and a pretender who fashions himself a foreign-policy expert, constitutional scholar, and worldly wise man. He’s a man who can’t control his impulses.
10/22 10:21 AM

Replace "Biden" with "Malkin" and she's absolutely right. Projection ain't just a way of showing movies.

Item the Second:

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes an article entitled "Black Like Me." That's like dangling Junior Mints in front of me. Junior Mints offered by George Clooney. In a tuxedo. With flowers and a limo.

I'm sorry, what was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, K-Lo. She says that if black people support a black candidate, it is because he is black, not because they think he'll do a good job. She can't believe that someone would choose Obama over McCain when McCain wants to save blacks from the evil abortion doctors, and give vouchers to students who go to inner-city schools. You see, America is conservatives, as she and Jonah and the other conservatives keep saying. No black man or woman reads, thinks, and decides that Obama is better than McCain. No, it's all about identity politics. For them, of course. Not for conservatives. No, sir. Nope. Never. After all, look at Miss Lopez herself. She's Hispanic and a woman and still wants McCain to win with every unsatisfied bone in her body. If she can ignore reality in favor of ideology, why can't everyone else?

Item the third.

Michelle Bachmann, (R-Idiot), admits that Chris Matthews is far smarter than she is.

That's all. This report is humiliating enough exactly as it is.

Item the forth, and my personal favorite.

Here's a story you probably already heard.

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission's long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.
....
But hours after the story was posted on Politico's website and legal issues were raised, the campaign issued a new statement:"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses. It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign," said McCain-Palin spokesperson Tracey Schmitt.The campaign's position is that Palin couldn't dress herself appropriately for the high profile position of someone campaigning to be VP, so they shelled out some dough. That makes sense, having "the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign" doesn't.

Page Six says:

One source familiar with Palin's primping posse told us, "They do not want the American public to know that Palin is using stylists or that she is paying for expensive clothes this early on in the campaign."

We spoke to someone on Palin's styling team, who told us, "I did a little bit of personal styling, but I can't discuss anything I've done with Sarah Palin. I'm not sure which designs she wore . . . anything related to working with her is confidential."

Presidential nominee John McCain's wife, Cindy, recently took some heat after Vanity Fair itemized the cost of her wardrobe during her RNC speech with Laura Bush to a whopping $300,000 worth of designer wear and diamonds.

A representative for Valentino confirmed Palin wore one of his designs during her convention speech, but said she did not buy it from a Valentino store. Palin's reps had no comment.

But she's one of the people, just like Joe The Plumber. What we have here is some basic psychology at work. Palin must be expensively dressed, to show she is an Authoritarian Leader to the other leaders, while at the same time she must declare herself jus' folks, so the tribe feels like she is one of them. It ain't working. The elite think she's a hick, although the followers love her "aw shucks" routine.

The Corner has suffered from this dichotomy.

[David Frum]: A reader writes:
I wonder if you are aware to the extent of the alienation and frustration (at you, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Doug Kmiec, Chris Buckley, etc…we’re still cutting Krauthammer some slack) that has recently occurred among those (of us) who would normally be your customers?
We have a strong feeling that there now exists a “Heartland conservatism” - in the Reagan tradition - and an “East Coast conservatism” that is seen as increasingly “elite” and out of touch with our values. The message you are trying to send to us, to change our message, we are reflecting back at you (all). Here’s the problem, our numbers area far, far greater.

Most of this alienation and frustration, I believe, has been exasperated by the very public criticism, from “conservatives”, of Gov. Palin, who “out here” is very well liked. We “get” her David, but we don’t “get” you (all) anymore, it’s that simple.

David, if you alienate “your base”, who will be left to buy your books?

Nothing like bare-assed threats to put the apostates in their place, as Kathleen Parker well knows. The reader reminds Frum that liberals aren't the only ones who can be persecuted. But the readers don't pay Frum. They might buy some books, but Jack Fowler, editor of NR, buys more. Regnery pays the author, and the publicity gets the author on tv, which leads to speaking gigs. The man of the people can scurry back to his Heartland hole, because in the end the only thing that matters is obedience to the leaders. If Frum doesn't play the game well enough, there are a million little Liberty and Catholic U. graduates to take his place.

So this is what we've come to. The wealthy one percent set up two candidates like little Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots and get the media to start wildly pressing the buttons. The elite shove and maneuver to get themselves close enough to the winner to catch the crumbs falling from his table. The media suck up to the elite, the elite bloggers suck up to the media, the peon bloggers suck up to the elite bloggers, and the "customers" (formerly citizens) of the United States suck up to the peon bloggers, when they are not threatening them.

Jefferson and Washington would be so proud.

Later: Who put the speed in Jonah's Cap'n Crunch? He's actually moving and writing typing.

What Other Explanation Could There Be?
A reader sent me this gem from our old buddy Dave Neiwert:"So why do Republicans hate democracy? Maybe because they are the party of Oligarchical White Privilege. And democracy is about to kick them in the ass."
Why, it's almost as if he thinks the white man is the Jew of liberal fascism.

So stupid. So Jonah.


(link added)

Libertarians

Via Jonah Goldberg, here is an interesting article on The End of Liberalism by Jacob Weisberg. Jonah's reaction is to snort, fart, and yell for the housekeeper to release the hounds, needless to say. Also needless to say, this passage reminds me of You Know Who.

[Christopher] Cox and [Phil] Gramm, in particular, are often accused of being in the pocket of the securities industry. That's not entirely fair; these men took the hands-off positions they did because of their political philosophy, which holds that markets are always right and governments always wrong to interfere. They share with Greenspan, the only member of the trio who openly calls himself a libertarian, a deep aversion to any infringement of the right to buy and sell. That belief, which George Soros calls market fundamentalism, is the best explanation of how the natural tendency of lending standards to turn permissive during a boom became a global calamity that spread so far and so quickly.

The best thing you can say about libertarians is that because their views derive from abstract theory, they tend to be highly principled and rigorous in their logic. Those outside of government at places like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine are just as consistent in their opposition to government bailouts as to the kind of regulation that might have prevented one from being necessary. "Let failed banks fail" is the purist line. This approach would deliver a wonderful lesson in personal responsibility, creating thousands of new jobs in the soup-kitchen and food-pantry industries.

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout.

Megan wanted the bailout. She called Republicans who interfered traitors. She is not a Libertarian. She is an opportunist.