Truth In Advertising

Over to the Think Progress, we learn that

Santorum is under fire from Republicans for suggesting that the GOP might as well re-elect Obama if they nominate Romney. He lashed out at a New York Times reporter this weekend for asking about the issue, calling the question “bullshit.”

Except, of course, that's a gross distortion of the events under consideration. Here's a video:



Santorum, who is both a cad and bounder as well as a nutbar, is in fact making the case that as a standard bearer against Obama Romney is the worst Republican in the country.

Whats actually interesting here is that ranting maniacal manner in which Santorum speaks both during the speech and in his interaction with the reporter. This barely suppressed rage and clear desire to either scream at or punch people with whom he is speaking is an aspect of Santorum's persona that I have seen for quite a while. Why, I wonder, do the press forward an erroneous narrative when the actual one seems to be much more interesting.

Rick Santorum is an angry little twit.

The French Jon Stewart

is how The New Yorker's Lauren Collen describes this guy and his show:

Le Petit Journal 06/02/12 - La civilisation anglaise

The bit that matters is this:

“The battle of who has the most perfect family [in the upcoming American presidential race] has begun,” Barthès says. “We choose the Republican Newt Gingrich, having discovered his delicious wife, Callista.”
Next: “We have an image just of Callista!” She’s in blue. The hair is voluminous. “Good God!” Barthès sputters. He makes some gestures around his head. “But what is this crash helmet?” A moment later, he declares, “We have discovered the secret of this mysterious cut, thanks to Leonardo da Vinci.” Now it’s Caleesta again, with the Vitruvian Man superimposed on her face. Barthès rattles off measurements and radii in a tone of Dan Brown-ish portentousness. We see another image of Callista, on a day with “winds strong enough to tear off a cow’s horn,” standing alongside Newt. “It swells slightly,” Barthès says, “but nothing moves.”

And there you have it.

Internet Scholarship and Observation

Some people claim the internet is dead or, at least, ossified. From here comes news of a free 3,000 plus page investigation of anti-smoking legislation in Iowa. If you go over here, here, here, or here, as by way of example, you can flanuer your way from here to there and back again. All this hand-wringing is more evidence that the author is either sick unto death of actually participating in the intellectual culture created by folks willing to use the internet to disseminate the information and knowledge they have created or refusing to waste time in a sufficiently creative way. The fault, in other words, is in ourselves and not our intertubes.

Muppets as Reverse Newt Gingrich

In South Carolina Newt Gingrich made like a cordoroy pillow, i.e., created headlines, when he attacked a moderator for asking obvious questions that torpedoed Gingriches sanctimonious preaching to the less fortunate concerning their immorality and etc. Because King is a buffalohead, he accepted the chastisement and begged the lordly fathead Gingrich for pardon. Here is how public figures need to deal with the demented bullies of Fox News and the robotic sociopaths of the right:



In this case, of course, the scorn and laughter are earned.

Mail Call

I had to mail a bunch of letter sized documents; I sent them out of Friday and it cost me nearly nothing; I received confirmation that they had been processed today, which might mean they arrive on Monday. Since the foundation of these United States the Post Office, mandated by the Constitution, has made life for the average citizen better. Thanks to the machinations of neoliberals bent on destroying anything that makes life better, the USPS is on its way to the ash heap of history.

In one stroke they remove more decently paying jobs from a struggling economy and offer the private sector a chance to overcharge for an essential service. Will, one wonders, the average Chuck Todd get the story right? Or will he or she make stuff up and generally miss the point? My bet's on the latter.

Inside Baseball

Josh Marshall goes all inside basebally to explain Perry's drop in the polls:

But stepping back from all the particulars, it seems to me that a key reason for Perry's burn up on reentry into the atmosphere after his rapid ascent in August is that his key political handlers -- and presumably Perry himself -- simply didn't grasp that the dynamics of national politics are just very different from those of Texas.

Ah brave new media with such people in it. How about this: Rick Perry is a moron and his policy positions are idiotic and moronic. The percentage of American voters willing to risk  their future to another moron with idiotic policies from Texas is vanishingly small. When Perry's policies weren't idiotic they were centrist Democratic policies and the percentage of Republicans willing to vote for centrist Democratic, which is to say workable if insufficient, policies is vanishingly small. As a consequence Perry's popularity dissipated. QED.

Why is it that pundits, new media or old, think that the key to explaining things is to pretend that there is some kind of a circle of seriousness and knowledge that they inhabit while others don't. It'd be one thing if Marshall or any of them were right more than they were wrong but the fact is they mostly don't know what they are talking about. Except Krugman and his political judgements are reliably utopian.  Perry and his advisers thought that the time was right for another Texas moron with idiotic policies; they where wrong.

Erin Burnet once argued that poisoned toys are necessary because they are cheap or cheap toys are necessarily poisonous or something or another.



Oddly enough, she find the Occupy Wall Street Crowd beneath contempt.

Warren Report

If you go here you can watch Elizabeth Warren make monkeys out of the Morning Joe crew. Picking the dumbest questions is difficult; however, I nominate Halpren. China is not now nor will it be any time soon a "military threat" to the USA. If we stopped spending money on new systems and just maintained what we have everyone else in the world would have to combine to come close to what we can do blowing things upwise. The press is filled with idiots who cannot think their way out of water sodden sacks made of paper.

Nostalgia

In the comments, John  Rove, friend of the blog, makes the point that mediocrity and success go hand in hand. This seems to be true politically, given the rarity of Lincolns and the swarms of George Bushes, who can disagree.  I was reminded that Bryan MaGee made the same point in his memoir. For a variety of reasons, I read this several times. In it he mentions, more than once, his various BBC series in which he discussed philosophy with philosophers on the BBC for all, as it were, to see. Guess what? You can watch some of them.

I may be wrong, as I often am, but it strikes me as unlikely that any Western tv station is going allow some old Marxist egghead like Marcuse burble on in this day and age.

Round One:

And So To Bed

It has long been apparent that 1) Sarah Palin is incapable as a politician and 2) no one likes here. Yet the this fact has not kept news outlets both various and sundry from treating here as a potential something or another. Today, I think it is,  TPM, after covering the various ins and outs of her speech to a group no one cares about as if it were news, makes this point. So, I ask TPM et alia why report on Palin? Except, of course, it's easier than engaging in actual reporting about issues that make something like a difference. Horse race for all.

Oh For Dumb

So Obama goes for bike ride with his family and spends much of it riding with one or another of his daughters. But some maroon for the Mail Online decided that the real story here is:

Michelle Obama showed off her enviably toned thighs as she powered past the President in tiny purple cycling shorts on the first family's bike ride on Martha's Vineyard today.

Wearing a fashionable printed T-shirt and Converse trainers, the First Lady showed that she still has style, even when on vacation.

But her husband looked goofy and tired as he lagged behind wearing a baggy black polo shirt, and perhaps more surprisingly jeans.

He also made the point that Michelle is hawt. What's next? Obama's open dress shirt looks like Amedimejahn, or however it's spelt.

Citizenship is Too Good For Him

This:


Is Murdoch's Times of London's response to the scandal. Deport the bastard.