Things that make me nauseated even as I laugh:
Dear [St. Louis] Post-Dispatch readers,
Starting today, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson replaces George Will on Thursdays and Sundays.
Mr. Gerson, who grew up in St. Louis and still has family here, is a former speechwriter and top aide to President George W. Bush. (To answer the classic St. Louis question: Westminster Christian Academy).
Mr. Gerson had served as a speechwriter for Republican presidential candidates Jack Kemp and Bob Dole, and is a former senior editor at the U.S. News & World Report.
We believe that Mr. Gerson’s commitment to “compassionate conservatism” and his roots in St. Louis will better connect with our readers, regardless of their political bent.
The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.
The best thing you can say for Gerson is that he’s willing to take on some of the pathologies in the Conservative Movement from time to time. That’s worth something, but he was also one of the main propagandists for the Bush administration. He will serve up a softer brand of bullshit for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch readers than George Will did, but it will still be sub-mental bullshit.
Does George Will still get published in the local paper here, Boo?
I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.
Ah, yes, George Will the “intellectual” conservative, at least that was his schtick for decades. The grand “philosopher” of the commie-hatin’ American right.
But even he, the old “conservative” teevee pundit veteran, could not resist stepping into the wimmen-hatin’ rightwing horseshit about rape. Like torture approval, rape approval is the new societal moral schism opened up by our monstrous “conservative” movement. The (male) perpetrator is the true “victim” here—that’s real “conservatism”!
Thus, even after watching conservative white male imbecile after imbecile get the shit smeared across their face, ala Akin, Will just had to go there! Like the dog that can’t keep away from the treats in the cat’s litter box. Yes, indeed, the collich rape victim is “really” fortunate in her rape, because it confers some clearly “privileged” status on campus. Also note the hatred of the (female) college student implicit here.
It takes some real deformed and rancid “philosophizing” to think this could possibly make the slightest sense, or describe reality in any coherent way. Yet here is the conservative dean jumping into the sewage with both feet. Why? To remain “relevant” to today’s vicious, degenerate knuckle-draggers? Who knows, or cares…
Of course, Will himself doesn’t care about the St Louis Post Dispatch or any other dropped gig in the Heartland of Traditional America at this point. It’s a region simply to be exploited and misled by conservatives like Will. After decades of lying about global warming he has long since won the Golden Cow Chip award from the Koch Boyz and BigOil CEOs. Time to rest on your ill-gotten laurels, Dean George, and let the young Gersons take over, after a job well done….
Gerson?
What?
John Yoo had a long-term commitment to teaching in a Law School, and could only contribute periodically?
Jesus isn’t weeping.
Jesus is bawling.
Don’t you mean “nauseous things”?
Yes, I do.
Daily newspapers are pretty much irrelevant at this point. Their remaining readers are predominantly old and conservative, so they publish conservative hackery to keep them happy (until they finish dying off, taking the papers with them.)
There are, and have been for years, much better sources for national news. It’s local news that worries me, but few papers have been doing an even passable job with that for a long time now. Really, the papers will not be missed.
I think this must be a public humiliation for George Will. It’s notable that they kicked him in the teeth on the way out the door by saying “it’s not just that he did something bad here, we’ve been thinking he’s a loser for some time”. That’s gotta hurt!
If he officially has cooties now (we will have to wait and see) he may also lose some of his regular sunday morning gigs soon. (I assume he’s still on those shows, but I stopped watching them years ago.)
Public humiliation these days seems to do wonders for one’s resume and future fortunes. George is a bit old to take advantage of this unexpected new opportunity, and it works better for entertainers and politicians than primarily print “journalists.” However, a savvy PR specialist could reanimate and reinvigorate even old George.
Set aside all spontaneous visceral responses (including nausea and outrage) and all the known, and endlessly regurgitated, actual facts about Iraq, and calmly and dispassionately observe the latest Dick and Liz roadshow. (Not beautiful, fun, and interesting like this Dick and Liz, but they were real.) What do you see?
Superficially, it appears to be Cheney on the hot-seat defending his record of being wrong about Iraq. Yet his performance doesn’t have a hint of prickly defensiveness. In response to the mountain of evidence of being completely wrong (or a lying SOB) about Iraq, he deftly and cavalierly tosses it aside with “I disagree.”
Was Megyn Kelly merely handed a script and told to go play Tim Russert or was she trusted with more pages of the play? Perhaps someone familiar with her work can assess that. Or maybe that’s not an important detail. Like Russert, for all her seemingly hard hitting questions, she never laid a glove on Cheney. In fairness to her and the late Russert, Cheney is a very skilled interviewee. It’s why he insisted on this format for his two VP debates and why he practically walked away with Lieberman’s and Edwards’ heads.
Cheney seemed to me to be presenting the first draft of a new narrative. If I’m correct, elements of it will be abstracted for repetition to “catapult the propaganda.” And Democrats are currently marching right into the trap of this narrative.
Megyn Kelly works for Faux News, so while it’s nice she “challenged” Cheney, consider the source.
Dick Cheney has always been utterly tone-deaf, consistent with his “unitary executive” (er, authoritarian) personality. I actually think it’s a sign of weakness that he and his demon spawn are going on the teevee and generating “don’t bother me with reality” invective in the WSJ oped pages.
Nothing will change the verdict of history (yes, I mean that sincerely) about this war criminal and torture-enabler. While the bastard was given a pass in court for his crimes, I’m pretty sure he’ll go to his grave knowing that millions will always despise him as an infamous criminal and truly evil man.
I hope he is the closest we ever come to an American Pinochet, Goering, or Goebbels.
Yes, understand she’s a Faux presenter, but some on the left side of the aisle have been claiming that she demonstrated actual journalism skills in that interview and congratulated her. What I saw was closer to whatever Russert did all those years which was a big windup for tossing nerf balls. Am but only mildly curious as to what Kelly understood her role to be in the Cheney interview.
History is written by the winners. If you look closely and dispassionately at that interview, the rewrite is in development. A careful breakdown of the interview could expose this latest ruse before it has the power to persuade 50% plus one of the electorate.
Check out No More Mister Nice Blog on the sham of a hard-hitting interview:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2014/06/no-megyn-kelly-didnt-play-hardball-with.html
Thanks for the link. The “wow, Megyn Kelly takes Cheney to the woodpile” response among many on the left side of this aisle (which is what prompted me to watch it) tells me that media consumption skills in that community are very poor. Missing that they are completely unprepared to recognize what I think is the important aspect of the interview: the new narrative. The pieces that they are beginning to reveal that are designed to take down Hillary in the general election. If they can find a viable GOP candidate, it can work. It’s really quite clever.
Should also point out that one reason it can work is that it’s not only not an expected line of attack, discussing it is of zero interest here and would guess an attempt to discuss it at dKos would be immediately shut down by those that cry “sexism” or misogyny whenever any criticism of her is broached.
Is that what happens there now? I’ve never really commented there because comment sections remind me of YouTube videos. No discussion like we have here.
I’m very quick to pull the sexist-card, just as I’m quick to pull the race-card. For tone-deaf people among us who can’t recognize the real thing, those same people who would call us sexists for attacking Kelly on the merits are the same as conservatives lamenting that they can’t criticize Obama because they’d be called racists.
No, silly people, it’s how and what you’re criticizing…
I criticized Obama since on the campaign trail in 2007, mysteriously I’ve avoided being called a racist.
Take it you didn’t observe the 2008 primary comment battles at dKos.
Not sure I’d use the term “silly people.” Not even sure they aren’t able to differentiate between race and sex neutral criticisms and overt racism and sexism when they don’t have a vested interest in the subject of the criticism. But once they have fallen in love with a candidate or elected official that has been subjected to racist and/or sexist attacks, they come to view all criticism as being racist and/or sexist and become stridently defensive. In the case of Hillary supporters, they lost the ability to observe and understand that she was losing and it wasn’t because of sexism but her own shortcomings. Leading to outrageous responses such as that of Geraldine Ferraro stating that Obama was lucky that he was a black man instead of a white woman.
As one of the earliest supporters of Obama — more a matter of viewing him as the most electible and possibly not as much of a neo-liberal-con as the other candidates than falling in love with him — I didn’t see anything to criticize during the campaign season as he wasn’t doing much of anything other than running for POTUS and was doing that well. When he began naming his candidate is when he began revealing himself and what that meant at a policy, and then I began to criticize him and his administrative and policy decision. I took a lot of flak for that and the gang that was trolling me ultimately succeeded in getting me banned from the place by labeling me a racist. First and only time in ten years at dKos that I’d ever faced such an accusation.
Moving forward, did you watch the Cheney interview?
I didn’t criticize him from outset of admin actually; I wanted to wait a few months first. First thing I criticized was the selection of Rick Warren at the inauguration, however. Rahm Emanuel as CoS I figured it’d be the same as Hillary Clinton at State: their individual politics don’t much matter because they serve pleasure of the president.
No I didn’t watch it, but a friend transcribed Cheney’s response to Kelly over a messenger (couldn’t watch at work). I wasn’t much interested in Kelly’s questioning because everyone knows Cheney is a fucking weasel. He sent me the link, which only included Kelly’s question, and the first thing I asked was, “What did he say in response?”
So put me in the Steve M. camp.
Here’s the RawStory link to it.
Note what Cheney says and doesn’t say.
Is it wrong to pray the most staggering amounts of hideous suffering and pain be visited on Fred Hiatt? Something like multiple plagues and daily beatings or other forms of abuse/justice?
Yes.
.
Looks like replacing Darth Vader with Jar Jar Binks.
The Scott Walker — George Will connection:
Bradley Foundation Bankrolled Groups Pushing Back on Scott Walker John Doe Criminal Probe
George Will received the $250,000 Bradley prize a few years ago. He currently serves on the board.
A shame the Foundation had its annual awards ceremony last day — mere hours before the unsealing of the documents in the John Doe II probe.
Too much to ask that Will gets dragged into this criminal investigation, but it would be sweet.