Wednesday Open Thread
Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. Or should I say, is it Wednesday already? This week seems to be flying by for me. Share your thoughts below.
Here’s a really excellent piece by Matt Yglesias on the uselessness of fact-checking:
Heather MacDonald’s excellent piece on Dinesh D’Souza opens thusly:
Forbes magazine has now “fact-checked” Dinesh D’Souza’s infamous September 27 cover story, “How Obama Thinks,” and has uncovered one “slight” misrepresentation, it says, of an Obama speech on the BP oil spill. Such a “fact-checking” feint is irrelevant to this travesty of an article; you can’t “fact-check” a fever dream of paranoia and irrationality. Sickeningly, while “How Obama Thinks” is useless as a guide to the Obama presidency, it is all too representative of the hysteria that now runs through a significant portion of the right-wing media establishment. The article is worth analyzing at some length as an example of the lunacy that is poisoning much conservative discourse.
The whole piece is worth reading, but I wanted to dwell on the aside about fact-checking simply because this is something people periodically get a bit confused about. The genius and the horror of something like D’Souza’s argument is that it’s perfectly possible to put together something utterly loopy that makes no factual errors whatsoever. Indeed, in some ways punctiliousness about the facts is the signature of the conspiracy theorist. Glenn Beck’s TV show is, in its way, the most fact-filled program on cable. It’s just that you can string together a lot of data points in a nutty way if you want to.
I would say that Glenn Beck does a lot of selective editing of facts so I think it’s misleading to call it “factual.” I think Stephen Colbert’s word “truthiness” best represents what Glenn Beck is doing – picking a conclusion and editing the facts to fit that, reality be damned. Other conservative media types like to selectively edit videos or transcripts.
I think this is a great ad by Jack Conway against Rand Paul in the Kentucky Senate race:
Apparently Rand Paul is saying that the ad is misleading. However his words are captured forever by the internets. In context, his words are even worse than what’s in the commercial:
PAUL: Medicare is socialized medicine! People are afraid of that because they’ll say “ohhh, you’re against Medicare.” No, I’ll say “We have to do something different. We can’t just eliminate Medicare, but we have to get more to a market-based system.”
It’s counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but you have to pay for things if you want prices to come down. So you really need higher deductibles. And the real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible, but try selling that one in an election. But that’s the real answer, you have to pay for things, and when you do, you also get rid of price controls. So raise the deductible, you get rid of price controls, and you allow more competition. And you may have to allow more competition from other parties.
Oops! I hope the TV stations in Kentucky are now running Rand’s full clip.
Tags: Open Thread
Chris on Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/29/906133/-Orange-to-Blue:-Chris-Coons,-DE-Sen
COD in New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/10/04/101004taco_talk_mead
I am still chewing on “buck up” and starting to figure out what bothers me about it.
Biden said, speaking to progressives: ” those who … didn’t get everything they wanted, it’s time to just buck up here”
It bothers me that Biden and Obama see their base as a collection of special interests that want things for themselves and whine when they don’t get them. I like to think progressives are different.
As a progressive, I wanted a public option, and a vote on middle-class tax cuts, and guaranteed expiration of the tax cuts for the rich. So far I didn’t get any of them.
I wanted those things not because I would personally benefit (much), but because I thought those were good policies and also good for Democrats. I think those things alone would break the Senate and electrify voters.
If Democrats were out there defending a real public health care option against repeal by their Republican opponents, there wouldn’t be any talk of lethargy. Instead we are defending a lukewarm corporate mess that half the country thinks it doesn’t like anyway.
If Democrats were out there attacking their Republican opponents for their vote against middle class tax cuts, there wouldn’t be any lethargy.
How dare Biden and Obama tell me I will be responsible if Republicans take over. I have not forgotten that Obama campaigned for Blanche Lincoln against her better-polling progressive opponent.
I think Cenk nails it when he says the Administration is setting up us hippies to be the scapegoats when Democrats lose.
James O’Keefe gets caught with his pants (almost) down – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/james-okeefe-cnn-abbie-boudreau_n_743313.html
so cant he be charged with attempted….. ass-holeness?
Lemmie address the conservative movement for a sec….
REALLY? This is all you got? Your intrepid young journalists are skinny horn-dogs who think they all woment want to sleep with them… and not only that, but would use sex as a weapon?
What is this guy’s next trick? A expose on how women really WANT to be raped?
I participated in a really hilarious push poll for the Treasurer’s race yesterday. The pollster was from florida and couldn’t pronounce any of the names, including “Colin”
Things I learned:
Flowers is a career politician who is only in it for the money and likes to wear Armani and Gucci and also he might eat babies (ok, that last one was me).
Bonini is a good, wholesome man who will fight for delaware and make people account for the money we are hemmoraging because he is awesome and also shits rainbows after he rides his unicorn to work.
I told her I’d still vote for Flowers.
Lifted off Koz
“O’Donnell might be an absolute sweetheart of a human being, but she is possessed by ideas so extreme that she makes Michele Bachmann seem reasonable.”
“Comment by anon @ 12:38 pm:
I am still chewing on “buck up” and starting to figure out what bothers me about it.
Biden said, speaking to progressives: ” those who … didn’t get everything they wanted, it’s time to just buck up here”
In other words, “We democrats are quasi-Republican. Therefore, you have every reason to piss off and vote for us.”
anon,
You can’t figure out what bothers you about Bidens statement because a rationale person would scarcely believe his ears that a person of Biden’s imprimatur would utter something so breathtakingly absurd and arrogant.
STOP THE PRESSES!!! READ THIS EXPLOSION!!
http://www.guanabee.com/2010/09/gloria-allred-meg-whitman-nicky-Diaz-Santillan-housekeeper-press-conference/
It seems to me that Democrats are the first to screw over other Democrats. Does anyone else notice this?
My WVUD interview with Chris Counihan (SD 5 candidate):
http://www.starboardbroadside.com/2010/09/in-depth-interview-with-chris-counihan.html
I think you’ll especially want to hear his answer to my question on marriage equality at 1:11 in the second part.
It’s just our tax dollars, why shouldn’t they give it away…
The must-pass spending bill pending in the Senate includes a little-noticed provision that would pay the family of the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd for the salary he would have commanded in the next fiscal year.
The Senate handbook says that upon the death of a senator who had been serving in office, “in the next appropriations bill, an item will be inserted for a gratuity to be paid to the widow(er) or other next- of-kin, in the amount of one-year’s compensation.”
As a result, the bill calls for “equal shares” of the late senator’s $193,400 salary to be split between Byrd’s seven children and grandchildren.
(Excerpt) politico.com …
joy now congress is tipping with our money.
We very nearly got our vote on tax cuts. It seems there was some debate in the House about whether to adjourn without a tax vote.
The vote to adjourn passes by one vote in the House… Pelosi’s. I guess a few Congressmen have a little spine left; it’s just not enough.
Boehner dares Dems to vote on middle-class tax cuts, but Dems refuse to call his bluff:
The rush to the exits was unanimous in the Senate, led by “Weak-Kneed Reid”:
Reliable dickhead Lieberman explains Dem cowardice:
Translation: Dems were too afraid to bend over and pick up the political capital that would result from a vote on middle class tax cuts.
Dems are now running away from their own platform.
Buck up, everybody!