Pabulum

One for the Ages

This question has been asked many times about many jokes by many conservative commentators, but today's object of bewilderment is JPod over at The Corner:

World Cup Observation [John Podhoretz]
Instead of playing the match and losing, why didn't France simply surrender the way it always does?
Posted at 5:12 PM

Disinterested observers are forced to wonder, is his comedic judgment so poor as to think this is still funny or is his opinion of his intended audience really just that low? We may never know, but we can rest assured we'll be invited to wonder again in the future.

K-Lo Is on Crack

Really, there's no other explanation, and nothing to add. Seriously, what the hell is she talking about here?

Waiting [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Remember how the liberal feminist sisterhood ridiculously screeched about the cancellation of Commander-in-Chief and then when Charlie Gibson got the World News Tonight gig, not pregnant Elizabeth Vargas (who says she didnt want the slot — the wrong time for her family — but the sisters didn't care much for her choice). Where's the liberal feminist outrage at the firing of Star Jones? One less woman role model! She was a role model for buying cheap shoes (she flacked for Payless — we can all wear Prada). She was a role model for women who wanted to have silly conversations in the morning. There are other women left to do that of course, but they are women who wanted Star to lie, if Jones is to be believed . Where are the feminists?
Posted at 12:23 PM

I ask again: What?

The New York Times Is DING DING DING.

Woof woof!*

All discussion of the actual issue aside (just the way I like it), near the beginning of this article describing Peter King's criticism of the New York Times' reporting on the US government's monitoring of terror financing is this belly-laugher from King:

"The New York Times is putting its own arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda before the interests of the American people," the lawmaker said as he appeared on the "Fox News Sunday" television program.

Like I said, putting aside whether you think the monitoring is right or not, and whether you think the disclosure is right or not, I ask you: "Elitist"? In what possible context is reporting on this program "elitist"? Arrogant and left-wing? Sure, I can see how you could imagine those two into play, if you were so inclinded. But elitist? Even putting the situation in terms as sympathetic as possible to King's interpretation -- putting American lives at risk by publicly disclosing a top secret program because you wish to damage the President -- I still don't see how any rational person could read elitism there.

But then again, I'm not trying to whip anyone up into a righteous lather.

*Yes, Pavlov's dogs salivated, but it was more fun typing "Woof woof!" than "Slobber" would have been (and an exclamation point would have made no sense, thereby losing the balance with the all caps "DING DING DING").

JPod Doesn't Even Know What He's Arguing Anymore

But he's staked out his ground and now he's gonna defend it, by gum.

Over on The Corner (at The Corner? I'm never sure), John Podhoretz praises an exchange from the President's press conference as a "strong moment" (his paraphrasing):

Ann Compton: Is this Vietnam?

Bush: No.

Compton: Why not?

Bush: Because there's a freely elected government. 12 million people went to the polls.

Apparently, some emailers took issue with the President's comment and, in turn, JPod's praising of it, saying South Vietnam had free elections, too. JPod says that's immaterial (and why), but concludes his defense of the President's comment with a very curious sentence:

But still, the democratization of Vietnam was not a central issue in that war as it is in this war.

Woah, hold up there for a second, JPod. Haven't you now just proven, to borrow The Derb's word for it, the feebleness of the President's comment? If really, "the democratization of Vietnam was not a central issue in that war," then is the President saying anything about Iraq when he says it's not Vietnam because Iraq has had elections? Haven't you just disproven your own initial point? The distinction he's invoked, by your own description, was not a central issue in one of the two wars. He may as well have said Iraq is not Vietnam because it has fewer letters in its name.

No matter, you've defended this point, which is all that counts in this game. Two points back up the line is irrelevant now; who cares if the two points make sense in tandem? And points made two years ago? They may as well not even exist.

Right-Wing Dilemma of the Week

Not quite on the scale of small government ideals vs. advocating over-reaching powers allowing the government to tap, torture, and extraordinarily render whomever, whenever, and however they want, but it's in the same vein.

Do you point, laugh, and support the lawsuit against Michael Moore or do you rail against out-of-control lawsuits and our overly litigious society?

A Massachusetts national guardsman filed an $85 million lawsuit against Michael Moore in Suffolk Superior Court last week, accusing the filmmaker of distorting a TV interview to portray the soldier as anti-war in his scathing 2004 documentary about the Bush administration post-Sept. 11, 2001.

Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, has stated that Moore didn't have his permission to use pieces of the on-camera interview he gave in 2003 to an NBC Nightly News correspondent at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Damon's appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 resulted in a "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation" for him, court documents state.

Damon is suing for $75 million and his wife is seeking another $10 million for the "mental distress and anguish suffered by her spouse."

Once again, they're forced to choose between defending their own/attacking the other and standing up for the principles they claim to hold. And we know where they've come down in that fight in the past.

The bravest might make yet another ill-informed McDonald's coffee joke ("Hey Michael, just thought you'd like to know how McDonald's feels, since you're such an expert in how it TASTES!"). But for most, I'm betting this one's small enough just to ignore. Moore jokes are a dime a dozen ("A baker's dozen! Of doughnuts! Fatso!"); they'll get another shot real soon. And as much fun as it is to activate the rage-a-lator, it's not worth it if it comes at the expense of defending the bogeyman. Or sticking up for your principles.

It's almost as if there are two sets of rules or something.

John Fonte at FrontPage Magazine on the immigration marches (found via the Corner):

"The picture and what it represents are not simply about 'ethnic pride,' 'dual loyalty,' or even allegiance to a foreign state—all of these things reprehensible enough..."

Just look at that list again. All of them reprehensible? In that case, I anticipate with great giddiness John's outraged article about this year's upcoming Columbus Day parade. And for the life of me, even though it should have been just a couple of weeks ago, I can't find John's blistering attack on our recent St. Patrick's day festivities. Odd, that.

Put Up on the Shut Up

So, any lines on the over/under for how long it takes some enterprising young right-wing blogger to advance the theory that the Washington Post knew of Ben Domenech's plagiarism at the time of his hiring and did so in the hope that it would surface and discredit the entire idea of a right-wing blog on the Post and, after just a few days of unpleasantness, allow them to move along conservative-less from then on?

I know it makes no sense whatsoever, but that's never stopped them before.

The Human Jelly of the Month Club

I really don't want it to seem like I'm fixated on Jonah Goldberg or that I have it in for him for some reason or something. I'm not and I don't. It's just that every time I peek in at the Corner, he's said something so colossally, mind-numbingly dumb that it demands a response. He really is the gift that keeps on giving all year long.

This time, Jonah put fingers to keys and came up with this:

I should add: I don't know that making single-motherhood less difficult is necessarily compassionate. The easer you make such things, i.e. the more you lower the price of single-motherhood, the more widespread it will become. You have to believe single-motherhood is a good or at least neutral thing to believe lowering its price is a smart idea. But that's a conversation for another day.

I won't even get into his core point (once again, boldly not stated) that single-motherhood is a bad thing. Even allowing for that opinion, it's still a work of astonishing idiocy. The logic is just wrong.

First of all, Jonah, even you need not think single-motherhood is either good or neutral to want to make it easier. You need only think it's better. Than what, you ask? I don't know: an abusive relationship, maybe? Or an absentee father who causes more pain with his infrequent presence than his absence? Even if you think you are the moral arbiter who gets to decide what we should make easier for people and what we should discourage by keeping other people's lives difficult as a matter of policy, you need not think single-motherhood good or neutral to make it easier. Even by your contemptible matrix, you need only think it's the best available option.

Secondly, because you think single-motherhood is bad, you don't want to make it easier for anyone? Personally, I think we should make it easier for every single mother, however she found herself in the situation, because that's just none of my damn business and she knows what's best for her and her children better than I do. But even accepting that, according to you, some women shouldn't be single mothers, you don't want to make it easier for all the rest, who are single mothers due to circumstances out of their control, like, maybe, death? You think we should keep single-motherhood difficult for these women I must assume even you have sympathy for, even though it's within our power to make it easier for them, because you want them to be an example to dissuade other women from choosing single-motherhood? This is like saying we shouldn't make any more advancements in treating AIDS because we wouldn't want to encourage promiscuous sex (not equating single-motherhood with promiscuous sex; just Jonah with AIDS). Or that we shouldn't have defense attorneys because that encourages crime. Or that we shouldn't offer adult education programs because that encourages juvenile illiteracy. (I'm not really happy with any of these analogies. Got any better ones?)

Jonah, even given the tortured, despicable premises of your arguments, they don't make sense. Single-motherhood should be made easier, whether you think it's "a good or at least neutral thing" or not. Posting at the Corner, however, clearly needs a few more obstacles.

He sure gets winded real easily.

Jonah Goldberg of the Corner today preempts an argument because he already knows it "exhausts" him (preempting it, of course, after posting his side; but now he's exhausted, so don't expect any more from him). This is nothing new for Jonah, who was also recently "exhausted" by the ports deal, so he left the extent of his participation at pointing out someone else's thoughts on the matter. Jonah's also owned up to an innocuous "exhaustion" with a particular turn of phrase, and that's just in this year, certainly a tiring one for poor Jonah.

In previous years, Jonah would merely get "tired" with certain debates, as do we all. His recent spate of exhaustion, however, cannot be a good sign, and I think we should all take it a bit easier on him in the interest of his health. In that spirit of generosity and good will, I won't take issue with his attempt to play the "posting a reader's comment on a widely read blog without a single word of dissent or contradiction is in no way an endorsement of that comment" card:

Ah yes, if I knew "any" gays (I know quite a few, for what it's worth), I wouldn't have found that email interesting (the only adjective I used for it, by the way).

I also won't get into his mealymouthed attempt to simultaneously back up and disavow the posted comment, to support it and distance himself from it at the same time. I won't say that he looks not only to be trying to have his cake and eat it too, he's trying to have everyone's cake and eat it too. Instead, because he's exhausted, I'll just say: Jonah, grow a pair.

But what does Bennifer think?

This cannot be serious. Warning, it's Drudge (hence the screaming):

MEDIA/DNC NICKNAME 'SCALITO' SEEN AS ETHNICALLY INSENSITIVE

One outraged Republican strategist claimed, "If Alito were a liberal there would be no way Democrats and Washington's media elite would use such a ethnically insensitive nickname. Italian-Americans should not have to face these types of derogatory racial slurs in 21st century America."

"Ethnically insensitive"? "Derogatory"? Are you serious?

I can't decide which would be worse, if this is as bad a case of the crybabies as it appears to be or if it's as incompetent a case of rhetorical table-turning as it appears to be.

Either way, shut up and stop making yourself look like an idiot, slyly unidentified "outraged Republican strategist."