"During the 2012 campaign, I, like every liberal writer whose job it is to comment on politics every day, wrote many unkind things about Mitt Romney."

"Much of the time I found him more sad than despicable; politicians who nearly reach the pinnacle of their profession while being manifestly awful at politics are a rare and curious breed."

Writes Paul Waldman at The American Prospect in a post titled "New Documentary Threatens to Make You Like Mitt Romney."

Here's the trailer:

"Democrats, who filibustered their own share of Republican judicial nominees before they took control of the Senate..."

"... have said that what the minority party has done is to effectively rewrite the law by requiring a 60-vote supermajority threshold for high-level presidential appointments. Once rare, filibusters of high-level nominees are now routine."

Harry Reid moves to end the filibuster for judicial nominees. [UPDATE: They did it!]

Short term: What a flood of new judges we will have! Long term: The American people will see what sort of judges Obama and the Senate majority installs, the GOP will highlight their "left-wing activism" (or whatever it might be called), the American people will respond (perhaps becoming alarmed), a Republican President will (sooner or later) be elected, he or she will feel fully empowered to pick excitingly conservative judges (the Bork kind, not the bland kind), Democrats will rail against their "right-wing activism," the American people will respond (taking sides between the conservative and liberal activist judges and the role of the judiciary in our democracy), and who knows what will happen in the next presidential election and the one after that and after that?

Think about how that long-term game will play out and answer this poll:

Long term, what will be the effect on the American political mind?
	Aversion to right-wing activism will lead to a preference for more liberal judges.
	Aversion to left-wing activism will lead to a preference for more conservative judges.
	Aversion to judicial activism will lead to a preference for blander, more restrained judges.
	Enthusiasm for exciting judges will lead to a preference for better, more interesting judges.
	Enthusiasm for exciting liberal judges will lead to a preference for more of them.
	Enthusiasm for exciting conservative judges will lead to a preference for more of them.
pollcode.com free polls

Let me explain what Richard Cohen, a person of conventional views, meant by "People with conventional views."

I gestured at the Richard Cohen vortex last evening, and I wasn't going to help silly people with their nonproblem, but I woke up feeling a little merciful, so, here, let me help.

As far as I can tell — and I'm guessing because I don't see the value of looking too long into chaos — the younger generation just doesn't read the word "conventional" the same way we oldies do. (I'm 62, and Cohen is 72.) The sentence that got him in trouble with the sensitive youths of America was:

People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.

I suspect that Cohen thought he'd found a cute and clever way to kick conservatives and had zero reason to think that his readers would do anything other than assume that he was kicking conservatives, since that's what liberals always do. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would think that old Cohen would do anything other than state a... conventional view.

Okay. See what I did? I used "conventional" in the pejorative way that oldies do. I happen to like to kick liberals, mostly because they think so damned well of themselves and I find that tedious and cloying.

Richard Cohen — the one we're talking about here (i.e., not my ex-husband) — is the sort of liberal who says the usual things that liberals say. It's quite dull. Why would he suddenly be anything else? To me, he is conventional, a conventional liberal, and older folks think we're sticking in the dagger when we call people "conventional."

But when Cohen (complacently, predictably liberal) said "conventional views," he didn't mean liberals, even though liberals (including, notably, him) are quite conventional. He meant those other guys — the bad guys — and he had no idea that anyone could think of him as anything other than one of the good guys — the liberals — because that's how conventional he was!

Now, I will close the door on these boring people and let them fight amongst themselves. I hope they benefit from the exercise and emerge from it with more vigor and discernment.

What if you bitched on Facebook about the raw deal you got under Obamacare and nobody "liked" you?

Shocked at the new and worse deal she was offered under Obamacare, Lori Gottlieb wrote an item titled "Obamacare or Kafkacare?” on Facebook. Facebook is a website that — unlike healthcare.gov — works, so she expected lots of "likes." She liked her old insurance, and Obama said if you like it, you can keep it.

Like, like, like!

Everything is, like, about liking these days, and Lori must have thought she was likeable enough, but nobody liked her.

Instead, aside from my friend David, who attempted to cheer me up with, “My dad, who never turns down a bargain, would take the sex change just because it’s free,” my respondents implied — in posts that, to my annoyance, kept getting more “likes” — that it was beyond uncool to be whining about myself when the less fortunate would finally have insurance.

“The nation has been better off,” wrote one friend. “Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going to get it.” That’s all fine and good for “the nation,” but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, “Yes, I’m paying an extra 200 a month, but I’m okay with doing that so that others who need it can have health care.”

I was shocked. Who knew my friends were such humanitarians? Has Obamacare made it un-P.C. to be concerned by a serious burden on my family’s well-being?

Gottlieb got seriously burned, but had she really never noticed this form of liberal disciplining before? It's funny to act surprised that these people are suddenly "such humanitarians," but she's experiencing heightened awareness because $5,400 is so specific and real, and she, in her personal anger, made the mistake of thinking her "friends" (Facebook friends) were people of empathy toward individual others. But sober observation should have taught her that left-liberals expect individual self-sacrifice for the good of the group.

It will be interesting to see how that website that works, Facebook, will process the stories of individuals burned by Obamacare. Ironically, Gottlieb is nudging Facebookers not to complain if they find themselves losers. Hers is a cautionary tale: You will not be liked. But perhaps enough stories will break through the fear of not being likeable, and a tipping point will be reached. There could be a cascade of liking not liking Obamacare.

You think: "What a good-hearted, mellow person I am," I think: "Inside the Madison cocoon."

"They want power to cut taxes, eliminate regulations, take government down except for what they like."

That's Bill Clinton, criticizing Republicans, and — accidentally — describing what should happen in American democracy.

Take government down sounds destructive, but when you add except for what they like, the alarmism dissipates. Why shouldn't we always, in a democracy, be figuring out what we like and withdrawing our support for everything else? Otherwise, the idea would need to be that we must always retain everything that we already have, because we already have it. That seems to be a definition of conservativism.

In context, Clinton's remark is about how difficult it is for liberals who must add new things for government to do. That's hard, he's saying, when the conservatives are trying to subtract. Then the liberals have to expend effort trying to preserve all the things government has already gotten involved in, when it would be so much nicer to talk to people about the next thing government could do.

The good liberals of Madison struggling with the "good" homeless and the "bad" homeless.

On Tuesday, the city council anguished over one block of our Capitol Square:

"(P)eople are scared to death to go there," said Maria Milsted, who runs a property management company with her husband at 106 W. Mifflin St. "We are frightened to go into our own place of work."

In her speech, Milsted distinguished between the "good homeless," — those who are seeking jobs and a place to live — and "the takers" who she believes are seeking handouts and have no intention of behaving civilly....

The mayor, Paul Soglin, the longtime Madison lefty and former UW student radical blamed the world beyond Madison for dumping its undesirables here:

"Statements that some of us have made about Madison being a drop-off point (of homeless people) for other units of government is now getting fairly well-documented," Soglin said.

He also alleged that other cities are driving homeless people into the city of Madison, and vowed that Madison would "drive them right back!"

So xenophobic. Whatever happened to empathy and compassion? We're ready now to see the downtrodden as "takers" and reprobates... when they congregate in a prime residential area and freak out the real estate folk?

You know, one of the nicest condo buildings I've ever seen is on that block. It's terrible if the bad homeless people are hurting real estate values. But if you're not freaked out by a few street people, it might be a good time to put in an offer on one of the places currently on the market. Like that 2-bedroom penthouse, priced at $2,200,000, now down to $1,995,000.

Michael Kinsley asks NYT executive editor Jill Abramson whether there's an ideological bias in the paper's news articles.

I know, you can't expect her to admit it. But the way she avoids admitting it is fascinating:

Um, I think that they would recognize a sort of cosmopolitan outlook that reflects that, even as we become international, we’re a New York–based news institution. 

"They" = a genuinely objectively reader. (Kinsley actually posited "someone from Mars," which is a silly image, since such an entity, even assuming he could read English, would lack the cultural reference points needed to understand what our various ideologies are and how they are expressed subtly in text written in a superficially neutral style.)

Abramson's answer is to say, essentially, what seems like a liberal political bias to folks who don't live in New York is really simply our sophistication. She goes on:

I can see how the intensity of coverage on certain issues may to some people seem to reflect a liberal point of view. But I actually don’t think it does....You can verify that in news meetings I sometimes say, “This is skewed too far to the left,” or “The mix of stories seems overweeningly appealing to a reader with a certain set of sensibilities and it shouldn’t.”

Too far.... Overweeningly.... These words seem to let it slip that, of course, the Times is liberal, but not all that much. Kinsley then says that to him it feels like "a sort of Upper-West-Side sensibility, and the politics that go with it," and Abramson tells him that's his perspective.

As long as we're talking about perspectives.

And doesn't it really all depend on where you're looking from?

Drudge makes the old "our women are prettier" argument...

... in juxtaposed pictures:



The notion that conservative women are prettier than liberal women is a popular meme with conservatives. In case you've never noticed that and don't believe me, read "Hot or Not: Why Conservative Women Are 'Prettier' Than Liberal Ladies." Excerpt, examining the etiology:

American conservatism is profoundly tied up with the old-fashioned gender paradigm in which husbands are active providers and women are passive nurturers. In that paradigm, a woman's job—the core of her femininity—is to make herself as pretty as possible and then sit back and wait to be picked. That is a deeply conservative idea. You could argue that the conservative path is much friendlier to conventionally attractive women than it is to those with less "mainstream" looks....

And beyond that, the fact that it's something of a conservative mandate to be "pretty" encourages conservative women—no matter what physical hand they're dealt—to make signaling "pretty" a top priority....

And, on the flipside, I can imagine that liberalism actively attracts people who are shut out of that old-timey paradigm, because once you find yourself outside of it, it's easier to call bullshit on the whole thing....

Feel free to call bullshit on any of that. Here's a photograph that might help you think about it:

"And right then I knew that I was tired of good people, that I had had all the good people I could take."

Writes Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a column called "The Good, Racist People."

My question is: How did some people get to be considered the "good" people in the first place? It's that question that fires my antagonism to liberals. They think they are good.

"Obama pushing to diversify federal judiciary amid GOP delays."

Headline at The Washington Post — for article that has the top placement on the front page).

In Florida, President Obama has nominated the first openly gay black man to sit on a federal district court. In New York, he has nominated the first Asian American lesbian. And his pick for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit? The first South Asian.

Reelected with strong support from women, ethnic minorities and gays, Obama is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress.

This is such a ridiculous Obama puff piece. Obama pushing to diversify the federal judiciary? Like it's an Obama innovation?! I can't remember when Presidents didn't go out of their way pick federal judges from various minority groups.

WaPo is obviously using this diversity hook to criticize Republican resistance to liberal nominees. Does anyone in their right mind believe the GOP objects to these nominees because of their particular diversity factors.

It's a very long article, and the childish level of the Obama PR is so embarrassing I feel I should simply look away....

The new wave of nominations is part of an effort by Obama to cement a legacy that long outlives his presidency and makes the court system more closely resemble the changing society it governs, administration officials said.

Oh, administration officials said? Just take dictation, why don't you? Did these officials use the phrase "cement a legacy that long outlives his presidency" or did you concoct yourselves?

By the way, what U.S. President doesn't have a legacy that long outlives his presidency? How much "cement" is really needed for us not to forget a President?

But I do get the point of Presidents trying to extend their political power by relocating it in the judiciary. That's no innovation. That's an old, old tradition in America....

"The journalism in these pages will strive to be free of party ideology or partisan bias..."

"... although it will showcase passionate writing and will continue to wrestle with the primary questions about our society."

Our purpose is not simply to tell interesting stories, but to always ask why these stories matter and tie their reporting back to our readers. We hope to discern the hidden patterns, to connect the disparate facts, and to find the deeper meaning, a layer of understanding beyond the daily headlines.

So writes Chris Hughes about the redesign of The New Republic, which I was cranky about yesterday, because it kicked off with a kissy interview with Barack Obama.

I must say, I'd never paid any attention to Chris Hughes before, and I didn't yesterday until pushed by my commenters. On the evidence of the interview he and Franklin Foer did with the President, I saw him as another media suckup doing Democratic Party politics under cover of journalism. Seeing this "free of party ideology or partisan bias" business now only inclines me to scoff. If that's what you wanted as your brand, why did you lead off with that interview?

But I realize I need to get up to speed on this Chris Hughes character. I didn't even bother to name him in yesterday's post, and I've only just made a tag for him now. Sorry, I didn't bother watching "The Social Network." To the extent that I follow celebrities, I'm not particularly drawn to new media businessmen. I can keep track of Mark Zuckerberg up to a point, but I've never paid attention to the lesser Facebookians.

Here's a HuffPo article from last March about Hughes's purchase of TNR, noting that he was "a key player in President Obama's online organizing efforts in 2008." Why would we expect this man — who's only 29, by the way — to strive to be free of party ideology or partisan bias? I've got to assume the striving is toward seeming to be free of party ideology and partisan bias, because that's what journalists always say they are doing when they have ideological and partisan goals.

Based on that interview with Obama, I'd say Hughes is not striving that hard or he's not good at what he's striving to do or — most likely — he only wants to appeal to Democrats, so he only wants to do enough to seem to be free of party ideology and partisan bias to Democrats. Is this enough to make our target audience feel good about the nourishment they're getting from this source? The good feeling is some combination of seeming like professional journalism while satisfying their emotional needs that are intertwined their political ideology and love of party.

"In all these cases, and many others, liberals take positions that make them look good and feel good..."

"... and show very little interest in the actual consequences for others, even when liberal policies are leaving havoc in their wake."

This is the tragic flaw of liberals. I have seen it so clearly living in Madison, Wisconsin all these years. I believe these are people who really do care about goodness: They want to be good. If I could get one idea through to them, it would be: Goodness requires vigilance against the pursuit of the feeling that you are good, complacency about the belief that you are good, and satisfaction with the goal of achieving your own personal goodness.

Republicans used to stress "law and order," and Democrats — sounding more educated and compassionate — said we needed to look at the "root causes" of crime.

Back in, say, the Nixon era, we Nixon-hating types used "law-and-order" as an adjective expressing contempt. We might say, for example, "Governor Reagan is a law-and-order idiot."

Remember when Nixon caught flak for saying — about Charles Manson — "Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.... Here is a man, yet, who, as far as the news media coverage was concerned, appeared to be rather a glamorous figure..."?

Nowadays, everyone's for law and order. The disagreement is only over the nature of the order. The Democrats don't react to mass murder with pleas to understand mental illness, economic strains, and cultural malaise anymore. They offer tougher laws (in the form of gun control).

Meanwhile, the mentally ill live on the streets or — once they've acted out — are incapacitated in prisons, and one hears very little concern about it from Democrats.

"'Wanker' is a leftie blog cliché used to describe people who deviate from the left-liberal line but aren’t conservatives. Say, Tom Friedman."

"It has been a long time since I’ve won Wanker of the Day, and the rush of gratitude has me feeling a bit flustered. So many people to thank!"