The level playing field, yet again

Mary Katherine Ham notes another verbal blunder by the orator-in-chief. And once again, we are faced with a question in the form of "how would the media have played it if George W. Bush had wished the Mexican Ambassador a happy 'fifth of fourth'? Twice."

Obama joked that it was "Cinco de Cuatro," botching a play on the Spanish word for "four" when he meant to say "Cuatro de Mayo," or the Fourth of May. He tried again, but he still did not get it right.

Again, this doesn't necessarily reflect all that badly on President Obama - even smart people¹ can make verbal mistakes, and will, if speaking often enough. But we know that, had Bush said that, it would be the May 4th entry on the next "Bushisms" calendar, and the occasion for much derision on the part of the elite media, and when Obama says it, it gently fades into the mists of time. Because the mainstream media in this country, contrary to their self-image and protestations, is not about reporting news. The mainstream media in this country is about storylines, storylines which promote the people and ideas of which they approve, and tear down the people and ideas of which they disapprove. And the evidence in support of that is overwhelming and undeniable².



¹ - I don't necessarily think that President Obama's anything special in the intellect department, but this doesn't prove otherwise.

² - OK, it's deniable, but not convincingly. The denials are as "unbiased" as the news itself...

Calm, reasoned discourse on the floor of the House

Twenty years ago, I used to lunch with a group of co-workers, one of whom was, politically, far to the left of me. But he was a great guy, and we had many interesting and civil conversations on a variety of topics. And every time he would come out with some comment about wanting children cared for and educated, or the homeless cared for and off the streets, or the elderly cared for respectfully, I'd say, "I want all of those things, too. But I disagree with your plans for achieving those goals." The formulation that I finally came to that I liked, based on my observations of the national political culture, went like this: "Conservatives think Liberals are wrong. Liberals think Conservatives are bad."

Certainly, there are exceptions, and certainly there are instances of incivility of both sides of the political aisle. But the leftists in this country are suffering so badly from what Michelle Malkin calls "Bush derangement syndrome" that it has gone beyond amusing and into scary. The latest example comes, not from the fever-swamps of the left-wing blogosphere, but from the floor of the House of Representatives. During the debate over overriding President Bush's veto of the S-CHIP expansion proposed by Democrats, California Representative took the floor and accused the President of sending people to Iraq "to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement."

Republicans are worried that they can't pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war on children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if he can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement.

It's not the first instance of BDS hyperbole and it won't be the last, but it is outrageously offensive. The interesting question right now is whether or not it makes a ripple in the legacy media. If so, there may eventually be some consequences, or an apology. If not, there will not...


(h/t to The Baseball Crank...)