"The Undoing of Storybook Man"

The availability heuristic is making pieces like this one from Jonah Goldberg seem ubiquitous right now, but there's no question that Wednesday's events increased the spread of this view, that many of us have held for years...

I expected Romney to beat expectations and win the debate (though I had no clue how decisive his victory would be), not because I thought Romney was such a fantastic debater, but because Obama is the single most overrated politician of my lifetime.
...
For a guy who supposedly gives wonderful speeches, [Obama] rarely persuades the unpersuaded or inspires those he didn’t already have at “hello.” That’s partly the fault of his speechwriters, who always did him the disservice of producing the kind of pedantic and clichéd boilerplate that Obama mistook for soaring oratory. He thought he smashed through the Democratic primaries like a battering ram through concrete when he mostly pushed on open doors.

Preaching to the choir at this address...

"Anything different is good."

It's Groundhog Day!

Or have I linked that before?

"America Through the Reality Lens"

Excellent piece from Jonah Goldberg:

British historian Arnold Toynbee argued that civilizations thrive when the lower classes aspire to be like the upper classes, and they decay when the upper classes try to be like the lower classes. Looked at through this prism, it’s hard not to see America in a prolonged period of decay.

It’s not all bad news, to be sure. The elite minority’s general acceptance of racial and sexual equality as important values has been a moral triumph. But not without costs. As part of this transformation, society has embraced what social scientist Charles Murray calls “ecumenical niceness.” A core tenet of ecumenical niceness is that harsh judgments of the underclass — or people with underclass values — are forbidden. A corollary: People with old-fashioned notions of decency are fair game.

Long before the rise of reality shows, ecumenical niceness created a moral vacuum. Out-of-wedlock birth was once a great shame; now it’s something of a happy lifestyle choice. The cavalier use of profanity was once crude; now it’s increasingly conversational. Self-discipline was once a virtue; now self-expression is king.

Having never watched a minute of any of the "reality" shows, I may not be perfectly positioned to judge. But I agree with everything here.

Gatekeepers

Climategate. Details of health care bills. Cap-and-trade. Van Jones. Anita Dunn.

It's amazing what never makes the papers.

Mark Steyn:

If you rely on the lavishly remunerated "climate correspondents" of the big newspapers and networks, you'll know nothing about the Climate Research Unit scandals - just the business-as-usual drivel about Boston being underwater by 2011. Indeed, even when a prominent media warm-monger addresses the issue, the newspaper prefers to reprint a month-old column predating the scandal. If you follow online analysis from obscure websites on the fringes of the map, you'll know what's going on. If you go to the convenience store and buy today's newspaper, you won't. That's the problem.

Jonah Goldberg:

It is amazing how so much of the news today is stuff you don't find in the news...I'm beginning to wonder if the metaphor has the guards on the wrong side of the gate. These days the press seems more interested in guarding you from the news they don't want you to know, even if you would very much like to hear it.

And they wonder why there aren't more of them getting elected...

Jonah Goldberg notes the tone-deaf quote of the day:

Darr said he hopes having a registered sex offender in a leadership role doesn't give people the wrong impression about the Libertarian Party...

Unfortunately, I'm afraid this will give people exactly the right impression about the Libertarian Party (and this is from someone that's voted Libertarian in the past and expects to again in the future...)

Obamacare equals Vista?

A reader of Jonah Goldberg's is spot on with this comparison:

Obama's healthcare plan is the Windows Vista of public policy. It's far too complex for anyone to understand why it's better. It's larded up with bloated features that make it impossible to use. And for the vast majority of existing customers, the current system for all its faults, works pretty well. Or at least well enough that the upgrade is worth neither the extra expense nor the risk that it will destroy the entire system. And no amount of advertising can sell it.

Gift Exchange II

When reading this from Jonah Goldberg, keep the date in mind. And go read the whole thing...

Diplomatic jaws dropped across the continent yesterday when it was revealed that U.S. President Barack Obama had, once again, fumbled a routine protocal of international statecraft: finding the right gift for a foreign leader or head of state...Mr. Obama rather unceremoniously handed the Queen a shopping bag from the Duty Free shop at Heathrow airport. It contained a signed paperback copy of Dreams of My Father, purchased at the WH Smith shop at the airport, a bottle of Johnny Walker Scotch (black label), a CD of the Swedish band ABBA's greatest hits (still in shrink wrap with a 2-for-1 sticker on it) and ten bags of M&Ms with the presidential seal on them.

Almost believable...

Very likely to be the best line of the day...

LOL - Jonah Goldberg comments on an unfortunate headline:

Police: Crack Found In Man's Buttocks

Jonah's response?

And They Found Holes In His Nose Too

Is Hillary the strongest possible Democratic candidate?

Jonah Goldberg is changing his mind on Hillary:"I used to think that Hillary would be the best candidate for the Democrats. I don't anymore."

Unlike Jonah, I never did.

I wrote this (don't look for a link - I wrote it in an email, meant to post it, forgot) in July:

As to the election, it’s far too early to tell. Anyone who tells you that the Republicans have no chance to keep the White House is a fatalist Republican, a cock-eyed optimist Democrat, or just clueless. While there are things that look bad right now, things are going to change tremendously over the next 12 months. How they’ll change is anyone’s guess, but my expectation is that a year from now, the media will no longer be able to hide the fact that things are going well in Iraq, and that the world is better off because we went in. The Democrats are almost certain to nominate Hillary, and I remain convinced that she’s not a good bet to win a national election under any likely set of circumstances. She could conceivably win, but she’s got a lot of negative baggage, and there’s a substantial percentage of the population, I’m convinced, that will have no interest in having her in their homes over the next 4 years. Also, the congress has lower approval ratings than the President right now. The Republican nominee will be someone unaffiliated with the current administration, someone who can associate with whatever the perceived successes are without being tainted by the perceived negatives. The Democratic nominee is almost certainly going to be a Senator, which is rarely a good thing to be in a Presidential election.


Anyway, it certainly could go wrong – Hillary’s probably the likeliest next President (a horrifying thought), but it is by no means a fait accompli...

And that wasn't the first time. Back in May of 2005, in response to a John Podhoretz article, I wrote that:

I have thought, and continue to think, that she's a terrible candidate, at least from a general election point-of-view. Yes, if she's the Democratic candidate, she'll have the complete "care and protection" of the mainstream media. (That differs from any other potential Democratic candidate how, exactly?) But the fact is, she's famous, but not likeable. She's cold, she's screechy - people are not going to want her in their houses every night. The fact is, the Democrats could not possibly find a candidate who starts out with higher negatives than Hillary. There isn't one. She's carrying all of Bill's baggage, and she doesn't have his likeability to take the edges off. Yes, she's been elected statewide in New York. New York is one of the most liberal states in the country, and she underperformed Al Gore by 5 points in 2000. I'm curious to see what happens this fall, but I'll be hesitant to read much into it.

I think she starts out with no chance at Republican men or men who lean Republican. I think that she can't get women who lean Republican. I think she alienates conservative Democrats, particularly men. I just think that she's really not a good candidate in a general election, and, if there is a plausible scenario by which she's denied the nomination, it'll be based on her (perceived or otherwise) lack-of-electability in the general election, much the same way that Howard Dean imploded.

Rathergate redux

Jonah Goldberg's assessment of Gunga Dan's Rathergate lawsuit - "ours is a just and decent God..."