The obligatory Keith Olbermann buh-bye post

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, Olbermann’s leaving MSNBC, and the announcement was precipitous.

And no, I’ve never watched his show, except for a couple of YouTube excerpts. I have written very few posts that even mention his name. So in honor of his going I could say, “Keith, I hardly knew ya—and really had no desire to do so, from the little I do know.”

I’m not sure why it’s such a big story, except that it has the added element of mystery. Why did he go? (Dunno.) Was he fired or did he quit? (My guess is “fired.”) And will it matter? (Not one little bit.)

I think this is the most probable explanation:

Did Comcast”“as many Countdown viewers seem to suspect”“order Olbermann out? It appears that the end of the Olbermann era at MSNBC was not “ordered” by Comcast, nor was it a move to tone down the network’s politics. Instead, sources inside the network say it came down to the more mundane world of office politics”“Olbermann was a difficult employee, who clashed with bosses, colleagues and underlings alike, and with the Comcast-related departure of Jeff Zucker, and the rise of Maddow and O’Donnell, the landscape shifted, making an Olbermann exit suddenly seem well-timed.

A humorous note is this statement of Olbermann’s in his farewell speech, reflecting his view of himself as an iconoclastic rebel:

Mr. Olbermann thanked his viewers for their enthusiastic support of a show that had “gradually established its position as antiestablishment.”

Keith Olbermann, anti-establishment hero.

And in honor of his departure, let’s have a little traveling music:

Nope, no haters on the left

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter Teri Pittman offers some quotes from someone named Mark in something called the “Kalimba Magic Newsletter,” to the effect that it’s only on the right that violent rhetoric occurs: “I don’t remember anyone joking about killing president Bush.”

Well, either Mark has a very selective memory, or he’s been in another world for the last ten years. But Mark is an ordinary citizen. What’s Joan Walsh’s excuse?

Joan Walsh is a liberal columnist and editor at Salon. She was recently accused by blogger Ace of truncating an Obama quote in order to make it seem less critical of the left’s heated rhetoric as well as the right’s—or, as Ace puts it:

So it is with Obama and the high priests of the Worshipful Media. The high priests have decided that their hero-god is a bit potty lately, and so they must correct his spaketh-ings so they become inerrantly perfect, as they should be, as the Sacred Scrolls prophecized.

This is not just a post-Tucson crusade of Walsh’s. Back in April of 2010, she made these risible remarks on MSNBC [unfortunately the sound is a bit out of sync]:

My summing-up of Palin-hatred for today

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve noticed and noticed in the comments here and elsewhere that many people ascribe a lot of the hatred of Palin among women—especially liberal women—to envy. Palins beautiful, Palin’s got it all, her husband’s a hottie, and so forth.

I may not know a lot about some things, but I know liberal women. And my sample is rather large, too. Although I suppose that some sort of envy must enter into the equation for some, I think it’s very very low on the list and not anywhere near as common as one might think.

I’ll tell you the emotion most of the liberal women I know feel towards Palin: contempt. She embodies everything they despise about conservatives.

That is the overriding attitude, and it’s real and it goes deep. It’s not feigned, and it doesn’t seem to come from secret envy denied, although it does appear to be a woman-on-woman thing. It comes more from a sense of superiority, and shock that someone so (fill in the blank—stupid, uneducated, ignorant, declasse, trailer trashy) has managed to achieve the level of political prominence and influence Palin has.

If you want to conceptualize it another way, it’s as though Dolly Parton (or some simulacrum of Dolly) were in her forties, had reduced the size of her breast implants, dyed her hair brown, put on some glasses, and decided to go into politics.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Giuliani in 2012?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m really not sure how I feel about this.

I supported Giuliani initially in his 2008 run. But I would dearly love to see someone fresher and younger come forward to get some energy into the Republican Party’s presidential campaign. Giuliani will be close to 70 in 2012. He’s not the healthiest of men, and many of the same health/age objections mounted against McCain in 2008 could be leveled at him in 2012. His biggest strength is in national security against Islamicist terrorism, and while that is an important part of the presidency, other considerations such as economics are likely to be huge in 2012, and he’s somewhat untested in that sphere.

Guiliani has what you might call a messy marital history. He’s been in executive office, but only as mayor, and while in that position he was soft on illegal immigration. For the last couple of years, he’s been involved with a law firm that represents, among others, some large oil and pharmaceutical companies, a position tailor-made for criticism.

Come to think of it, no, Giuliani’s not my guy. It’s odd that although the Republican Party has a lot of up-and-comers, none of them seem well-positioned and willing to run in 2012—yet. I continue to believe that some relative unknown, perhaps a governor such as Mitch Daniels, might emerge from the background. But if that’s going to happen, he or she had better get cracking. It’s getting late.

That last sentence I just typed is a sobering one. Late? Didn’t we just finish a grueling election?

HCR: who “allows” you life?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was intrigued by this comment, made in response to a WSJ Karl Rove article on the Republican plans to undo Obamacare. The comment is an excellent example of a certain type of leftist thought [I have corrected some spelling errors]:

People who think their salary or profits belong to them, that government taxes THEIR money, doubtless agree with you.

But that money is NOT YOURS. It is ours, on loan to you for good behavior.

Innovation and hard work not only should be rewarded, they are rewarded. Which is a good thing.

Fellow members of the same society that allows you life, deserve life also. Such as access to medical care.

Who is this “ours” the commenter refers to in the second paragraph? And who is “you?” Are they not the same people, and if so, who are the lenders and who the lendees?

But it is actually the last paragraph that interests me most, the one that attempts to argue in favor of a right to medical care (although the commenter refers to it as “access,” that is not what he means).

In the first sentence of that paragraph, the writer turns the Founders’ words at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence on their head. For the commenter, the truths that the Founders thought so “self-evident” are not evident at all.

Here’s the Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So the right to life is a natural one that is provided by the Creator, not one “allowed” by a society of fellow humans. It seems that, just as the commenter believes money is on loan from that community, so is life itself.

Back in September, Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and quoted those words from the Declaration, leaving out the word “Creator.” It got a lot of attention. Much of the focus was on whether his act was a slip of the tongue or a very deliberate omission, and what either might say about the depth of his religious beliefs and/or the fact that mention of the deity has become non-PC in liberal circles. Here’s the excerpt:

I doubt it was a slip, although it might have been. Obama ordinarily chooses his words very carefully, and this is such a famous passage from the Declaration that it would be odd indeed if he weren’t familiar with it. But whether or not a person is a believer, atheist, or agnostic, if that word is left out of the quotation we lose a great deal. Once the power to “allow” life is vested in society—an aggregate of mere people—the way is paved for further encroachments on liberty for the good of all.

HCR repeal vote: symbolic and yet…

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I called the House vote to repeal HCR “merely symbolic.”

In retrospect, I realize the term I used may have been misleading, because many readers thought I meant “meaningless.” I did not.

There are many “mere symbols” that are fraught with meaning. In fact, that’s what a symbol is: something that in and of itself does not accomplish anything, but can stand for something else quite important. It was in that sense I used the term.

The vote means that, at least this time, the Republicans have kept their word. It means they listened to what the people have been saying as far back as the summer of 2009 when the previous Congress ignored the wishes of the people expressed in town meetings in many states.

Without follow-up, however, the vote will remain “merely” symbolic. Republicans campaigned on the cry not only of “repeal,” but of “replace.” One thing I hope the long fight over the HCR bill will have accomplished by the time it’s over is to spur action to truly reform health care insurance in this country in ways that actually help the situation rather than hurt it. I am an incrementalist in this regard; I don’t believe we have to destroy the system in order to save it.

It won’t be easy. The problems are weighty: health care of the high-tech type that we’ve developed over the last few decades is inherently expensive, and covering everyone on some basic level will be expensive, no matter how it’s done. Right now it’s already there for the majority of people, but in a piecemeal, haphazard, and probably not cost-effective way. There is no lack of ideas for how to streamline the system and make it more flexible as well (such as allowing catastrophic coverage to be more available), as well as to fill in the gaps and provide coverage for the non-covered. But none of them will come cheap, and the details are what’s important.

Replacement probably cannot be done until after the 2012 election, at the earliest. The president still has veto power, and the Senate is in Democratic hands. But in the meantime, there might be small parts of the bill that can be repealed, as well as work on defunding. Until then, these “symbolic” votes will show voters the direction in which the Republican Party intends to be headed if it does manage to win control of the Senate (and the presidency) in 2012.

Judge Roll: greater love hath no man

The New Neo Posted on by

Amazingly, a video exists of the Tucson shootings, taken by a store security camera. It shows, among other things, that Judge Roll appears to have died trying to protect a fellow victim named Ronald Barber, who was on Giffords’ staff:

Describing the video, Mr. Kastigar [of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department] said the judge was “intentionally trying to help Mr. Barber,” adding, “It’s very clear to me the judge was thinking of his fellow human more than himself.”

The judge guides Mr. Barber to the ground, shields him with his body, and then tries to push himself and Mr. Barber away from the gunman, who was no more than three to four feet away as he fired, Mr. Kastigar said.

“He pushes Mr. Barber with his right hand and guides him with his left hand. The judge was on top of him and is covering up Mr. Barber, literally lying on top of him, and his back was exposed,” Mr. Kastigar said.

The judge was shot in the back.

Ronald Barber was shot twice but is alive and has been released from the hospital.

This statement from Barber’s family, issued before the news on Roll’s heroism was released, gives a clue as to an extra motive the judge may have had for his actions [emphasis mine]:

We would like to express our deepest sympathies to the families who lost love ones on Saturday. Dad [Mr. Barber] is so deeply saddened by the loss of his friend and fellow staff member Gabe Zimmerman and his long time friend Chief Judge John Roll.

Taranto writes the primer on Palinoia

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve probably written at least 100,000 words trying to explain Palin-hatred. The rest of the right side of the blogosphere has babbled on and on in the same attempt. But James Taranto explains it all, elegantly and succinctly, here.

Absolutely brilliant.

[Hat tip: commenter “Bill West.”]

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

I take it back—no, not of the day, of the week. Maybe of the month. Oh heck, maybe of recorded history.

I bring you:

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Note the colorful and sensuous prose, as well as the double entendre of “straight seize your rss feed to remain abreast.”

Hating Joe Lieberman

The New Neo Posted on by

Until now, I was unaware of the existence of LDS (Lieberman Derangement Syndrome). But Emily Bazelon certainly demonstrates it in her farewell letter to Lieberman, published in Slate.

It ain’t no Valentine. Bazelon begins with the following admission:

My corner of Connecticut was covered in ice today, until news broke of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s impending retirement. Magically, a warm glow spread. It was a delicious feeling: the end of the reign of the politician I despise most.

Why do I loathe, loathe, loathe my 68-year-old four-term senator? My feelings are all the stronger for being fairly irrational.

Then why, why, why, oh why, should anyone care what she says? On a blog, perhaps; many blog readers like to read the personal feelings of their hosts, and the more rabid the better. But how is it that a supposedly serious journalist, Slate editor and legal expert, writer for such formerly august publications as the Atlantic and the WaPo, is indulging in this irrational venting of spleen and expecting us to respect her for it?

Just to give you the flavor of the piece, Bazelon approvingly quotes a friend’s unsupported statements that Lieberman’s observance of Jewish law has been more politically opportunistic than sincere. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that observing the Jewish sabbath is a sure ticket to election, even in Connecticut, but who needs to use reason when you’ve got hate?

It gets Bazelon’s goat that Lieberman denounced Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair, although I’d lay money on the fact that, had Clinton been a Republican having sex (or not exactly having sex) with Lewinsky, Bazelon would have been one of the first to condemn him. Her problem with Lieberman was that he stuck to principle above party loyalty, because his siding against Clinton was “a gift to the president’s enemies.” Reason enough to hate a person, don’t you think?

Another source of Bazelon’s ire seems to have been when Lieberman took the stand that Catholic hospitals not be compelled to offer the morning after pill to rape victims, and his pointing out that in Connecticut it’s not a long trip to get to a hospital that does.

And what does a phrase like the following mean coming from a person who purports to be a serious journalist, “Lieberman’s unrequited, unquenchable love for the Iraq war?” It not only suggests that Lieberman advocated the war because he’s a bloodthirsty lover of killing, but it makes me wonder how love for war could be ever be “requited.”

Bazelon is unrepentant, and hardly alone in her LDR. In a telling moment, she quotes a friend as referring to “many rounds of playing the peculiar Connecticut liberal cocktail party game ‘I hated Joe Lieberman before you hated Joe Lieberman.'” That may just be the key phrase in the entire piece, because I think what’s happening here is that Bazelon is continuing that liberal cocktail party game among her friends at Slate.

It’s not a pretty game, but it seems like fun to play. As best I can recall, the first time this sort of tone was aired in a supposedly reputable periodical was back in September of 2003, when TNR’s Jonathan Chait came out of the closet with his confessional column that began with the famous line, “I hate President George W. Bush.”

Chait’s piece was curiously like Bazelon’s, or maybe it’s the other way around. Like her, he freely admitted that his hatred had springs that were not altogether substantive:

I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I’m tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too…He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school–the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks–shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks–blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudopopulist twang.

It goes on, but I’ll stop there—except to say that journalists such as this have no reason to complain about invective in public discourse.

“Crosshairs” in the crosshairs

The New Neo Posted on by

CNN’s John King has apologized for guest Andy Shaw’s use of the now-forbidden word “crosshairs” in describing the Chicago mayoral race.

Bravo! Let’s just ban all non-literal speech, metaphors and colorful language of any kind. Let’s ban not only guns, but even the word “gun.” Better safe than sorry.

Let’s have a competition in who is holier-than-thou in making sure that his or her words could not possibly inflame a single human being to even think of violence. Because we all know that violence comes from people hearing words such as “crosshairs.”

While we’re at it, Allahpundit makes a good point:

Am I hallucinating or didn’t this same network [CNN] once have an entire show devoted to heated political debate called ”¦ “Crossfire”? With a crosshairs logo? How did the republic survive while it was on the air?

CNN might reply that now it’s doing it’s mea culpa for that sin. It might also reply that it was really William F. Buckley, a conservative, who started it all with “Firing Line,” which was on PBS for decades. The term “firing line” refers, of course, to battle, to “the line of positions from which fire is directed at a target.” It also has a secondary meaning, “the forefront of an activity or pursuit.”

“Crosshairs” is an even more eclectic word. It indeed describes the scope in a firearm, but it actually refers to any optical device with that sort of sighting marker. The more general word is “reticle“—next on the banning list?—of which “crosshairs” is the most common and simple type.

Let’s learn what crosshairs actually means before we kiss it goodbye:

A reticle is a net of fine lines or fibers in the eyepiece of a sighting device, such as a telescope, a telescopic sight, a microscope, or the screen of an oscilloscope. The word reticle comes from the Latin “reticulum,” meaning “net.” Today, engraved lines or embedded fibers may be replaced by a computer-generated image superimposed on a screen or eyepiece. There are many variations of reticles; this article concerns itself mainly with a simple reticle: crosshairs.

Crosshairs are most commonly represented as intersecting lines in the shape of a cross, “+”, though many variations exist, including dots, posts, circles, scales, chevrons, or a combination of these. Most commonly associated with telescopic sights for aiming firearms, crosshairs are also common in optical instruments used for astronomy and surveying, and are also popular in graphical user interfaces as a precision pointer.

The word “crosshairs” has been widely used in politics till now. But it’s been newly-banned due to the MSM’s and other politicians’ need to differentiate themselves from the heinously coldblooded Sarah Palin, the only person who’s ever used it before (“we have always been at war with Eastasia”) and who obviously inspired the demented Jared Loughner to gun down 20 people in Tucson.