"He’s the president of the United States. You don’t say, 'You’ll get your chance.'"

"I don’t think [Romney] understands the Constitution of the United States," fretted Chris Matthews, analyzing the second debate performance with James Lipton, the "Inside the Actor’s Studio" guy.

Why not have an acting expert analyze the performances? It is theater, isn't it? And, if it's theater, how does Obama play the role of the President, and how does Romney play the role of The Man Who Would Be President, speaking to the man who is President? How to embody presidentialness, when presidentiality currently resides in that other man, who's treading the boards with you?

I don't know why Matthews dragged in some half-assed law stuff when he had the acting expert there. Bring on a law professor if you want to do that.

"How are your passions...?"/"I am bloody elated."

Chris Matthews/Andrew Sullivan.

Josh Marshall says Cory Booker did not make a gaffe.

Is Booker in this for himself? Are media folk like David Gregory actually conservative when it comes to financial matters?

ADDED: Chris Matthews accuses Booker of "sabotage" and "betrayal."

AND: Ana Marie Cox endorses Obama's "vampire" metaphor:

[I]t's pretty accurate: private equity firms exist to squeeze liquidity out of companies, then syphon off that profit to investors. The metaphor works on a deeper level as well. Just as with vampires, Americans are morbidly fascinated by hyperbolic success. We have an uneasy relationship with late, post-bailout capitalism: it's sexy, it's parasitical, it's dangerous, it's the product of unseen forces, it carries the promise of immortality at the cost of one's soul.

 Let's remember Booker's word: nauseating.  That appeal to emotion and unreason — seen vividly in Cox — is nauseating.

Chris Matthews on Barack Obama: "He doesn't like the company of fellow politicians."

This was on "Meet the Press" this morning. David Gregory was asking Matthews about his statement that "Obama is a `transactional' politician; he cuts deals with people, but he doesn't forge bonds. When is he going to bolster this political forces? I keep waiting." Matthews comments:

I know. And he doesn't like the company of fellow politicians. You have to like their company. This forging of bonds is essential in politics. It's what I always thought politics was....

Jack Kennedy started to accumulate troops in high school, when he was in the Navy. He saved the lives of 10 crewmen. They, they looked up to him. He went out and risked his life in the, in the middle of the South Pacific to save their lives. He looked out for his troops. That... word like that gets around. "Hey, this guy looks out for his troops."

The Kennedy party, which my old boss, Tip O'Neill, recognized was a unique party of people that looked out for one guy: Jack Kennedy. And he was their hero. They wore the tie clasp from the PT 109 days. They fought for him, they died for him, they killed his enemies for him. Bobby Kennedy was the number one enforcer. Who is Barack Obama's Bobby Kennedy?...

[JFK]  had to create a political party which was loyal to one person, him. And he built it from the ground up. Obama cuts deals. He raises money, he makes people ambassador, he does all the normal things. But there's no, there's no sealing there.

The reference to making people ambassador is a reference to Jon Huntsman (who was on the show earlier). Matthews imagines Obama's thoughts on the subject: "I made you ambassador to the most important country in the world, and you come back and run against me in the same term?"

In the same vein, Matthews compared Obama to the Clintons:

There are more Clinton people out there today than there are Obama people. Today they're ready to move. If Hillary calls up and says, "I'm going," I mean they're there. She won't do it, but of course. But, I mean, it's--but they're ready....

Chris Matthews feels something "big" and "hard" and "bad" and it's Rick Perry.

Chris Matthews. I know. Why am I even listening? I didn't listen to the MSNBC commentary after the debate. (I immediately switched over to the Brewers game.) But I did turn on the recorded commentary this morning as I was making coffee, and I heard this overheated rant about Rick Perry. This is my transcription of Matthews chattering:

It's real: this man's absolute opposition to scientific information. The thought that this country would elect or seriously consider electing someone who stands out there and says I don't accept science on climate change and clearly doesn't want to study it any further. I think that's the big, hard, bad news for the Republican Party. Their front-runner, tonight, seemed to be anti-science and this country has to win the battle of science in the world against China and India and the other [something] countries. If we give up on science, if we get the image of being a yahoo country, a monkey-business country, we got a real problem in terms of our national identity and this fellow we're looking at right now is leading the charge, the luddite charge against modern technology and modern information. So I think that's the hard, bad news for the Republican party.

So Mr. Science there — the man whose leg felt a thrill when he heard Barack Obama — says "big, hard, bad" and "hard, bad" when he sees Rick Perry. I'd say Matthews is scared. He's spewing emotion. But he would like us to believe he's devoted to science! A burbling bundle of emotion attempts to embody seriousness about science. It's absurd.

What is a "monkey-business country"? Did some notion of the "monkey trial" flitter through his flickering brain? Perry said nothing about evolution, but whatever. He seemed "anti-science" to Matthews, and Matthews opened up his anti-science floodgate and "monkey-business country" popped out, along with "yahoo" and "luddite," which are also rattling around in the same word bin in the mind of Matthews.

Let's look at the transcript and try to inject a little reality into the Matthews word-mush. John Harris of Politico has just asked Jon Huntsman — Jon Meade Huntsman Jr. — which of his fellow Republicans has been "saying crazy or inane things." Huntsman demurs. Harris tries again: "You yourself have said the party is in danger of becoming anti- science. Who on this stage is anti-science?" Huntsman says:

Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I'm saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science. We can't run from mainstream conservative philosophy. We've got to win voters.

Odd that "We can't run from mainstream conservative philosophy" and "We've got to win voters" followed the notion that "we can't run from science." Does he think it's difficult to be scientific and conservative? Anyway, Huntsman's main point is that if Republicans aren't scientific, it will "turn people off" and they won't win. That's about science, but not about the devotion to science. It's just a pragmatic statement about winning elections.

Harris turns to Rick Perry, even though Huntsman didn't name Perry (as Harris, obviously, had hoped). Harris doesn't pick up the evolution thread, but he asks Perry about "climate change": "You said that weekly and even daily, scientists are coming forward to question the idea that human activity is behind climate change. Which scientists have you found most credible on this subject?" Of course, Perry doesn't name any scientists. He says:

Well, I do agree that there is -- the science is -- is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans' economy at -- at -- at jeopardy based on scientific theory that's not settled yet, to me, is just -- is nonsense. I mean, it -- I mean -- and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.

But the fact is, to put America's economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics and I will suggest to you is not necessarily good science. Find out what the science truly is before you start putting the American economy in jeopardy.

Now, that's just not anti-science. Perry resists signing on to the opinion of the experts who portray themselves as the scientific consensus, but he didn't say he "clearly doesn't want to study [climate change] any further," which is the way Chris Matthews characterized his remarks. Perry said he wanted accurate science and more science — especially when it is the basis for proposals that would have a "monstrous economic impact."

Citing statistics showing success improving air quality in Texas, Perry says:

That's the way you need to do it, not by some scientist somewhere saying, "Here is what we think is happening out there." The fact of the matter is, the science is not settled on whether or not the climate change is being impacted by man to the point where we're going to put America's economics in jeopardy.

That's not anti-science. That is a practical man setting a high burden of proof about the degree to which science must be "settled" where the effect on the economy is severe. You may disagree on the question of how settled the science is, but that doesn't make him anti-science.

Matthews, brought on to analyze the debate, seems barely to have heard what Perry actually said. He simply unleashed a torrent of words around the subject of science and tried to scare people — if anyone was still watching — about this yahoo monkeyman Perry.

"When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success..."

"... to make him feel like our hero, he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. These days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need."

Something Dr. Laura said back in 2008... about Eliot Spitzer.

What reminded me of it? Something Chris Matthews said about Anthony Weiner's wife Huma Abedin: "But maybe she’s party responsible if she knew about it?"

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky tries, embarrassingly, to say what Chris Matthews wants her to say...

... and comes out with 2 idiotically phrased comments:



1. Trying to criticize Republicans for wanting to see the photos of dead bin Laden, she unwittingly refers to the killing as "murder."

2. Having just portrayed Republicans who want to see the photos as somehow engaging in "chest-thumping," she expresses approval of the young people who celebrated the killing, because it was important for them, psychologically, to get to feel like "a winner" and not "a loser."

I'm not sure I want to be too hard on Schakowsky, because she seems, quite frankly, dumb. But it's a dumbness exacerbated by a ridiculous awe of Matthews and a desire to please him. Good lord, who watches that show?

Chris Matthews on the tsunami: "Was this sort of a good opportunity for the president to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii?"

Incredible!



Rush Limbaugh predicted it.

"Any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious..."

There's a dispute in Malawi over whether that language, in a criminal statute, outlaws farting.

Hey, that remind me of an old story about George Bush:

What the President thinks of the use of weird words. Having just expounded on the use of strange words, I especially enjoyed this extract--in Slate's always appreciated we-read-this-so-you-don't-have-to series--from Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack":

Page 186: Bush aide Nick Calio declares his intention to vitiate a congressional filibuster. Bush says, "Nicky, what the f**k are you talking about, vitiate?"

More on the inadvisability of using the word "vitiate" here. As for farting in public, I've only written about it before in connection with Saul Alinsky and Chris Matthews. And here's that wonderful George Carlin routine.

A thrill went up Chris Matthew's other leg.

"Josh Marshall, I'm falling in love with you."

Was Issa just "pandering to Rush Limbaugh" when he called Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times"?

That's not the way Rush Limbaugh sees it:

[L]ast Sunday morning on CNN's State of the Union, fill-in host Ed Henry and Darrell Issa [the new House Oversight Government Reform Committee chairman] have this exchange about Issa's remarks about Obama on my show back in October.
HENRY: Right before the election you went on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. You have since said you regret saying that --

ISSA: I corrected what I meant to say. You know, on live radio with Rush going back and forth -- and, by the way, that was because Rush had me on to answer the question of about coming together, having compromise. He didn't like the compromise word when I said, we're gonna agree to disagree and then we're gonna find the kind of common ground, the kind of compromise that makes and gets things done. In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there, when you hand out a trillion dollars in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, a trillion dollars, nearly, in stimulus that this president asked for plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect....

RUSH: So here's Issa trying to walk all this back. Now, just to set the record straight, I have no problem with Congressman Issa, literally no problem. He called the program wanting to get on. He called and wanted to get on to set something straight, to correct something I had said.... I was mad at him over compromise is sort of right. But when I hear Republicans say, "We want to work together to get things done," with any liberal Democrat, particularly Obama, red flags go up. There's no working with these guys. There's beating these guys, which happened in November. And what's going on now is an attempt to erase that, the fact that there was a big win. The mainstream media is trying to erase that fact. So Sunday morning on Face the Nation, the fill-in host was Harry Smith, and he talked to Darrell Issa and they had this exchange again about Issa on my radio program in October.

SMITH: I want to go back to something you told Rush Limbaugh not so long ago that you thought President Obama's one of the most corrupt presidents in modern history --

ISSA: But you know I walked -- I walked -- I walked back very quickly and said it's about the money the administration has had in a loose fashion. It's more about Congress' mistake in funding.

SMITH: Okay, 'cause my question was, do you think the Obama administration is corrupt?

ISSA: Time and time again what we've seen with the Obama administration is they played fast and loose with the walking-around money Congress gave 'em.

RUSH: Congressman Issa, look, I have no business here to be handing out advice, but no matter what you do, sir, they're gonna hate you. No matter what you do they're gonna twist and turn what you say. I mean this happened in October and they couldn't have cared less. Now it's January, it's the eve of you guys being sworn in and you assuming the chairmanship, and now all of a sudden you are some reprobate. Well, you're always gonna be a reprobate to these people in the media. There's nothing you can say. It's not worth trying to tie yourself in knots, congressman, to please 'em because it isn't gonna happen, you are the enemy. It's like I told the freshman class in 1994, "The media doesn't like the fact that you won. They're not happy you're here. They're not gonna treat you like winners. They're not gonna afford you the respect that they offer people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz or other B players. They're not gonna afford you any respect at all. They are gonna try to humiliate you, embarrass you, and try to get you to take back things that you meant, that you said, through intimidation or what have you. So you may as well just say what you think."

There's no question this administration's corrupt. Why do they care about it all of a sudden? They fear somebody's out to prove it, and actually do more than prove it, to actually act on it. Here's Margaret Carlson last night with Maude Behar on the Headline News channel. Maude Behar said, "What's he up to, Issa? Is he looking for a little time in the sun or something trying to improve his image in his party, what's going on here?"

CARLSON: In fairness to Congressman Issa, he was bullied by Rush Limbaugh when he said the thing about corruption, and no Republican wants to go up against Rush Limbaugh. Even if you have an investigatory commission, you are nothing compared to Rush Limbaugh, and they all know it.

RUSH: Okay, there we have it. So he was bullied by me. He has an excuse, you see. If he'll just change his mind, if he'll just walk it back, they'll let him get away with having it blamed on me, that I bullied him into saying something he doesn't really believe, that I, a harmless lovable little fuzzball, El Rushbo, on the radio intimidated a congressional committee chairman. And as long as he flies with that, then they'll give him a pass. Here's Chris Matthews last night on Hardball, just to show you the template that's been created here.

MATTHEWS: When you say "the most corrupt government," you are pandering to Rush Limbaugh. That's not true. This president's clean.

RUSH: (laughing) And articulate. You forgot articulate.

"Would you ever in your wildest dreams imagine Chris Matthews flatteringly comparing Sarah Palin to former President Bill Clinton?"

Noel Sheppard asks before speculating:

Are Obama-loving press members trying to orchestrate an outcome by giving an abundance of attention to the person they hope Obama will face in November 2012?

That's basically what they did in 2008, he notes.

But the press liked McCain, I think, because he was relatively liberal. Palin isn't. Palin is good at getting all the attention, and I worry that it will prevent better candidates from getting the early support they need to survive the caucuses and primaries.

As for Chris Matthews, I suspect he's just desperate for ratings and knows how many viewers he could get if Sarah would bring her celebrity-power to his little show.

What media characters are repositioning out in front of today's elections?

Well, there's Chris Matthews, who suddenly finds Obama to be a big old "elitist"....



... and Bill "Proud Westerner" Maher:



("[I'm] someone who believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not.")

"When this debate ends, you will notice that I will not be shaking his hand tonight."

Rand Paul:



ADDED: Jonathan Chait, a commentator with no affinity for conservatives, writes:

The ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year may be this one, from Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway:

... The trouble with Conway's ad is that it comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office. That's a pretty sickening premise for a Democratic campaign.

Consider that the ad has more to do with the question of whether Rand is weird than whether he's irreligious. But, ironically, Conway has made himself seem creepy for throwing all this crap at the screen.

AND: Conway stammers through an attempted explanation of his ad:



AND: Here's a montage of nastiness:

What it was really like in that Chilean mine.

Surprisingly different from what I'd pictured:

The men... were not confined to the “rescue chamber,” the size of a Manhattan studio apartment...

“They had the run of the mine,” said Jeffery H. Kravitz, acting director for technical support at the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration. With half a mile of tunnels open, he said, “they had places to exercise and to use for waste.” One miner ran several miles a day.

“They even had a sort of waterfall they could take a shower under,” Mr. Kravitz said. “They requested shampoo, and shaved for their families.”

Also, fresh air was pumped in, so asphyxiation was never a danger.... The air was nearly 90 degrees and humid, but it contained about 20 percent oxygen, like outside air. The men dug three wells, and had potable water....

Eventually, all sorts of comfort goods were going down three narrow tubes: dismantled camp beds, clean clothes, letters, movies, dominoes, tiny Bibles, toothbrushes, skin creams. The smokers were first allowed only gum and nicotine patches, but doctors eventually relented and let 40 cigarettes a day go down.

The tubes also accommodated fiber optic cables and, by the end, each miner was getting a daily video consultation with a doctor. They also had jobs to do, including reinforcing walls and clearing debris from the rescue drills.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews is an idiot:

If the trapped Chilean miners had subscribed to the tea party’s “every-man-for-himself” philosophy, “they would have been killing each other after about two days,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews said on his “Hardball” show Wednesday night....

"You know these people, if they were every man for himself down in that mine, they wouldn't have gotten out.... They would have been killing each other after about two days.”

What that shows is that Matthews — in stereotypical liberal fashion — has forgotten the way private individuals cooperate and help each other. The government and only the government must be the source of all beneficence. If you don't want the government to solve all your problems, you must think you and everyone else can be 100% self-reliant.

ADDED: I've seen some people defending Chris Matthews. First, they ignore the part where he predicts the miners would just start killing each other. Then, they assert with smug confidence that the government saved the miners. They are wrong: The rescue took place the way it did because of the Center Rock drill bit — "a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit."

"'Look at the steam in the man’s stride!' exclaimed Chris Matthews."

Frank Rich gushes by quoting Chris Matthews gushing about what amazing man Barack Obama is.

But "Look at the steam in the man’s stride!"? Now, we know all about Matthews and the "thrill going up my leg." And now here he is getting all excited about Obama's striding legs. But what's with "the steam." Do you really want people to perceive gusts blowing out as you walk? It's a rather... farty image, isn't it?

But the idea is how powerful and confident Obama seems these days. That's what Rich is talking about. And I'm thinking, is that the origin of the phrase "full of beans"?

***

This post would be so much better  if I could find a video clip of the great George Carlin demonstrating walking and farting.

Sometimes a watermelon is just a watermelon.

Poor Dan Rather. Don't you feel sorry for him? Look at the ridicule:

"[H]e couldn't sell watermelons to" who?  A state trooper?  He couldn't sell watermelons on a highway?  Yeah, the rest of it is "if a state trooper is flagging down the traffic on a highway, Obama couldn't sell watermelons," and Chris Matthews says, "Well, whoa! (muttering) I didn't think you meant that."  I'll tell you (laughing) from Massa describing Rahm Emanuel walking in a House shower with no curtains stark naked poking him in the chest and yelling at him about health care, to Dan Rather saying Obama "couldn't sell watermelons on a highway with a state trooper flagging down traffic," (laughing) I'm telling you, folks, they are falling apart. (interruption) No, it's no longer Black History Month.  If this had happened Black History Month, Oh.  Well, I don't know the menu was still up there or not, but this is hilarious.  Dan Rather! (laughing) "He couldn't sell watermelons..."  (laughing)...

... [Y]eah, some of you have written me notes.  "Don't you understand that Rather is saying this is what Republicans would say?" Of course he said Republicans are going to say this.  It doesn't matter.  Republicans have not said it.  Dan Rather did.

Now, you know darned well that if the racial slur conventionally perceived in "watermelons" had flashed through Dan Rather's still-flickering brain, he wouldn't have indulged in that particular Southernism. Rather has been dribbling Southernisms for decades and his enablers have petted him affectionately for being so darned sweet and cute and down-home. I'm sure this one was just a way of expressing the notion of incompetence — quite apart from race. It's meant to conjure up an image of someone unable to sell something that people really love even under really favorable selling conditions. The state troopers are there because you're supposed to picture the roadside stand, where the popular product alone is normally enough to lure drivers to stop. The troopers are providing even more help. They're flagging people down. That's all Rather meant. People are going to say Obama can't get anything done. That's it. If he'd have thought about race, he'd have censored "watermelons."

So I'll give Dan Rather a pass. But if we give Dan Rather a pass for the accidental appearance of racism, will anyone who isn't liberal be given a pass? I know they won't. That's the way it is.

Why racial attitudes that helped Barack Obama will hurt Bobby Jindal.

Christopher Orr struggles to explain:

Both Obama and Jindal are at the geeky end of the spectrum among American politicians. But Obama's race cuts against this persona, and makes him "cool" in a way (however studiously achieved) it's hard to envision a comparably wonky white politician being perceived. As Michelle noted in her essay on the subject:

Biracial heritage aside, Obama is a black man. And, in this country, black men have long had the edge on cool.... [A]s a thought exercise, imagine Obama as a white politician. Wonky, overeducated, idealistic, unflappable, reform-minded, big into basketball, articulate but without the lyrical echoes of the African American pulpit -- far from being brother cool, Obama would be ex-senator turned failed presidential candidate Bill Bradley.

So while Jindal may not face the same radical-black-guy stereotypes as Obama, neither will he benefit from the same cool-black-guy stereotypes. If anything, the common stereotypes of Asian-Americans -- as earnest strivers who may be a little nerdy -- could exacerbate Jindal's already wonky self-presentation. When Ace of Spades (exactly the kind of conservative id figure Jindal will want to impress if he runs for the GOP nomination at some point) says that last night the Louisiana governor reminded him of "Achmad, Jaglesh, Clayton, etc., in Animal House," the ethnic geek stereotype is hard to miss. And that could be an issue in a nation where seven of the last eight presidential elections have been won by the candidate widely perceived as cooler, more likable, more popular: Reagan, Reagan, Clinton, Clinton, Bush (arguably primarily for these reasons), Bush, and Obama. (I consider the 1988 election a draw in terms of uncoolness.)

To be clear, I'm not trying to indulge these stereotypes. But it would be silly to pretend they don't exist in the minds of a non-trifling number of voters. Now, if Jindal gives many more national speeches as bad as last night's, his ethnicity won't make any difference. (The fact that he's been most widely compared to Kenneth of "30 Rock" is a nice indicator of Americans' ability to see beyond skin color.) Moreover, for a number of reasons I think it would be a great thing for the GOP, and the country, if Jindal were his party's nominee for president in 2012 or (more likely) 2016. But he may have a trickier path than some of his fans imagine.

Okay, there's a lot going on here, and I will leave some of this open for discussion and respond to what you have to say, but let me sketch out a few points.

1. "Cool" is a cop-out word. It's a word to make racism cute and safe. It's a word white people manipulate black people with: Come, bring your coolness, just the part of what we think of as blackness that makes us feel cool, but don't be whatever it is that we find excessive and fail to perceive as cool. Soothe us appropriately and you can be successful. You can even be President. Look! President Barack Obama! Yay! Aren't we cool? How terribly embarrassing.

2. Nerdiness, done right, is endearing. We might even call it cool. Orr suggests that white people warm up to the black nerd — Obama as Urkel — but not to the "South Asian" one, because there are just so darn many South Asian nerds. Do white people have ideas about the appropriate nerd proportion in the various racial/ethic groups? Are white people ashamed of themselves?

3. Comparing Jindal to Kenneth of "30 Rock" is not a nice indicator of Americans' ability to see beyond skin color. Quite the opposite! Instinctively repainting him white is — I would say — presumptively racial. To strip away his racial identity — to stereotype him as an especially white white man — is a powerful racial move. This is not nice at all. I would really like to know what makes white people so sure they are being nice about racial things. This confidence in niceness is misplaced, yet very very common....

4. .... in liberals. Liberals believe they are the good people with the good beliefs, the good hearts. Especially about race. How could it be otherwise? They are so nice and so good-hearted. And Bobby Jindal is not a liberal. He's a conservative. That's not good. That's bad. Bad, bad Bobby Jindal. Quick! Help me think of all the ways Bobby Jindal is just terrible. Ack! Don't look at him! He's horrible! I can barely stand to look at him. When he first emerges from behind a curtain, I moan "Oh, God." This is terrible. This is automatically horrible. A man of color, who is not supporting our side. One look and I am disgusted. How loathsome!

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian writes:

Reading Orr's piece in The New Republic was a painful experience, although an informative one. It's a terrifyingly illustrative model of the racial psychopathology still endemic in the American psyche. In bringing about the absolutely necessary and noble goals of the early Civil Rights Movement, it was necessary to change the way people thought about the issue of race. Unfortunately this mental change quickly developed into a complicated neurotic knot that still strangles so many contemporary minds.

If you reread the article, it's not really about anything at all. It's just a tortured attempt to justify the author's political biases by attaching politics to race. The political discourse (for lack of a better word) in America today is yet another manifestation of the primitive force behind racism, sexism, xenophobia &c: us vs. them. Terrible to see racial and political bigotry merge, but it looks like that's where we're headed.

Liberals believe they are the good people with the good beliefs, the good hearts. Especially about race. How could it be otherwise? They are so nice and so good-hearted.

A good point about some liberals. They believe that it's entirely self-evident that they are the good guys. They sometimes seem to believe that this gives them license to say the most dreadful and stupid things because, after all, their hearts are in the right place. I've had friends express the most unspeakably offensive ideas to me under the assumption that they had immunity from responsibility because they were liberals.

It's like that scene in "Annie Hall":

Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.

Alvy: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.

Which MSNBC character muttered "Oh, God" contemptuously as Bobby Jindal sauntered out to speak last night?

Olbermann?

UPDATE: Chris Thrill-Up-My-Leg Matthews confesses... with an explanation: "I was taken aback by that peculiar stagecraft, the walking from somewhere in the back of this narrow hall, this winding staircase looming there, the odd anti-bellum [sic] look of the scene. Was this some mimicking of a president walking along the state floor to the East Room?" So... stagecraft, eh? As if stagecraft is absurd and grandiose for a person who is not yet President.

***

"The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media."

According to Forbes.

***

"I noticed their list was heavy on bloggers. Perhaps to get hits and links."

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian says:

Lol. Maureen Dowd? Chris Matthews? Ezra Klein? Oprah?

That's all they've got?

With a couple of notable exceptions, that's a pretty laughable list. But this is Forbes and these are "liberals", so to be expected.

Glenn Greenwald? The world's most effluvious expeller of turgid prose? Well the list is "influential" liberals, not necessarily "talented" liberals.

"The pre-eminent liberal commentator in the American media, his prose is as pungent as his academic credentials are impeccable."

Pungent. Just like a slab of runny French cheese, only not as good on baguettes.