Category Archives: Journalism

UPDATE II: Winning A Battle Of Wits With A Half-Wit (The Vicarious Pleasure Principle)

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Democrats, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Journalism, Liberty, Republicans, The State

The current column, now on WND, is “Winning A Battle Of Wits With A Half Wit.” An excerpt:

“It was hard not to feel sorry for President Barack Obama during what was the first of three presidential debates. The dejected demeanor and the perpetually lowered gaze conjured an unprepared student peppered by a pedantic teacher with questions he could not possibly answer.

The president’s pose spoke to the beating he was receiving at the hands of his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney.

Obama campaigner Chris Matthews—a proxy for this president, who cloaks himself in the raiment of a newsman—demanded to know: Why was Obama staring down at his “notes” and scribbling? What was he waiting for?

To describe what Gov. Romney had done in the course of the 90-minute debate, Matthews, who possesses a nimble intelligence his candidate is without, reached for wild man Charlie Sheen’s zinger: ‘What was Romney doing? Winning!’

Moderator Jim Lehrer is an old-school newsman who has never in the course of a long and distinguished career revealed his own political bias. Now the pack men of the media were piling on the PBS anchor for not controlling the debate’s outcome, and for allowing a free to-and-fro between the men.

And since Mitt won hands down; the moderator must have been bad. Or so goes the loser’s lackluster logic. Never mind that reasoning backward is an error in logic. So how does post hoc ergo propter hoc work? Had Obama won the debate under the same emcee’s minimal intervention, Lehrer would have been lauded. …

… Also at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow provided the ultimate rationalization which her co-hosts on the network and elsewhere quickly embraced. ‘The presidency spoils your ability to be a good debater.’

‘In psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses) is an unconscious defense mechanism,’ writes Wikipedia. It is intended to shield the fragile ego from reality.

Like Maddow, presidential hagiographer Douglas Brinkley took cover from real life on Fox News’ ‘Cavuto.’ The yang to Lincoln idolator Doris Kearns Goodwin’s yin, Brinkley diminished Romney’s intellectual victory by applying that most stringent historical test to the governor’s performance: It was without a Reaganesque zinger. Obama, however, had not damaged his brand, claimed Brinkley. He was still a gifted ‘retail politician.’ (Read community organizer.) …

… Make no mistake; should he succeed in vanquishing Obama, come Nov. 6, Romney’s brand of “repeal-and-replace statism”—not to mention maniacal militarism and Sinophobia—will be no victory for liberty. …

Read the complete column, “Winning A Battle Of Wits With A Half Wit,” on WND.

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UPDATED I: The Vicarious Pleasure Principle. Even if you dislike the philosophy of both men (which exists on the same illiberal continuum), there is some vicarious pleasure in watching the one who has caused you such unhappiness whipped good and proper.

UPDATE II: IN HIS excellent column about Romney’s creaming of Obama, Pat Buchanan also draws on the boxing and school teacher metaphors.

Pat calls Obama’s “performance one of the worst in debate history,” and Romney’s “the finest debate performance of any candidate of either party in the 52 years since Richard Nixon faced John F. Kennedy, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan’s demolition of Jimmy Carter in 1980.”

‘Tomorrow’s Headlines Today’

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Intelligence, Journalism, Media, Reason

It matter not how well or how poorly Mitt Romney performs in Wednesday night’s “first of three presidential debates.” On the morrow, the headlines the media scrum will run with will approximate these:

• “Romney tries to match BHO’s hipness, but sounds hollow.” (That is if Mitt dares to crack a joke. And Romney IS funny.)
• “Once again, Romney attempts to connect but falls flat.” (That is if if Mitt mentions any of life’s travails, or if he makes a logical argument, instead of sticking to emotions, as BHO does so well.

On and on. It’s tiresome.

Why don’t you have at it? Write “Tomorrow’s Headlines Today.” Pretend you too are a pre-programed journo pack animal.

Remember, it’s all for the love of Obama.

UPDATED: ‘The Child’ Was Not Born In A Barn & Was No Brainiac (The Belated ‘Scoop’)

Barack Obama, Education, History, Intelligence, Journalism, Media

He was a child of privilege, not of hardship. He lived in Jakarta’s most exclusive suburb. His white grandmother—whom he once tarred with the taint of racism and with whom he lived in Hawaii—was a bank vice president. She sent him to an exclusive private school. Later on he was a shoo-in at Columbia and Harvard Law School. During his 12 years as a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Law School, his student-approval ratings were low. In fact, he was one of the lowest ranked professors in his last 5 years at the university. As we already know, “The Child,” Barack Obama, left no record of legal scholarly writings.

Four years after his election—and a week since CNN’s Jessica Yellin revealed nothing but her own adoration in “Obama Revealed,” an agonizing hour with the president—the Washington Examiner investigates. The belated report will be out tomorrow.

Via Fox News:

UPDATE (9/20): As promised, The Obama You Don’t Know, a belated ‘scoop’ by The Washington Examiner.

For the Love of Obama

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Elections 2008, Journalism, Media, Republicans, Socialism, Taxation, The State, Welfare

Speaking to “a group of his wealthier Golden State backers at a San Francisco fund-raiser,” on a Sunday in April 2008, one presidential candidate slimes small-town America as bitterly clinging to their guns, bigotries and bibles. The media listens in, but decides to keep a lid on the rant, because, in the words of a reporter who like the rest was rooting for the candidate, she “didn’t want to bring down the campaign.”

Four years later, another presidential candidate states a few plain facts about an electorate of which “47 percent ‘will vote for [Obama] no matter what’; “who are with him,” no matter what, “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it”; who regard as an”entitlement” the fruits of another man’s labor, and think “government should give it to them,” and who “will vote for this president no matter what… people who pay no income tax.”

The same reporters who refused to pull back the curtain to reveal Obama’s contempt for small town Pennsylvania are hyperventilating over Mitt Romney’s unvarnished assessment of a large portion of the Democratic Party’s constituency.

One is, seemingly, forbidden to point out that while some people work for their living, others vote for their livelihood.

Thankfully, Romney is not groveling, this time, but simply affirming the figures and his,

concern about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government, including the record number of people who are on food stamps, nearly one in six Americans in poverty, and the 23 million Americans who are struggling to find work.