CSotD: Rah Rah Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah!
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Christopher Weyant captures the moment in a way that, as the fellows say, seems a sign of how bad things have become.
There have been a lot of “but I hate her” comments coming from the left about Liz Cheney’s past record, and they’re as much a sign of our societal cancer as those equally vehement comments from the right, hating her because she wouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid.
Expo ’67 in Montreal opened about the time I graduated from high school, and, on the way home, I was reading a booklet the Soviet Union was handing out at their pavilion, recapping their history on their 50th anniversary.
I remarked with scorn that they were taking credit for having beaten Hitler, and my father — a veteran of the European Theater — expressed surprise that I didn’t know about their contribution to the war effort. But it had never really come up in our history classes.
His generation certainly knew about it. Dorman Smith even ran a cartoon on the topic in 1944, as the Red Army was closing in.
But all we ever heard on the topic were humorous threats on Hogan’s Heroes about Colonel Klink being sent to the Eastern Front.
Perhaps if we’d learned more complete history, we’d now be able to process the idea that you don’t have to be BFFs to make common cause against a greater threat.
Our relationship with Stalin was never particularly chummy to begin with, and it certainly came to a screeching halt as soon as the war was over, in part because of his post-war actions in Eastern Europe and in part because we never liked the son of a bitch in the first place.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” was never meant to be taken literally, but it’s a good summation of practical politics, similar to “Any port in a storm” or the notion that a drowning man will clutch at straws in hopes they’ll keep him afloat.
The pure among us would rather drown. And perhaps we will.
David Horsey criticizes the progressive wing that, having decided Biden is a failure, refuses to reassess his record, but the accusation is problematic: There are many in the Democratic party who think he’s done an excellent job but, in view of his age, should step aside for 2024, while, at least in my carefully curated social media feed, there seems to have been a downturn in whining recently.
It probably doesn’t matter whether it’s because they see the things he’s accomplished or because, in the wake of Dobbs, they recognize a greater threat, but there seems to be more organizing than complaining going on.
And I’m not sure what it all means anyway. I was listening to All Things Considered in the car last night and they went on for far too long about a new video game that’s all the rage. I was wishing you could fast-forward live radio, but also wondering how much my lack of interest was because I’m an Old Boomer and don’t care, and how much was because by the time things like this hit the major media, they’re over.
When I was young and hip, after all, we used to read Time Magazine and roll on the floor.
At the moment, however, the problem is not that the MSM is trying to be hip but that too many people are seeing the world through their team colors, which brings us to this
Juxtaposition of the Day
An interesting collection of blind men assessing the elephant.
Granlund and Smith are right about Trump’s ability to make his shenanigans the story, though I find it very hard to sympathize with Granlund’s claim that poor Ron DeSantis isn’t getting any coverage.
Maybe that’s my own loyalties: I like children, teachers, historic accuracy and fairness, so I probably notice attacks on those things. And that a lot of commentators are touting DeSantis as the GOP’s best bet for president in 2024.
Smith’s accusation is more problematic, because — aside from Zuckerberg’s penchant for playing with the algorithms — what rises to the top of the feed tends to be what people have been clicking on. Whether the media flocks to Trump because he’ll give them juicy stories or the public jumps on his stories because they’re juicy gets into chicken-and-egg territory.
Though, going back to that video game coverage, if Newsweek had run a story saying kids were shaving their heads and painting them green, I had an editor who would have ordered me to “localize it” by finding some dumbass who had read Newsweek and decided to shave his head and paint it green. I wish I were joking.
Still, I can’t find any justification for Kirk Walters’ accusation of fawning beyond the notion that he’s on this team and Biden is on that team, so that he counts every whistle as a sign either of the referee’s fabulous insights or utter dishonesty.
Those on Team Biden may have a better argument that the press has been damning his accomplishments with faint praise, headlining them not as victories but in terms of how they will (mostly won’t) impact the failing popularity levels that are an established baseline for coverage of his administration.
Which may be my own loyalties, but, then again
One conclusion is that approval ratings ought not to be taken all that seriously. The other is that any president who takes them seriously should probably start a war somewhere.
Or perhaps the press should obey that edict that, if one person says it’s raining and another person says it’s sunny, the job of the journalist is not to report them both equally, but to look out the damn window.
For instance, Ann Telnaes is no more willing to accept the dubious, shifting explanations of Trump and his minions than your parents would accept that some guy just asked you to hold his bag of marijuana for him.
Except that some parents would.
As Tom the Dancing Bug explains, it’s not about logic, common sense or the plain evidence in front of your face.
It’s about loyalty.
That’s the true mark of character.
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