Category Archives: Education

Fooling Themselves

The Left’s narrative problem:

Because they basically control the mainstream media, and because they have created for themselves a fictional conservative worldview (evident in many an Aaron Sorkin project and Barack Obama speech) rather than confront the actual conservative worldview, liberals are often caught off guard when faced with an actual argument for positions they disagree with. What we’ve seen in the wake of the debate is that some on the Left are so wedded to their imaginary right-wingers that when their actual opponents advance positions or make arguments that are different from those imaginary ones they will call those actual opponents fakes and liars. They believed their own caricature of Mitt Romney, and his unwillingness to play into it strikes them as dishonest. Or put another way: Confronted with evidence of their own dishonesty about who Romney is and what he stands for, they call the evidence a lie.

It’s often been noted that the Left has trouble debating when they get in real debates, where they have to confront real arguments instead of their fantasy straw men. That’s the disaster that comes from cocooning yourself in academia or a news room where your assumptions are never challenged. Even Dana Milbank sees the problem:

Obama has set a modern record for refusal to be quizzed by the media, taking questions from reporters far less often than Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush. Though his opponent in 2008 promised to take questions from lawmakers like the British prime minister does, Obama has shied from mixing it up with members of Congress, too. And, especially since Rahm Emanuel’s departure, Obama is surrounded by a large number of yes men who aren’t likely to get in his face.

This insularity led directly to the Denver debacle: Obama was out of practice and unprepared to be challenged. The White House had supposed that Obama’s forays into social media — town hall meetings with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like — would replace traditional presidential communication. By relying on such venues, Obama’s argument skills atrophied, and he was ill-equipped to engage in old-fashioned give and take.

And unfortunately for Milbank, he’s much too optimistic about Obama’s ability to fix it in time to save the next debates, or his campaign.

Crazyfornia

A review of a frightening book:

California isn’t just a basket case, it’s a proselytizing basket case, with its environmental zealots, community organizers, and wishful economic thinkers aggressively selling their ideas to other states and to the federal government. As Laer demonstrates, while the recession is slowing the other forty-nine states from buying into California’s governing philosophy, the Obama government is an enthusiastic supporter. Another four years of Obama, and California won’t be the only bankrupt crazy place in America.

Crazifornia describes a dysfunctional state, one that can best be summed up as a banana republic governed, not by oligarchs, but by a toxic mix of environmental fascists, greedy unions, corrupt or ideology-driven legislators, and all-powerful bureaucrats. But before you get too angry at these jackals, perhaps you should reserve your wrath for the ones who truly deserve it: the California voters.

I fear the state is lost. I just hope we can contain the infection.

Chief Spreading Bull

eviscerated:

Senator Brown has targeted Mrs. Warren’s phony claims of “Indian” heritage; her $350,000-plus salary at HLS; her work for an insurance company in matters involving (yikes) asbestos; and other trivia. What he hasn’t said and probably won’t say: she is a nag. A scold. An ideologue. An advocate of a nanny state beyond a Swedish socialist’s wildest imagination. A bureaucratic Bruegel who paints an America of victims — pathetic figures in a landscape of unremitting hostility. Also, Professor Warren is an economic idiot.

That’s why the Left worships her.

[Mid-morning update]

Fauxcahontas’s legal problems return:

Professor Jacobson:

I couldn’t figure out how to leave this as a comment at your site, but I wanted to let you know ASAP that I concede that your discovery this morning answers all of my arguments and is a gamechanger. Your diligence in investigating this matter is commendable.

Regards,

Mark Thompson

Commendable indeed.