Category Archives: Political Commentary

King Corn

Rich Lowry, on the insanity of our ethanol policy:

Prior to the Civil War, southerners genuflected before King Cotton. Now, we live in an era of King Corn. It is our most heavily subsidized crop.

We will plant 90 million acres of it this year, up 15 percent from last year. Still, the price of a bushel of corn jumped from $2 to $3 in the past year, thanks to the demand for more ethanol. This is increasing the price of corn-based foods

Bring Back The “Fairness” Doctrine

That’s what Bill Clinton says he wants:

“With regard to media consolidation, the rules were relaxed too much,” Clinton said during his Million Dollar Hamptons fundraising marathon this last weekend.

“Anti-trust law should apply. I think we shouldn’t have abandoned the fairness law; if a media outlet were pushing a particular political point of view…then you had a right to demand the opposite point of view. The airwaves belong to the public, not to anybody, particularly not to Fox News.

Only one problem, Bill. Fox News doesn’t use the airwaves. It’s a cable/satellite channel. And the “scarcity” argument for regulating content never made that much sense, even with over-the-air radio and television. It was alway theoretical, and never really mattered in practice, particularly with the advent of UHF. After all, any metro, and most rural areas have multiple television and radio stations. How many major newspapers do they have? Guess it must be a newsprint scarcity.

Also, I guess he didn’t get the memo that the latest Dem talking point is that they don’t want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine–they just want more “responsibility” on the part of broadcasters. And of course, the notion of “balance” is absurd, and only makes sense to those simplistically stuck in a one-dimensional political world view, with only “left” and “right.” Most issues have more than two sides to them, on different axes.

Bring Back The “Fairness” Doctrine

That’s what Bill Clinton says he wants:

“With regard to media consolidation, the rules were relaxed too much,” Clinton said during his Million Dollar Hamptons fundraising marathon this last weekend.

“Anti-trust law should apply. I think we shouldn’t have abandoned the fairness law; if a media outlet were pushing a particular political point of view…then you had a right to demand the opposite point of view. The airwaves belong to the public, not to anybody, particularly not to Fox News.

Only one problem, Bill. Fox News doesn’t use the airwaves. It’s a cable/satellite channel. And the “scarcity” argument for regulating content never made that much sense, even with over-the-air radio and television. It was alway theoretical, and never really mattered in practice, particularly with the advent of UHF. After all, any metro, and most rural areas have multiple television and radio stations. How many major newspapers do they have? Guess it must be a newsprint scarcity.

Also, I guess he didn’t get the memo that the latest Dem talking point is that they don’t want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine–they just want more “responsibility” on the part of broadcasters. And of course, the notion of “balance” is absurd, and only makes sense to those simplistically stuck in a one-dimensional political world view, with only “left” and “right.” Most issues have more than two sides to them, on different axes.

Bring Back The “Fairness” Doctrine

That’s what Bill Clinton says he wants:

“With regard to media consolidation, the rules were relaxed too much,” Clinton said during his Million Dollar Hamptons fundraising marathon this last weekend.

“Anti-trust law should apply. I think we shouldn’t have abandoned the fairness law; if a media outlet were pushing a particular political point of view…then you had a right to demand the opposite point of view. The airwaves belong to the public, not to anybody, particularly not to Fox News.

Only one problem, Bill. Fox News doesn’t use the airwaves. It’s a cable/satellite channel. And the “scarcity” argument for regulating content never made that much sense, even with over-the-air radio and television. It was alway theoretical, and never really mattered in practice, particularly with the advent of UHF. After all, any metro, and most rural areas have multiple television and radio stations. How many major newspapers do they have? Guess it must be a newsprint scarcity.

Also, I guess he didn’t get the memo that the latest Dem talking point is that they don’t want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine–they just want more “responsibility” on the part of broadcasters. And of course, the notion of “balance” is absurd, and only makes sense to those simplistically stuck in a one-dimensional political world view, with only “left” and “right.” Most issues have more than two sides to them, on different axes.

Flawed Argument

In a long and ongoing discussion on (now proven) fabulist Private Beauchamp over at Winds of Change, the topic drifts to Rathergate.

However, one fake document which claimed things that were almost certainly true, was widely regarded to somehow prove they were false because that document itself was fake. Very twisted logic there.

I must have missed that. Maybe someone somewhere argued that this proved that Bush wasn’t AWOL, but I don’t recall ever seeing such an argument.

But then, I never had a strong opinion on whether or not Bush was AWOL (and still don’t). Furthermore, I never much cared, because Bush has always said that when he was young and stupid, he was young and stupid, and he (unlike John Kerry) wasn’t running on his youthful military record–he was running on his more-recent record as president.

Frankly, what was so funny to me about the thing was that the people who were pushing the “Bush is AWOL” story thought that it would damage him with his base, when in fact they were the only people who gave a rat’s patoot (and then only because of the political damage they thought it could do to their enemy, not because they have any intrinsic problems with soldiers going AWOL–many of them would probably laud that in general). It’s the same mentality that causes them to “out” gay Republicans.

What Rathergate proved to me was that some supposedly objective journalists were willing to fabricate, or overlook the fabrication of, documents to support their political agenda, just weeks before an election. It also proved to me that they were idiots. I think that there’s very sound logic behind that.