Reaganite conservatism axiomatically disdains government, and that creates a perverse incentive for conservative politicians to run government badly (or at least not to run it well), since the failure of government confirms conservative prejudices and (in theory) provides the movement with additional evidence in favor of its ideology. We just saw a particularly vivid example of this pathologically self-destructive dynamic at work in Bobby Jindal’s otherwise inexplicable attempt to turn the Bush administration’s utter ineptitude after Hurricane Katrina into a GOP talking point.
Amusingly, I didn’t get a chance to see the movie over the weekend, and found out today that it had been changed. Then again, I had crazy-low expectations.
Impeaching Obama
06-Mar-09
If you don’t follow the far-far-right, the basic context is that they (of course) want Barack Obama impeached after 45 days in office, or they want to secede from the Union, or something equally feckless. Andrew Sullivan addresses the first Hannity-flavored option:
Obama’s predecessor secretly invoked the power to suspend the First and Fourth Amendments for seven years, authorized the seizure and torture of American citizens, launched two decade-long wars of attrition, doubled the national debt, presided over the worst financial bubble since the 1930s, provided the weakest level of economic growth in decades, and left the US in the grip of the steepest depression since the 1930s. But after five weeks, it’s Obama who should be impeached? Ooookaaaay.
In related news, I have zero interest in the whole Rush/CPAC debate other than to say that his speech was impressive in its delivery and positioning. I still have no idea how conservatives square Limbaugh’s “I want President Obama to fail” charade with their (and possibly his) position of two years ago: “Criticizing the President during wartime is unpatriotic.”
I guess we’re only patriotic when our guy is in charge? Daily Kos responds, Yes, We Can.
David Simon returns to his old BPD beat
04-Mar-09
David Simon, creator of The Wire, has an article in the Washington Post about the decline of hard-hitting journalism:
Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit — these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department’s officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.
You’ll See
03-Mar-09
Yeah, yeah, posting here has been light, and I have all kinds of plans, hopes, and dreams that I want to pursue with this blog…
Moving on.
I awoke at 4 a.m. today thinking that there was a fire above me on Stringer’s Ridge. Once I gained my bearings, I realized that there was no fire. Everything was ok, and it was all in my head. I’ve been hard at work on Chattarati the last 2 weeks, and I had a series of ideas I wanted to get down before lying back down for a few more hours of shuteye.
That’s been my motus operandi as of late — having nightmares that the neighborhood is burning down, or waking up in desperate need of a shovel.