Thursday, March 8, 2012

Chewbacca's Brother Sets the Record Straight


Chewbacca Bozell’s little brother, L., still hasn't graduated from playground taunts. This was demonstrated in a letter he wrote to CNN host Piers Morgan regarding CNN's and the other librul media's coverage of Rush Limbaugh's 453rd gaffe. Basically, his letter can be boiled down to this: “Neener-neener you got no wiener”.

Whew. Why, you may ask, does L. resort to such childish playground retorts. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of a recessive conservative gene. Maybe it's because the kids in his neighborhood once tied him to a tree and left him. Nobody likes a tattletail.

Anyway, L.'s defense of the indefensible Limbaugh centers around this: Rushie-pooh has apologized why doesn’t the liberal media go after Bill Maher? I’ll let you read the self-aggrandizing letter yourself. But before you leave at Intertube speed, here is part of an opinion piece CNN contributor David Frum wrote regarding the attempts by L. to cleanup what Limbaugh barfed.

Most fundamentally, why the impulse to counter one outrageous stunt by rummaging through the archives in search of some supposedly offsetting outrageous stunt? Why not respond to an indecent act on its own terms, and then -- if there's another indecency later -- react to that too, and on its own terms?

Instead, public life is reduced to a revenge drama. Each offense is condoned by reference to some previous offense by some undefined "them" who supposedly once did something even worse, or anyway nearly as bad, at some point in the past.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Time Goes By

I was at the library today doing some work on my laptop and downloading a new version of Norton. The download was taking some time, so I looked over to the shelf to my left and saw the book Nixon, by Stephen Ambrose. I had scanned through this book several years ago, so my interest piqued I grabbed and opened it to a random page. This section caught my eye.

Ambrose was writing about the post-election blues Nixon was facing. Nixon faced problems not related to Watergate that vexed him. The Democrats controlled Congress so he knew he was in for a tough time. While Nixon had managed to place four men on the Supreme Court, a number of issues he felt strongly about such as Miranda v. Arizona (not overturned), prayer in schools (not reinstated), banning of pornography (not banned), and the court's refusal to allow prior censorship of the Pentagon Papers also had him in a funk. Additionally, the rights of welfare recipients was upheld.

All of this caused Nixon to quiver, especially with Watergate looming.

What I found especially interesting was this comment from Ambrose.

With regard to the fourth estate, Nixon had no cause for complaint. In the 1972 campaign, American newspapers had overwhelmingly endorsed him (753 newspapers endorsed Nixon, to 56 for McGovern). Both the press and the television news had given him magnificent coverage of his trips to Peking and Moscow. In addition, they had supported him on the opening to China, on detente, and on SALT. And they had cooperated in downplaying Watergate.

Yet, Nixon still accused the press of being too liberal and used choice phrases such as "cut them", "hit them" and such, and instructed his minions to go after the press.

This reminds me, that as far as conservatives go, the more time goes by, the more things stay the same.