That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
-Keats
Republican cultural obtuseness is endless – We all know about Newt’s Boys Town flap and his envy/resentment/wishes to be accepted as some sort of cultural person.
Here’s a similar example – Morning Joe – basically missing the point about a movie – Similar, IMO, to
the recurring habit of some young right wingers thinking Gekko was the good guy in Wall St,
One of the recurring ironies is the modern GOP dependence on emotional and subjective wishfull thinking – like
Newt basing his ideas on old movies and/or him and
other Republicans being at odds with much of the scientific community on a host of issues.
But they still delude themselves into thinking they are the Daddy party – willing to look at the tough facts and make tough decisions.
Indeed the theocons are incapable of seeing how they will ultimately hurt their cause by mixing church and state – creating a situation like in Europe where religion is so discredited by its history of being allied with power.
In America, there are very few Boris Johnson types – Chris Buckley could have started that niche, but he defected to the Dem side – The theocons are too strong and the ogre-ish element even drowns out and makes uncomfortable some of the semi pious by clubbable type that would be comfortable with Boris and the Economist reading coolsters in London.
Colonel Blimp would probably be more comfortable in DC these days – shaking his head about wogs with Ian Duncan Smith inside a faux-wood pannelled bar near some military contractors in Arlington.
Yeah – Boris seems to be the examplar of that kind of thing – You know – somewhat self consciously Wodehousian/Waughian type of character. Tucker is a derivative of that on some level – the way he markets himself. But Boris is a Hyperion compared to Tucker – as wine is to ripple..
Obama has ushered in a different kind of cool that has sort of jambled up some of the catagories on the cultural and aesthetic end – It’s somewhat amusing to see Brit pols compete to be his pal overseas
That kind of soft libertarianism – libertarian on cultural/style/aesthetic questions, but essentially conservative on everything serious – is essentially Boris Johnson (and various British Tory “intellectuals”‘) shtick. Possibly more dangerous than the hardcore, Hayekian North American version because less disturbing to traditional notions of leadership.
Wilkerson’s sloppy work is gonna catch up to him pretty soon – He is a Powell proxy and Powell is still too much loved by the Establishment – in the sense, that his narrative is loved.
Wilkerson himself probably feels guilty about his UN speech – he helped craft it and it’s hard to believe he believed all that neocon lard that was in it.
Wow – it’s a left-right blog fest going after Dowd – we just googled Dowd Plagiarism blogs and it was endless.
Dowd is so behind the curve she made the mistake of dissing blogs.
Tonight as she goes to sleep in her JFK manse and stares at her Camelot dolls like Nixon talking to JFK painting, she should reflect on the cost of her long running fumes running out.
MoDo also missed the Obama vibe very early on and she was crafting her columns to fit various gop oppo schemes – Obama’s young staff, we were told, has absolutely no idea wtf she was talking about in her columns about Obama – They bore zero in common with the person they knew and they were totally unfamiliar with the Gore campaign and the left over memes she was recycling for the dazzling Hawiaan from Chicago. They were like: “Who is this old lady and wtf is she talking about” – Then , out of the blue, Dowd became defensive when she allegedly approached and short curvy black woman and supposedly mistook her for Michelle – Dowd said it was not true – It was a lie! But then, bada bing, she hopped on board the Hope Express and sang the tune
Pelosis story is somewhat shaky – but it meshes with her occassionally flabbergasted personality and self-centeredness. IMO – she did not think to ask tough questions – partly as a political self-survival mechanism honed over time, partly out of denseness – But Panetta’s rebuke was loaded with embedded non denial denials and coated with the authority of his own branded sage status and rep. It’s possible those briefing papers – exaggerated , in a cya sense, the extent of the briefings –
.
But MoDo’s excuse makes no sense – her ‘friend’ is like so many of he fictional sources – who like Friedman’s cab drivers in Arab lands – just happen to feed her the quote that fits.
MoDo has been phoning it in for a long time – she has embellishments galore. It’s only a matter of time before she craters – Judy Miller might give her a push. Here’s hoping for a cat fight!
It’s funny – Tucker’s brand is sort of small – Unctuous Libertarian – ie (scoff at riff raff, favor ‘small government’ in theory but not really care, legalize weed but avoid the hempy patchouli types, play tennis, dance ironically, get in highg dudgeon over small issues, get in pseudo-deep discussions over IQ fatalism even though one has medium sat scores, be in favor of ‘standards’ and ‘the classics’ while being personally philistine, wear a Duke lax solidarity t-shirt as a passive aggressive slap at scary minorities and bogus prosecutors, etc ..)
Alex could sum up the type better than we could even though he is in the UK because the sloan rangers are perhaps a better version of what we mean.
From what we hear from affected acquaintances, the cable news networks are in free fall behind the scenes ratings or no ratings. The business models are collapsing. Many talking heads they tell me no longer get even a gratuity for appearing on air. Fees are reserved for those designated as ‘contributors’ or some other seemingly innocuous label and they get $500 an appearance. And many of those contracts are being cut.
Tucker, aside from his other qualities, is limited by his ‘brand’. Unctuous ‘liberterianism’ has an audience of about 137 nationally. Being on Geraldo makes sense, both being outriders in the Ailes/Murdoch fetid pool. If Tucker is not a ‘contributor’ type, he’s on Geraldo for visibility alone. Neither Tucker nor Geraldo are particularly angry, vehemently irrational or stridently confrontational. One wonders how long the ‘Fox Nation’ will tolerate them hanging around on the fringes.
re MoDo, it’s perfect in it’s symmetry. She denies stealing from JM, but instead from her ‘friend’. Josh has done the smart thing and so far kept mum and let the NYT shoot itself in the head. But then, who ever really thought Dowd was a ‘journalist’? Really.
@ Alex — intriguing take on book and man. Sounds like you recommend glancing over the book even given its limits. Being wrong in a novel way is in today’s miasma a branding plus. Saw the Conflict Forum web site just now and it is an interesting collection on the advisory board.
re Maureen Dowd’s plagerism
(seems far worse than Bidens) – best MoDo scandal since she mistook a random black female journalist for Michelle Obama (though we wonder if this was partly an Obama Op since it pretty much ended Modos negative columns about Obama and turned her into a compliant cheerleader)
========
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
Hezbollah seems to be benefitting from the support Bush and Condi gave to the Siniora gov that was supposed to be used against Hezbollah. Surprising? Why would we think otherwise? What was the hubris there? We send billion dollars to Lebanon for the government – which is openly at war with Israel (even if covertly allied at some semi-level) to wage war against the largest political faction in the country, with the most clever and cunning leadership – and their top intelligence gathering apparat. It doesn’t seem so surprising that Hezb has been on this rampage of success.
Who knows? No one really knows what goes on in Lebanon – The point is that we, as a nation, were silly to think otherwise.
Just as history shows the richest countries usually develop the most powerful militaries and have the most influential culture – we should not be surprise that the most dominant ethnic-religious political factions eventually dominate their respective lands. This – despite Condis birth pangs.
I have just been reading ex-SIS station chief and Conflicts Forum chief Alistair Crooke’s book on Islamist thought. A strange and highly neo-Platonist document; and that’s just him, not the Islamists. Possibly Straussian; at the least, conflicted and insufficiently critical of the critical thinkers. I can’t help but thinking that when he talks about Hezbollah’s flat comms network and auftragstaktik as something qualitatively new, it’s his aesthetically orientalist role as an imperial civil servant stuck with his books in the romantic Levant that’s speaking. I mean, that’s a bit AirLand and a lot Infanterie Greift An and none of those are at all Islamic or particularly Platonic or Western Marxist (his other key reference point).
An interesting man; but chiefly through being wrong in an interesting new way.
Ha – recall Tucker Carlson – you know the guy with the bowtie – the one who got the clerk fired for being a nosy prole? We just flipped around and see he is now on Fox with Geraldo — He is now a Murdoch property. We are somewhat surprised that Rupe hired him, but Tucker used to be very withering and condescending to the whole FNC shebang. Guest of Geraldo’s? Tuck would have been pretty shocked to hear that prediction of his future.
Got to take what money is available, it seems.
“We have no discipline in this bureaucracy. We never fire anybody. We never reprimand anybody. We never demote anybody. We always promote the sons-of-bitches that kick us in the ass …”
~Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman
Presidential Transcripts
Washington Star-News, 7-20-74
Aldershot says
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
-Keats
Dr Leo Strauss says
Completely off topic, a lovely review of Stanley Plumly’s “Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography” over at NYRB :
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22735
Comment says
Republican cultural obtuseness is endless – We all know about Newt’s Boys Town flap and his envy/resentment/wishes to be accepted as some sort of cultural person.
Here’s a similar example – Morning Joe – basically missing the point about a movie – Similar, IMO, to
the recurring habit of some young right wingers thinking Gekko was the good guy in Wall St,
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/22/scarborough-few-good-men/
You can’t blame Hollywood types for developing contempt
Comment says
One of the recurring ironies is the modern GOP dependence on emotional and subjective wishfull thinking – like
Newt basing his ideas on old movies and/or him and
other Republicans being at odds with much of the scientific community on a host of issues.
But they still delude themselves into thinking they are the Daddy party – willing to look at the tough facts and make tough decisions.
Indeed the theocons are incapable of seeing how they will ultimately hurt their cause by mixing church and state – creating a situation like in Europe where religion is so discredited by its history of being allied with power.
Comment says
Recall Newt – back in the day – calling for the construction of old fashioned orphanges?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/irish-reform-schools-thou_n_205719.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
Yeah thee whole boys town thing. But remember, since he converted, all has been forgiven.
Comment says
Joe Wilson should break out some of that bad acid again and reflect on his ham handed and snide denunciations of Obama during the primaries. There’s probably no linkage – but …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/obama-plame-lawsuit-shoul_n_206036.html
Comment says
Leo, the money quote for the screenplay is “we were between the tragic and the ridiculous.”
The movie version should go for comedy
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/thatseemsfair/latimes0176.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
Yes, comedy for sure. But Steve Martin and the usual casting suspects should be black listed. Played straight would be ideal.
Comment says
Leo, have you ever seen Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix? Pretty entertaining – not a great movie, but fun.
Comment says
In America, there are very few Boris Johnson types – Chris Buckley could have started that niche, but he defected to the Dem side – The theocons are too strong and the ogre-ish element even drowns out and makes uncomfortable some of the semi pious by clubbable type that would be comfortable with Boris and the Economist reading coolsters in London.
Colonel Blimp would probably be more comfortable in DC these days – shaking his head about wogs with Ian Duncan Smith inside a faux-wood pannelled bar near some military contractors in Arlington.
Comment says
Yeah – Boris seems to be the examplar of that kind of thing – You know – somewhat self consciously Wodehousian/Waughian type of character. Tucker is a derivative of that on some level – the way he markets himself. But Boris is a Hyperion compared to Tucker – as wine is to ripple..
Obama has ushered in a different kind of cool that has sort of jambled up some of the catagories on the cultural and aesthetic end – It’s somewhat amusing to see Brit pols compete to be his pal overseas
Alex says
That kind of soft libertarianism – libertarian on cultural/style/aesthetic questions, but essentially conservative on everything serious – is essentially Boris Johnson (and various British Tory “intellectuals”‘) shtick. Possibly more dangerous than the hardcore, Hayekian North American version because less disturbing to traditional notions of leadership.
Comment says
More people are joining us in our Wilkerson laments:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh051809.shtml
Wilkerson’s sloppy work is gonna catch up to him pretty soon – He is a Powell proxy and Powell is still too much loved by the Establishment – in the sense, that his narrative is loved.
Wilkerson himself probably feels guilty about his UN speech – he helped craft it and it’s hard to believe he believed all that neocon lard that was in it.
Comment says
Biden most have loved coming to MoDo’s defense – He should never lose and opportunity to vouch for Mo.
Biden lacks a certain level of self awareness sometimes so it’s possible that he might not realize how unwanted his defense of her is.
Comment says
Wow – it’s a left-right blog fest going after Dowd – we just googled Dowd Plagiarism blogs and it was endless.
Dowd is so behind the curve she made the mistake of dissing blogs.
Tonight as she goes to sleep in her JFK manse and stares at her Camelot dolls like Nixon talking to JFK painting, she should reflect on the cost of her long running fumes running out.
Comment says
MoDo also missed the Obama vibe very early on and she was crafting her columns to fit various gop oppo schemes – Obama’s young staff, we were told, has absolutely no idea wtf she was talking about in her columns about Obama – They bore zero in common with the person they knew and they were totally unfamiliar with the Gore campaign and the left over memes she was recycling for the dazzling Hawiaan from Chicago. They were like: “Who is this old lady and wtf is she talking about” – Then , out of the blue, Dowd became defensive when she allegedly approached and short curvy black woman and supposedly mistook her for Michelle – Dowd said it was not true – It was a lie! But then, bada bing, she hopped on board the Hope Express and sang the tune
Comment says
Pelosis story is somewhat shaky – but it meshes with her occassionally flabbergasted personality and self-centeredness. IMO – she did not think to ask tough questions – partly as a political self-survival mechanism honed over time, partly out of denseness – But Panetta’s rebuke was loaded with embedded non denial denials and coated with the authority of his own branded sage status and rep. It’s possible those briefing papers – exaggerated , in a cya sense, the extent of the briefings –
.
But MoDo’s excuse makes no sense – her ‘friend’ is like so many of he fictional sources – who like Friedman’s cab drivers in Arab lands – just happen to feed her the quote that fits.
MoDo has been phoning it in for a long time – she has embellishments galore. It’s only a matter of time before she craters – Judy Miller might give her a push. Here’s hoping for a cat fight!
Comment says
It’s funny – Tucker’s brand is sort of small – Unctuous Libertarian – ie (scoff at riff raff, favor ‘small government’ in theory but not really care, legalize weed but avoid the hempy patchouli types, play tennis, dance ironically, get in highg dudgeon over small issues, get in pseudo-deep discussions over IQ fatalism even though one has medium sat scores, be in favor of ‘standards’ and ‘the classics’ while being personally philistine, wear a Duke lax solidarity t-shirt as a passive aggressive slap at scary minorities and bogus prosecutors, etc ..)
Alex could sum up the type better than we could even though he is in the UK because the sloan rangers are perhaps a better version of what we mean.
Dr Leo Strauss says
From what we hear from affected acquaintances, the cable news networks are in free fall behind the scenes ratings or no ratings. The business models are collapsing. Many talking heads they tell me no longer get even a gratuity for appearing on air. Fees are reserved for those designated as ‘contributors’ or some other seemingly innocuous label and they get $500 an appearance. And many of those contracts are being cut.
Tucker, aside from his other qualities, is limited by his ‘brand’. Unctuous ‘liberterianism’ has an audience of about 137 nationally. Being on Geraldo makes sense, both being outriders in the Ailes/Murdoch fetid pool. If Tucker is not a ‘contributor’ type, he’s on Geraldo for visibility alone. Neither Tucker nor Geraldo are particularly angry, vehemently irrational or stridently confrontational. One wonders how long the ‘Fox Nation’ will tolerate them hanging around on the fringes.
re MoDo, it’s perfect in it’s symmetry. She denies stealing from JM, but instead from her ‘friend’. Josh has done the smart thing and so far kept mum and let the NYT shoot itself in the head. But then, who ever really thought Dowd was a ‘journalist’? Really.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@ Alex — intriguing take on book and man. Sounds like you recommend glancing over the book even given its limits. Being wrong in a novel way is in today’s miasma a branding plus. Saw the Conflict Forum web site just now and it is an interesting collection on the advisory board.
Comment says
re Maureen Dowd’s plagerism
(seems far worse than Bidens) – best MoDo scandal since she mistook a random black female journalist for Michelle Obama (though we wonder if this was partly an Obama Op since it pretty much ended Modos negative columns about Obama and turned her into a compliant cheerleader)
========
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=1
So Modo stole from J. Marshall here:
“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/bubbling.php
———————–
Comment says
Hezbollah seems to be benefitting from the support Bush and Condi gave to the Siniora gov that was supposed to be used against Hezbollah. Surprising? Why would we think otherwise? What was the hubris there? We send billion dollars to Lebanon for the government – which is openly at war with Israel (even if covertly allied at some semi-level) to wage war against the largest political faction in the country, with the most clever and cunning leadership – and their top intelligence gathering apparat. It doesn’t seem so surprising that Hezb has been on this rampage of success.
Who knows? No one really knows what goes on in Lebanon – The point is that we, as a nation, were silly to think otherwise.
Just as history shows the richest countries usually develop the most powerful militaries and have the most influential culture – we should not be surprise that the most dominant ethnic-religious political factions eventually dominate their respective lands. This – despite Condis birth pangs.
Alex says
I have just been reading ex-SIS station chief and Conflicts Forum chief Alistair Crooke’s book on Islamist thought. A strange and highly neo-Platonist document; and that’s just him, not the Islamists. Possibly Straussian; at the least, conflicted and insufficiently critical of the critical thinkers. I can’t help but thinking that when he talks about Hezbollah’s flat comms network and auftragstaktik as something qualitatively new, it’s his aesthetically orientalist role as an imperial civil servant stuck with his books in the romantic Levant that’s speaking. I mean, that’s a bit AirLand and a lot Infanterie Greift An and none of those are at all Islamic or particularly Platonic or Western Marxist (his other key reference point).
An interesting man; but chiefly through being wrong in an interesting new way.
Comment says
Ha – recall Tucker Carlson – you know the guy with the bowtie – the one who got the clerk fired for being a nosy prole? We just flipped around and see he is now on Fox with Geraldo — He is now a Murdoch property. We are somewhat surprised that Rupe hired him, but Tucker used to be very withering and condescending to the whole FNC shebang. Guest of Geraldo’s? Tuck would have been pretty shocked to hear that prediction of his future.
Got to take what money is available, it seems.
Comment says
Just caught Obama dancing in the endzone at Notre Dame – Students greeted him warmly.
Comment says
“We have no discipline in this bureaucracy. We never fire anybody. We never reprimand anybody. We never demote anybody. We always promote the sons-of-bitches that kick us in the ass …”
~Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman
Presidential Transcripts
Washington Star-News, 7-20-74
Comment says
Taibbi on the Friedman-Bertinelli ass axis:
http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html
Comment says
Leo – your always excellent art work is reaching new heights these past few posts.