;)
The Commentariat -- October 29, 2015
Internal links removed.
Presidential Race
MAG is right. Driftglass has the best liveblog of the debate.
Philip Rucker & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "The leading Republican candidates for president tangled with the moderators and one another in a freewheeling and chaotic debate ... Wednesday night that swerved from one topic to another but featured a handful of notably sharp exchanges and breakout performances." ...
... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "For most of this year, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) have been lurking in the background of the Republican presidential campaign. On Wednesday night, they broke out into the open, delivering strong and forceful performances in a raucous and rambling Republican debate marked by squabbling and sharp elbows.... ...
... CW: Balz's commentary seems to reflect the consensus Beltway takeaway. I didn't watch all of the debate, but I did see some of Marco's & Ted's supposed "breakout moments." They were bullshit. Both of them are experts at not answering questions & blaming the media for their own failings. Admittedly, the audience of lemmings & ignoramuses applauded this crap, but it was crap. Marco was particularly galling, "answering" questions with pieces of his canned stump speech, the "answers" usually having little or nothing to do with the questions. Question: Why don't you show up for work, Sen. Rubio? Answer: I believe in the American dream, blah-blah. Question: Why do you oppose the budget & debt-ceiling deals, Sen. Cruz? Answer: Your questions suck, blah-blah. ...
... So say Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin in the New York Times' lead story: "Mr. Rubio, a first-term senator, had the best night of his campaign, showing the political talent that many insiders had long seen in him.... Mr. Cruz also stood out far more than he had in the first two debates, reminding viewers of his fights against Republican leaders and blistering the news media in a fashion that delighted the crowd." ...
... AND John Dickerson of Slate & CBS was just wowed! "There were plenty of strong moments for almost all the candidates not named Jeb Bush, but what made Rubio's moments so useful for him was that they combined three things: They were well-timed, they shored up his weaknesses, and they came as his rising poll numbers and the vulnerabilities in his rivals' polling are creating a moment for him."
Here's what ABC News analysts call the "six moments that mattered" in the debate. CW: They don't matter to me; I do agree that Marco got the best of Jeb! tho not on tone. Cruz, Rubio, Christie & Trump don't sound like presidential candidates to me; they sound like high-school bullies. The best debater, Lindsey Graham (with whom I heartily disagree), played in the wrong show.
A Party United Against Reality. Jonathan Chait: "The debate allowed the candidates mostly to agree with each other and against the moderators, who they especially resented for their intrusions of reality. A recurring trope was for candidates, when presented with uncomfortable facts, to simply deny them.... Media-bashing provided the most popular subject for contemporaneous sermons, a foolproof way for candidates to bat down any inconvenient query and win wild applause from the partisan crowd." ...
... Amanda Marcotte in Salon: "The irony in all this is that CNBC leans pretty hard to the right and toward the CEO class, and while the moderators were trying to be tough, they buy into a surprising number of erroneous right-wing economic ideas.... Whenever journalists do their actual job, whether it's by pointing out that the Benghazi hearings are a farce or that Donald Trump's tax plan is unworkable, it's time to whip out the claim that the mainstream media is out to get you. Conservative audiences eat it up and it allows you to tell any lie you want without ever having to really deal with the facts." ...
... Ezra Klein of Vox: "The questions in the CNBC debate, though relentlessly tough, were easily the most substantive of the debates so far. And the problem for Republicans is that substantive questions about their policy proposals end up sounding like hostile attacks -- but that's because the policy proposals are ridiculous, not because the questions are actually unfair.... Republicans have boxed themselves into some truly bizarre policies -- including a set of tax cuts that give so much money to the rich, and blow such huge holes in the deficit, that simply asking about them in any serious way seems like a vicious attack. Assailing the media is a good way to try to dodge those questions for a little while, but it won't work over the course of a long campaign." Emphasis added. ...
... Christopher Rugaber & Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "Reality got twisted out of shape on a number of fronts in the fast-paced Republican presidential debate Wednesday night." ...
... Glenn Kessler & Michelle Lee of the Washington Post debunk quite a few whoppers. CW: It's easy to make mistakes or exaggerate in off-the-cuff remarks -- I'm sure I do it myself (tho I try not to) -- but these lying liars are often repeating stump-speech claims that have been repeatedly debunked. They just don't care. It's all part of Right Wing World's fantasy worldview.
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: Jeb Bush "entered Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate with little margin for error in a race that has spiraled out of his control. He needed to make things right. But time and again, he failed to capitalize on the opportunities he created for himself."
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Jeb Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz got into a heated confrontation with a CNBC producer outside the debate as it was happening.... 'I expressed my displeasure about the way the debate was managed and the amount of time [we got],' said Diaz, who declined to comment further." ...
... Steve M.: "If Jeb had a complaint, he should have voiced it on the air. He should have mingled it with a broader attack on the moderators and the media in general. GOP voters eat that kind of thing up. But no. Jeb has people to do the complaining for him. He's not going to get into it with the moderators. He's not going to scrap. He's above that sort of thing. And that's why he's losing so badly." ...
... CW: I dunno, Steve. It comes across as really whiney to say, "Call on me, call on me." Jim Webb received withering criticism when he tried that tack during the Democratic debate. To wit,
... ** Dana Milbank: "The Republicans seem to be testing a strategy of winning by whining. Certainly, voters are discontented and even angry. But do they want a leader who campaigns by kvetching? At the debate itself, the grievances tumbled forth in bulk." ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM gets it right: "I think the only clear takeaway is that the window is closing on the Bush campaign. And it may already have closed.... Carson was somewhat more coherent than in past debates.... The final thing is Marco Rubio. He seemed on the defensive and without terribly good answers to the senate absenteeism charges.... I didn't think he came off that well. But the audience didn't seem to agree with me. He kept getting ovations from the audience."
** Charles Pierce: "... the conservative fearscape ... is the place where Barack Obama actually is a 'socialist,' where Carly Fiorina can run on her dismal record at Hewlett-Packard 'all day,' where Chris Christie can talk about the rule of law while his lawyers back home are answering motions, and where anybody -- like, say John Harwood -- who brings up the empirical reality within which the rest of us live can be dismissed with an airy wave by ambitious young hacks like Marco Rubio and outright loons like Dr. Ben (The Blade) Carson. It is a place where you can get rousing applause by accusing a panel on CNBC that included not only nutty Jim Cramer, but also Tea Party ranter Rick Santelli, as just another hit squad from what Rubio called, 'the Democratic SuperPac -- the American mainstream media.'"
Gail Collins: "Jeb Bush is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee. Neither is, let's see -- [Chris] Christie, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina or any of the other supporting cast members. Ted Cruz did have a big moment when he answered a question about raising the debt limit by attacking the questioner. That went over so well that by the end of the two-hour session, the left-wing media had overtaken government regulators as the greatest threat to the future of American democracy.... One of the theories on why [Ben] Carson can't win -- besides the fact that he's utterly loopy -- is that even a lot of Republican voters will be unnerved by his plans to undermine Social Security and Medicare. But his ideas aren't actually all that different from those of most of the other candidates, who want to raise retirement rates or cut out everybody under, say, 45. Somebody has got to be nominated. Happy Halloween."
"I am Hillary Clinton's worst nightmare." - Carly FiorinaTessa Stuart of Rolling Stone finds teensy bits of humor in the debate.
Elspeth Reeve of the New Republic: "As mean as he was to the media, [Ted] Cruz was nice to his opponents. It's all part of his sinister plot: The Texas senator hopes to steal the votes of his fellow Republicans by being nice to them -- and their fans -- while they self-destruct. We know this because he straight-up told Politico."
Andrew Prokop of Vox: "About a month ago, conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote a post at Redstate headlined, 'Ted Cruz vs. Marco Rubio: This Is Where We Are Headed.' Erickson predicted that, eventually, 'the more conservative elements' of the party would fall behind Cruz, while 'the more establishment elements' would opt for Rubio. It was a bold statement, considering that both candidates were stuck in the single digits in the polls. After Wednesday night's third Republican debate, it's much easier to see how it could happen."
Will Oremus of Slate: "CNBC's Carl Quintanilla was lustily booed by the GOP debate audience Wednesday night for pressing Ben Carson on his relationship with a sketchy nutritional supplements firm. The jeers rained so loudly that Carson couldn't even finish his answer to the question. Which is good for him, because he was in the process of spinning one of the most convoluted, nonsensical, bald-faced lies of the entire campaign. And that's saying something." With video.
Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "While many of the candidates inside the wire fencing and security cordon [at the University of Colorado-Boulder] have roused their supporters with fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, a group of campaigners on the other side of campus are holding a rally to protest what they see as an alarmingly xenophobic tone to the Republican primary."
The New York Times is liveblogging the GOP presidential debates, & they're right on top of it. At the top of their liveblog of the kiddie debate, they also have a list of ways to watch the debates. ...
... The Washington Post's liveblog of the also-rans is here. The Post's liveblog of the big show is here.
Orlando Sun-Sentinel Editors: Marco Rubio, "You are paid $174,000 per year to represent us, to fight for us, to solve our problems. Plus you take a $10,000 federal subsidy -- declined by some in the Senate -- to participate in one of the Obamacare health plans, though you are a big critic of Obamacare. You are ripping us off, senator.... Two other candidates -- Sens. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders -- have missed only 10 Senate votes during their campaigns for the White House. You, on the other hand, have missed 59.... And it is unconscionable that when it comes to intelligence matters, including briefings on the Iran nuclear deal, you said, 'we have a staffer that's assigned to intelligence who gets constant briefings.' And you want us to take you seriously as a presidential candidate?... Either do your job, Sen. Rubio, or resign it."
Norm Ornstein, in the Atlantic, assesses the state of the horse race. ...
... Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "The overwhelming majority of Republican voters have repeatedly told pollsters this year that, whatever their choice in any given poll, they haven't made up their minds yet. Most won't think hard about their decision for at least another three months. At this point in 2008, Rudy Giuliani was the polling leader. In 2012, it was [Herman] Cain. Rather than tell us anything deep about voter sentiments, polls at this point generally reflect name recognition and which candidates are receiving the most media attention at any given time.... The most likely scenario remains that the G.O.P. will eventually coalesce around the most conservative candidate who is electable."
Liar, Liar, Liar. Russ Choma of Mother Jones: "As a presidential candidate, [Carly] Fiorina is selling herself as a no-nonsense former CEO who could manage and lead the federal government efficiently and effectively. Yet while she campaigns, she leaves behind a long trail of false assertions -- enough so that voters ought to wonder about anything she says regarding her own qualifications." Choma details a list of "false assertions" that Fiorina repeats again & again -- after factcheckers have debunked them. CW: I think she's profoundly immoral, which makes her every criticism of other people, whether Barack Obama or a woman who has an abortion, meaningless.
Colbert's retelling of Donald Trump's riches-to-richer story is a classic:
John Wagner & Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "... Bernie Sanders announced his support Wednesday for removing marijuana from a list of the most dangerous drugs outlawed by the federal government -- a move that would free states to legalize it without impediments from Washington."
Dan Merica & Ashley Killough of CNN: Hillary "Clinton's campaign on Tuesday backed away from the candidate's claim that issues at the VA were not 'widespread'" after veterans' groups & Republicans strongly criticized her for being clueless & facts-averse.
Real News
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "After four and a half years as House speaker, [John] Boehner will close out an extraordinary tenure with a farewell speech Thursday morning before handing over the gavel to his successor, Representative Paul D. Ryan, to see what he can do with it." CW: I'm sure we can all imagine "what he can do with it." We'll probably look back fondly upon Boehner. ...
... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The test for Mr. Ryan will be whether he can manage, perhaps even blunt, [the conservative] wing of the House Republican conference, or if he too will fall to its members' intransigence. He had warned members that while he would take their concerns about process seriously, he would not brook dissent that would undermine his ability to lead them.... His problems are less with Democrats, who have deeply opposed his policy ideas for years, than in his own party, which controls 247 seats but is divided over tactics and to some degree ideology, with a sizable number of members often supporting government dysfunction over political compromise." ...
... UPDATE -- New Lede: "Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin was elected the 62nd speaker of the House on Thursday, taking the gavel that he never sought to wield from John A. Boehner, who relinquished it under fire.... Mr. Ryan received 236 votes, a comfortable margin that included several of the hardline conservatives who had worked to oust Mr. Boehner."
Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "Congress on Wednesday moved a step closer to clearing a bipartisan budget deal that would boost spending for domestic and defense programs over two years while suspending the debt limit into 2017. The House passed the bill on a 266 to 167 vote late Wednesday afternoon and Senate leaders have promised to quickly move it through the upper chamber. Senate leaders want to move the bill quickly.... Many House Republicans remained opposed to the deal and only 79 voted for it while 187 Democrats supported the bill."
David Hersenhorn of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Wednesday nominated Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin to be the 62nd speaker of the House.... Mr. Ryan ... won the overwhelming support of his colleagues in the nominating contest and is now set to be installed as speaker in a formal vote on the House floor on Thursday. Republicans said the vote was 200 to 43 over Representative Daniel Webster of Florida, Mr. Ryan's closest rival."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers developed rationales intended to overcome any legal obstacles -- and made it all but inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not capture him.
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it is not ready to raise interest rates, completing a seventh year in which it has held short-term rates near zero."
Quentin Hardy of the New York Times: IBM "announced on Wednesday that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire most of the assets of the Weather Company, including its Weather.com website, a large number of weather data collection points, consumer and business applications and a staff of over 900 people. IBM would not say how much it was paying for the business, but an earlier report in The Wall Street Journal put the deal at over $2 billion. The Weather Channel, a cable television outlet, was not part of the deal, but it would license weather forecast data from IBM.... If combined with [IBM's] Watson, a computing system skilled at parsing unusual types of data and making statistically based decisions across a range of industries, the data could be more valuable,'" Weather Company CEO David Kenny said.
Photo via the Washington Post.... Andrea Peterson, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military has two giant unmanned surveillance blimps it uses to watch the East coast from a base in Maryland. And one of them escaped its tethering Wednesday and floated aimlessly over Pennsylvania, downing power lines and cutting off electricity for tens of thousands of residents." ...
... Austin Wright of Politico: There have been "a series of mishaps for a $2.8 billion program that's suffered from cost increases and performance issues and is now a national laughingstock as Twitter users and cable-news outlets marvel over how one became untethered -- forcing the Pentagon to scramble two F-16 fighter jets and the FAA to reroute some airline flights before the large white dirigible came down in Pennsylvania farmland.... The program dates back to 1996, when the military decided to try to build blimps ... that could perform over-the-horizon surveillance and detect cruise missiles.... Raytheon won the contract to develop the system in 1998.... In 2010, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, Army leaders sought to kill the program. But top Pentagon officials intervened -- including then-Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman James Cartwright, who's since made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a member of Raytheon's board of directors."
AP: "All five Gulf of Mexico states have reached a settlement with the owner of the offshore drilling rig involved in the 2010 BP oil spill. A court filing from Transocean and attorneys for Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas said all of the states had entered a settlement agreement. Alabama's governor announced that state's settlement with Transocean last week."
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "New international negotiations on Syria that will start Friday follow weeks of intensive diplomacy, a significant amount of arm-twisting on all sides, and agreement between the United States and Russia that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not be on the table for now."
Reuters: "The United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, the US trade representative, Michael Froman, said -- the first public comments from a senior US official on the matter. Voters are due to decide by the end of 2017 whether the UK should remain in the EU, and opinion polls show rising support for leaving the bloc. Froman's comments on Wednesday undermine a key economic argument deployed by proponents of exit, who say Britain would prosper on its own and be able to secure bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with trading partners."
Beyond the Beltway
Kim Chandler of the AP: "A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Alabama to restore Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, money the state tried to cut off in the wake of undercover videos shot by abortion opponents. U.S District Judge Myron Thompson issued an order that temporarily bars Alabama from cutting off Medicaid contracts with the group's clinics in Alabama. Planned Parenthood Southeast and a patient filed suit in August, days after Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced he was ending the Medicaid agreements with the two clinics." ...
CW: Judge Thompson, who now has senior status, is a Carter appointee. "He was the first African American employee of the state of Alabama who was not a janitor or a teacher." -- Wikipedia
Craig Melvin & Erick Ortiz of NBC News: "The school resource officer who was caught on camera violently flipping a South Carolina high school student at her desk has been fired, authorities announced Wednesday. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said an internal investigation over the Monday incident at Spring Valley High School in Columbia focused on whether Senior Deputy Ben Fields had violated the department's policies. He said at a news conference that the department looked at cellphone videos taken from the classroom and interviews with witnesses, and concluded that the maneuvers he used in the confrontation were 'not acceptable.'" CW: No kidding. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post has a good response to the "defenses" Richmond County, South Carolina, Sheriff Leon Lott offered for Deputy Ben Fields -- before Lott fired him. ...
... Perry Stein of the Washington Post shows one way a cop can diffuse a confrontation with teenagers. Prior to the scene depicted in the video below, the "officer approached two groups of teenagers and told them to disperse." At least one of the young women chose not to comply. Requires skills not likely taught at the police academy. Thanks to D. C. Clark for the link:
... Richard Perez-Pena, et al., of the New York Times: "A deputy's rough takedown and arrest of an uncooperative 16-year-old girl in a high school classroom adds fuel to a debate over the proliferation and proper role of the police in schools, where officers are often called on to deal with student misbehavior that used to be handled by teachers and administrators. Since the early 1990s, thousands of school systems around the country have put officers in schools, most often armed and in uniform, while many schools have adopted 'zero tolerance' policies for misconduct. That has produced sharp increases in arrests, especially for minor offenses, giving criminal records to students who in the past might have faced nothing more serious than after-school detention."
News Ledes
Stars & Stripes: "The USS Ronald Reagan scrambled its fighter jets earlier this week after two Russian naval reconnaissance aircraft flew within one nautical mile of the U.S. aircraft carrier as it sailed in international waters east of the Korean Peninsula, according to 7th Fleet officials. In the latest in a series of incidents involving Russian aircraft, two Tupolev Tu-142 Bear aircraft flew as low as 500 feet Tuesday morning near the Reagan, which has been conducting scheduled maneuvers with South Korean navy ships."
Washington Post: "China announced on Thursday it had abandoned its 'one-child policy' and would allow all couples to have two children, according to state news agency Xinhua. The move, which came after a meeting of the Communist Party leadership in Beijing, reflected rising concerns over a rapidly aging population and potential labor shortages that would put immense strains on the economy in the years ahead."
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Reader Comments (10)
My debate takeaway is this:
Marco Rubio is the scariest of the lot because his well scrubbed, fresh-faced appearance, his I'm-a-good-boy earnestness, his lively and easy patter (which is improving with practice) make him the best con man of the bunch, reminding me of a dark-haired young Robert Redford from "The Sting," whom millions could not help but naturally trust.
But of course in the movie Redford and Newman were fleecing a crook. They were "good" bad guys. Rubio and his cohorts on last night's stage (with the possible exception of Kasich) have no such redeeming qualities. They want to fleece the rest of us.
And then there were his math skills (just as those of the other candidates who offered "simplified" tax plans) which were also frightening. There's apparently something about higher math like percentages that are just too much for Rubio and the rest. In any case, watching him flat out and blandly deny the ineluctable realities of the effect of his tax proposals on the growing gap between rich and poor made me switch channels to a baseball game I cared nothing about, much preferring ennui to anger.
As I said the guy scares me.
OK. I didn't watch the debate, ditched it 'cause CNBC wanted me to allow 'third party cookies.' I have standards after all!
So, I read and follow the NY Times live blog. Booooooorrrring!
But, just read Driftglass, he captured the evening PERFECTLY. One of his best.
MAG,
I think CNBC was perhaps suggesting that you start looking for third party "kookies" since the kookies from the party they had on stage had slipped beyond the pale many years ago.
Another chapter yet to be written in what one would like to think would be the wholly unnecessary tussle between sense and the crazies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/opinion/church-state-and-the-supreme
Along with the son who forwarded this to me this AM, I too like the suggestion in the last line.
It's funny (and not the good kind either) that Confederate candidates are so enamored of bashing the MSM because in so many ways mainstream media, besides Fox, of course, which counts as "media" only insofar as they own studios with lights and cameras and people dressed up to look like journalists, is their very best friend.
For Dan Balz to come out and declare "breakout moments" for candidates who apparently (I didn't see it either--no cable and too many kookies already, but I have complete faith in Marie's conclusions) did nothing more than lie, divert, lie, and divert and attack the media, he must be working off a totally different idea of what constitutes a "breakout". If by "breakout" he means they stood up on stage and didn't fall over, or that they spouted some well phrased, oft-repeated nonsense without splitting any infinitives, then his bar is set low enough for carpenter ants to clear.
But scroll through headlines on any day and you'll see the myriad ways the MSM help Confederate anarchists and loonies look reasonable, earnest, and competent and even, in some cases, honest(!). I could bore you with examples, but here's just one of the daily lulus, this from the NY Times this morning: "Ryan Elected House Speaker, Hoping to Manage Chaos". First, it makes Ryan sound as if he has nothing to do with the House chaos. Then it assumes that he has the chops to take care of it. Paul Ryan can't even manage a decent fake budget and he didn't have the balls to stand up the Chaos Masters even before picking up the gavel. But now he's going to take care of it?
Cruz, Trumpy, Rubio, Liarina, Fuckabee, even Carson, are often taken at their word as if they are serious people with workable ideas, to scan the headlines.
The MSM has often done these frauds great favors by pretending that they are something other than lying mountebanks. And when these charlatans turn around and remake the media as their personal piñata, those they attack mostly just take it, so they know two things. They will rarely be called on their lies and even more rarely will a media outlet get up on its hind legs when they are attacked for being too rough and unfair by asking pertinent questions about those lies.
Ain't it grand?
@Ken Winkes: Or how about Redford in "The Candidate" - a smooth, appealing young candidate who had little idea what to do once his charm gets him elected.
Rubio can't even manage his own finances. He does truly scare me for the reasons you state: he could be elected!
Ted Cruz castigates the CNBC moderators by declaring that "This is not a cage match!"
No, Ted. It's not. A cage match, often seen in professional wrestling matches, offers more integrity than anything you're connected with. When the GOP can field a collection of characters at least as authentic and honest as those seen in Wrestlemania, then maybe these burlesque "debates" might be worth watching.
I dunno about you guys, but I'd watch Trump standing on the top of the ropes about to pile-drive Jeb! into the mat while Rubio and Cruz hit each other over the head with folding chairs.
I have occasional interactions with local high school science activities. Once suggested the following as a science fair project:
Here in a rural county of Southern Maryland, you may pay a private service to pick up your trash, or take it to a local compacting, recycling, and hazmat disposal site. When visiting this site, its very obvious when someone is not recycling. You can hear the clang of cans and bottles going into the trash compactor, and see folks putting cardboard boxes and bundles of newspaper in, rather than walk 40 feet to recycle these items. It seems to my prejudiced eye that most of the people doing this are driving gas guzzlers with patriotic or wingnut bumper stickers. My project proposal was to stand inconspicuously at the site and record the make and model of every vehicle, nature of any political slogans, and whether they recycled. Compile the data, and analyze for any statistically significant correlations. Some of the students were interested, but the teachers were a little worried about repercussions, so it was never done.
Flash forward to today. Looking over reader comments on various news articles and opinion columns there seems, again to my prejudiced eye, to be a correlation between certain views, and errors of grammar, syntax, or spelling. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of this. Seems a natural for statistical analysis.
@ D.C. Clark: In 1946 George Orwell took a broad look at the intriguing correlation you suggest. One sentence in "Politics and the English Language" appears applicable to last night's debates (of which I have seen only excerpts): "Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style." The applause I heard and commentator praise I read about "breakout" performances do not suggest genuine enthusiasm to me, as much as low standards on the part of the audience and the commentators.
Orwell's essay on politics and language offers much in the way of useful analysis for contemporary Confederate doctrinal thinking. Orwell suggests, accurately, I believe, that sloppy thinking goes hand in hand with sloppy language and the constant refrains we hear from wingers about Freeedom, and Tyyyyrannny, and Patriotism, lots of guns, no taxes, small government and the like, will certainly come to mind when reading this passage:
"When one watches some tired hack on the platform
mechanically repeating the familiar phrases —bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder—one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes
behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself."
Wingers so often refer to concepts such as self-reliance, freedom, and non-interference from mindless ideology, but these qualities are nowhere to be found when listening to their avatars on Fox or talk radio. They all sing off the same page, relentlessly and mindlessly mouthing Confederate bromides and targeting the same enemies with such fierce and mechanical predictability as to make sunrise the soul of spontaneity.