February 15, 2010

If Amy Bishop had turned out to be right wing, the MSM would have made a big deal out of it.

Of course, you know it's true. Glenn Reynolds observed that, and Lawyers, Guns and Money just can't handle that truth.
That conservatives are working a false equivalence is made evident by Reynolds's pathological desire to find evidence that will allow him to turn this tragedy into mere political gamesmanship. Unlike his acolyte Althouse, whose affected contrarianism runs so vast and deep she'll write anything if she thinks one rube will do a double-take reading it, Reynolds plays politics to win. He wants to own the narrative, and because his platform trickles up into all the right places, he mostly has a legitimate claim to it.
Me, Affected?

And, hey, rubes: That indented paragraph is lefty talk.

ADDED: LGM expends much effort trying to make it look as though the only source for Bishop's politics was some student review on RateMyProfessors. But — I've already linked to this here's the Boston Herald:
A family source said Bishop... was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting

125 comments:

Joe said...

(One of Several, but the Better Looking One)

This is such Horse-Hockey...I mean it's like the Census worker who was found dead in Kentucky, supposedly with the word "Fed" on his chest. Well did eveyone run off with crazy suggestions about Rightwing Hillbillies and their guns? No, I mean..... Oh Wait Never Mind.

Anonymous said...

Isn't bullying and other forms of violence the Chicago Way championed by the Rahm Emmanuel's and the Barack Obama's?

I fail to see how the left's leadership doesn't lead to people wacking other people if they don't get their way.

"You put one of mine in the hospital, I put three of yours in the morgue."

Isn't that the current leadership principal of the Democrat Party? Wasn't Ken Gladney, a black man, assaulted by SEIU thugs at a public town hall meeting last summer?

Isn't this the way of it now?

Isn't this where this leadership style inevitably leads?

Wasn't Barack Obama introduced into politics in Chicago at Bill Ayers' house? Isn't Bill Ayers a domestic terrorist? Convicted of bombing the Pentagon and belonging to the Weather Underground cop-killing organization?

chuck said...

Heh, 'affected' was exactly the word that sounded a false note as I read through the excerpt. The Left is strange in all manner of ways. Like Amy Bishop ;0)

Balfegor said...

Me, Affected?

The whole blogging as performance art thing does sort of leave you open to the charge, I think. Though now that I look, I can't find a clearly unironic statement about this blog actually being a species of performance art. Or was that rhetorical question itself ironical?

This point is valid:

The politics of the George Tiller murder are an indictment against conservative rhetoric because that rhetoric made Tiller a target; whereas the personal politics of Amy Bishop are utterly irrelevant in the absence of a vocal and sustained opposition to the existence of the university and the tenure system among liberals.

But it's also highly misleading, because he's choosing a political murder, and comparing a murder by a crazy liberal to a political murder. If a crazy conservative snapped and killed someone, politics is just icing on the cake -- I find it hard to imagine that we wouldn't be hearing about how conservatives with their gun rights and all that are a menace to civilised (liberal) society.

re: Florida:

I fail to see how the left's leadership doesn't lead to people wacking other people if they don't get their way.

"You put one of mine in the hospital, I put three of yours in the morgue.
"

That's not even the worst of it. Rahm Emanuel is supposed to have said: "I have my knee on their vertebrae, and I'm not going to let up until I hear the vertebrae snap." Speaking of Republicans, of course, back in 2005. Not meant literally, of course (I assume), but it's awfully violent, thuggish language.

LonewackoDotCom said...

Presumably he thinks it would be wrong for the MSM to play up Bishop's political leanings if she'd been rightwing. Presumably he doesn't think it's wrong when he plays up her actual political leanings (or helps others do the same). That's our Instapundit! Leftwing tactics are horrible, until he adopts them or promotes others doing the same.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That conservatives are working a false equivalence is made evident by Reynolds's pathological desire to find evidence that will allow him to turn this tragedy into mere political gamesmanship.

And hurricane Katrina was a player to be named later.

Dont you tell me about making tragedy into political gamesmanship!

Big Mike said...

What sort of idiot regards you as an acolyte of Glenn Reynolds? You're a very independent voice, and a sane person would recognize that.

I'm Full of Soup said...

That blog's name reminds me. I think I will dig out my best of Warren Zevon CD.

Balfegor said...

Presumably he doesn't think it's wrong when he plays up her actual political leanings (or helps others do the same). That's our Instapundit! Leftwing tactics are horrible, until he adopts them or promotes others doing the same.

I think part of the difference is that he is playing it up with an ironic distance -- he's not just a creature of habit doing it because he doesn't know any better, like the media, and I doubt he truly believes there's a straight line from her crazy beliefs and Obama-obsession to murdering the tenure review committee. There is, implicit, a kind of proof by contradiction: it can't be right when liberals do it with conservatives, look how you feel when conservatives do it with liberals!

This is not true, to be sure, of every conservative/non-liberal making the argument, some of whom unironically believe (for obvious reasons, viz., the entire 20th century) that socialist beliefs are always pregnant with the possibility of murderous violence. But Reynolds, I think, distances himself somewhat.

Anonymous said...

Again: 4 of Bishop's six victims were "persons of color" or whatever. 2 African American, one Indian, one Hispanic. What would the MSM be doing with THAT if she were a Tea Partier? Or had even voted Republican once in her life?

rhhardin said...

Nice-chapmanship has been overlooked.

Anonymous said...

"Leftwing tactics are horrible, until he adopts them or promotes others doing the same."

No, kid, you just don't get it.

The right would prefer a politics and a society that is more civil, but if you fuckers want to play by Chicago Rules then let's get it on motherfucker.

We're game.

We're far better armed for that type of a fight, intellectually and in all other important ways.

So, you guys pick the rules. If it's to be Alinsky and Capone ... then let's go bitch.

Quit your fucking whining and let's go.

LonewackoDotCom said...

Joe: I offered a comprehensive list of those politicizing the Kentucky issue. No bloggers linked to it; a few offered less comprehensive lists, and none of them have the ability to remember those involved and hold it against them long-term in order to reduce the chances that they'd do something similar again.

Florida: there are plenty of r/w sources advocating doing things in Chicagoesque ways, and few (if any) advocating doing things in a smarter, more civil way. Hint: promoting holding up bunny ears behind a politician's head as Reynolds did is not a civil, high-minded way of doing things. At the same time, he's almost never promoted engaging those opposed to him in debate.

Jason (the commenter) said...

...Reynolds's pathological desire to find evidence that will allow him to turn this tragedy into mere political gamesmanship.

It's already been made political by Democrats. Remember, one Congressman isn't running for reelection because of this story.

Anonymous said...

"there are plenty of r/w sources advocating doing things in Chicagoesque ways, and few (if any) advocating doing things in a smarter, more civil way."

I don't know if civil is smarter.

It's certainly not how Barack Obama got power. He got power by stepping on people's necks.

So, I think I'll adopt that strategy and step on Democrat necks every chance I get and make friends with killers and shit and when I attend meetings, I'll bring large men with pinky rings and Mafia connections.

Seemed to work for Barack Obama.

And you know, if we can't get our way, there's always the Bishop Maneuver - just start whacking people.

Seems to be the method advanced by those currently in power stealing companies and not paying their taxes.

Seems effective.

Maybe we should adopt their tactics, since they won with them.

Kansas City said...

I love Ann and Reynolds, but I also found the linked blog post more rational than most left wing arguments. Ann picked the weakest part of his post, which stupidly and unfairly criticized Ann and Reynolds, two of the most intellectually honest blogsters.

But the rest of his post was not entirely unreasonable. Basically, he said there was a connection between conservative views and the killing of Tiller the baby killer, whereas at this point there is no connection between the teacher's socialism and her murders, or between liberalism and the jihadist killer military doctor.

I think those points are essentially correct, although aside from the fact that the MSM would have jumped on any connection of the teacher to conservatism, and will remain silent about any connection to liberalism or socialism. The MSM is simply biased, which will not change, but will lessen with the continued growth of the internet and FOX news as a news sources.

By the way, I was talking about the success rate of the MSM on their biased reporting, and it is a mixed bag, at least in terms of presidential elections. They failed to get Reagan (although they tried mightily), Bush in 1888, or Bush in 2000 or 2004. They succeeded in pushing Clinton twice and Obama once. They also succeeded in lesser endeavors, like keeping Kennedy afloat for 40 years.

But overall, on the big picture, the MSM has not been as successful as you would expect. But they never stop trying and they came close on stuff like global warming and health care. So they remain a dangerous, although declining power.

chuck b. said...

"Me, Affected?"

You only come across affected once in while.

Sometimes you clearly pander to your most conservative readers, which then prompts a long, slow circle jerk.

Now and then you seem like an earlier version of an Althouse we never met.

Mostly though, you like to serve the red meat.

Glenn Reynolds is kind of the same way.

Lately he likes to quote his daughter reciting the correct talking points, right?

If Amy Bishop is really about Obama and the liberals, then I wonder if you've been snowed in for too long.

Chip Ahoy said...

They're changing the argument then arguing with that. Typical. Reynolds didn't say the crime was the product of liberal rhetoric. So they can just piss off with that. I'd be a rube not to see the switcheroo. Instapundit said we know how the narrative would be treated had Bishop been a vocal conservative rather than an obsessed Obama supporter and he's only saying what all of us already know.

LonewackoDotCom said...

(Note to everyone else: "Florida" is actually the screenname of the GOP braintrust; he's not one person but a collaborative effort of the entire RNC and r/w commmentariat. When not commenting here, he's busing trying to figure out how lightswitches work.)

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The writer Gore Vidal yesterday compared the executed Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh to Paul Revere, the hero of American independence.

In a withering address at the Edinburgh book festival, the liberal novelist and elder statesman of the Gore political dynasty said the former soldier decorated for bravery in the Gulf war wanted to send out a warning that the government had been bought by corporate America and "its secret police, the FBI, were out of control. What McVeigh was saying was, 'The Feds are coming, the Feds are coming'. "

In his strongest identification yet with the man who confessed to blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people in retaliation for the FBI's "slaughter at Waco", Vidal described him as a "Kipling hero" with an "overdeveloped sense of justice" who did what he did because he was inflamed by the massacre, the FBI's subsequent cover-up, and the way it "had shredded the bill of rights and the constitution. He was the man who would be king."


The Blogs didn't make this shit up.

JAL said...

ANd who is/are LG&M?

And why is it we are suppoosed to care?

Joe M. said...

Althouse, whose affected contrarianism runs so vast and deep she'll write anything if she thinks one rube will do a double-take reading it.

Ah, but I like a blog that challenges its readers! Or I should say, that challenges its readers with something more than the shallow pedestrian irony of the internet.

I was more put off by the description of you as Reynolds's "acolyte": it's such a petty, bloggerly insult. And I can't help but feel that it's a vaguely misogynistic slight (although for I all know the author's a woman).

Anonymous said...

Again: 4 of Bishop's six victims were "persons of color"...

This explains her rage. And the premeditation.

So, how does a Harvard Ph.D. wind up in Alabama? Up to her ears in Affirmative Actors.

And why didn't Bishop take marine biology so she could work with sea lions and dolphins post-academia?

Bill Kilgore said...

KC- That analysis is fine as far as it goes, but the boys at LGM knew that Reynolds remarks were referencing the pathetic efforts by TPMmuckraker last Friday. That they didn't reference that bit of dooshbaggery and played dumb (I'm giving them credit and ignoring the potential hilarity of their sub-title) speaks to the type of engagement you typically get there.

Anyway, don't be to hard on the guys. They do that great bit where they all pretend to be pseudo-intellectuals who can't recognize a distinction between anti-intellectual and nonintellectual. Sure- it's sort of a tired gag, but it's really funny when they do it.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see them prove their case for "double-takes".

Anonymous said...

"... whereas at this point there is no connection between the teacher's socialism and her murders ..."

Oh yes there is a definite connection. The connection is that this is the Chicago Way. This is the way taught by Barack Obama to his troops.

This is how thugs operate. They beat up, harass, and if necessary, they whack their perceived tormentors.

"You put one of mine in the hospital, I put one of yours in the morgue." This is how Rahm Emmanuel operates. He boasts of it. He's proud of it. He steps on necks. This is how Barack Obama leads. Crack some heads. It was in all the papers two days ago how Barack needs to crack some heads.

They befriend domestic terrorists and bring union goons to town hall meetings. It's only natural that this lefty, who has been studying Barack Obama and obsessed with his leadership style, would think it perfectly appropriate to send three of theirs to the morgue.

That's what the Chicago Way teaches. It teaches people that, to get your way you have to "crack heads." You have to step on necks.

You have to "get in their faces." You have to "punch back twice as hard." Those are Barack Obama's orders: Punch. Twice as hard.

That's the message Barack Obama sends his troops: Violence ... as a means to your ends.

And now people of color are dead.

It's his fault. It's Barack Obama's leadership style that is resulting in dead minorities littering college campii.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Not an acolyte. Maybe a gun moll. Weren't you an Meade traveling the Midwest roads knocking off banks the past few days?

Henry said...

One of these Joes is my brother. Can't the rest of you Joes adopt an initial or something so I don't have to check the Joe profile? Thanks Joe M.

* * *

What SEK at Lawyers, Guns and Money misses is that Glenn Reynolds works the conservative angle far less than the gun control angle. Gun control is a mainstream liberal cause (to reverse SEK's italics) that is always rolled out after every shooting.

SEK also makes Reynolds point by how he frames the Tiller murder. People in the U.S.A. who shoot other people out of ideology belong to the party of crazy, now matter how attractively evil their ideology.

LonewackoDotCom said...

(Correction: "Florida" is actually just a satire.)

Anonymous said...

Weren't you an Meade traveling the Midwest roads knocking off banks the past few days?

Are you suggesting Bonnie & Clyde had tenure?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Chip is right.

All Reynolds said was "if Bishop was a conservative, the media would be playing it up".....like....my God she watched Fox News and listened to Limbaugh!

Peter V. Bella said...

Man in cammies with "assault rifle" goes on a rampage and the lefttards heads explode. They rage against the Second Amenment. They rage against murderous Conservatives. The want to ban guns, ban people who own guns, and ban any speech about guns. Hell, they want to ban anyone who does not agree with them.

Stereotypical frumpy looking progressive activist professor goes on a rampage and not a word about her activism, socialistic ideas, or revolutionary thought. Not a word about banning guns- except on campus. Not a word against banning progressive activists.

Bill Ayers and his wife- both professors- are forgiven their sins because they contribute to the common good. Bobby Rush and Luis Guiterrez, urban terrorists, are allowed to stay in Congress. Murderous sins forgiven. They are the heroes of the revolution. The darlings of the left.

Yeah, the left is just full of hypocrisy and full of bovine excrement.

Anonymous said...

"Florida" is actually just a satire ..."

Florida is doing exactly what Josh Marshall does on a daily basis.

Marshall looks around for any nutjob he can find who might be loosely connected to the Tea Party or the Republican Party and then he makes that person a poster child for what's wrong with conservatism.

All the lefty websites do this. It's Marshall one day, Kos the next and Charles Johnson after them.

So, why shouldn't we apply these same principles? Fair's fair, right?

It was Barack Obama, after all, who said his followers should "get in their faces" and "punch" people "twice as hard."

He is, after all, advocating violence as a means to an end, is he not? He's using the "bully pulpit" to advocate bullying, no?

Isn't Amy Bishop, steeped in lefty politics and a lifelong member of the leftist academy, not an excellent student of this philosophy?

Is she not the natural result?

Henry said...

Is she not the natural result?

No. She's crazy.

Florida, the problem with your "Fair's fair" strategy is that you're doing it in a non-gullible venue. Go start your own Huffington Post, buddy.

Too many jims said...

Althouse said . . . Glenn Reynolds observed that. Not pick too fine a nit but he didn't (not there at least, though admittedly he may have in other places). He referenced a reader who observed that.

If one really wanted to do a comparison of MSM coverage, she could compare coverage of the Bishop shooting with this one. Admittedly, one would have to come up with a way to control some of the extraneous factors (e.g. {to warm the cockles of the lawyers here}Bishop was on a campus which may increase coverage, the Pittsburgh shooting was of police officers which will increase coverage) but it is a start.

Anonymous said...

Henry, do you agree with Barack Obama's violent philosophy of "punching back twice as hard?"

Why is our President advocating violence?

Peter V. Bella said...

He Florida,

HERE IS THE REAL CHICAGO WAY BY A REAL DEMOCRAT CHICAGO POLITICIAN

Anonymous said...

Yo, silly leftists. The point here is simply that if you knuckleheads wouldn't drag politics into things when nutty conservatives and "conservatives" like Tim McVeigh commit horrific crimes, conservatives and libertarians wouldn't point out how you ignore it when nutty leftists and socialists commit horrific crimes.

But that doesn't fit your narrative, does it?

How is that narrative working out for you, by the way? See you in November...

Bill Kilgore said...

KC- I'd also argue that saying that Tiller was shot in order to advance a "mainstream conservative cause"is a rather embarrassing formulation. First, Tiller was shot because his murderer thought Tiller was killing people. The idea that such a sentiment would go away if we end the political component of the abortion debate is pants on the floor stupid. Like it or not, some people regard abortion doctors as murderers. Some people even believe they are no different than "regular murderers"- this won't change even if Republicans/Conservatives stop trying to flip over the embarrassing jurisprudence that is the Roe/Casey framework.

Moreover, stopping abortion by killing all doctors is not a mainstream conservative cause. Dumping Roe/Casey is, outlawing all abortions is for a smaller number of people, but exterminating all persons with MDs is not. In fact, suggesting such a thing might be construed as trying to frame a narrative. Of course, if I was the type of person who gave a shit about "framing narratives" I would have already gouged my eyes out with a rusty spork in protest of being such a tool. So far, I've managed to avoid the temptation.

Henry said...

Florida, I believe in metaphor. I hate self-promoting literalism.

Unknown said...

I found this blog through Insta, but I'd hardly call Ann any more an "accolyte" than, say, Mickey Kaus or even (gasp!!) Andy Sullivan.

As to the Chicago Way, Florida's basic point is that people like the Bushes and John McCain will never get it through their heads that the rules changed forty years ago and that the idea that everybody has the good of the country at heart and are gentlemen (or ladies) who will play fair is as long gone as Buddy Holly. Turning the enemy's methods against him, of course, goes back to Robert Rogers and it's taken this long and the Alinskyites' getting their way almost to the point of ruining the country for some people to see how to give them a taste of their own medicine. Granted, there were a few who blazed the trail (think Ann Coulter), but it took somebody whose favorite book is "Rules For Radicals" to acquaint people with the methodology that's been used from the Vietnam War on.

Florida said...

Isn't bullying and other forms of violence the Chicago Way championed by the Rahm Emmanuel's and the Barack Obama's?

I fail to see how the left's leadership doesn't lead to people wacking other people if they don't get their way.

"You put one of mine in the hospital, I put three of yours in the morgue."


Ah, yes, the Gospel According to Jimmy, chapter 2.

Chapter 1 reads, "There's a big difference between what a man can do and what a man will do and you need to figure out what you're willing to do"

And no, wacko, Flo is telling it the way it is.

Balfegor said...

...

That's not even the worst of it. Rahm Emanuel is supposed to have said: "I have my knee on their vertebrae, and I'm not going to let up until I hear the vertebrae snap."

If you know anything about Tippytoes' background, it's not hard to figure he's been trying to prove to himself he's a tough guy all his life. Interesting what would happen if he bumped into a real tough guy without the Lefty machine to protect him.

WV "grati" Either "Thank you" in Sicilian or that thing Vince offers with the Slap Chop.

KCFleming said...

From LG&M: "liberals don't espouse jihad against the United States, but conservatives do inspire those on their fringes to engage in politically motivated violence"

This proves Reynold's point.

That's why I say push the connection between "Obama fanatic" and "insane shooter".

We get no points with the MSM, or lefty bloggers for 'playing fair', so I say the hell with it.

The left decided to play this game by these destructive rules, let's see how they like what they created.

former law student said...

Was Christopher Speight a Democrat or a Republican? I ask because he killed eight people a month ago.

How about that Seung-Hui Cho fellow? Did he listen to Rush Limbaugh or Rachel Maddow?

Henry said...

@edutcher - Just because there was a George H.W. Bush doesn't mean there wasn't a Nixon. Just because there was a Carter doesn't mean there wasn't an LBJ. Some politicians are simply more aggressive and pugnacious than others. I don't know what to make of the easy-going W, but Dick Cheney is nobody's fool.

And frankly, despite the very existence of Rahm Emmanuel and the endless repetition of your Alinsky talking points, the current White House is successful at bullying nobody.

The worst arm-twisting we've seen this year in Washington hasn't been driven by the Chicago Way in the White House. It's been driven by the dour incompetent from Nevada and the queen of pork from California.

Anonymous said...

You know, Althouse... I came to your blog for the titillation. I stuck around for the insight. But I became a huge fan commenter for the contrarian individualist fuck-you-ism.

The Crack Emcee said...

People trying to hold Ann's feet to the fire for blogging - effectively - don't understand anything about it: we enjoy it, even when we think she's wrong, because she's open to us - just as it should be.

The Glenn Reynold's criticism (which I've only seen here, without checking the article) is more accurate:

He does seem to want to control the narrative, whether it's accurate or not.

It may sound like sour grapes, coming from me, but I think it's true - and harmful - really harmful. For instance, as the battle over homeopathy is raging, Glenn says nothing, when it's a multi-billion dollar scam with a political angle attached. Knock down that plank and a lot of others fall - Oprah, Susanne Sommers, Jenny McCarthy, etc. - all totally in the Obama camp. Now, explain to me why everyone from Bernie Madoff (con man) and Phil Jones (cultishly practicing pseudoscience) are fair game but homeopathy ain't. It makes no sense.

I kn ow some think I may not be the best spokesman for my position, but I think A) it is a valid position - thus worthy of the kind of exposure Glenn Reynolds could give it, and B) Glenn's one of those elitist types who think a person has behave/think as he does to be valid - which totally misreads, and does a disservice to, others humanity, especially men such as myself. We're not all smiling beta males, and we need more "men" now, more than ever.

Glenn writes a great blog (I check it regularly) but he doesn't inspire. I'd even venture to say it's because of guys like him that the Tea Party movement can't be said to have a point beyond taxes. They seem lost, because no one can point to anything and say "This is what we're fighting". They have no one who can define it, apparently because they're too scared of being Bill Clinton's "decisive" figure (Ooh, somebody might not agree you, you cowards) or pegged as "cranks" (might lose somebody that way, like Glenn Beck did, right?) when stepping outside the norms is what's called for in a revolutionary movement. Instead, they're stuck with Dana what-ever-her-name-is (who is a terrible speaker) and no new ideas about how to approach politics in such a way the country will really "change".

It's really a shame such a smart, and influential man can be so stupid** at the same time.

**I'm sure saying things like this hurts me in his eyes but, I've noticed, he'll hypocritically print other people's missives when they talk like that:

You've got to have an "in", which is just bullshit - are we about ideas, or PC behavior? That's what I wanna know.

YoungHegelian said...

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that Bishop's politics had nothing to do with her rampage.

Does anyone think, however, that her politics had nothing to do with why Harvard 1) admitted someone with a fuzzy fraternal homicide in their background 2) kept on a post-doc who was a suspect in a bombing against a member of her committee, & 3) gave this loon a recommendation to UAH, thus foisting her on the unsuspecting citizens of Alabama?

There seem to be a lot of people in the Commonwealth with a great deal to answer for, and I suspect the list will only grow.

Unknown said...

Ann, I came here after seeing you on blogging heads; and clearly you are insanely smart. And also, like most lawyers and professors I know, you like to argue. All that being said, i dont think 'affected contrarian' is too far off the mark ... but that's perhaps because you do more thinking than a lot of people and so find more things you disagree with.

Peter V. Bella said...

There seem to be a lot of people in the Commonwealth with a great deal to answer for, and I suspect the list will only grow.

Is she related to the Kennedys?

somefeller said...

Does anyone think, however, that her politics had nothing to do with why Harvard 1) admitted someone with a fuzzy fraternal homicide in their background 2) kept on a post-doc who was a suspect in a bombing against a member of her committee, & 3) gave this loon a recommendation to UAH, thus foisting her on the unsuspecting citizens of Alabama?

Probably not, because there's no shortage of left-liberals at Harvard (isn't that the a big part of the whole conservative critique of places like Harvard?), so there really wouldn't be much of a need for Harvard to do anything special for someone just because they are left-of-center. There's plenty of other more presentable Harvard lefties out there, so no need to give Bishop any special breaks.

Also, you're assuming Harvard knew about her past, which may not be the case She wasn't ever convicted of a crime regarding her brother, correct? Many if not most grad school applications focus on convictions, so that may never have come up.

Unknown said...

So Prof. Althouse is a fake contrarian. It follows, then, that her idol, Prof. Reynolds, sucks.

Damn, that new math really does work.

In rube world, when a piss ant affects such tedious bull shit he gets his ass kicked. To pull the irony thing off, you've got to be funny. Irony and pity will always get your ass kicked in rube world.

Joe said...

Having multiple Joes means that one can say something smart and the rest of us can pretend we said it.

(Fortunately, as near as I can tell, none of the Joes is a whack job. At least for now.)

Anonymous said...

"The worst arm-twisting we've seen this year in Washington hasn't been driven by the Chicago Way in the White House."

Bullshit. The worst Chicago Way politics we've seen this year is what the Obama Administration is doing to Toyota.

They're destroying that company using federal recall laws and their friends in the liberal media because they give non-union workers jobs in Tennessee and because union members at GM and Chrysler need the work.

It's sickening, but if that's the way you fuckers want to play it, so be it.

Let's get it on.

See you bastards in November. We're going to crack some heads and have our troops at the polls with batons this time. Bring your guys. We'll bring ours and we'll see who is standing at the end.

We know what we're prepared to do. We didn't start this game, but we're going play it well and end it.

somefeller said...

Regarding whether or not the media would make a big deal about whether Bishop's politics if she was right-wing, as has already been pointed out, the situations where the media has made an issue about the right-wing views of a particular criminal have been in situations where such views were part of the motive of the crime. Like in the case of the guy who murdered Dr. Tiller, for example. If politics is part of the motive, it's going to be part of the story.

Also, there have been cases of right-wing nutjobs who had political motives for their crimes that were soft-pedaled in favor of the idea that the person was just a nut, with no real political implications to his actions. The guy who shot up a Unitarian church a couple of years back because of its liberalism comes to mind as an example. His politics weren't the lead part of the story until much later, after the media moved on to the next crime of the day.

LonewackoDotCom said...

Those like edutcher are among those who don't have the U.S.'s best interests at heart: instead of suggesting rising above the far-left's highly questionable tactics, all those like edutcher (and Instapundit) can do is try to emulate those highly questionable tactics. Those tactics are wrong, no matter who does them: they don't encourage real debate but are ultimately just the methods of tyrants.

Those who'd like to fight against those like Instapundit who'd put us further down the road to Idiocracy can start small: write Jonah Goldberg and ask him to denounce childish tactics and support WFB-style debate instead.

I've made it very easy: Goldberg's email address and Twitter address are at the link, all you need to do is drop him a quick line and suggest that instead of wallowing in the Glenn Reynolds Swamp he acts like a grown-up who cares about the future of the U.S.

Henry said...

@Florida -- Who was President when the media destroyed Audi?

Some things are born of the system. Scapegoats are a cop out.

KCFleming said...

fls asked: "Was Christopher Speight a Democrat or a Republican? I ask because he killed eight people a month ago.

How about that Seung-Hui Cho fellow? Did he listen to Rush Limbaugh or Rachel Maddow?
"


Both were fervent Obama supporters and liberal activists who were inspired to engage in politically motivated violence by following ACORN methods.

How do I know?

I made it up. Just like the MSM.
Hey ma! I'm a journalist!

The Crack Emcee said...

LonewackoDotCom:

"Instead of suggesting rising above the far-left's highly questionable tactics, all those like edutcher (and Instapundit) can do is try to emulate those highly questionable tactics. Those tactics are wrong, no matter who does them: they don't encourage real debate but are ultimately just the methods of tyrants."

Indeed. I mean, with all those charges of white supremacy floating around the Tea Party, from reading Glenn's blog I can gather they aren't true because he stresses two - two - black people, almost exclusively:

Zo - a sometimes-on-sometimes-off comedian.

And Ken Gladney - a victim that Glenn can parade around to bolster his own post-racial credentials (look what they did - to a black man!).

I hate to say it, but from the way he's playing it, Glenn's (almost) Obama in whiteface. Glenn, get out of the way and open the damned door, man! Acting like we've got no where else to go ain't gonna work:

These criticisms are real, and will come back to haunt you,...

KCFleming said...

"Those tactics are wrong, no matter who does them: they don't encourage real debate but are ultimately just the methods of tyrants."

When was 'real debate' part of the equation in the Obama administration?

That's the whole point, LW, there was no debate. The time for talking was over. Remember?

You can play by Queensbury rules if ya'll gots a mind to.

AlphaLiberal said...

Google says 4,313 stories on AMy Bishop. That's not making a big deal out of it?

Althouse feeds the right-wing paranoia.

Unknown said...

Pogo,

You're no journalist. You've got a sense of humor.

Dead give away.

KCFleming said...

"Who was President when the media destroyed Audi?"

That was from the lying liars of CBS.

Who cares who was President? The MSM was and is a liberal enclave, and CBS liberals made that shit up.

Same as now.

The Crack Emcee said...

Pogo,

And Glenn Reynolds promotes debate where? He's a libertarian - commonly referred to as a conservative without balls - and it shows. He's simultaneously trying to goad a movement into being, while stymieing anyone who shows more passion than he can muster. (If Florida had a blog, saying something important that Reynolds hadn't thought of first, would he print her with her "take no prisoners" attitude? I seriously doubt it, when I hear the same kind of this-is-this-and -we're-in-it-to-win-it shit on Rush's show every time I turn it on.)

It's bullshit.

Anonymous said...

For one reason or another I can't get excited about these accusations of hypothetical hypocrisy. (Hypothecrisy?)

ricpic said...

Well this rube ain't risin' to the bait. Bishop was a time bomb waiting to explode. I don't see that her politics had anything to do with it. Until and unless it can be proven that her politics or her family's politics were instrumental in beating the first rap there's no link.

somefeller said...

"Who was President when the media destroyed Audi?" That was from the lying liars of CBS. Who cares who was President? The MSM was and is a liberal enclave, and CBS liberals made that shit up.

The destruction of Audi, of course, has been a liberal goal for many years. That goal has been in the Democratic Party's platform since 1956, doncha know?

Henry said...

Pogo -- You restate my point. Toyoya's recall problems have as much to do with Obama as the Audi's gas and brake misapplication had to do with Reagan or the Ford Pinto's gas tank had to do with Gerald Ford.

The media tends toward hysteria. That is a baseline.

LonewackoDotCom said...

Pogo, Edutcher, Florida, if they aren't all the same person, just aren't smart enough to figure out how to do things. In fact, "just not smart enough" might as well be the teaparty/GOP/rightwing blogger motto. That's definitely unfortunate for me and for the dozens of millions of basically unrepresented people who'd appreciate a smart, effective opposition to the social-oriented depredations of the far-left. Instead, all we get are the teaparty/GOP and their pro-corporate agenda (if you actually know what it does).

KCFleming said...

Crack, there's never any debate anymore. The MSM has filtered all news stories into just a few paradigms. And those are the only stories that ever get told. I don't even bother reading entire articles anymore because I know how they skew this way or that.

I've been to medical meetings where I questioned where some guy got off declaring socialism as the only proper ethical response to the healthcare problem, and it was soon clear I was a turd in the punchbowl.

Asking for a proper discussion is like calling out a chess move at a boxing match.

Shit, all people do is throw punches. Does calling for a reasoned debate make sense when the New Agers run all the TV shows?



I wish I had a sensible answer, but I don't.

KCFleming said...

The media tends toward leftist hysteria. That is a baseline.

Once you've learned to read PRAVDA, it's a lot easier.

Henry said...

And bureaucracies tend toward overreach and regulation. P.J. O'Rourke sums up the Audi case in the title of his chapter on Federal agencies in Parliament of Whores. The title of the chapter is:

Protectors of a Blameless Citizenry

Like the idiot media, this is a baseline.

ethan said...

MAH TITS!

Does your asshole hurt? BECAUSE I THINK YOU JUST GOT THE DIALLO TREATMENT!

Affected contrarianism. Affected contrarianism. Affected contrarianism. Affected contrarianism. Affected contrarianism.

But that's how daddy wants it, isn't it, Tits?

HI TITS!

KCFleming said...

Ha! Yer right, Henry.

And PJ is a god.

AlphaLiberal said...

We do have a string of acts of violence from the right wing. And they continue to threaten more in their violence-laced vigilante rhetoric at their rallies and in their public statements.

- White supremacist James Von Brunn shot people dead at the Holocaust Museum.

- Right-wing extremist Richard Poplawski gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh

- Jim David Adkisson killed two people and wounded six others at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. "Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."

- Scott Roeder, anti-abortion extremist, killed Dr George Tiller.

- Border protecting militia types Shawna Forde, Jason Bush, and Albert Gaxiola were arrested and charged with the murder of Raul Flores and his daughter, and the wounding of his wife.

- In 2008, Bill Gwatney, state chair of the Arkansas Democratic party, was and shot and killed.

- In our public debates we have the tactics of thuggery used in the political debate.

former law student said...

Right-wing extremist Richard Poplawski gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh

Yabbut only because he thought Obama's presidency meant his guns would be taken away, just like Amy Bishop thought Obama's presidency meant she would be granted tenure.

Right? That's what she thought, right? That's the exact parallel to the MSM's laser focus on right-wing kooks.

Unknown said...

First, Pogo, to the best of my knowledge, is a doctor, and probably smarter than I am. I'm a programmer, don't know how Flo makes her money.

As for using the Alinsky method, I never said using a lie is OK to get what we want, nor is wantonly destroying somebody's life just to show you can. Henry tries manfully to create a straw man by implying I want to use those methods. I never said that; what I said was understand how the bad guys work, use that knowledge to your advantage, and have the courage and the will to do it. Better minds than mine have noted that the Alinsky tack of holding Christians strictly to the tenets of Christianity can also be adapted to thwart the Lefties by holding them, for example, to their much ballyhooed "compassion" and "empathy".

My invocation of the Gospel According to Jimmy is that you don't let them get away with anything, and, when they try to pull something, expose it and them for what they are. They tell a lie, you counter that lie with the facts immediately and expose it for what it is. They dominate the established media to create an echo chamber, you find unconventional ways get out your message, as Sarah Palin has done with Facebook and Twitter. The truth is the greatest weapon Conservatism has, the problem has been getting the message out

Wacko wants the conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans to "rise above" the Left's tactics. Dubya tried that and they destroyed his Presidency. Hate to tell you, Wack, but there's been a civil war going on in this country for about forty years and the bad guys have been winning because too many of the good guys want to be gentlemen and reach across the aisle, rather than stand on principle and, more to the point, call a spade a spade. You may think people like Pogo aren't smart enough by your standards (then, again, nobody but you is), but they do understand what's going on, as you clearly don't.

LonewackoDotCom said...

Like I said, the Pogo types just aren't that smart: he admits being unable to come up with a way to undercut the MSM/establishment opposition to real debates.

Meanwhile, for just about three years, I've been promoting a way to encourage real debate. And, I've gotten almost zero help with it. In fact, I asked several major r/w bloggers to promote that plan before the election, and they all refused (including Glenn Reynolds). They don't want to solve problems, they just want to describe the problems in order to generate page views.

Peter V. Bella said...

Hey, Alpha,
Get a grip. Both sides have violent people. Both sides have terrorists, murderers, and thugs.

But, the Democrats love to pardon them. Bill Clinton pardoned FALN terrorists upon the recomendation of Luis Guiterrez- a FALN member- and Eric Holder- the current ATTY General.

Eric Holder was also one of the architects of the violent "recovery" of Elian Gonzalez.

Bobby Rush is a Black Panther.
Luis Guiterrez is an unrepentent terrorist.

Then you have PETA, a domestic terrorist organization.

How about ELF? No one seems to be able to catch or prosecute them.

Greenpeace, another terrorist organization.

Robert Byrd, a member of the KKK, a domestic terrorist organization. Their is no such thing as a former or repentant member.

Rahm Emanuel owes his political career to a guy by the name of Jimmy DeLeo- an associate of the Chicago mob.

Bill Ayers and his wife.

The Kennedy family is nothing but an organized crime family too. How many murders have they covered up?

So, you see Alpha, the libs have their share of murderous thugs and enablers too.

jayne_cobb said...

Lonewacko,

You've gotta realize that Glenn is just not that into you.

It's painful, I know, but there are other fish in the sea and I think it's high time that you pursue other bloggers.

Palladian said...

Some of the greatest murderers in history were not only left-wingers, but murdered in the name of their political ideologies. Mao. Lenin. Stalin. Castro. Che. Chavez.

See, we can keep playing this stupid game forever!

JAL said...

... kept on a post-doc who was a suspect in a bombing against a member of her committee

I hope they go back and take another look at that case. Improvements in 15 years of technology may reveal the perpetrator(s).

I wonder how much the husband really knows. She appears to be a sociopath. (She called her husband to come pick her up after the faculty meeting so they could go out for coffee?! I think he was clueless that day, but the bomb ...)

As for Althouse -- affected ? Nahhh. Just occasionally quirky.

The Crack Emcee said...

"You've gotta realize that Glenn is just not that into you."

Nice try, and the guys at East Anglia don't seem to like a bunch of "crazy" people, either. They got no data. They're just calling names and asking pesky questions.

Would edutcher's little speech up there, which I agree with completely, be welcome in Instaworld? The Tea Party? Shit, I coulda wrote that shit:

"Better minds than mine have noted that the Alinsky tack of holding Christians strictly to the tenets of Christianity can also be adapted to thwart the Lefties by holding them, for example, to their much ballyhooed NewAge."

And it would stick like glue. What in the fuck is so hard about that? Out go the celebrity bullshit artists, telling us how many squares of toilet paper we'll use, and the quack doctors, like Deepak Chopra, and a whole slew of wealthy so-and-sos - and their donations to the Democratic Party which will be utterly destroyed from the fallout - resulting in the goal:

Getting our country back.

Now, with it's current politically participatory role in the blogosphere, is Instapundit a world of ideas, or of movement, or of Reynolds, Althouse, Kaus, etc.? (Don't look at me, he started it!)

AlphaLiberal said...

Peter, your list is a joke. Luis Gutierrez is a terrorist? Really?

Eric Holder is a violent man?

Here's a recent story about a right winger the stocked up on arms that police caught (THE MSM DID NOT MAKE A BIG DEAL OF THIS):

The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent "Armageddon" appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a "righteous 'Mission from God,'" as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.

As we reported yesterday, Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was "preparing for domestic and political turmoil," and feared martial law would soon be imposed.

AlphaLiberal said...

Crack:

Getting our country back. .

Here's the part I don't get with that phrase. Do you guys understand that in the American system of governance you opposed to implement their legislation?

But conservatives do not accept this fact of American life. If they are not in power they refuse to abide by the results of elections.

That's how unAmerican right wingers have become.

William said...

The left wing narrative has a way of becoming the standard history. Lee Harvey was a left wing activist and Sirhan was a third world nationalist. Nonetheless, the Kennedy murders became a story of our lax gun control laws. There was that woman who methodically drowned her five children. My first response was to consider her a monster. But, no, this was a story of post partum depression, and we were all too quick to judge that poor woman....We should use this unfortunate occurence to reflect upon the problems that women in the sciences have in obtaining tenure. That is the larger injustice, not this one isolated incident. This important issue is being studiously ignored. Professor Bishop is an alarm bell in the night. Unless our universities move to recruit more women scientists, there will be more cases such as hers. Larry Summers after his famous outburst of sexism went on to an important job in the White House, and this woman, who finally snapped after how many years of degradation and abuse, will be sent to prison. Where's the justice.

Revenant said...

Meanwhile, for just about three years, I've been promoting a way to encourage real debate. And, I've gotten almost zero help with it. .

For much the same reason that I refuse to engage in "real debate" with the smelly guy on the street corner who shouts at people only he can see.

Nobody takes you seriously, Lonewacko. You're just another internet troll link-whoring his website.

bagoh20 said...

The best revenge is voting right.

The nation's got a fevah and the only cure is more rube. Our leftist intelligentsia are better anger generators than a whole barrel of Danish cartoonists.

Unknown said...

The phrase “Amy Bishop Was Obsessed with Obama” can be read two ways:
1) This woman thought positively of him and wished him no harm
…but infinitely more likely since she CLEARLY had violent tendencies toward people who held some type of authority…
2) She was negatively obsessed. Like the three people she killed the other day (who happen to be people of color) the Pres. probably is/was on her Crazytown Hit List.

Amy Bishop killed 3 people – pretty much all the minority faculty at 'Bama. Dr. Podila was from India, Dr. Adriel Johnson and Dr. Maria Davis were African American. Interesting theory that she worshipped the first African American president.

Instead of distracting people with craziness – why don’t you post comments which mourn the loss of these three doctors? And don't forget to show your concerns for the three other people she clipped and/or seriously wounded...a Mexican American, and two Anglo Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/16alabama.html

bagoh20 said...

Alpha liberal, the Mass. man didn't do anything violent. There are thousands of people like him out there. It's hardly very newsworthy. Only when hyped as when you attempt to suggest it might lead to violence. I hope you can differentiate between a guy stockpiling protection because he's paranoid and a person gunning down multiple people because she is paranoid.

The fact that you have to pick this guy and try pushing it as comparable, is proof of the point. The fact that he agreed with the Tea Party and Palin is the only thing you really care about, and it means nothing. Bishop KILLED people.

LoafingOaf said...

Pete V. Bella: Then you have PETA, a domestic terrorist organization.

Eh?? There are some real nutcases who post around here. PETA is a mainstream organization with millions of members and millions more who appreciate some of what they do. And I didn't know the government allows domestic terrorist organizations to maintain nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. Get a grip.

LoafingOaf said...

As for this little talking point Althouse is helping bloggers like InstaPundit and Ace of Spades advance: Well, gee, the first place I read that Bishop was into Obama was from an article in the MSM newspapers. However, I don't see why anyone would make a big to-do over that, since being a lefty is not why Bishop has engaged in violence throughout her life.

What's really going on here is that these bloggers wanted to find an angle to score political points over this insane shooting rampage. They wanted to engage in exactly what they accuse the other side of doing, which is so typical of hardcore partisans. Yawn.

(BTW, the people who seems most obsessed with Obama - probably more obsessed with Obama than this Bishop nutter - are the people commenting on this blog. It doesn't matter what the topic is, it always ends up being about how everything Obama says or does is wrong.)

LoafingOaf said...

Kansas City: ..Ann and Reynolds, two of the most intellectually honest blogsters.

Are they really so intellectually honest? Imagine my surprise after reading their posts about Phil Jones saying that there's been no global warming since 1995 when I realized that neither of those bloggers wanted me to understand what Phil Jones meant by "statistically significant".

If I hadn't stumbled across a comment by AlphaLiberal deep down in Althouse's thread, I'd have not known to check out what that really meant.

So, I think those two bloggers (both professors) intentionally misled their readers.

Revenant said...

Eh?? There are some real nutcases who post around here. PETA is a mainstream organization with millions of members and millions more who appreciate some of what they do.

It is a matter of public record that PETA has provided financial support to both the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

Their "millions of supporters" either (a) are ignorant of what PETA actually does with their money or (b) support environmental terrorism. Personally, my vote's for (a) -- the average PETA member, in my experience, hasn't bothered with any thought beyond "I like fluffy bunnies and kittens".

Anonymous said...

Does your asshole hurt? BECAUSE I THINK YOU JUST GOT THE DIALLO TREATMENT!

You wouldn't be confusing Amadou Diallo, the African immigrant gunned down by NYC police for the crime of taking out a cell phone, with Abner Louima, the Haitian sodomized by a NYC cop, would you?

I mean, those people kind of look alike and all, but still ...

Word verification: aliene.

AllenS said...

By her own words, Amy Bishop was a socialist and an Obama worshipper. The people she shot were in Academia and more than likely, people who voted for Obama. It's like black on black crime. Better to not mention much about it. An unfortunate incident.

TWM said...

"No, kid, you just don't get it.

The right would prefer a politics and a society that is more civil, but if you fuckers want to play by Chicago Rules then let's get it on motherfucker.

We're game.

We're far better armed for that type of a fight, intellectually and in all other important ways.

So, you guys pick the rules. If it's to be Alinsky and Capone ... then let's go bitch.

Quit your fucking whining and let's go."

Bravo!

Franco said...

For the connection between Amy Bishop's socialistic or "fairness" mindset and these acts, go to my blog. It has to do with ice cream.

http://hypersanity.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Alabama will think twice -- or at least hire a PI to check the candidate's gun safe -- before denying tenure to the next frumpy card carrying Obamaton.

Mission accomplished, Amy.

Beto_Ochoa said...

All your Rubes are belong to us!

Patrick said...

That should have been "Moi, affected?"

Followed by a Miss Piggy bang toss.

Anonymous said...

"Toyoya's recall problems have as much to do with Obama as the Audi's gas and brake misapplication had to do with Reagan ..."

This is total bullshit.

There are two recalls going on right now: one affecting GM and one affecting Toyota. But the Obama Administration has only told Toyota owners to return their vehicles to the dealership.

Have you even heard of the GM recall? Millions of cars have been recalled for a major safety issue that could kill you, but you haven't heard anything about it because the media is ignoring the GM recall to focus on Toyota's troubles.

It's a designed and deliberate attack on a foreign carmaker that hires non-union labor..

Barack Obama's Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, got on national television and told Toyota owners to stop driving their vehicles and return them to dealerships. That was completely irresponsible and designed to cause people to lose confidence in Toyota.

They're trying to get Toyota's market share for their union buddies at Obama-owned General Motors and Chrysler.

These are the Chicago Way tactics that the Obama Administration are using against companies in America.

So, it's time to punch these fuckers back. As soon as Republicans regain Congress, they need to launch under-oath investigations of the Department of Transportation and get into their emails and their communications and let's get this out in the open what this administration is trying to do to a company just because they have the temerity to hire non-union labor.

Then, some investigations need to be launched into the war crimes of Barack Obama ... who is personally approving the murders of people in Pakistan and now we find out that he's overseeing the torture of a Taliban commander by the Pakistani ISS.

It's time to put Democrats under oath and in the dock and let the American people understand what their government is doing.

John said...

The utter lack of self awareness of liberals is amazing. It is not that Bishop's lunacy is in any way a reflection of her liberal political views. In fact, it is just the opposite. She is a nut and it doesn't matter what her political views are she would still be a homicidal lunatic. Conservatives are poking at liberals not because they think her actions reflect on her broader political views. They are poking liberals because that is the conclusion that liberals would be making had she been a conservative. And liberals are so stupid their only response is "but it is different with you". It literally goes right over their heads. Liberals are totally incapable of seeing or understanding hypocrisy within their own ranks.

Cassie said...

Well, your certainty about how the future will turn out in realities that don't even exist sure says ... something. Huh...

bearing said...

I admit to being tempted to think things like this frequently, but I have to say I get tired of the constant refrain of "if so-and-so had been a conservative, the liberals would be screaming." Or the other way around.

It's not just a straw man. It's an alternate-reality straw man.

Like I said, I'm tempted to think it myself. But I don't particularly like that I am.

Leland said...

I thought the comparison made by Althouse and Reynolds was to Huckabee's pardon. That would be a very good analogy here, in which a politician let loose a criminal that committed another, even more violent crime. I saw no mention of Tiller from Althouse or Reynolds. Indeed, the reference to Bishop's killing her brother is an inquiry into why nothing was done at that time.

From Inwood said...

Joe in comment # 1 said it all.

But here's a reply to a friend who proves Prof A's point about the MSM gleefully "exposing" alleged mainstream rightwing nuts, here today:

F

Typical of the NYT. They always find the most extreme guy on the Right & the most reasonable guy on The Left.

Remember how they showed us the Leftwing Loons behind the Leftwing Loon in the White House? And how they now expose the loons he has nominated for office of for Czar? Of course not; never happened, never will.

Hey, if The Anointed Ώne is not responsible for flag burners, Bill Ayers, Van Jones, The Rev Wright, the AGW Earthers, or the Truthers, I’m not responsible for the Birthers, some guy bedecked in a flag, or others who, according to the sneering NYT, “have gone so far as to stock up on ammunition, gold and survival food in anticipation of the worst….”

That’s why I keep telling you that the MSM is irrelevant & that life has passed it by.

I gave up reading the NYT except when I see a reference to it on a blog, because I had to spend all afternoon unlearning what I thought I’d learned that morning from The Gray Lady!

[Inwood]


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

LakeLevel said...

I agree with those who say if the MSM is not going to report these things fairly, why play fair at all? The left has gotten away with murder (figuratively and aparantly literally) for so long, they don't care about playing fair. If there is no up side to the Right playing fair, let's have no mercy.

From Inwood said...

Joe & PVB

I sent Ann's Blog heading with your 6:54 & 8:11 PM respective comments, in full (with attribution, of course) to my friend above.

Brian said...

Point of order. Huckabee didn't pardon Maurice Clemmons. He commuted his sentence from 108 years, to 47 years. That made him eligible for parole, which the parole board did. You can question the wisdom of doing this, and if Huckabee hadn't done that this murderer would still be in prison. But the trial judge and the bipartisan parole board supported the petition for clemency.

Also, within a year, Maurice committed more crimes and was sentenced to 10 years, and paroled again. Huckabee didn't have anything to do with that. If Maurice had been treated as a repeat offender who violated parole, he may have remained in prison.

There were several enablers along the way for Maurice. In contrast, Amy Bishop was never charged with anything thanks to Delahunt's decision. If she'd been charged with manslaughter, it may have kept her out of Harvard.

george said...

I don't get the argument that there is no relationship between this woman's political views and the way she behaved. She was upset she didn't get what she wanted so she used force in several incidents to either try to get it or to punish those who would not give it to her. This is the very essence of progressivism. Normally they get the government to do the dirty work but morally I don't see much difference. It is the entitlement mentality and the social justice mentality. You have to realize that Bishop is a woman who blocked ice cream trucks from coming into her neighborhood because her kids are lactose intolerant and she thought it unfair that other kids could eat ice cream if hers couldn't. She tried to control everything everyone else did... being a frequent caller to 911 trying to get the local kids to not play outside.

The criticism of Reynolds is just silly because it misses the point. He is making an argument about the media, not about progressivism or Amy Bishop. She is incidental to the argument in this case and is merely a good example. If you read his blog you will see he uses examples from news of the day to make the same point over and over. There certainly is never a dearth of fresh material when it comes to media bias.

former law student said...

Florida -- when you mention a GM recall so pervasive yet so secret I can't even Google it, please provide a link -- half of my family are GM loyalists.

Richard Fagin said...

The rubes thought the 1988 Willie Horton ad was racist, too. Thbe rubes are taking us collectively into oblivion. In the words of Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, "FEA! Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all!"

former law student said...

If she'd been charged with manslaughter, it may have kept her out of Harvard.

Harvard is picky about such things, I agree. They famously revoked Gina Grant's admission once they learned she had bludgeoned her mother to death with a candlestick when she was 14. The disappointed girl had to attend Tufts, instead.

caseym54 said...

Ann, you need to mark that Lefty talk more clearly and up front ... I actually read that stuff by accident.

Anonymous said...

Nancy Pelosi would tell you that you're all a bunch of Nazis for trying to associate some mad and murderous acts by others with upstanding people like Professor Obama.

Number Six said...

This reminds me of the Beltway Sniper. I clearly recall major media icons like Tom Brokaw were expecting the Beltway Sniper to be a right winger or a Christian fundie. After the Beltway Sniper was caught Tom Brokaw told us the sniper used a 'Buushmaster' rifle and smirked at his joke. Brokaw didn't tell us the sniper was named John Mohamed, a black man, a muslim, and a man who kept a teenage Jamaican boy as his sex slave. Here they had a black, gay, Muslim serial killer and they didn't want to talk about it. It doesn't fit their narrative.

KCFleming said...

Amy Bishop was a lefty and an asshole as a neighbor, but I repeat myself.

"Bishop once stopped a local ice cream truck from coming into their neighborhood. According to WBZ-1030 radio, she said it because her own kids were lactose intolerant, and she didn't think it was fair that her kids couldn't have ice cream.

Bishop, ...called 911 regularly during her short time living in this North Shore community. She reported several neighborhood kids to the police for "disturbing the peace" by riding their dirt bikes and motorized scooters in the neighborhood after school. Police repeatedly informed her and her husband that kids are allowed to ride their bikes and scooters during the afternoon hours, especially on their own property.

They used to videotape us driving our dirt bikes, and they used to call the cops on us saying that our dirt bikes kept them up -- at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon," Lafoe said. "The cops said we could go until 8 o'clock."

Lafoe and several others said that it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that the kids weren't allowed to play with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood.
"

former law student said...

Amy Bishop was a lefty

Yes, a lefty who
1. Believed in her right to be armed.
2. Had a grudge against the panel of government employees who denied her something she had busted her ass her whole life for.
3. Far from fearing or hating the police, called them to stop everything that bothered her. This is Bill Ayers in a nutshell.


Was courthouse shooter Johnny Lee Wicks a lefty or a righty? Because he brought a gun to a courthouse to shoot up government employees he believed were responsible for denying him the Social Security benefit he had worked his whole life fore.

Leland said...

Fair enough Brian. I was responding when in a situation where I couldn't check the facts. Either way, Huckabee received criticism in the MSM. That's really the point, and that's the actual comparison. This stuff about Tiller doesn't fit.

pdug said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey,_Rube!

""Hey, Rube!" is circus slang most commonly used in the United States with origins in the middle 19th century. It is a rallying call, or a cry for help, used by circus people involved in a fight. It can also be used in the sense of describing a fight between circus people and the general public (e.g. "the clown got a black eye in a hey, Rube!")."

KCFleming said...

Face it, fls, lefties are as inconsistent and impure as the rest of us.

They're still lefties.

From Inwood said...

Pogo

Sorry.

The secular Liberal is a “virtuecrat”. Whatever the topic, his/her subset is that he/she is a morally superior person. (“Hey, at the end of the day, I care more than others about your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore….”)

QED, this Bishop person, who used a gun (not for the first time). couldn't be a Liberal, much less a person identified with Liberal leanings by the MSM gatekeepers.

From reading blogs like this, I see that the usual gaggle of Loony Left apologists for all Obamaexcess, Obamisms, & Obama connections of Loony Leftists have adopted the “offense is the best defense” approach, with the subset “ridicule helps”. So, they’re attacking.

Like this: “Get a life; you can’t be serious. Loony woman with a gun, whom Obama probably never met or even heard about. Grow up. There you go again, attacking Obama for everything (translation: “you’re stealing a page from our BDS attack book; unfair; we hold the patent on that tactic”.) Let’s deal with the important issues facing us like when the members of The BushChimpyHitlerHaliburtonCheney Regime are gonna be put on trial & bought to justice for War Crimes.” Or whether we’re gonna address the still-settled science of Climate Change crisis. Or, something.

bagoh20 said...

From one of the surviviors:

Ms. Bishop, who Mr. Ng described as a "disgruntled faculty member," "started with the one closest to her and went down the row shooting her targets in the head."

"Our chairman got it the worst as he was right next to her along with two others who died almost instantly. Six people sitting in the rows perpendicular were all shot fatally or seriously wounded," he wrote.

He wrote that the remaining five people at the meeting, including him, "immediately dropped to the floor." When Ms. Bishop was trying to reload her gun, the faculty members pushed her out the conference-room door, barricaded it, and called 911.

"Blood was everywhere with crying and moaning," he wrote.

bagoh20 said...

John @ 8:22am nails it.