Just Look How Well That Turned Out

From Christine Todd Whitman:

I worry about the direction this country could go with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority. Some historians suggest that no president has had such power since 1937, when large Democratic majorities in Congress gave President Franklin Roosevelt tremendous leverage.

Oh no!!!!!!!

If the analogy holds up, Obama would bring the economy out of a depression and defeat fascism!

Some historians suggest that would be *truly* terrible.

Debating Debates Debated

From the department of shooting redundant fish in a barrel department:

“I’ve always been on the fence about whether waterboarding constituted torture,” Mr. Goldberg of the National Review wrote last week, but if the figures are true, “then I think the threshold has been met.”

He added: “Debating whether it was worth it still seems open to debate, depending on the facts.”

I mean, when Sarah Palin mangles a thought this badly, she's usually speaking extemporaneously and gets lost somewhere between the verb and the object. Given that this is prose, we'll just have to assume that Jonah Goldberg actually meant that there's an open debate, subject to the facts, on whether we should even be debating whether the activity which Jonah Goldberg thinks might be torture was worth it.

Seemingly.

Ugh.

I Think We Dodged A Bullet There

Another point about this ridiculous Amazon page: don't the terms and phrases in this book sound perilously close to the kind of crap Tom Friedman would make up? Can't you see Mickey, in some alternative universe where he's a rich and famous pundit with a sweet porn-star 'stache of his own, writing things like "We don't need a 'welfare state', we need a 'work ethic state' ..." twice a week for the Times?

"Here in Dubai, eating at McDonald's and staring at a Kinko's, I realized something about teacher's unions ..."

"We don't need 'card check', we need a gut check."

Wow. Maybe this *is* the best of all possible worlds ...

The Real Amazon Controversy

Check out this horrifying summary here:



In this ambitious, accessible and intellectually nourishing policy treatise, New Republic senior editor Kaus proposes a plan to avoid the "end of equality" that threatens America as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. For equality and capitalism to coexist, Kaus argues, we must create a public life in which money has limited influence. Thus he calls for compulsory national service and universal health care, renovated public spaces and reformed politics. Maintaining equality would become government's goal. While he names his program "Civic Liberalism" and pitches it to Democrats, Kaus is no traditionalist. He reproves "Money Liberals" for pursuing, through tax legislation, chimerical "money equality." To integrate the ghetto "underclass" into society, he recommends a national jobs program that would transform the "welfare state" into the "work ethic state." Kaus believes that if we guarantee jobs to all, while discontinuing welfare compensation for the able-bodied who refuse employment, work will become America's ultimate common denominator. There's something here for everyone to disagree with, but with his crisp, metaphor-rich writing and his command of history and political philosophy, Kaus proves persuasive.


... "intellectually nourishing" ... "command of history" ... "crisp, metaphor-rich writing" ... "persuasive" ...

Is this Mickey Kaus we're talking about? If the North Korean media wrote this about Kim Jong Il, he'd probably ask them to tone it down a little.

Also, you might notice how Mickey's still writing about welfare, the underclass, and Money Liberals ... but the national jobs program, compulsory national service, renovated public spaces, and guaranteeing jobs to all? Not so much.

I mean, it's almost like he's just using a leftier-than-though ideology as a perch from which he can pursue his true ambition of ceaselessly attacking Democrats ...


p.s. Ha!

There's something here for everyone to disagree with

I think that's supposed to say that everyone could disagree with something in the book, but the way it's written it suggests that there's an aspect of the book that everyone on Earth will unite in disagreement with. That'd be quite an accomplishment, but if anyone could do it, it'd be Mickey.

News You Can Use

Mickey:

Conservatives with money are talking about starting a right wing imitation of Huffington Post.

So they're going to launch a second version of internet punchline Big Hollywood?

Like The Prize In A Box Of Terrible, Consistently Wrong Crackerjacks

Normally, a giant steaming pile of wingnut blather that gets a link from Mickey is being hailed as a paragon of logical reasoning and/or a brave voice speaking truth to power (in Malkin's case, screaming it). But, every so often, something activates the "liberal" part of his "neoliberal idiocy", and Mickey gets ornery with his erstwhile allies.

This phenomenon -- the biannual-or-so appearance of Bizarro Kaus -- is the best explanation I have for Mickey's reaction to this terrible-but-not-uniquely-terrible column by Robert Samuelson (author seen here doing his Groucho Marx impression). Mickey -- surprise! -- has been almost completely tolerable:

It seems like it would be hard to achieve any desirable form of equality--equality before the law, equality of opportunity, or social equality--simply by aggregating the choices of individuals spending their own money.

Whoa there, comrade. Even after you unpack it all ("social equality" carries with it every Mickey tirade against those highfalootin' Money Liberals; "equality of opportunity" is kind of redundant when you have "social equality", and is probably being used as a rebuttal to noted straw man "equality of outcome", etc.), his rejection of the market as a one-stop solution to everything is still fairly ... Democratic.

Enjoy it while it lasts, everyone.

All The Noticias Fit To Print

Mickey now declares, of potential illegal immigrants:

they hear the news, perhaps false news, that legalization is or is not in the offing. Why wouldn't they pay more attention than the average American? The news affects them more directly, no?

So, wait, why would it matter what the actual state of comprehensive immigration legislation was, or what Obama said or didn't say about it, if the potential illegal immigrants are getting and believing "false news"? Wouldn't any public attempt to shoot down the possibility of amnesty only really affect illegal immigrants who bother to double check received wisdom by reading the New York Times? How many of those are there?

(And aren't the only people who read the New York Times a bunch of Upper West Side effete leftist cocooning Money Liberals? I remember a guy who kept saying things like that.)

(If you look at Spanish-language papers in the U.S, certainly, you'll notice a rather intense focus on immigration-related developments, especially the possibility of legalization.)

It's been obvious for a while that evidence for Mickey's thesis is pretty thin on the ground, but, man ...

Not an actual analysis of correlation between migration patterns and congressional activity.

Not a rough survey of Spanish-language papers outside the U.S.

No, we get a half-assed anecdotal "analysis" of papers not even found in the immigrant's country of origin (and probably collected from a bench outside Mickey's supermarket).

I mean, we all know Mickey's no Nate Silver, but come on.

***

In unrelated news, did you know that Canadians are becoming increasingly concerned about hurricanes? It's true! I found out by skimming the Miami Herald.

Wherein I Shockingly Find Flaws In Mickey's Logic

Okay.

/deep breath

Let's pretend that Obama really is acting according to Mickey's Machiavelli-by-way-of-Rube-Goldberg plan to encourage illegal aliens to flood the United States by planting a story in the New York Times -- the migrant worker's paper of record, you see -- about the possibility of taking up immigration reform in the next year and thereby inducing illegal immigrants to enter in hopes of being granted amnesty, *all* in an effort to increase the population in certain areas -- nudge nudge -- for the 2010 census.

/another deep breath

(1) What exactly is keeping these illegal immigrants, surprisingly attuned to the flow of American political news, from going to Texas? Or Arizona? Do the Democrats really want to add congressional districts and electoral votes in those states?

(2) Was there some sort of code word in the Times story -- the first letter of every paragraph spells out 'Go To Santa Monica'! -- that directs them to the appropriate states? [Where do you suppose illegal immigrants get these secret decoder rings? -- ed. From the Money Liberals, naturally.]

(3) All that aside, why would this necessarily help Democrats? It's a zero-sum game, right? How is it better to add a district in California if it's coming out of, say, Pennsylvania?

I have to say, it's pretty astounding that, among all the ignorant bleating and right-wing fearmongering about the evil uses of statistical sampling, Mickey actually came up with a crazier, dumber paranoid fantasy about the 2010 census.

I've changed my mind. Don't ever leave.

Bravo, Sir

In this post, I accused Mickey of betraying his standards by not giving some tawdry sex gossip the kausfiles 24/7 full court press that he gives to similar undernews, both accurate (John Edwards!) and otherwise (everyone else!).

Mickey's now counter-accused me of missing his little "joke" [Wait, is the joke that you missed the joke or is the joke that his Toobin line is what passes for a joke to Mickey? -- ed. Both. And neither. Is anyone else confused? -- ed.] and rather than parse the whole affair (what was the punchline there anyway?), I'll just man up and admit my glaring error.

Mickey, I promise, I will never again doubt that you really are just that lame.

[You're fired -- ed.]

How? How did this happen?

How did Mickey -- who flatly declared in March that "there's nothing happening" with Jeffrey Toobin -- miss this? And now this?

Good lord! We're all aware that Mickey is a dramatic failure at logical reasoning, political theory, journalism, blogging, life, etc. At least he has Kausfiles, right?

But here we are with (1) a Kaus enemy (2) involved in a scandal (3) about sex. It's undernews, it's sordid, it's score-settling in a kind of pointless way ... it's the very definition of a kausfiles item! And he misses it! What the hell?

If congress passes a bill allowing illegal aliens to collect welfare if they join a L.A. Times/Center for American Progress joint workers union via card check, will Mickey notice that? Or will he be off blogging about terrorist climate attacks [Wait, what? -- ed. That's just what I was thinking! Spooky!]?

Mickey Kaus is now failing at being Mickey Kaus. For this, Mickey Kaus should fire himself.

Bookmarks Of The Damned

Hey, remember that horrifying period when Mickey was linking to VDARE articles, like that's something a sane person would ever do?

Well, he's now unabashedly linking to an outfit called Renew America in support of his conspiracy theory regarding something or another. [The New York Times is in cahoots with Obama and ACORN to do ... uh ... something terrible! -- ed. Undernews! It's the new new news!]

Now, I know what you're thinking. Could www.renewamerica.us -- this URL don't run! -- possibly be as awesome as its title suggests, and more?

Boy howdy, is it ever!

From a prominently featured article (honest-to-god-it's-not-a-parody):

Once again, Marxist Muslim Obama lies for the sake of Allah who approves of lying to further Islam World Rule.

Obama is The Terrorist.

Yes. Oh my, yes. Oh, I would definitely consider this a trustworthy source. Yes.

Is there ever a time when insanity sits high upon the throne?

Every day, baby, right here.

"It Was Like Playing Basketball, And I Couldn't Use Stilts"

It's totally and completely unrelated, but I can't let low-hanging fruit just dangle there.

"It was high-stakes poker,'' Angelo said when it was over. "And I couldn't see anyone else's hand.''

Man, that is just perfect. Does Jerry Angelo think that you can ordinarily see other people's hands in high-stakes poker? Low-stakes poker? Any card game?

Uno?

I mean, under what circumstances ...


Ah, that explains it.

April Fool

Hey, Kaus found a joke in this Andy McCarthy post ...

... and it's not McCarthy's casual endorsement of the incredibly idiotic Laffer Curve.

Oh, but don't switch parties, you cut-up, you!

Monetized

Ta-da!