If Obama's lost Maureen Dowd . . .

. . . he's doomed beyond Hope:

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch? . . .
Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned. . . .

Once Modo starts eyeing the exit of the Obama bandwagon, what next? Will David Brooks espy an un-meritocratic wrinkle in the president's pants?

Ethics, schmethics

The New York Times is under fire again. Synopsis: Trying to go cheap on a technology and business column, the paper hired a Harvard professor who took a free trip from the 3M company and then wrote about it for her column. This amuses Virginia Postrel, who turned down that same NYT columnist gig:

I am, in fact, ethically ineligible to write about innovation for the NYT.
I occasionally do paid speaking for companies that might conceivably be sources for a column on innovation. (Those speaking engagements generally pay quite a bit better than writing for the Times.) As an old journalism pro, I naturally know enough not to take a speaking gig and then turn it into an article, at least not without getting my editor's OK and disclosing any potential conflict to readers. But that's no longer enough for the Times. Its ethics guidelines now prohibit freelancers from taking honoraria or even travel expenses from anyone who might, in some theoretical future state of the world, be a source.

Read the whole thing. This goes back to my basic beef with the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics. Their standards -- including their hostility to press junkets, free food and other "conflicts of interest" -- always favored the big media outlets, which can afford to pay expenses for travel, meals, etc., that smaller operations can't afford.

Back in the day when big newspapers and magazines were rolling in ad revenue, a staffer for Time or the Washington Post could go where the action was, put the whole thing on his AmEx card and get reimbursed for all expenses. You couldn't do that if you were working for a smaller paper.

The ability to pay correspondents to go trotting off to Rio and Riyadh was a basic element of the prestige of major news organizations, and the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics codified the rules to protect the status quo. A clever racket, and if you let the big boys set the rules, don't be surprised that the rules favor the big boys so decisively that you never get a scoop.

Well, now the big boys' budgets are getting tight, see? And they're discovering that Journalism Ethics was actually a luxury item that they can no longer afford.

Screw 'em. I forfeited all claim to "Journalism Ethics" more than two decades ago, when I was a small-town sportswriter scarfing up all the free chili dogs I could get from the ladies at the Gordon Central High School Band Boosters concession stand. And I recall some good advice from my Old School editors: "Just get the facts right and you're OK."

Or, as I once remarked to Bob Barr, "Ethics, schmethics." We were walking to a seafood restaurant in Orlando called Fish On Fire, and if you think I was going to pay for supper, you're nuts. If I'd been worried about tithing the mint and cumin of "ethics," I wouldn't even have been on that trip. A reporter's job is to get the facts. How I get the facts is my own business, and if the facts are in Orlando, let's not clutter up the story with a lot of "full disclosure" crap about my travel arrangements, OK?

Open mockery of "Journalism Ethics" is not going to win you any friends at the New York Times, but what kind of self-respecting gonzo journalist cares about making friends at the New York Times?

The facts are the facts, and the fact is that the Grand Poobahs of Journalism Ethics have been running a racket for years. Now they're running out of money and having to rely on Harvard professors to do the job, which is a sure sign of desperation.

Meanwhile, it's about time for me to book my flight to Pasadena for the BCS Championship Game -- Roll Tide! -- so please hit the tip jar. While Mrs. Other McCain doesn't worry too much about Journalism Ethics, she is kind of worried about certain neutral objective facts we can't avoid, including the heating bill.

(Via Memeorandum and Professor Glenn Reynolds, who went to law school at Yale, not Harvard, and whose bias against the University of Alabama does not require "full disclosure.")

UPDATE: Just booked my flight for Pasadena, if you're interested.

A slowing trend is not a 'reversal'

noting that the recession has slowed migration to the Sunbelt, The New York Times gets it wrong:

More broadly, however, the recession that began in 2007 has significantly slowed the great American migration toward warmth and sun. It was a move, earlier in the decade, driven as much by quality of life as easy credit, according to demographers and economists. But the reversal is nearly as striking.

There has been no "reversal." Nevada and Florida have had a net outflow of residents in this recession, but the general trend -- population shifting southward and westward from the Northeast and Upper Midwest "Rust Belt" -- continues. Can't the people at the New York Times even read a press release?

Wyoming showed the largest percentage growth: its population climbed 2.12 percent to 544,270 between July 1, 2008, and July 1, 2009. Utah was next largest, growing 2.10 percent to 2.8 million. Texas ranked third, as its population climbed 1.97 percent to 24.8 million, with Colorado next (1.81 percent to 5 million).
The only three states to lose population over the period were Michigan (-0.33 percent), Maine (-0.11 percent) and Rhode Island (-0.03 percent). The latter two states had small population changes.

So if Michigan, Maine and Rhode Island are losing population, while Wyoming, Texas and Colorado are gaining, the alleged "reversal" of the trend is non-existent.

Happy (Segregated) Holidays

Ed Driscoll's got that PC multicutural holiday spirit. It seems the New York Times is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past.

Oh, wait. Thoses aren't ghosts. Just dudes in white sheets.

Glad I never worked for the New York Times. Somebody might accuse me of supporting bigotry!

UPDATE: This one's turning into a festive holiday occasion for the blogosphere.

NYT offers thoughtful gift guide for the minority in your life
-- Hot Air

Things White People Like To Buy (For People Of Color)
-- Just One Minute

Merry Snarkmas!

NY23: New York Times finally notices there's a congressional election upstate

Their staff writer Jeremy Peters discovers how difficult it is to summarize this thing in 1,100 words:

The conservatives who oppose Ms. Scozzafava have attacked her as they would a Democrat. They have tried linking her to Acorn because of her relationship with the Acorn-affiliated Working Families Party, and they have called her the candidate of big labor because of her endorsement from the New York State United Teachers Union.
The attacks have at times rattled the Scozzafava campaign. Last week, the campaign called the police after a reporter from The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine, continued to press Ms. Scozzafava to answer questions after she declined to comment. Afterward, Ms. Scozzafava was mocked relentlessly in the conservative blogosphere. . . .

You can read the whole thing, but the most interesting part to me was this:

"The No. 1 victory will be to defeat Dede," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect candidates who oppose abortion.
Ms. Dannenfelser, along with members of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, are helping to coordinate efforts on the ground in support of Mr. Hoffman.
At the Days Inn on Sunday, Ms. Dannenfelser, 43, of Arlington, Va., and three other organizers from the Washington area who have temporarily relocated to Watertown joined a conference call with conservatives from across the country. A small picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary rested on top of the television, while the Pittsburgh Steelers game played with the volume muted. . . .

Very interesting that the New York Times guy got the inside tour of this pro-life HQ in Watertown, but none of my Hoffman campaign sources even mentioned it to me. (Note to self: Chew sources a new one.)

All along, I've figured that a big key for Hoffman would be the Catholic vote in this district. A lot of pro-life Catholics didn't trust John McCain (Episcopalian, IYKWIMAITYD).

Obama got support from some of those "social justice"-type Catholics who spend too much time reading Rerum Novarum. Now that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid axis has shown its true colors, there's a backlash.

Because of the GOP/Conservative split in NY23, this special election really isolates the bedrock conservatives. And I mean "isolate" in the scientific sense, as a chemist would isolate an element, separating it from a mixture. Separated from the Republican herd, Hoffman supporters constitute a profile of the grassroots conservative base: Lot of military veterans, Catholic laymen, small business people, technicians, grandparents worried about the debt that's being heaped on the next generation.

Oh, but you can't tell a story like this in 1,100 words!

UPDATE: Janet Hook of the L.A. Times takes her turn with 1,200 words and misses the point:

McHugh had been easily reelected in the district by wide margins, and Scozzafava's backers say a conservative like Hoffman does not fit the district.
"Her positions on a lot of issues are reflective of the electorate here," said Matt Burns, a Scozzafava spokesman. "If the idea is that every Republican that runs for office needs [to be] someone who fits in Georgia, then it's going to be very, very difficult for Republicans to gain a majority in the House of Representatives."

There's not much evidence from this story that the L.A. Times reporter, who filed under a D.C. dateline, has spent any significant time in the 23rd District.

It's a region of small towns. It has far more in common with rural north Georgia, in terms of culture and economics, than than the Scozzafava's team would have you believe. There are more Catholics than Baptists, but that's really the only major difference. Fort Drum is in the district, and you have a significant military/patriotic element up there.

Even the district's 52% vote for Obama in 2008 is deceptive. As one source pointed out to me, there are several colleges and universities in the 23rd District; Obama no doubt got thousands of his votes from liberal student-activist types who are unlikely to pay much attention to a special congressional election.

Like I said before: Don't believe the MSM.

HOFFMANIA: CATCH IT!

Our complete coverage of the NY23 special election

Another reminder that the MSM is in the tank for Obama, as if you didn't know that

Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute headlined this "All is well because Obama is in charge," which elucidates a point that the New York Times carefully endeavors to obscure:

A study to be released Monday of financial news coverage this year found that government, Wall Street and a small handful of story lines got the bulk of the attention while much less was paid to the economic troubles of ordinary people. . . .
Reviewing almost 10,000 reports from Feb. 1 to Aug. 31 in newspapers, on news Web sites, on the radio and on network broadcast and cable television, Pew found that almost 40 percent of economic news reports dealt with the trials of the banking and auto industries, and the federal stimulus bill passed in February. . . .
Unemployment and the housing crisis accounted for 12 percent. And, the study said, “stories that tried to explicitly examine the broader impact of the economic downturn on the lives of ordinary Americans filled 5 percent of the economic coverage." . . .
In February and March, the economy was the subject of nearly half of all news coverage, driven mostly by the stimulus bill and the uses of bank bailout money. After those fights died down, financial news coverage fell by more than half.
Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Pew project, said it was easier for the national news media to cover Washington “than to fan out around the country and measure the impact on real lives.”
“There’s plenty of reason to understand why a lot of this is a Washington and New York story,” he said. “But we’re talking about something that affected almost every American in some way.”

All of which is to say, with unemployment at 9.8 percent and no prospect of it going down in the next six months, the MSM have been ignoring this turd in the punchbowl and pretending that recovery is just around the corner.

What has actually been happening in the economy, of course, is that the way the TARP bailout was structured, it pumped massive liquidity into Wall Street. This inevitably led to a rise in stock prices -- a "sucker's rally" -- that I believe is the main reason we haven't seen a consumer price increase as a result of the Fed's insanely inflationary monetary policy. Relatively little of that extra currency is going to Main Street. Instead, it's been siphoned off into the financial sector and we're seeing an inflationary stock bubble.

Because the MSM desperately wants to believe in the unicorns-and-rainbows magic of Obamanomics, they've highlighted the stock market rally and twisted the headlines about other economic news -- "We only lost 200,000 jobs last month? Great!" -- in an attempt to manufacture consumer confidence.

Alas, consumer confidence isn't magic, either. At some point, the fundmentals actually matter and, as I have occasionally had cause to remind you, the fundamentals still suck.

Me, Moe Lane and Malkin vs. the MSM: The Media Elite's Strange Priorities and Misallocation of Scarce Resources

"I don’t actually want to see newspapers go away, seeing as they’ve got structural advantages on news gathering that I envy. Like actual budgets: when someone like Robert Stacy McCain decides that he’s going to go down to Kentucky and cover the Bill Sparkman murder, he has to shake the tip jar, write a few posts highlighting the issue, and hope that somebody comes through for his expenses. The equivalent NYT editor simply calls up the relevant department and has somebody set it up. The ability to follow stories that easily is a powerful ability; would that the NYT was willing to take advantage of it.
-- Moe Lane of Red State

My good friend Moe (we're like this, Moe and me) was addressing Michelle Malkin's criticism of the New York Times, criticism that might be applied more generally to all the elite media.

Speaking of which, if the NYT desires a token conservative presence on its op-ed page, why hire another "meritocrat" pundit like Ross Douthat, who can't be bothered to pick up a phone, much less get in his car and go talk to sources in person?

The NYT would have done much better to (a) spend that money on actual reporting, and (b) fill the designated "conservative" spot on its op-ed page with rotating freelance submissions from actual conservatives. You know: People like Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn, Mary Katharine Ham, Rush Limbaugh . . .

Yet the same criticism about misallocation of resources might be extended far beyond the Times building on West 43 Street, to encompass much of the blogosphere and even the conservative movement. My good friend J.P. Friere, formerly of The American Spectator and now with the Washington Examiner, likes to say that conservatives don't need more Bill Buckleys, we need more Bob Novaks, and he's right. (Although Hannah Giles in a thong is a lot easier on the eyes than Novak ever was.)

Nowadays, every 22-year-old with a laptop and a Wordpress account wants to play the pundit, give us The Big Picture, and lecture us with their own ill-informed answers to that eternal question, "Whither Conservatism?"

Here's your answer: Shut up, kid, I've got T-shirts older than you.

Today, down in rural Virginia, Al Regnery's throwing a big barbecue. All the big shots will be there and I'm invited. I'll be running late, and I'm worried about what economists call the opportunity costs of attending the annual shindig, rather than staying here to work, work, work.

There's only one of me and I'm a freelancer. I don't have an AmEx card for travel expenses like the big shots at the networks do. It takes a couple of business days for PayPal transactions to be processed, and until that tip-jar cash clears the bank, I'll be pushing it to the limit just to get to Clay County, Kentucky, by Monday, and only hope I can avoid my checks don't start bouncing before those payments clear.

Meanwhile, I've promised the American Spectator a column that's already half-written and has to be turned in before I try to get some sleep, then depart before dawn in my 2004 KIA, so I can try to file something -- at least a brief report -- with a Kentucky dateline by noon Monday. Never mind that we're a one-car household and my wife's steamed because she'll have to improvise her own transportation for a few days. (A rental car might cost $60 a day, nudge, nudge.)

Considering all my disadvantages, then, perhaps you understand my resentment of the media elite's overprivileged journalistic inertia. When I think of the elite, with their Harvard educations and their fat salaries, sitting around pontificating about the Big Picture . . . well, I'm not ashamed to rattle the tip jar, because I think I'm not the only one who's sick and tired of the MSM's better-than-thou attitude.

When I started blogging full-time in March 2008, it was only a time-waster between freelance gigs. Also, I had at least one prospect for a staff position at a publication I won't name. But then those guys started jerking me around, asking me to contribute some freelance work for them, just as a kind of tryout.

Screw that. As if I couldn't hustle up freelance opportunities without trying out for a job like some unknown grass-green rookie. I'd rather freelance for the Spectator and Pajamas Media -- people who treat me with some respect and appreciate my efforts.

So, as always when faced with such a problem, I asked myself: What Would Hunter S. Thompson Do?

Double down. Bet on myself. Spend out my 401(k) to pay the bills until I could turn this crazy gonzo thing into a revenue stream sufficient to establish my financial independence. And then, next time they're looking to hire an award-winning journalist with more than two decades of newspaper experience who also does HTML and digital photography, knows his way around the blogosphere and Web 2.0, has mad skilz with Final Cut Pro and PhotoShop, my answer will be a question:

"What's it worth to you, buddy? If you want me, do you want me with or without that blog where I can say anything that crosses my mind? Do you want me to give up that wild fun and all those loyal tip-jar hitters, or do you want me to bring them along with me? I can go either way here, but I've got to know if you're serious about wanting me, because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You're not going to push me around like some kid fresh out of J-school. Been there, done that, ain't going back for more. But I'm a reasonable man, and am willing to entertain any reasonable offers. So give me a number here, and I'll tell you whether it's too low. I write for money."

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And things are looking pretty weird right about now. My wife's worried sick about the bills. She's also worried sick about me getting into trouble in Kentucky, but I told her it's nothing. If they'd didn't kill me in Kampala, they won't kill me in Clay County.

BTW, I just got off the phone with Track-a-'Crat, who seems to be coming down with Appalachian Swine Flu. He's got all the symptoms, so he'll probably be too sick to go to his day-job Monday. He'll have to be rushed to see a specialist, and I told him I know just the man to see: The world-renowned Dr. Raoul Duke of Louisville, Ky.

Rent a convertive, Track-a-'Crat, and leave the rest to me. Sometimes, the cure for Appalachian Swine Flu is worse than the disease . . .

Just keep hitting that tip jar, you ungrateful bastards. Baby, it's about to be showtime!

You Might Be 'Urban Modern' If . . .

. . . you don't understand why it's controversial to have a Marxist Truther as a key White House aide:

These days, the [New York] Times doesn’t consider itself biased. Instead, it's calling itself "urban modern" . . .
[New York Times Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati wrote:] "Call it Urban Modern. That is, I think it reflects not a left-or-right POLITICAL ideology but a geographical one, the mentality of the place it is created: 21st Century Manhattan."

Insofar as "Urban Modern" isn't just another code-word for "gay" (NTTAWWT, Gerald) what does it mean?

In a previous thread, I mentioned that city people can't drive worth crap. So an inability to understand that the left lane is for fast drivers would qualify as a defining characteristic of "urban modern." Let's try a few others. You might be "urban modern" if . . .

• You graduated from a college where the yearly tuition is larger than the annual income of the doorman at your apartment building.
• You're all about "rights" mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, but don't believe the Second Amendment really means that ordinary people have the "right" to own guns.
• You actually considered moving to Connecticut to be a campaign volunteer for Ned Lamont.
• You're a woman who wears sneakers with a business suit while commuting, switching to heels after arriving at the office.
• You have ever used the phrase "social justice" in a conversation, and weren't joking.
• You make a six-figure salary, live in a rent-controlled apartment, and vote for candidates who promise to fix the "affordable housing" problem.
• You are a magazine editor named "Gerald."

Well, that's a few samples to start the list. Anyone else got suggestions?

UPDATE: Typo corrected, thanks to smart-asses in the comments.

UPDATE II: Jimmie Bise Jr. at Sundries Shack offers some good additions:

• Your definition of "crisis" is when the sushi bar down the street runs out of California Rolls.
• Even though you think people shouldn’t eat cows, you’ve never actually seen one face to face.
• You don’t know anyone whose job requires manual labor.

How do you know that Jimmie Bise isn't "urban modern"? He'd be known as Jamie, and would have a business card describing himself as an "Online Communications Strategist."

Oh, and as for sushi, I believe it was the late Lewis Grizzard who said, "Raw fish and seaweed? Where I come from, we call that bait." (The last time anyone saw an "urban modern" near Moreland, Ga., it was a writer from the New York Times -- sent down to cover the 1996 Atlanta Olympics -- who took a wrong turn leaving Hartsfield Airport. His rental car broke down on I-85. They towed the car to S&M Auto Repair in Newnan, which seemed to make the New York Times guy strangely happy. But then the guy made a lewd suggestion to Bubba, who was working the lube rack. The writer got his nose busted, got locked up overnight in the Coweta County Jail, and missed the men's gymnastics finals. "Urban moderns" have carefully avoided that vicinity ever since.)

Who's behind the anti-Bernanke stories?

Like this one in the New York Times:

In Washington and on Wall Street, it would be a surprise if President Obama did not nominate Mr. Bernanke for a second term, even though he is a Republican and was appointed by President George W. Bush.
But the White House has remained silent. And despite Mr. Bernanke’s credibility in financial circles, both he and the Fed as an institution have come under political fire from lawmakers in both parties over the handling of particular bailouts and the scope of the Fed’s power. . . .
While the White House keeps mum about Mr. Bernanke’s future, the leading Democratic candidates to replace him include Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council; Janet L. Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton economist and former Fed vice chairman; and Roger Ferguson, another former Fed vice chairman. . . .

You can read the whole thing, but what arouses my curiosity is why the editors of the New York Times felt the need to run this story at this time.

Stories like this don't "just happen" in Washington. Somebody covets the guy's job, either for themselves or one of their allies. The fact that Larry Summers' name is at the top of the list of candidates to replace Bernanke might make Summers the chief suspect.

On the other hand, Summers has enemies in the White House, and the idea may be to kill two birds with one stone: Get Bernanke out of the Fed, and replace him with Summers so as to remove Summers from the Economic Council.

So I suspect Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (or his friends) of pushing the anti-Bernanke meme to the press. Geithner obviously views Summers and Bernanke as rivals to his influence in the Obama administration's economic policy shop.

Oh, and all the praise for Bernanke in the Times story? Overdone and premature. When you cut the rate to zero, it's easy to look like a genius -- for a while. But what happens when the next wave of foreclosures and bank failures hits? You can't cut the rate lower. At some point, you reach the limits of monetarianism, and we've been at the limit for months now.

Memo to Judith Warner

"[Sarah Palin] is the 21st-century face of the backlash against women’s progress. . . . The hatred of women . . . is still alive and well in our society, and when directed at well-educated women, it’s socially acceptable, too."
-- Judith Warner

If Sarah Palin is "the 21st-century face" of anything, at least it's a pretty face, eh?

People who like Sarah Palin don't hate women. But everybody hates whiny bitches like you.

Now, get me a cup of coffee, hon. Cream only.

(Hat-tips: Little Miss Attila and Darleen Click.)

MoDo plagiarizes left-wing blogger!

Good-bye, Maureen Dowd:

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in an email to Huffington Post, admits that a paragraph in her Sunday column was lifted from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall's blog last Thursday. . . .
[I] was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column.
[B]ut, clearly, my friend must have read [J]osh [M]arshall without mentioning that to me.we're fixing it on the web, to give Josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

(Hat-tips: Don Surber, Memeorandum.) Her "friend" who gave her the quote was, no doubt, her paid editorial assistant. The New York Times provides all its columnists (including David Brooks, for example) with assistants. This practice is a hold-over from the days when the New York Times actually made money. The purloined paragraph:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

This isn't an obscure fact that you ask an editorial assistant to look up. ("Hey, Jennifer, what's the GDP of Botswana? And get me a cup of coffee, hon.") It's a propaganda claim. That Maureen Dowd is paid $300,000 a year and can't even be bothered to come up with her own liberal spin should tell you all you need to know about why the New York Times is slouching toward bankruptcy.

UPDATE: "Oh, to be a JournoList blogger tonight!"

UPDATE II: Ed Driscoll notes the history of "Dowdification." Amazing that she couldn't accurately quote the President of the United States, but she got Josh Marshall word-for-word.

UPDATE III: Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters: "Exit question: what does the friend know, and when did [s]he know it?"

UPDATE IV: Jimmie Bise at Sundries Shack:

I didn't think there was a limit to how many times someone could write a column based around the theme "ZOMG! Dick Cheney is teh suck!"

Dowd's column was part of a pushback against the Pelosi/torture revelations. If you suspect that this pushback was part of an orchestrated effort by Democrats to change the subject, you are a right-wing conspiracy-theorist nutjob.

UPDATE V: Welcome, Cold Fury readers!

President Obama Remains Popular; Women, Minorities Hit Hardest

Over at The American Spectator blog, I noted that elite journalists now view everything through an Obama prism:

The Jobless Rate, Slow to Improve, Tests Obama
On the economy, President Obama has a timing problem. Congressional Democrats may have a bigger one.
Nearly four months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has begun to describe a pivot from economic crisis to economic recovery. From stabilized consumer spending to higher construction spending, he said last week, "the gears of our economic engine" are "slowly turning once again."
The problem is that those gears are unlikely to churn out many new jobs anytime soon. . . .

"The problem," as the New York Times sees it, is purely about politics, and politics is now about a single person. Never mind the nearly 2 million Americans who've lost their jobs since Jan. 20. There is only one person in the world who really matters, and his name is Obama.

Attention Boston Globe employees

The New York Times Co. is planning to close your newspaper and put you out of work. However, David Brooks still earns $300,000 a year as a columnist for the Times. And they've just hired Harvard-educated boy genius Ross Douthat, too.

Just thought that news might cheer you up.

NY Times circles the drain

Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic:

The New York Times Co. fell into a deeper financial hole during the first quarter as the newspaper publisher's advertising revenue plunged 27 percent in an industrywide slump that is reshaping the print media. Its shares dived Tuesday as investors prepared for the debut of Harvard-educated bore Ross Douthat on the op-ed pages of the struggling newspaper.

I might have added that last part.

UPDATE: David Boaz of the Cato Institute points out that the NYT can't get basic facts right.

Dunk 'em again!

The New York Times expects outrage:

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.
The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah . . .
The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Look, we hanged Saddam Hussein and sent the 101st Airborne to kill Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay. What is "waterboarding" compared to violent death?

Who could possibly give a crap about the "rights" of terrorist scumbags like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed? Their "rights" would not have been infringed if they had gotten a 9mm slug through their skulls the day they were captured. Excuse me for not being surprised that, having mercifully allowed Abu and Khalid to continue breathing, the CIA doesn't treat these vermin like guests for Sunday dinner.

If I were president -- and remember, this is merely a hypothetical -- the CIA would have taken Abu and Khalid to the Texas State Fair, where they would have been strapped tightly to a telephone poll. Tickets would be sold at $20 each for one whack at 'em with an aluminum baseball bat.

Everybody would get their turn, one whack at a time, until there was nothing left of Abu and Khalid except a bloody stain. The $20 per ticket is a nominal fee. The real money would be in the pay-per-view royalties. But remember: This is merely a hypothetical.

UPDATE: Welcome, Andrew Sullivan readers. Please read my reply, in the comments below, to Tim Burns's insufficient appreciation for hypothetical discourse. There is a special place reserved in Hell for people who treat any statement by me beginning, "If I were president . . ." as if it were a policy prescription.

The hypothetical was meant to contrast (a) the tender-hearted concern for the "rights" of terrorists manifested by the New York Times with (b) the manner of treatment that Abu and Khalid could expect from attendees of the Texas State Fair.

Perhaps I could better illustrate the purpose of a hypothetical by beginning a sentence, "If I was hung like a porn star . . ." Oh, wait.

UPDATE II: Linked by Mike at Cold Fury, Jimmie at Sundries Shack, James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, and by Stephen Gordon at the Liberty Papers. Gordo also links Bob Barr, but neglects to mention that Barr used to work for the CIA. (Coincidence? I don't think so!)

Speaking of hypotheticals, if Bob Barr were a major-league babe magnet . . . Oh, wait.

Note to Mrs. Barr: Bob was perfectly innocent. This photo was my idea, and my suggestion of raising money for the Georgia Libertarian Party by having an impromptu "Skinny Dipping With Bob" fundraiser was entirely hypothetical.

UPDATE III: Moe Lane at Red State:

The American people don't really want to reach any sort of understanding of terrorists ("Why do they hate us?"); they just want them dead, or wishing that they were . . .

In the numerous comments below, I've been lectured by "progressives" who seem convinced that I am an inhuman thug who doesn't understand the concept of "rights." I've also been lectured about the inauthenticity of my speaking on behalf of truck drivers. Both of my brothers are truck drivers and I assure you that my modest (hypothetical) proposal for Abu and Khalid is extremely merciful compared to anything my brothers would propose.

Anyone taking the NYT out back for a good workout...

by Smitty

...is a fine citizen, in my estimation.
William A. Jacobson, over at Legal Insurrection, is a case in point. His post "I'm Seething Over The NY Times Calling Me Seething" documents his critical efforts against the famous fish-wrapper:

I long have criticized the bias of the NY Times, and mocked its business death spiral. My posts Nude Swiss Hikers Rescue NY Times and NY Times New Business Strategy: DEATH mocked the sensationalist trend on The Times' website. I was the first (as far as I know) to suggest The Times convert to non-profit status. I have attacked the spineless hypocrisy of columnists such as Paul Krugman and David Brooks, and taken The Times to task for its attacks on Eric Cantor and Sarah Palin, photo bias about Israel, despicable characterization the immigration issue, and The "Military Recruiting Goals" Media Lie. And I've only been blogging six months!

What brought this personal attention from The Paper of Record in the Age of Boutique Vinyl?

Now The Times is giving it back to me, describing me as "seething" over the report by the Department of Homeland Security defining a broad range of citizens as "extremist" for doing nothing more than voicing their opinions on issues and seeking to influence government, both of which activities are protected by the 1st Amendment.

Now, now, now, Mr. Jacobson: the 0th Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Question The Narrative. You are a Bad Person. You may torture yourself in the manner of your choosing, per the recently released torture memos, so long as you are unwavering in your Bush Blaming for the techniques employed.

There is only one word . . .

. . . to describe the New York Times' latest disgrace to the profession of journalism:

INFREAKINGCREDIBLE!

It's almost Tuesday. How long until Easter?

Left declares victory in Culture War

Frank Rich suggests that the bad economy means the GOP will never again be able to gain traction with cultural conservatism. My rejoinder at AmSpecBlog:

Rich is certainly correct that, with Citibank trading for less than the cost of an ATM fee, the primary "value" voters are interested in now is the value of their 401Ks.
If there is any encouragement for traditionalists it is this: Just as there is little public appetite for conservative alarums over cultural issues, neither is there any appetite for liberal alarums. If the Obama administration makes a point of pushing liberal social policies, a backlash is possible, recession or no recession.

Please go read the whole thing. And hit the tip jar, because it's almost Tuesday again.

Ross Douthat, porn expert?

"Forget 'normalizing homosexuality' -- something the Right has been worrying over since the advent of gay liberation. Today, the Internet and DirecTV are normalizing everything, from group sex to bestiality to darker things that decency forbids mentioning. And as for pedophilia -- why, any erotic website worth its salt promises links to images of the 'barely legal,' 'young teen sluts,' and all the rest. Today, Nabokov's Humbert would need not be a tragic figure; instead, he could have spent his years ensconced in front of a glowing computer screen, with a thousand Lolitas for his delectation."

* * *

"Over the past three decades, the VCR, on-demand cable service, and the Internet have completely overhauled the ways in which people interact with porn. Innovation has piled on innovation, making modern pornography a more immediate, visceral, and personalized experience. Nothing in the long history of erotica compares with the way millions of Americans experience porn today, and our moral intuitions are struggling to catch up."

* * * *

A Catholic friend advises me that Lenten vows are not enforced on Sunday. Or, as we call it around here, Rule 5 Sunday.

The re-education of David Brooks

P.J. Gladnick at Newsbusters has the story of how the White House dispatched a team of four operatives to persuade David Brooks to back off his threat to lead an army of moderates to oppose the Obama agenda. Gladnick observes:

So either the four overseers of the White House were masters of manipulation or they had extremely pliable material to work with . . .

Indeed. And now the useless idiot has returned with a new column singing paeans to Obama's education "reform" plan. The Toady-in-Chief's latest column includes this:

Thanks in part to No Child Left Behind, we're a lot better at measuring each student's progress. . . .
Most districts don't use data to reward good teachers. States have watered down their proficiency standards so parents think their own schools are much better than they are.
As Education Secretary Arne Duncan told me, "We've seen a race to the bottom. States are lying to children. They are lying to parents. They're ignoring failure, and that's unacceptable. We have to be fierce."

Oh, those "fierce" reformers! Like President Clinton before him, President Obama sends his kids to private schools. Public schools are for Other People's Children, and the endless promises of "reform" have never been fulfilled, nor will they ever. America's schools are arguably worse now than they were when No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001, and they are certainly no better.

Obama's "reform" plan will not improve the schools, either. To a Democrat, the policy object of school "reform" is full employment and higher pay for members of the teachers' unions. Hire more teachers, pay them more money -- it's a constituent-service model of policy. The Democrat who says anything else is lying, and yet Brooks takes Obama's professions of "caring" at face value:

The Obama approach would make it more likely that young Americans grow up in relationships with teaching adults. It would expand nurse visits to disorganized homes. It would improve early education. It would extend the school year. Most important, it would increase merit pay for good teachers (the ones who develop emotional bonds with students) and dismiss bad teachers (the ones who treat students like cattle to be processed).

Of course, "merit pay for good teachers" is just code meaning, "higher pay, period." Whatever standards are used to measure "merit" will be manipulated by administrators to reward their favorites. Just as the chief result of the student-testing requirements of No Child Left Behind was wholesale fraud in standardized testing, so will the lure of "merit pay" result in bogus attempts to fake "merit."

One wonders if the White House's favorite columnist even believes what he writes anymore. Certainly no one familiar with the bureaucratic reality of how American schools actually operate can believe Obama's plan will produce genuine "reform."

Becoming one of The Republicans Who Really Matter -- of whom Brooks is a leading example -- requires acceptance of a fundamentally false premise, namely, that Democratic politicians act in good faith. This is the Big Lie to which all other liberal lies are ancillary.

The Democratic Party is a conspiracy whereby liars advance the cause of evil with the assistance of fools. Republicans who "reach across the aisle" to cooperate in the implementation of the Democratic agenda are therefore agents of evil. (Whether Republican enthusiasts for "bipartisan compromise" are conscious of their agency in the cause of evil is moot, but they don't call them The Stupid Party for nothing.)

The reason David Brooks is the White House's favorite columnist is because, by the fraudulent pretense that he is a "conservative," Brooks provides key assistance in the Democrats' most essential mission: Obscuring truth.

Hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: Let's have a contest: Describe the Democratic Party in 20 Words or Less.

UPDATE II: A 'Lanche this way comes. Thank you, Professor, and welcome Instapundit readers. While you're here, feel free to poke around and check out the links -- it's Full Metal Jacket Saturday, and Monique Stuart would appreciate your traffic. You can also add me on Twitter or Facebook or your RSS feed. And, of course, your generous contributions to the David Brooks Fisking Fund are deeply appreciated. (It's For The Children!)

UPDATE III: When it rains, it pours: Also linked at RedState RedHot, Liberty Papers, Right, Wing Nut, Tom Maguire at Just One Minute, Ed Drisoll, Little Miss Attila and Moe Lane. Welcome all! And please give generously to the David Brooks Fisking Fund, because I don't know how much longer the ACORN protesters can keep the repo man away from my 2004 KIA.