Dave Weigel Piece at Big Government
Dave Weigel has a piece up at Big Government about the latest kerfuffle.
I developed a soft spot for Weigel because of his honesty in handling issues revolving around James O’Keefe and Brad Friedman. We know he has contempt for O’Keefe, yet when Brad Friedman dishonestly tried to spin a Weigel piece against O’Keefe, Weigel stood up for the truth.
Yet the Big Government piece leaves the toughest questions unanswered. Like: what about his participation in a list-serv that lefties used to “get their story straight”? Was this why Weigel seemed to focus on the identity of the cameramen in the Etheridge story? Was that the Journolist approved spin?
And what about his contempt for Tea Partiers, as contrasted with his publicly stated view that he takes them seriously?
And if he was so hard up for stories about conservatives, as he told the folks on Journolist, how about covering some non-fringe folks?
I don’t know Weigel, but again, I have respect for him because he has been honest when it would have been easy for him not to be.
But if he’s going to address himself to conservatives, these are the issues he needs to be discussing.
Patterico, this guy is just Vanity Smurf. He got caught, so he is going to make himself look as good as he can manage under the circumstances. Which isn’t very good.
Ask him your questions on Twitter. The tone in this article is not reflected. Which style to believe?
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:50 amOh my. That new piece by Weigel proves two things. 1. He is not that hot in the self-awareness department and, 2. He’s not that hot in the actual writing department. My recommendation to him is that instead of continuing to keep this story alive and festering, and keeping his character flaws out there in the public eye, he might want to take a few weeks off somewhere to relax and decompress in radio silence.
elissa (16413b) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:54 amWeigel really needs to learn the first rule of hole – if you’re in one, stop digging. What a lame article!
As I said before, the REAL scandal here is the existence of this secret “JournoList” itself. If Weigel wants me to believe that he’s a real reporter, he can start by releasing the full contents of that listserv and by explaining the rationale behind the lefty media coordinating their stories out of the public eye.
Subotai (91780a) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:05 amI do not respect him, nor do I believe any of his after-the-fact rationalizations. They do not track with JournoList, and his positions that he holds when he thinks others are not looking. That old adage about honor being doing what is right even when nobody else is looking seems to be appropriate, here.
Elisaa – He seems to think by laying out his history, and ignoring what got him in this mess, that people will quit focusing on his douchenozzlerly. He always has the likes of timmah to lie for him.
JD (5e5cad) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:06 amI do not get this idea that he should be praised for pointing out how aggressively dishonest some on the left were being.
JD (5e5cad) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:08 amKarl also, quite correctly, pointed out that the big takeaway from all of this should be that the JournoListers were doing exactly what Ezra claimed they were not, shaping narratives, memes, and framing issues. That Weigel was party to same, and saw no problem with that, as the serious journolist he claims to be, is telling.
JD (5e5cad) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:14 amAfter the 2008 election, I drove up from Atlanta to D.C. and was greeted by my editor, Matt Welch, with surprising news. It would be better, he said, if I worked somewhere else. I’d voted for the Obama-Biden ticket (having joked, semi-seriously, that I was honor-bound to vote for a ticket with a fellow Delawarean on it) and wasn’t fully on board with the magazine’s upcoming, wonky focus on picking apart the new administration.
Well, yeah. Yet Weigel saw nothing wrong with pretending to be on the right when it came to getting the WaPo job covering conservatives.
Also – here’s a handy tip for you, Dave – real reporters don’t predicate their interest on “picking apart the new administration” on their own political leanings.
Weigel was a “libertarian” only as long as that was a useful posture for slamming Republicans and as long as it was a useful tool for getting employed. Once the socialists came to town, “Libertarian Dave” left Reason rather than criticize Dems.
Subotai (91780a) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:17 amOT – Just heard Orrin Hatch, being interviewed on FOX about the Kagan hearings, say,”The new Supreme Court ruling allows the states to decide if guns can be owned and used.”
Is this just a example of Hatch’s idiocy (unfortunately not rare) or is there something in there that I have not seen?
Have Blue (854a6e) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:18 amJD:
And the unavoidable conclusion is that Journolist was set up to provide a place no one could look who might disagree with what you did. Case closed.
sherlock (bf10a3) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:24 amI made this comment last night after reading his latest blog entry, and after reading this morning’s post, I think I’ll stick with it. It doesn’t seem he grasps the scope of self-imposed damage by his duplicitous behavior. Nor does he quite grasp that the exposure of manipulating people and political views is no small thing. He was sneaky and chameleon like, changing his colors when needed and beneficial to himself. There is no easy trek back from that. So…
No sense of shame or remorse, or that perhaps he should take time to shut up, take stock of the kind of person he’s become, and then begin the hard work of growing up into an adult with integrity and character. It just doesn’t seem like he has a clue.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:27 amYou nailed it, Dana.
On a separate note, in his current employment status I sure hope he didn’t rack up a lot of student loans he still needs to pay off for that top-notch and expensive Medill education.
elissa (16413b) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:43 amYes, he called Brad when Brad was being dishonest. But first, Weigel did his part in getting the fake story out there in the first place (re:O’Keefe).
However, thanks for the rest of your points, Patterico. I think you know I have many of the same questions.
Why in the world would Ezra Klein recommend him to his employers? Is Ezra in any trouble with them for doing so?
Does Weigel really not know why Ezra invited him to be on Journolist?
I’m not a tea party activist, though I understand them. I’m pretty ambivalent about Sarah Palin. Yet Weigel drove me crazy – maybe because he should have been able to represent voices like mine. Socially, fairly liberal (though not open borders liberal!). Dreaming of fiscal conservatism. Driven crazy by the likes of Parker and Brooks. Yet he made no effort to do so.
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:50 amYou act as though they ever intended to. Keller said it was their intention to try to understand them, but nothing that they produced appears to have an understanding beyond the standard leftist teabagger talking points. As Ed said, it was a “Conservatives in the Mist” project. It was also telling that the MFM found it necessary to try to understand conservatives, and points out quite clearly, how far to the left the MFM has gone.
See y’all later …
JD (5e5cad) — 6/28/2010 @ 9:00 amDoes Weigel really not know why Ezra invited him to be on Journolist? —-Maybee
I absolutely think Dave does not understand (yet) that he was co-opted, used, and manipulated by Ezra. He so wanted to be one of the coolkids that he did not realize that the gang leader always makes some other, less savvy kid light the firecracker on the teacher’s porch or peek in the girl’s second story bedroom window from an unsafe tree branch.
elissa (16413b) — 6/28/2010 @ 9:11 amI agree, JD.
It’s just that he’s trying to explain himself now, and the few times I saw him address critics in the past he would say “Judge me by my work” (not his snark or whatever). But that’s exactly what I have to judge him by- his work. He still does not see the shortcomings in it for the beat he was supposed to be covering.
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 9:19 amTopics Weigel does not address:
1. Urging his colleagues to spin the Scott Brown win;
2. Urging his colleagues to choke off any story — even critical ones — about Palin’s ‘death panels’ — FB post;
3. Urging his colleagues not to follow up on any Byron York story, and to avoid linking the Examiner generally (which Weigel previously spun as merely ‘belittling’ York, but stood by his reaction);
4. Leaking gossip from ATR’s weekly off-the-record meetings.
The Weigel rehab project started almost before he ‘resigned,’ and will soon be a story about a young guy who made some intemperate comments. The actual ethical issues will be swept under the rug.
Karl (f07e38) — 6/28/2010 @ 9:29 amA further note on the “judge him by his work” defense:
Reporters make any number of editorial decisions before anyone sees their work. Weigel appeared to have been given a ton of leeway as to which stories he covered and which stories he did not report. Weigel’s most serious transgressions on the J-List, imho, reflect a guy who wants the establishment press to choke off coverage of stories he doesn’t like. And that same tendency was reflected in his reporting. What appeared in print may have been largely factually accurate as far as it went. But someone purporting to cover conservatives who reports more on Orly Taitz than Bobby Jindal or Chris Christie is ultimately not fairly or accurately reporting on the movement. Any 1st year law student will tell you that negligence can occur by acts or omissions. Weigel continuously sinned by omission, and repeatedly urged his colleagues to do the same, in a professional forum. And his piece today avoids that central issue.
Karl (f07e38) — 6/28/2010 @ 9:39 amYes, Karl. A million times yes to your 9:39.
Do other reporters- those outside Journolist- want to know how much they got played by these coordinated efforts? Do they want to know how much it threw off their own feel for opinions of real people, when they surveyed the landscape and saw what turned out to be coordinated media accounts?
Think of the “violence” of the tea party movement stories. How many otherwise good reporters looked around, saw how HUGE the story was, and thought they’d better get in on it?
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:09 amNo serious journalist has defended the leak of my private e-mails; no one who works in politics or journalism would accept a situation where the things they said off the record could immediately become public.
Guess I’m not a serious journalist then, because I highly approve of the leak. After his unethical, two-faced conduct, Weigel has absolutely no moral standing to complain.
Bonus irony points for the spectacle of a journalist whining about a leak.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:11 amTim Cavanaugh
“While there’s a lot going on here, I think the most important part is that nobody at the WaPo checked Dave’s references, despite their claims.”
el duderino (fedc3d) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:28 amKarl, I have been worried about this kind of issue for some time in journalism. What initially bothered me was the Left carrying on about how things do not get reported (like Boehlert suggesting that the press protected GWB), and then doing precisely that.
But it is okay when they do it, appears to be the take home lesson.
The term “psychological projection” is getting stale, but it still applies.
This latest mess with Weigel is more of the same, and thank you very much for clearly explicating the real issues.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:29 amI’d comment, but I’m still too busy laughing at Weigel’s claim that Matt Welch canned him because he voted for Obama. Anyone who reads Reason (and particularly the Hit & Run comments) even casually knows what a pile of self-serving crap that is.
I do think it’s ridiculous that WaPo fired him under the pretense that they had no idea who exactly he was when they hired him. He had a large body of work at Reason to examine, much of it drifting to the left by the end of his tenure. He was promoted by hyper-partisan leftist Ezra Klein. Do these dogged journalists have no curiousity to them at all?
Dave Weigel is either very confused at to what his political beliefs are, or he’s a shameless liar.
radar (98f691) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:40 amCould one of the bloggers here post the link and some of Matt Welch’s piece about Weigel?
You don’t need to be impartial in your views at the Post, or else Ezra Klein (among many, many others) wouldn’t have a job. Nor do you need to be impartial in your views to do perfectly good journalism. What you need is to not get caught. If the Post was even remotely interested in viewpoint-transparency, it would follow Reason’s (and Dave Weigel’s!) lead in, at bare bloody minimum, showing us who their editorial staffers–particularly in the newsroom–have voted for in presidential elections. Three chances of that happening, either at the Post or any other major newspaper: Slim, none, and fat.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:41 amBrother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R – Reading that, I am gripped with fear (not for the first time) that the WaPo and other journalists do not know that Ezra Klein is far from impartial.
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:56 amIt’s all definitional, MayBee. Some of these folks are convinced they are fair, when they are anything but.
A lesson for all of us, perhaps.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 6/28/2010 @ 10:59 am“I’d rather read an honest lefty than a dishonest righty.”–Pat
Me too.
And, I would read an honest lefty…if only I could find one.
Dave Surls (093c71) — 6/28/2010 @ 11:02 amIMHO, the key part of Welch’s piece on Weigel (linked above) is this:
Weigel thus went off to the Washington Independent, a project of The American Independent News Network, f/k/a/ the Center for Independent Media, funded by the usual Lefty suspects and almost certainly created with input from Media Matters. That’s where he started doing fringe-focused shtick, and it’s nigh-impossible to think that the WaPo hired him for any other reason than to continue on the same slant under their banner.
Karl (f07e38) — 6/28/2010 @ 11:14 amReading that, I am gripped with fear (not for the first time) that the WaPo and other journalists do not know that Ezra Klein is far from impartial.
It’s not entirely impossible. WaPo journalists live in such an epistemically closed environment they might have actually believed Weigel was some kind of conservative. And their editors, if Narisetti is any example, are even worse.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 11:36 amWow, Karl! These characters actually feel that the Right gets better play in the MSM than the Left?
Thanks for that very disturbing link. I smelled Boehlertian thinking.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 6/28/2010 @ 11:40 amKarl, when do you think he started his super secret mission to infiltrate the Right? Was it when he edited the conservative newspaper? Crashed the anti-war rally? Defended Rand Paul? Started writing at Reason and left because it was about to suffer an Obama Derangement Syndrome almost as serious you folks have with Jounrolist?
When was it obvious that this Manchurian candidate had fooled Bob Barr and Ron Paul and Patterico and Breitbart and Matt Welch, etc?
And, when did Julian Sanchez, accused of being a commie lib by you earlier, develop his plan of infiltration? Were they in cahoots? IS IT SOROS again, Karl?
PS For those in the know, the above reference to “Keller” is a reference to the editor of the New York Times not the Washington Post. So, his comments about a guy he didn’t employ have as much to do with Weigel’s dismissal as me laughing at Karl’s (and most other commenters) Manichean, cherry-picking, orthodox view of what Limbaugh says conservationism is.
timb (449046) — 6/28/2010 @ 12:08 pmYou like this Weigel clown becasue he was honest when he could have been dishonest?! Huh? YOU’RE SUPPOSE TO BE HONEST; YOU SHOULDN’T GET PROPS FOR BEING HONEST WHEN YOU COULD’VE BEEN DISHONEST. We’re slouching towards Gommorah as Judge Bork observed.
JoeD (996c34) — 6/28/2010 @ 12:29 pmIf JournoListers never interacted on a daily basis with true conservatives in a give and take conversation, both talking and listening to them, etc., then really the most they can do is peer in the window making their judgments and drawing their conclusions. It’s a one-dimensional view at best. Impartiality would not even remotely fit into this equation.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/28/2010 @ 12:44 pmFrom the BG article:
Am I reading this wrong or is this cry-baby implying that Reason magazine is against gay marriage and open borders? I’ve been a subscriber to Reason for about 15 years and have never seen any indication of these attitudes.
SaintGeorgeGentile (aa85b2) — 6/28/2010 @ 12:47 pmLooking through a window would give a two-dimensional view. Just sayin’ 😉
Stashiu3 (44da70) — 6/28/2010 @ 12:56 pmtimmah,
The fact that you need to lie about what I wrote — esp. about Sanchez, whom I never accused of being a “commie lib” – suggests to me that you have no substantive criticism of it.
Both Weigel and Welch make clear that Weigel “wasn’t fully on board with the magazine’s upcoming, wonky focus on picking apart the new administration.” How “wonky” gets translated to “Obama Derangement Syndrome” by you says more about you than it does about Reason. There wasn’t going to be much for Liberarians to like about the Obama admin. So Weigel left Reason for a site funded by the Left, to pursue the Narrative that the Right is really all about the fringe. Seems pretty clear by all accounts Weigel was on that trajectory for a while.
One of the few exceptions was his defense of Rand Paul, which ironically is probably what got him outed by one of his Lefty J-List colleagues. I do find it funny that Weigel, Sullivan, Friedersdorf, and Sanchez all have a soft spot for Rand, and chose to write modified, limited, hangout defenses for him at the very moment that he revealed himself to have a truly boneheaded view of libertarian thought on the CRA, particularly in light of how anti-intellectual they think the Right is generally. It was an early example of how those charging “epistemic closure” are guilty of it themselves, soft-selling their criticism of a pol they like.
PS: Fooling Bob Barr isn’t all that difficult; ask Sacha Baron Cohen.
Karl (f07e38) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:14 pmEh, Stashiu3, you do good work here! Thanks.
Let’s just say their lack of hands-on knowledge and experience with real conservatives severely limits their ability accurately portray them. That they misrepresent themselves on top of that only further fouls the water.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:18 pmI think he takes the Tea Party seriously … he seriously fears it. So do nearly all politicians and everyone on the left.
quasimodo (4af144) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:19 pmAm I reading this wrong or is this cry-baby implying that Reason magazine is against gay marriage and open borders? I’ve been a subscriber to Reason for about 15 years and have never seen any indication of these attitudes.
Exactly. I’m a long-time Libertarian and know that support for gay marriage and open borders (legally, not by ignoring law-breaking) is standard among Libertarians.
I’d call Weigel a Moby, but that refers to leftists who pretend to be conservatives. What do you call a lefty journalist who pretends to be a libertarian?
Besides dishonest, duplicitous, two-faced and unethical, that is.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:52 pmBrother Bradley – I’d call Weigel a Moby, but that refers to leftists who pretend to be conservatives. What do you call a lefty journalist who pretends to be a libertarian?
How about the most common word most people think of when they hear the word Moby?
SaintGeorgeGentile (aa85b2) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:56 pmPS: Fooling Bob Barr isn’t all that difficult; ask Sacha Baron Cohen.
Actually, it was Ron Paul. The scene was in Brüno.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 1:56 pmDouble crosses. Deep cover. Double agents. Asset plants. This whole Journolist thing is starting to feel like a bad CIA operation in a John LeCarre spy novel
elissa (16413b) — 6/28/2010 @ 2:05 pmWhat do you call a lefty journalist who pretends to be a libertarian?
a nastyfarian? a rolf in creep’s clothing? a weigull? a cross-presser?
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 6/28/2010 @ 2:48 pmOh, I like cross-presser. That is a good one, Colonel.
Eric Blair (02a138) — 6/28/2010 @ 2:56 pmweigull approach herd
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 6/28/2010 @ 3:01 pmherd grow skittish weigull not
maintain eye contact
timb – Isn’t the existence of Journolist and its use to coordinate talking points for media coverage the epitome of epistemic closure?
I think your hyperbolic defense of Weigel also tells us all we need to know about his place on the political spectrum.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/28/2010 @ 3:33 pmBen Smith at Politico just now:
So Ben Smith tries to paint it as journalists “listening in”. We see that Weigel did more than that.
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 4:09 pmI have tweeted Ben Smith to see how he would describe Ezra Klein. As one of the journalists, or one of the partisans.
“Chat Groups” among like minded individuals who share how they are framing issues is a “central command” straight out of Walter Lippmann’s “Public Opinion.”
The fact that Ben Smith cannot see that having discussions about how an issue is being framed/should be framed isn’t a form of collusion, demonstrates how off his rocker he is.
Christian (3290f5) — 6/28/2010 @ 4:20 pmben smith not sharpest
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 6/28/2010 @ 4:28 pmtool in shed bag of hammers
stupid more like it
MayBee – They could not be less honest about this if they tried. The fact remains that they attempted to shape coverage, narrative, and memes. They can throw up all the chaff they want, but these alleged JournoLists were doing exactly what Ezra swore they were not.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:30 pmBrother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R,
The Bob Barr scene is in Borat.
Karl (8735a1) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:33 pmNo serious journalist has defended the leak of my private e-mails; no one who works in politics or journalism would accept a situation where the things they said off the record could immediately become public.
Leak someone else’s email – hero. Leak a journalists’ email, you are scum. Nothing could be more indicative of the basic hypocrisy of journalists.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:40 pmKarl,
I stand corrected. I have not seen Borat.
Check out Ron Paul in Brüno, if you haven’t already. The protagonist tries to seduce Ron Paul, under the impression he is RuPaul.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:45 pmSPQR – The ironic part is that there is an expectation of privacy for the first , but in the latter you are posting out to a very large group of people.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:48 pmBen Smith appears to be covering for the lefties among his sources, so they’ll feel obligated to help him later. Political reporters, especially in Washington, do a lot of that. Good for the sources, good for Smith, bad for the public.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:55 pmBrother Bradley – They are more worried about protecting their buddies than they are about demonstrating anything even remotely approaching objectivity, ethics, or general honesty.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 5:57 pmJD,
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C. O.R. (a18ddc) — 6/28/2010 @ 6:11 pmWhen not protecting their buddies, they fret over their low standing with the public. And they can’t connect the dots.
Bradley – In other news, water is wet.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 6:25 pmhttp://www.mediaite.com/online/from-washington-post-to-nbcu-dave-weigel-joins-msnbc-as-paid-contributor/
SHOCKA !!!!!!!!
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 6:40 pmI’m happy for him on a personal level that he got another job. It sounds like a very good fit.
MayBee (c50b9d) — 6/28/2010 @ 6:50 pmHe is clearly a right-leaning libertarian.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 6:58 pmI find it interesting that timb drags Julian Sanchez into this, since he’s apparently another Journolister and has tried to deny it.
radar (4e7d75) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:29 pmEPISTEMIC CLOSURE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:36 pmWhat? The voice of the American Right, Pat Buchanan, wasn’t available? It’s funny that MSNBC still uses PB as their rightie voice. If you listed influentual righties how far would you have to go to hit PB? Specifically, I’d call the over/under at Trig Palin?
East Bay Jay (b9c5b1) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:46 pmThat was just so wrong, Jay.
JD (308d62) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:49 pmEast Bay Jay – People listen to Pat Buchanan? Who?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 6/28/2010 @ 7:57 pmhaiku think weigull
ColonelHaiku (9cf017) — 6/28/2010 @ 8:56 pmneed episiotomy
give birth new career
Am I reading this wrong or is this cry-baby implying that Reason magazine is against gay marriage and open borders? I’ve been a subscriber to Reason for about 15 years and have never seen any indication of these attitudes.Weigel sort of leaves out the important parts of being “open borders”. In other words, ending the entitlement state in order to facilitate actual open borders.
Karl wrote “So Weigel left Reason for a site funded by the Left, to pursue the Narrative that the Right is really all about the fringe. Seems pretty clear by all accounts Weigel was on that trajectory for a while.”
A question I have for Weigel is when was he invited to inside Journolist? What is that date he joined?
The Washington Independent and its sibling cousins in Minnesota and Iowa are funded by the same people that fund Media Matters. When you share the same founders it’s not exactly as if they’re going to develop a whole new money train.
I had read Weigel through Reason, but when I learned about Media Matters funding trails running through the Washington Independent I had serious questions about why Weigel would choose to work for them. That was the point where I posited your view that Weigel adopted the left’s caricature of the right, specifically the journolist driven fallacy.
I haven’t seen Weigel deny any of the content of the leaked emails, but they sure as heck show him to be exactly the sort of miscreant one becomes if you take the Media Matters cash. The good news is it is not a permanent stasis. Repent and heal thy so called “conservative” journalist.
wtfci (535e53) — 6/29/2010 @ 7:06 amJust like if Republicans thought they were going to duck out of it in 2005 by abandoning Social Security privatization they were wrong.
Ugh. Come on Weigel. That is a quote from Weigel answering questions from Dan Foster at NRO.
Not “Social Security reform”, not “Social Security liberalization”, not “Social Security personalization”. No, it is the left’s “Social Security privatization”.
Anyway, weren’t the opponents to social security reform the “conservatives”? Maybe the “arch conservatives” or the “neo conservatives” or the “rabid conservatives” or the “morbid conservatives”?
wtfci (535e53) — 6/29/2010 @ 7:23 amUh, radar, you might want to check Karl’s earlier post where he attacked Sanchez for, of all things, accusing the Right of being Manichean and in a bunker mentality. Nothing else describes a movement which demands ideological purity at every turn and boots someone like Bob Bennett (an original wingnut if there was one) for being “squishy.”
Karl and hsi fellow travelers can’t accept that there are people who aren’t leftists and still don’t like every conservative idea. You’re either in the life raft being swamped by a demographic sea or you’re part of the sea.
I look forward to conservatism returning to the swamps of the fringe c. 2016. You know, where it was from 1870 to 1964? Two parties which actually want to govern the country rather than impose a theocratic and Laffer caused delusion on the country.
Let’s just say it again for the record: you can’t defend Rand Paul and James O’Keefe and be a leftist. By definition, leftists are sort of fond of the Civil Rights Act and we don’t like ratf*ckers (see Segretti, David for the definition of that term) Weigel is no more of a leftist than Patterico is.
timb (449046) — 7/1/2010 @ 8:01 amBetween the lies and the “No True Scotsman” fallacies, timb’s comments continue to waste space.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/1/2010 @ 8:19 amAh, SPQR: he wants to argue, remember?
Eric Blair (02a138) — 7/1/2010 @ 8:22 amOh, really?
I don’t think “by definition” and “fond” mean what you think they mean, troll.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 7/1/2010 @ 8:56 amJohn – I agree with everything you say except this, “Republicans condemn 14-hour filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act by U.S. Senator and former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd (D-WV), who still serves in the Senate”
Have Blue (854a6e) — 7/1/2010 @ 9:08 amThe klan member is no longer in the Senate.
That bunch of dates and information came from a longer list from Bob at Black & Right. I reprinted the article in April of 2009, so he was still around at that time.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 7/1/2010 @ 9:13 amNot to mention that the recent cases of Heller and McDonald show that leftwing Supreme Court justices hate civil rights.
But you are all treating timb’s nonsense with far more attention than his defecations deserve.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/1/2010 @ 9:23 amtimb has repeatedly demonstrated his utter lack of orginal thought or coherent logic. He comes to fling his feces at anyone caught in his downdraft, but only soils himself in the process.
Dmac (ab1849) — 7/1/2010 @ 9:45 amGive timb credit he did prove that Obama is more racist than Stacey McCain, so he does have that going for him.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 7/1/2010 @ 9:56 am