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The Ramble for 7.18.11

Hickory Run, PA– I’m at my stop for the night, along Interstate 80. This is actually a favorite stop of mine… not for the facilities…. they need some help, actually… but because it’s very near to a place I load from frequently. It’s started raining just now, and I expect it’ll be a bit cooler tonight. Good; I need the sleep. Yes, I had to work on my birthday. Goes with the job, I suppose.

Today was a real problem. Took me three hours to get over the George Washington Bridge into NYC today. Made me seriously late for an appointment, out on Long Island. But of course I wasn’t the only one… other folks were also late for the same reason, so they pretty much expected it.

Let’s look around…

  • OBAMA AND COMMUNICATION:How bad is the new press secretary in the Obama White House? This bad.     [1]And, yes, I see David mentioning it [2]the other day… doesn’t miss a thing, David.  In looking at that vid and reading the exchange, one could easily argue that Jay Carney is an idiot. But there’s another way to look at this;  Let’s assume he was chosen because he happens to have some actual qualifications for his job, (unlike the boss).  If that’s the case what we seem to have is a situation where even with all the talent the man possesses, he still can’t mount a defense of Obama’s policies and public statements, because they are in fact indefensible. Either way… it’s one way or the other.
  • CBS WHINES, LEFT THINKS IT’S GOSPEL: Morons like Steve Benen have been screaming this morning about a CBS poll suggesting a large swing against the GOP in the handling of the debt ceiling. But Ed Morressey says “not so fast”. [3]… In short…. CBS has been tilting samples again…

    That leaves Republicans with less than 24% representation in a poll that’s supposed to measure national political sentiment.

    Move along, citizen, nothing to see here. Is this what Obama was talking about when he whined “Don’t call my bluff”? I suspect so. It’s pretty commonly understood CBS is a lapdog for the left.  I find Stacy McCain’s comments [4] on the matter agreeable, as well:

    In the most recent election eight months ago, Republicans won a historic landslide [5] and there is no reason to believe now, in mid-July, that Americans have suddenly shifted toward the Democrats. What CBS News did with that poll is as big a lie as RatherGate [6], and they should be ashamed of themselves for promoting dishonest propaganda while pretending to report the news….

  • MURDOCH et al: I’ve been watching the supposed mainstream media and the left (granted, a repetition) pile onto the News Of The World phone hacking thing with mild interest. I have observed that almost at once this story moved into the area of vengeance, both against a rival press outlet, (…who it should be noted is eating everyone else’s lunch on a daily basis…) but a rival political POV, as well, particularly here in the states. Evidence of this was never clearer than when the FBI, who serves at the behest of the Obama White House, opened an investigation of phone hacking here in the states.  Ask yourself; Would the Democrats… and Obama in particular, gain by casting doubts,,, even the unproven kind, on NewsCorp? You Betcha.  So, imagine my amaze when I see I’m not the only one seeing this… Jan Daley: [7]

    “This has gone way, way beyond phone hacking. It is now about payback. Gordon Brown’s surreal effusion in the House last week may have made it embarrassingly explicit, but the odour of vengeance has been detectable from the start: not just from politicians who have suffered the disfavour of Murdoch’s papers, or the trade unions (and their political allies) who have never forgiven him for Wapping, but from that great edifice of self-regarding, mutually affirming soft-Left orthodoxy which determines the limits of acceptable public discourse – of which the BBC is the indispensable spiritual centre. . . . . But the power of the BBC – and its historical hatred for the ‘Murdoch empire’ – is just one aspect of a larger battle which has now leapt across the Atlantic, where the target is not newspapers which can be legitimately charged with having committed unconscionable acts, but Fox News. Its offence is to have filled such a huge gap in the market for television news and current affairs that it has swept all before it. Its raucous Right-wing orientation is, in fact, matched by an equally raucous Left-wing equivalent in the cable news channel MSNBC, so why should anyone who believes in open and free debate among news providers object to this?”

    It’s about eliminating opposition both in the world of news but in the world of ideas. Does anyone really think Obama gives a hot crap about the 9/11 victims phones being hacked? No. Sorry, that doesn’t work. Given the long history of the left and political opportunism, this is manipulation, pure and simple.