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«« prior: You took an oath, Mr. Van Hollen
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Good for a grin

Posted by Thomas Nephew on July 31st, 2007

  • How Not To Handle A Political Controversy 101 (Steve Benen, “The Carpetbagger Report,” July 20) —

    The solution, then, is having [Fred] Thompson try telling the truth for a change. It clearly doesn’t come naturally, but he might be surprised at how effective it is.

  • Residuals: Continuing the Debate, (Matthew Yglesias, July 30) — Yglesias responds to Will Marshall fretting about the “emboldening” effect of US withdrawal on Al Qaeda:

    Obviously, if US forces aren’t in Iraq on Day X, al-Qaeda will use that fact for propaganda and recruiting purposes. By the same token, however, if US forces are in Iraq on Day X, al-Qaeda will use that fact for propaganda and recruiting purposes. There’s not some course of action we can take such that al-Qaeda’s response will be “fair enough” and then they shuffle off quietly into the sunset.

  • A Question of Motives (Matthew Yglesias, July 27) — More Yglesias, this time taking note of the Scott Beauchamp brouhaha (a soldier told some ugly stories in The New Republic about soldier misconduct in Iraq) says the the odd thing about the story is

    …the theory that TNR would publish a bogus article alleging mild misconduct on the part of American troops in order to advance TNR’s anti-war agenda tends to founder on the fact that the magazine doesn’t have an anti-war agenda. This isn’t an obscure fact about the magazine! Do they imagine there was an editorial meeting where Brad Plumer said “let’s run an editorial about how the US should withdraw from Iraq” and Foer countered, saying “nah, too obvious, instead of coming out against the war let’s make up a story about killing dogs” and everyone cheered while Lawrence Kaplan sulked in the corner?

  • ATTENTION COMRADES! (Roy Edroso, “alicublog”, July 26, same topic) —

    …Previous meme “Scott Thomas does not exist” is no longer operative. Please to substitute “Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a bad man” or “Scott Thomas Beauchamp is Oliver Stone” or “Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a semiotic construct” or “We’ll get Scott Thomas Beauchamp fired” or whatever damn thing you can think of.

    UPDATE. Comrades show initiative! Conservative commentator tells Beauchamp to “get busy watching your back.” I’ve heard of dolchstosslegende, but I thought it was supposed to go the other way round.

  • The 2005 post of the year at the site “Fundies Say the Darndest Things”:

    One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

  • Finally, from the carefree halls of Congress, Rep. Ed Markey — Chairman of the House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee — YouTubes a committee hearing from the chairman’s perspective. Good for him, no snark intended. (Well, maybe just a little snark intended.) It’s fun to watch and everybody’s in a good mood, so it should probably happen more often.
  • UPDATE, 7/31: Not so fast! In “I think this is a great idea” John Cole and readers run with the idea of having lots of hard-hittin’ questions posed to GOP candidates by wingnut luminaries like Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Ann Althouse, Glenn Reynolds, and much, much more! I laffed and laffed. Favorites: (1) “Do you think any of the Democrats can pretend to be as macho as you all pretend to be?” (2) K-Lo- “Mr. Romney, are you busy this weekend? As a follow up, you are aware Michelle is not the only one with a cheerleader outfit, aren’t you?”

    • =====
    NOTES: FSTDT quote via a comment by El Gato Negro in an Unqualified Offerings thread discussing the dumbest thing ever written. I think Henley may be right to favor Richard Cohen (“even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to “say something funny”). “Great idea” via James Wolcott.
    EDIT, 7/31: Markey’s chairmanship specified.

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    2 Responses to “Good for a grin”

    1. eRobin Says:
      July 31st, 2007 at 4:55 pm

      Of course everyone was in a good mood - only one Republan bothered to show up. That tends to improve the quality of governance right off the bat.

    2. Thomas Nephew Says:
      July 31st, 2007 at 5:05 pm

      True. Do you know why they did that?

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