brainiac conspiracy

OMG WTF IF ONLY OBAMA WOULD LEAD!!!!

A new week brings another round of stupidity from Fournier regarding

Democrats who privately gripe about Obama's lack of engagement with Congress, his unwillingness to build meaningful relationships, his allegiance to polls and focus groups, and his cautious nature that, in their minds, holds him back from greatness. "He can't handle Putin. He can't handle Republicans," said a veteran Democratic consultant and part-time adviser to both of Obama's presidential campaigns. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Democrat told me, "He just is not a natural leader."

National Journal should hire some Web geek to construct a Ron Fournier Op-Ed Generator like someone else did for Tom Friedman. The quality of the content wouldn't suffer one iota, and they'd save a lot of money in the long run. More to the point, sometimes "leadership" involves showing some self-restraint while others are panicking. Why is this so difficult for so many people in the DC policy elite to figure out?

---Baron V

Could Have Saved Them a Lot of Time and Money

The reason why nobody wants to watch their shitty TV show is because most people don't enjoy watching half a dozen rich sociopaths seated at a roundtable on Sunday morning and discussing amongst themselves why we must continue to punish the poor so the rich sociopaths can have another round of tax cuts because punishing the poor is always the responsible thing to do. Not rocket surgery!

(Via.)

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

The Most Trusted Name in Newspersons.

Seriously.

Put it another way: if they can figure out a way to "rebrand" their group, Al Qaeda would love to hear from them. Since both groups achieve their organizational objectives using the same methods, any marketing advice the Klan boys can provide would presumably be most appreciated.

---Baron V

Birth Pangs

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here:

[A]s Iraq prepares for its first national election in four years on April 30, it is hard to imagine democracy activists rallying weekly in Iraqi streets. For months, suicide bombers have been dynamiting themselves in crowded Shiite markets, coffee shops, and funeral tents, while Shiite militias and government security forces have terrorized Sunni communities. The Iraqi state is breaking apart again: from the west in Anbar province, where after weeks of anarchic violence more than 380,000 people have fled their homes; to the east in Diyala province, where tit-for-tat sectarian killings are rampant; to the north in Mosul, where al-Qaeda-linked militants control large swathes of territory; to the south in Basra, home to Iraq’s oil riches, where Shiite militias are once more ascendant; to Iraq’s Kurds, who warn that the country is disintegrating and contemplate full independence from Baghdad.

More than 2,500 Iraqis have been killed since the start of the year, including nearly three hundred in the first ten days of April; in the capital itself, which has become a showcase for the country’s multiplying conflicts and uncontrolled violence, there have been several brazen attacks on government buildings, and a terrifying string of car bombings, including eight on April 9 alone.

Thousands of innocents were needlessly slaughtered while America's thought leaders cheered on the carnage. But hey, looking forward.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Andrew Ross Sorkin.

You really have to wonder if these people actually buy into their own bullshit, or if it's all just a front to showcase what they perceive to be their keen political insight. Given the overall craven nature of our D.C. media culture, I am guessing it's more of the latter than the former, but I could be wrong!

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

James Jeffrey.

Okay, I realize that a paper with an op-ed page that's regularly publishes the collected wisdom of people like Hiatt and Cohen and Ignatius and Gerson and Thiessen and Rubin and Krauthammer is going to cheerlead for MOOOOOOOOAAR WAR 24/7. But it doesn't change the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do over there. It's not our turf, and we have more pressing matters, closer to home, to which we should be attending.

---Baron V

Because Of Course!

Your liberal media, in theory and practice.

As written here many times previously, this is how insanity gets mainstreamed. The people who run our D.C. media establishment have really got to stop doing this, like, now. For the rest of, no person of conscience should watch any ABC program of any kind until a change in personnel is announced.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Dear Jeff Bezos,

Can you make sure that Ruth Marcus is only making 77 percent of what E.J. Dionne makes?

Thanks if you can help! Your pal,

---Baron V

Missing The Aughts

There was so much awesome shit going on that made everyone feel real proud, wasn't there?

More to the point, there was a time in my youth when I aspired to be a member in good standing of the Washington press corps. Because, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, and Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson, and Helen Thomas and Izzy Stone! Sometime over the last 40 years, however---the Ron & Nancy years, perhaps?---real, i.e., adversarial journalists were gradually phased out in favor of the gang of sociopathic toadies and syncophants who currently serve as our nation's court stenographers, and who chuckled in delight while thousands were slaughtered. All of which is why your humble blogger is guessing that he'd have been a wash-out in Washington.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Ron Fournier.

I wonder what they pay this guy to write, essentially, the same column over and over, twice a week for the past five years. More to the point, I wonder if Fournier really believes his own bullshit, i.e., if Obama would only LEAD, Ukraine could be SAVED! See, there are entities in geopolitics known as spheres of influence, and Ukraine is not, repeat not, in ours. The President can't lead when there's nothing to actually lead, and you don't need an advance degree in international studies to figure this one out.

---Baron V

Dear Jeff Bezos

Your new Web property sucks.

Snark aside, this happens all the time at the Post's site: Server drops the signal, homepage takes forever to load or only loads a blank screen etc. So Jeff, maybe you'd consider flying some Amazon front-end development guys to D.C. so they can fix this thing? Because as it stands, this site is one of the poorest performers among the media heavy hitters on the Intertubes. (As an aside, this isn't a user-end glitch with Safari---the same thing happens with Firefox and Chrome. Oh, and my MacBook Pro is only two years old, it runs the latest scripts and extensions, etc. Just thought you'd like to know!)

Your pal,

---Baron V

Opinions Always Differ

In official Washington:

Experts and lawmakers broadly agree that climate change has become a more polarizing issue during President Obama’s time in the White House.

While Democrats feel that drastic government actions are necessary, Republicans are wary of taking aggressive steps that could stifle the economy, and question whether the scientific proof is strong enough to justify such action.

Jesus, where to begin.

This is how insanity gets mainstreamed. Because there aren't a group called "Democrats" who believe one thing and a group called "Republicans" who believe another thing. What we have is a group of people who have examined 25 years of peer-reviewed science and determined that we are in all likelihood hurtling towards extinction, and another group of people who think that the planet is only 10,000 years old, that an embryo is the same thing as a baby, and that an army of Black Panthers is training in secret to confiscate their guns and conscript them into forced labor. This "fair and balanced" approach to reporting is going to be the death of the planet if we don't stop it now.

---Baron V

Grifters Gonna Grift

Because whenever you read Fournier praising some nonpartisan heroics:

It always helps to read the fine print:

Troiano is cofounder of The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan campaign that advocates for U.S. debt reduction. His supporters include deficit hawks Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, and Alan Simpson, a Republican, as well as Ross Verney, who advised the presidential campaign of independent Ross Perot.

---Baron V

Meritocracy

It really is amazing, looking back on the last decade, just how much deference was paid by our Washington news correspondents to people in the administration who clearly had no idea how to perform their jobs, and who offered the political equivalent of Zen koans when asked to justify their myriad failed policy positions. Some of this was due to cynicism, i.e., the desire for access at the expense of groveling, but a great deal of it, I think, is that a lot of people in the D.C. media and political establishments just aren't nearly as bright as they think they are. It's a possibility!

---Baron V

Thursday Night TV Blogging

I'm old enough to remember when this guy's show was on in the daytime, competing against soaps and game shows. I thought it was one of the most cleverly subversive programming decisions in the history of television, and given the daytime audience demographic in those days, I figured it wouldn't last six months. I was right on the specifics, but good thing the network didn't give up on him!

---Baron V

Not Rocket Surgery

Sure, the Kochs and Adelson are all venal scumbags, but there were venal scumbags back in Franklin Roosevelt's time with names like DuPont and Milliken. They even had their own Astroturf operations like the Liberty League! Those venal scumbags weren't able to buy anywhere near as much influence in government as today's venal scumbags because, well, we relieved them of most of their play money before they could use it to buy legislators. Heaven forbid Team Democrat should have ever considered this option when they had the votes to neuter the scumbags. Oh well!

---Baron V

Truth, Reconciliation, War Hawks, Etc.

Okay, it's likely to never happen, but yet another compelling reason to convene such a commission is to call out for public shaming all the serious persons in our national news media who bought into the bullshit and cheered on the slaughter of thousands. Not only were these sociopaths wrong about everything, but because they have never been publicly embarrassed, they are still pontificating on the awesomeness of war and the treachery of the hippies who happened to be right about Iraq.

Another good reason: It would make for great television! Just think of the prospect of Richard Cohen being forced to listen to his Fools & Frenchmen column being read aloud in open testimony, or Tommy Friedman forced to watch Suck On This under subpoena while video screens suspended overhead projected images of dead and disfigured Iraqis. A nonstop laff riot! Yeah, I know it'll never happen, but a cranky old lefty blogger can dream.

---Baron V

Down Memory Lane

Sure, Dick Cheney makes a convenient villain, but we should pause to remember all the serious persons in our D.C. news media---and there were more than few of them!---who also thought that torture was awesome, or at least justifiable in the wake of 9/11, even though most of the people we tortured had nothing to do with 9/11. And that's why you don't hear them talk much about it anymore---because they were complicit in the atrocities. Good times!

---Baron V

Funny How That Works

It's amazing---isn't it?---how much attention the D.C. media mavens lavish on austerity peddlers and not on people who want to build a more humane and balanced society. One group believes that people (except themselves) are morally deficient and deserve to be punished. The other group believes that all of our citizens deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and should not go wanting in the world's richest nation. Yet Paul Ryan is feted as a Man of Ideas of Sunday talk shows, and Alan Grayson is not. I guess what I want to know is, when did our Washington media get hijacked by sadists and sociopaths?

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Leslie Gelb.

Because the last war this awful person supported turned out so well. Sackcloth and ashes, people.

---Baron V