Late Night Links

by

by publius

I've been wanting to do this somewhat more regularly, so here you go:

  • Steven Pearlstein … driven to shrill.
  • Texas may soon be forced to acknowledge that it executed an innocent man. (h/t Balko Twitter feed).
  • Montana Maven notes that Baucus's re-embrace of the public option may have something to do with local Montana Dem pressure. (h/t email).
  • One theory of why AT&T blocked Google Voice on the iPhone (it's oldie, but goodie).
  • I watched this amazing segment of Glenn Beck at the gym today (you would know if you followed "ObWi" on Twitter).  Fortunately, Media Matters has it, and you should at least watch the chalkboard conspiracy theory diagrams (starts around 3:30).  Honestly, I was more dumbfounded than outraged.
  • And finally, Gary Farber draws some interesting analogies to today's torture debates from the first public statement in decades from William Calley, of My Lai fame.

5 thoughts on “Late Night Links”

  1. I am absolutely loving that Pearlstein article.
    Is there any real goal to the Republican opposition besides dealing a defeat to Obama?
    No.
    SATSQ

  2. There are folks out there who like to watch a good rant like it’s an Olympic sport. I hope they’re Glenn’s target audience, because the notion that there’s a sizeable audience of folks out there who generally agree with Beck is cause for disappointment.

  3. From Gary’s excellent, must-read post on Calley and My Lai, an excerpt from the White House tapes:

    President Nixon: It’s really—it was such an amazing sort of a public furor. It surprised us all, surprised the press and all the rest. But it was probably a good thing that the country had that little spasm.
    Kissinger: That’s right.
    President Nixon: It — get them a chance to pop off steam and then we came on and cooled it off a little, then came on with an announcement. We gained a little initiative, I think, as a result of it, don’t you think?
    Kissinger: Oh, yes. And it, no matter what they say now, no one can construe that outburst as a dove outburst, even if it took the form, perhaps, of wanting to get out of the war. It was the frustration of the people who are not committed to win the war.
    President Nixon: That’s right.
    Kissinger: And—
    President Nixon: Yeah.
    Kissinger: That’s quite a different thing.
    President Nixon: Exactly, and I think the liberals really know this. They—
    Kissinger: Deep down, the liberals know this.
    President Nixon: They are in shock by it, because, they were sort of hoping that the whole nation would, you know, sort of say, “Well, now, we’ll punish these”–
    Kissinger: That’s right. What they wanted was a feeling of revulsion against the deed. In fact, the deed itself didn’t bother anybody.
    President Nixon: No, they, matter of fact, the people said, “Sure, he was guilty, but by God, why not?”
    Both laugh.

    Remind you of anything?
    But, oh, the pearl-clutching when anyone suggests this country needs a process of de-nazification.

  4. @ Slartibartfast:
    It’s misleading to assume that each viewer of Beck (or any other individual clown on Fox) has tuned in to watch that particular clown. Remember the ubiquity of Fox on TVs in banks, restaurants, bus stations, barber shops, gymnasia & reflect that precious few are actually watching these sets.
    I expect much of the Fox viewership resembles my grandparents, who only watched one channel (he liked their game shows, she liked their soaps). It’s about as useful as chain-smoking all day, every day, but as likely to install opinions as reflect them.

  5. Yeah, the history books will record that the great American experiment ended with a half-hearted laugh track and one last incontinent squirt from the lapel flower.
    May FOX will complete the entertainment circle and have Beck assassinated on his own show, like Howard Beale.
    Better, quickly rotate the stage to introduce “Sarah the Soothsayer” to regain the fascist sponsership.
    There is something entropic, anticlimactic, and ultimately boring about phalanxes of zombie Americans on treadmills across America taking in through glazed-over eyes the total degradation of political discourse by the liars infesting what used to be the Republican Party, the former’s blood pressure cuffs hardly registering the goose-stepping going on below their waists.
    They don’t mind death panels, as long as they are privatized. They don’t mind plugs pulled, as long as it’s a business decision. They don’t mind terrorists in the Swat Valley, as long as it’s called Texas.
    In future, I’ll watch grainy newsreels of Hitler firing up ther crowds with a new appreciation for the aerobic benefits of fascism.
    May the 1930s was merely a gigantic gang exercise video.

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