Symbolic consumption

Mark Steyn on Martha's vineyard, the bus tour, and the American presidency.

With bonus Danish history content!

Rick Perry transcript

This is the sort of transcript you do not want to see when a student asks you to write a letter for something. Here is the coverage from the Huffington Post, which uncovered the transcript.

It is useful to remember that this was before all of the grade inflation we currently enjoy, so that a C or a D was likely not really the same as an F like they are now, but still, this is pretty awful.

Hat tip: Charlie Brown

Beltway rhetorical overkill

Reason's Peter Suderman and National Review's Jonah Goldberg review the verbal overreach during the just-concluded debt ceiling horror show. Suderman provides a bipartisan slamming while Goldberg emphasizes the hypocrisy of lefties who, not months ago, made strong, and now quite obviously false, empirical claims about differences between the red gang and the blue gang in the use of violent rhetoric. The nasty verbiage seems particularly inappropriate given that the final debt ceiling deal doesn't actually do much of anything.

Broader lessons from DSK

Cathy Young of reason has some useful thoughts on the broader implications of the DSK scandal.

Liberty magazine

Liberty magazine, a long-running competitor to reason, which makes reason look like the quite moderate journal that it is, has ceased producing its print edition and is now solely on-line.

Looking about the web site today for the first time in a while - they have been on-line only since the end of 2010 - I found this most excellent rant by Stephen Cox (a professor of literature at UCSD) on the deeper social meaning of Weinergate. Here is a taster:

“Democrats consider the scandal all the more sad because Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a hugely popular aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

Did you ever see that phrase before — “all the more sad”? If you haven’t, I’m not surprised. It’s one of those expressions that today’s journalists use when they need to get around the fact that they don’t know grammar. “More sad” means “sadder,” in your grandmother’s untutored but accurate vocabulary. The difference is that your grandmother knew how to form a common English comparative and therefore didn’t have to invent cumbersome phrases to circumvent the obvious.

So journalists are naïve about grammar — so what? Well, ex ungue leonem: they are also naïve about the rest of the world. Do you believe — does anyone believe — that Democrats went into terminal depression because of their sympathy for Huma Abedin, or that more than ten of them had ever heard of Huma Abedin? “Hugely popular”? Who’s buying this stuff? Hillary Clinton isn’t “hugely popular” — so how should Huma, her assistant, be? And are we supposed to believe that a top aide to one of the Clintons is to be pitied for her association with a sex scandal?

Good stuff!

The Economist on DSK

As (almost) always, an insightful and balanced update from the Economist.

This paragraph sums things up well:

Sympathy for DSK has, however, to be set against distaste at the wider revelations about his way of life. Polls suggest that women and older voters have the biggest reservations. Many French voters who find ostentatious wealth obnoxious have been taken aback to see DSK flaunt his fabulous riches. They also know that the collapse of the case does not prove there was no sexual encounter. Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers have stated only that there was “no element of forcible compulsion”. This week the maid sued the New York Post for reporting that she was a prostitute. Whatever the nature of the encounter, one French left-wing editor, Laurent Joffrin, puts it well: “you do not take such risks when one seeks the highest office”.

Politics, wealth, fame and a media frenzy are a potent mix indeed.

DSK update

DSK's accuser turns out to be a serial liar and he is released without bail, though without a reduction in the charges.

Hitchens on Weinergate

Our man Hitchens elevates the discussion of the soon-to-be-back-in-private life Congressman Weinder by ratcheting up the vocabulary and telling stories about Oxford. And even the title is a pun. Who could ask for more?

On-the-job training in Congress

It did not take the new crop of legislators in DC long to learn that the road to success is paved with deceit. It is key to note that both those bragging about the "biggest cuts in history" and those who were crying bloody murder about the draconian slashing of less than one percent of the budget were lying through their teeth.

Mark Steyn on Lindsey Graham on free speech.

Steyn is right on target as usual.

It is amazing how much free speech the people retain. We have the Supreme Court to thank for that (however bad they are on many other issues) rather than our elected politicians, who always seem to be chomping on the bit to limit speech for whatever non-crisis the prestige press is freaking out about on a given day.

More on (former) Congressman Lee

I liked this piece from Gail Collins in the NYT, especially this last bit:

Finally, we should be pondering whether it’s really such a great thing to have a new generation of legislators that puts a premium on being in good physical shape. Lee, who described himself as a “fit fun and classy guy,” apparently couldn’t wait to ship his potential hookup a deeply incriminating shot of his well-toned body.

These people are already dangerously self-satisfied. Maybe we were better off with paunchy, aging guys who had to acknowledge, in their deepest heart, that if they were getting any sexual action at all it was only because they were on the Appropriations Committee.

Indeed.