Tag: FJM

When you want the bottom line on health care reform, to whom do you turn? If you're anything like me, you make a beeline for the website of Concerned Women for America to hear world renowned public policy expert Janice Shaw Crouse discuss…what's that? Her claim to fame is a book called The Strength of a Godly Woman and having taught a summer school course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Dallas? I know that is supposed to make me less apt to consider her an expert on health care, but I'm an open minded person who prefers to read her ideas and let the argument speak for itself – especially when the speaker has been feted numerous times by organizations such as the Abstinence Clearinghouse and the Center for Decency. You know, someone who really knows the ins and outs of health care, Congress, and public policy in general. As usual, Intellectual Chernobyl is on the ball, bringing us "What You Get With Free Health Care." I'll tell you what you get with Janice Shaw Crouse columns – you get enough awesome to kill an adult brontosaurus. Be careful…

Most of the arguments supporting the health care reform bill just passed by the Democrats in Congress were myths. These myths were exposed as early as 2008 in a book by Sally C. Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.

Sally Pipes? THE Sally Pipes? Of THE Pacific Research Institute? Well holy shit. Let me offer a partial list of people and organizations who are more credible on health care related issues:

American Medical Association
Kaiser Family Foundation
The Brookings Institute
Catholic Charities
AARP
American Hospital Association
American Miniature Mule and Donkey Association
Cloud Appreciation Society
The starting lineup of the 1994 Hartford Whalers
The Marshall Tucker Band
That Japanese guy who eats all the hot dogs
Jim Varney
Former KC Royals slugger Steve "Bye Bye" Balboni
Shining Path
Todd Bridges
Carlos the Jackal
AeroForceOne – the Official Aerosmith Fan Club
John Hinckley
The average wino or local Council of Winos

Her funny little book skewers everything we’ve heard via the ObamaCare demagoguery. Others, since then, have been equally devastating to the arguments used to ram through ObamaCare.

"I'd cite some examples or perhaps offer links, but I am intellectually dishonest and not sure how to hyperlink something."

In fact, the so-called miracles sold by today’s health care hucksters are about as real as those sold by the shysters of old.

And who doesn't remember the shysters of old? I sure do. There was Hymie, Knuckles, Snacks O'Brady, Toothpick, Frankie the Wop, Legs, Reacharound… Man, those were shysters. That was back when shystering meant something. Today with free agency and the YouTubes, kids just get into shystering for the money and exposure. Pickles McGillicuddy is rolling over in his pressed-board coffin. He was a gamer. He knew what it meant to shyster.

However, most Americans see through the political spin, and they are not buying the snake oil. Vision is much clearer outside the Beltway.

Outside the Beltway? Why, that's where Real Americans live!

Further, as John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” This week, four different polls (Quinnnipiac, Bloomberg, CNN and CBS) show the same result: less than 40 percent of Americans approve of the health care bill that the President just signed.

Hmm. Might want to update that, shooter.

Numerous states are concerned about the way ObamaCare infringes on individual rights.

Yeah, those lawsuits are definitely going to work. I hear the Montana Freemen also have grave concerns about their individual rights being curtailed. If someone expresses an opinion, it automatically becomes valid.

In addition, there are significant constitutional questions about requiring citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Many state attorneys general are noting that ObamaCare is the first time Americans would be forced to buy a good or service.

Wait, the title of the piece includes the phrase "Free Health Care." Did you write that before or after you started complaining about how everyone has to buy it? Also, there is little precedent for Congressional authority to make these kinds of individual economic decisions. Medicare, Social Security, taxes, etc…all voluntary.

All of that didn’t matter to those determined to see their utopian ideology enacted into legislation. Congressional Democrats, disregarding the will of the people and dressing their action in high-sounding rhetoric, rammed through Congress their unpopular and disastrous plan for “transforming” America into a Cuban, British, Canadian or French image.

Ooh! I know this one! "What are four countries with a higher life expectancy than the United States, Alex?"

One of the prime arguments used to sell ObamaCare was that it would reverse the financial crisis and save the country a gazillion dollars — with benefits beginning in its first year. Sadly, somebody’s arm got twisted to produce Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures — nicely timed for the House vote — to supposedly back up the Democrats’ arguments.

This stands in stark contrast to their earlier estimates of the cost of the Iraq War and the economic growth that would follow the Bush tax cuts. Jesus Christ were those accurate. So accurate that they are currently being used to calibrate the Large Hadron Collider.

Nobody seemed to understand that the CBO figures were just estimates.

Wait, you mean they can't see ten years into the future? My faith in the prescience of the Congressional Budget Office is forever damaged.

They add, “Given the central role of medical technology in cost growth, reducing or slowing spending over the long term would probably require decreasing the pace of adopting new treatments and procedures or limiting the breadth of their application.” How’s that for dispelling the claims that quality will remain high, rationing won’t happen, and technology will continue to expand while costs go down?

Well, it doesn't have anything to do with the first two red herrings. As for the third, I'm not sure if there's any fat that can be cut from the current research & development landscape. I mean, with the continuous need for newer and better big dick pills, hair growth treatments, varicose vein removal techniques, and drugs to treat the scourge of insufficient eyelashes, innovation can barely keep up with our problems as is.

(boring, repetitive paragraph excised for space)

Everybody wants affordable, accessible, and high-quality health care; there are proposals on the table for changes that would make significant improvements in those aspects of U.S. health care.

Oh man. This is going to be awesome. I wonder what such proposals would entail? Single payer? Tighter regulations?

Those proposals would unleash free market competition, improve quality, and lower costs for health care in the same way that it has done for other national industries and businesses.

Deregulation improves all industries, like airlines, banks, cable television…the prices went down, and holy balls did the quality improve!

A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that American health care is very efficient, with only six percent of the premiums going to administrative costs and fully 86 percent covering the actual costs of care.

Wow! A full 86% of our premiums go to the bloated costs of care. At least among people who have insurance. But the system is still pretty damn efficient for the rest of us. There is no doubt that the health care industry is extremely efficient in processing the uninsured.

But cost control is not the purpose of ObamaCare.

What was your first clue? Mine was when they said that the purpose was to insure everyone, with the cost reductions purely secondary.

ObamaCare is all about redistributing wealth and putting a vast segment of the economy under bureaucratic control.

Some estimates of health care spending run as high as 20 percent of the U.S. economy by 2016.

Well if someone made these estimates, surely they're credible! I estimate that health care spending will be -5% of the economy by 2016. I estimate that Janice Shaw Crouse's body is 46% partially hydrogenated corn oil. I estimate that 12% of the people who started reading her column attempted suicide before reaching the end.

Under ObamaCare, Uncle Sam becomes Santa Claus. But sooner or later, the bills come in and all those “gifts” turn out to be pretty expensive after all.

Wow, that's some metaphor you've got there. When Barack Obama becomes the Chupacabra, those goats aren't going to look so happy after all!

Right now, the U.S. has the “world’s best cancer survival rates” — Sally Pipes reported

Michael Richards
Omar Bongo
Norman Schwarzkopf
Afroman
The surviving members of the Warren Commission
The Harlem Globetrotters
Falco
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Captain Phil Harris (R.I.P.)
Art Bell
Bizarre from D-12
Alger Hiss
The Kraken
Ron Popeil
The original cast of Small Wonder

that Americans “have a better survival rate for 13 of the 16 most common cancers” — a fact most appreciated by those victims and their families who benefit from the expensive drugs that result from years-long research and clinical trials.

Since there's clearly no way for drug companies to make money under the new system I guess they'll stop doing clinical trials. But cancer survival rates are nice. How about we compare those to rates of developing cancer in the first goddamn place. Uh oh. America's health care system ain't quite #1 there.

Most Americans are personally satisfied with their own private health insurance coverage

Yes, most Americans who have private health insurance coverage are "personally satisfied" with it relative to the alternative of not having health insurance. Brilliant. Tell us more, Professor Kickass.

and appreciate the medical advances that save lives and provide miracle cures.

Is this based on any kind of data or is JSC just making things up here? This does not look like any poll question I've ever seen. "Do you appreciate medical advances that save lives?" "Do you support miracle cures?" "Do you like happiness?"

Others, too, depend upon American health care. Tens of thousands of foreigners come to the United States for treatments not available or rationed in their home countries.

Take that, Burkina Faso! In your face, Guatemala! Suck on this, Vietnam! Our health care system is better than yours! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Most Americans are also aware and appreciate the fact that government-funded programs already provide for those Americans who are truly poor.

Uh…

Hospitals are not allowed to refuse treatment to those without insurance.

Yes, this is a good example of a government-funded program to provide for the truly poor. Except they receive an enormous bill and collection agencies will hound them until they die in an effort to liquidate their assets to settle the debt. And it's not like the rest of us pay for every service rendered to an uninsured person. No, that money comes from Santa.

Medicare, Medicaid, and other special programs for children, veterans, and specific population groups provide care for those with special needs.

"These things that conservatives have spent decades trying to dismantle do much to provide for the young, the old, and the indigent. But now we are huge proponents of these things that we suddenly realize are quite popular. Yes, Mitch McConnell tried several times to pass the Fuck All the Old People, Kids, and Indigent bill. We regret that unfortunate incident and look forward to many years of scaring old people about Democrats taking away their Medicare."

Nobody claims that these government-run programs provide the quality of care that those with private insurance enjoy. In fact, the false promise of something for nothing — the utopian scheme of everybody having top-quality health care coverage and it not costing anybody any more than they are currently paying — is the biggest myth of all.

I'm confused. Are we all being Forced to buy insurance or is health care now free? JSC is recklessly flopping back and forth between the two. It is as though the area between these two very different concepts is lined with a dessert buffet.

Sally Pipes quoted P.J. O’Rourke, “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.”

Wow, three Sally Pipes references in one column. This brings the total number of references in print to Sally Pipes and her think-tank that she runs out of the utility closet of a Sizzler in Barstow, CA to…three. But we all learned a valuable lesson here: the government is wrong to force you to buy something, because once everyone is forced to buy something then it will be free. And then we're really fucked.

Well said, Janice. Well said.

Intellectual Chernobyl represents the full spectrum of right-wing crazy: the vacuous stupidity of Marybeth Hicks or Jackie Gingrich; the blood-curdling rage of fat white guys like Doug Giles and John Hawkins; the insane, untethered "I smear shit all over myself and why do the editors keep taking 'spick' and 'towelhead' out of my columns?" ranting of Michelle Malkin and Star Parker; the fake non-partisanship of John Stossel and Michael Medved; and the grandfatherly crankiness of Dennis Prager. That DP comes off as one of the more reasonable voices on IC is less a compliment than an indictment of his surroundings. But it's true. He's a hybrid of Andy Rooney and Morty Seinfeld, as likely to complain about Congress as to complain about how the kids listen to their damn boom-boom music instead of Chopin. DP was in pure Andy Rooney form when watching Super Bowl commercials this year, apparently, and a cranky old man does not need to try very hard to find something to bitch about during that extravaganza of offensive masquerading as clever. That's how we end up with "The Doritos Ad was Not Funny", which also happens to bear the most abstract title for a creative work since Snakes on a Plane. I hope you're ready for 1000 words of recollections about The Good Ol' Days and the occasional anecdote about Paul Harvey, because here we go.

By far, the most popular ad shown during the latest Super Bowl was the Doritos "House Rules" ad. Tens of millions of Americans saw it as hilarious.

Is there some evidence for this? It is not only the most popular but "by far." Something tells me this is based on a double-blind survey of Dennis Prager's wife – who I am forced to assume is named Lorraine – and his collection of ointments from the 1950s. The ad was pretty popular, but why leave it at that when you can make shit up?

That is unfortunate. Anyone aware of the manifold social pathologies the ad depicted did not find much to laugh about. Here is the ad:

I will note two things. First, I actually agree with DP. The ad was insulting. Second, when he says "Here is the ad" there is no link to the ad. I am not sure he understands YouTube. I am not even sure he has a solid handle on VHS or microfiche yet. But here is the ad.

A man knocks on a door. A pretty woman answers it. He hands her flowers and she thanks him. He has presumably come to take her out on a date. She introduces her young son to the man and excuses herself. She walks back to her room. The camera focuses on her shapely legs, quite visible given that she is wearing a miniskirt. The man stares, indeed leers, at her legs and makes a facial gesture suggesting, shall we say, sexual interest. The boy, who appears to be about 5 years old, sees this and drops his toy. The man sits on the couch and helps himself to a Dorito. The boy walks up to the man, smacks him hard across the face and says, "Keep your hands off my mama. Keep your hands off my Doritos."

Is is nice of DP to summarize this for his aged audience. But it certainly could be called offensive, what with the Diff'rent Strokes-style negro slang dialect, single mother who appears to be about 14, and leering rapist-to-be male.

Here are the major elements of dysfunction this ad depicts.

Good. Here we go.

First, a child smacking an adult across the face is not funny.

What the fuck.

Seriously? Is this, like, a problem? This is an issue? An epidemic of child-on-adult slappage is America's most pressing social problem. It narrowly edges out our 15% unemployment rate and the alarming shortage of Barnaby Jones re-runs in Dennis Prager's mind.

It is, in fact, one of the last things society should tolerate.

THE LAST 5 THINGS SOCIETY SHOULD TOLERATE, by Dennis Prager

5. Man-on-dog
4. Sass, backtalk, and/or guff
3. Murder
2. Females appearing unveiled in public without a male chaperone
1. Children slapping adults

I will deal with the widespread defense of the child's action — "he was only protecting his mother" — later. In real life, a child who hits an adult needs to be disciplined.

O…K. I am very hesitant to agree, but…I agree.

If a child did that to me, I would grab his offending arm and apply enough force to make it clear that he will never do that again.

Well, we were just barreling down Cranky Boulevard and we took a sudden right on Creepy. What does "apply force" mean? Are you cranking his arm behind his back cop-style? Squeezing it until something comes out the end like a tube of Crest?

After I mentioned this on my radio show, some psychotherapists sent me e-mails disagreeing with these views. They noted, for example, that "violence breeds violence."

I bet DP knows better than those fancy-pants with their degrees and books and infrequent application of force to young arms.

Some cliches are true; I find this one meaningless. The truth is the opposite: Immoral violence breeds violence; moral violence (such as just wars, police work and appropriate parental discipline) reduces violence.

Like that just war in Iraq! That reduced the ever-living shit out of violence in Baghdad. Police use of force also has a lengthy track record of reducing violence, as evidenced by our increasing incidence of the former and plummeting rate of the latter.

So to summarize: you should use force against kids because it will work out as well as law enforcement and the Iraq War.

I am well aware that vast numbers of Americans (and Europeans) believe that engaging in any physical discipline of a child is wrong. I, too, held this belief for most of my life, and I never hit or spanked either of my sons.

The remainder of this column is dedicated to making you very, very skeptical of this claim. Or imagining what kind of tortuous, proprietary definition of "violence" he concocts to exclude the heavy sack beatings to which he routinely subjected his children. I bet his kids are real well-balanced.

I have changed my mind because of all the fine people who have called my show or written to me about how they were spanked and now believe that they are better adults because of it.

OK. Not only is this completely retarded and piss-poor evidence under the best of circumstances, DP's argument is "I believed something until lots of people told me not to so I changed my mind."

It is a given that I do not defend physical — or any other form of — abuse against a child. Of all the world's evils, child abuse may rank as the greatest. But a properly administered spanking is not abuse.

Dennis, this is far, far from a given. And you are about to prove it.

The New York Times recently published an article titled "For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking," in which it noted that many parents now regularly scream at their children in part because they cannot spank them. I am not at all certain that being screamed at by a parent is an improvement over spanking.

And scientists at the University of Logic have determined that being neither screamed at nor spanked is an improvement over either.

The Doritos kid deserved a physical response from this man — as in pressure on the offending arm.

Still don't know what this means, still kinda creeped out by it.

With regard to the argument that this man was not the boy's parent — and the terrible fact that there is far too much hitting and abuse of children by stepfathers and boyfriends — I do not believe that only parents may physically respond to a child.

Awesome. I mean, I don't see how this could go wrong. Let's give anyone who can legally buy cigarettes carte blanche to "apply force" to children and I'm sure that everything will work out great. Reeeeeeal great.

Teachers, for example, should be permitted to do so

SWEET! This was done when the Baby Boomers were in school and look at how completely not emotionally screwed up or violent they turned out!

I was physically dealt with by a number of teachers, and in every case, I deserved it.

Saying "I deserved it" is the most convincing possible evidence that someone is not abused. Let's see if that holds up in court. Or, you know, reality.

I also did so as a camp counselor — to great effect.

*falls off chair*

*rubs eyes*

Um…

Anybody? Anybody mildly troubled yet? Or does sending Billy and Suzie off to Lake Winnepasaki for 12 weeks of campfires, wallet-making, and Dennis Prager's "Great Effect" sound like a good idea? Something tells me this also involved the application of a lot of pressure.

And so should the man whom the child in the ad smacked. In an ideal world, all adults raise all children in some way.

Hit back. That is a fantastic life lesson. Hit back or you are failing the children.

(The remainder of the column covers the racist stereotypes, which I both agree with and am mildly surprised that DP would catch. Although he probably threw it in to deflect criticism from his remarkable creepiness.)

So, to summarize: children slapping adults is an problem of pandemic proportions. Any and every adult is deputized to apply some kind of physical retribution to children. There is no risk that adults will start to lose whatever inhibitions they may have against hitting kids. Dennis Prager did not hit his kids, as he told us to make us think he is father of the century, but he slapped around, "applied force" to, and, who are we kidding, probably sodomized a bunch of summer campers.

I'm glad we had this talk. Stop waving that rake at the kids on your lawn, Dennis. Wouldn't it be better to apply a different and perhaps more emphatic punishment?

Most of the "columnists" featured at Intellectual Chernobyl are in fact syndicated, and in that sense the website is nothing more than a crap aggregator. You can get Michelle Malkin's boilerplate from dozens of identically bad websites, for example. But not Jillian Bandes. Jillian Bandes is TownHall's own. They sign her paychecks. Her job – as if I need to point this out – is to churn out some seriously top-shelf product that a hungry public can find nowhere else. She showcased her powerful prescience this weekend with "Palin Stays One Step Ahead of the Political Class." If you think it's about Palin's move to Fox News, you're wrong. It's actually about how Sarah Palin is about to announce her candidacy for 2012, and the column ran the day Palin announced that she would chase the money like the tacky hillbilly she is. Let's just call her Jillian Kreskin from now on. Was she just trying to will Palin into running, thus fulfilling all of Jillian Bandes' 3 AM fantasies, or did she consciously set out to write a column that we'd enjoy reading approximately as much as an open book pelvis fracture? I'll let you be the judge.

One of the biggest questions for conservatives right now is whether Sarah Palin will run for president in 2012.

Perhaps the lack of anything better to talk about is a bad sign. Or perhaps – try to stay with me here – nobody really gives a shit what a semi-literate hack who governed Alaska for almost two whole years is going to do. My guesses would have been "Launch talk show", "Enter competitive eating contest", or "Join cast of Hee-Haw." But I don't care enough to guess.

Recent moves by Palin suggest that she will.

Way to read the signs, J-Band!

Palin just announced that she would speak at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in April – the second-most important GOP political gathering behind the Republican National Convention.

Is there a list somewhere? This is highly subjective. I always thought it went Republican National Convention, the Brickyard 400, WWE Summerslam, the Tarrant County Fair, John Kyl's Super Bowl barbecue, Focus on the Family's annual badminton tournament, and then the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

While it’s not guaranteed that an appearance at the event means an individual will enter the GOP primary, it’s virtually impossible to enter the primary without having appeared.

Well that's solid logic. I'd say she's a virtual lock to run based on her appearance at this conference alongside fellow future Presidential candidates Sonny Perdue, Bobby Jindal, and Rush Limbaugh (health and the availability of sufficient fudge permitting).

“Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's decision to attend — and speak at — the SLRC… transforms that event into the first legitimate cattle-call of the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes,” wrote Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post.

So the event wasn't a big deal until Palin got there, but it sure is a big deal that she is attending. Palin + Event = Important Event Attended by Important People.

Palin’s SLRC speech will happen right after a keynote address at the National Tea Party Convention, which has a goal of consolidating the movement’s “multiple organizations.”

Well, that only reinforces the fact that she's making the rounds at top-flight events befitting a presidential candidate. Speaking before throngs of teabaggers reeking of Funyons and sadness is an honor bestowed upon only an elite few. John Ratzenberger. World Nut Daily founder Joe Farah. Dick Armey.

Matthew Continetti, author of The Persecution of Sarah Palin, says that the dual appearances are good news on the heels of Palin’s abrupt exit from the Alaska governorship, and that they could indicate 2012 Presidential aspirations. "Palin began her rehabilitation with her book launch and media tour. Now, with the SRLC appearance, she’s continuing to lay the groundwork for a presidential run," he said.

Read that again.

I think we've heard the objective opinion of an unbiased source of Sarah Palin information. In other news, Matthew Continetti reports that Sarah Palin smells like cupcakes and the recent incident in which she murdered a vagrant with her bare hands just to watch him die is "really good news for the former Governor."

"I happen to think her more important appearance will be at the national Tea Party convention next month – Palin, unlike many prominent Republicans, understands the GOP must capture the Tea Party message, enthusiasm, and supporters if it wants to return to power."

Still quoting the same d-bag, for the record. Maybe it's because he's smart enough to realize that headlining a teabagging convention is a rocket ship straight to the top of the political world.

Continetti's assessment is right in line with a National Journal poll last month, which put Palin dead last as the "GOP political insider" choice for the Republican nomination – that’s coming from party leaders, political professionals and pundits. Ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was their pick.

"In this stupid poll of people who know their asses from a hole in the ground, we see that Republicans who are interested in actually winning an election ranked Queen Sarah dead last. Such is the folly of man. And God wept."

But Palin’s tea party appeal can’t be denied among the GOP rank-and-file.

Oh, sure it can. Just watch.

Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and forty-one percent of all voters currently see Palin as “representative of a new direction for the Republican Party,” and many put her approval ratings on par with Obama’s. Palin does well in indicators of “shared values” and “trustworthiness” among all voters.

Wow, slightly more than half of the minority party! Sounds like general election dynamite to me.

Combine those favorability ratings with her record-breaking book tour,

Which records did her book tour break? Are there even records for book tours? Other than the record for "Most Appearances at the Sam's Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas on a Book Tour from a Major Publishing House" I'm not aware of any independently verified records being set.

and hopes are pie-in-the-ski

Ah, the ol' pie-in-the-ski routine. Oliver Hardy, correct?

for her nomination as the GOP presidential candidate.

Among Jillian Bandes and Palin's apologist/biographers, hopes are high. Ski high.

Her autobiography Going Rogue has sold over a million copies, with record turnout at her book tour events.

You know what else sold a million copies? Twilight. As soon as those fuckers turn 35 we are totally drafting them into running for president.

"This book tour has been an amazing and inspirational experience for me and my family as we crisscrossed the country and met so many wonderful Americans," said Palin, via her Facebook page.

This is it. This is the end of the column. And then Sarah Palin gave up on politics and chased a paycheck. Unless Fox News is the springboard to the presidency, which history doesn't quite support. In a sense we should take it easy on Jillian since she is a victim of unfortunate timing – had she written this three weeks ago we'd hardly have noticed – but on the other hand her complete inability to read Sarah Palin makes her a fair target. The rest of us can smell a small mind from a mile away. Palin's just a rube easily dazzled by dollar signs and the prospect of endless shoe shopping sprees. Politics was never more than a get-rich-quick scheme for her, and it worked. Everyone got what they wanted, excepting of course the cadre of loyal fanatics like Jillian. Like a teenager coming to grips with the fact that his favorite band would sell out in a minute to get on MTV, there will be a few tears shed as the Palinites recognize that their princess was only in it for Rupert Murdoch's money.

The world headquarters of TownHall.com, pictured here, is like Mecca for dipshits. They pray toward it five times daily. And every day their faith is rewarded.

Since it's apparently 2001 and Tom DeLay is still relevant, it's time to debate the estate tax again! Wooooo! Since its big guns are all far, far too busy writing about Islamistical Muslimist Terrorists shooting up military bases and being found innocent in liberal New York courtrooms (seriously, there are like 25 columns about it), TownHall had to hand this important task to some bag of fluid in a cheap suit named Ed Feulner. Ed is up to the challenge though, serving up a steaming cauldron of persuasion called "Time to Bury the 'Death Tax'". See what he did there? Bury the death tax? Oh, you'd best call the babysitter, dear readers, because wordplay like presages something so awesome that a responsible adult could not allow children to see it. Let's roll.

Kevin Hancock simply wants to harvest trees — sustainably — and create jobs in the process. The federal government may put a stop to all that.

That's why I'm calling my Congressman – and I recommend you do the same – and telling him "Vote NO! on the Stop Kevin Hancock from Harvesting Trees and Omnibus Defense Spending Reconciliation Bill!" NO on H.R. 312, YES on Kevin Hancock harvesting trees.

His business, Hancock Lumber, has been in the family for six generations. It owns 30,000 acres of Maine timberland and employs 550 people. But Kevin already knows that when his elderly mother dies, he’ll have to sell off huge swaths of his land to pay the ensuing tax bill.

Wow, his company is that big and they don't have any other source of revenue? Given that…hmm…the tax only applies to estates worth more than $3 million, there should be some cash available. Nah.

It’s an example of the long reach of the death tax

Estate tax. Understandable typo.

the penalty families have to pay when a loved one dies and leaves them significant assets.

Right. The "penalty" that a fraction of a percent of households have to pay when Dad tries to will the kids his $3 million-plus estate, thus essentially giving each of them a couple million dollars in income – unearned income, like winning the Lotto -for that tax year.

Yet, for Hancock and many others, some relief may be in sight. In 2001, lawmakers passed a law that gradually phased out the levy, which has destroyed countless family-owned businesses over the years.

So many that Ed Feulner couldn't possibly take the time to mention an example here. Businesses destroyed by the estate tax, like examples of voter fraud, are so pervasive that it's not possible to identify any specific cases.

The death tax has been stepped down from 55 percent (for those in the top tax bracket) 8 years ago to 45 percent. But that gradual decline was just a prelude for 2010, when the tax will — finally — disappear all together.

The top bracket is for estates worth more than $10 million. Thank god it's expiring next year, one of the hidden "Surprise! Fuck you!" landmines left behind by the Bush administration. Oddly he didn't believe strongly enough in repealing the tax to take the revenue hit on his own watch.

Unfortunately, like the killer in so many slasher movies, the death tax could return to menace family businesses again in 2011. Unless Congress acts, it’s scheduled to return to the obscene 55 percent rate after next year, thus reawakening the nightmare of the American Dream.

Slow down with the pop culture references, Mr. Radical!

Lawmakers are poised to take action soon. But Americans should insist they take the right action.

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For example, earlier this year the Senate passed a non-binding amendment that would set the death tax at 35 percent starting next year. That’s quite a jump from zero percent, and would be a big step in the wrong direction.

A non-binding amendment? Wow. It's almost like we're dead broke and the Senate is looking at every source of revenue carefully, understanding that we have to make choices that may be unpleasant or involve sacrifices.

The sensible thing would be for lawmakers to leave the current policy in place and allow the death tax to go away completely. With the Senate already facing titanic struggles over health care, global warming and federal spending this year, there’s no point in attempting to upend a policy that’s already set in law.

I just called one of my friends at the University of Arguments and he said this is, without a doubt, the lamest argument in the history of arguments. The law's on the books, so we might as well leave it – so much easier than changing it. Is the Senate composed of 19 year old stoners who can't be bothered to get up for Funyuns and will stare at a 12 hour Dirty Jobs marathon because it's so much easier than finding the remote?

Besides, Americans deserve to see how much better things would be without the death tax, especially since repealing it might help our country — finally — pull out of recession.

See, Ed's really looking out for the little guy here.

For you. This isn't about preserving the wealth of the top tenth of one percent of the population. It's about letting you see how much better the world will be when phenomenally wealthy people get to hold on to just a little bit more of the money they earned, especially since they've been earning so much more once they moved your job to Indonesia.

The death tax is a job killer. Heritage Foundation economists found that the…

Yes, let's ask non-partisan experts at the Heritage Foundation! I wonder if they will reach the only conclusion they've ever reached about anything ever. In other news, the National Association of Corn Processors have conducted a study on the deliciousness of corn syrup and discovered that corn syrup is a nutritious, delicious, and essential part of a daily diet without which you will develop AIDS.

By the way, remember the Heritage reference. I have a surprise for you at the end.

found that the federal levy leads to the loss of between 170,000 and 250,000 potential jobs each year. (It’s impossible to be more specific, simply because those jobs were never created in the first place. We certainly could use them now).

"It's really hard to be specific when you're basically bending forward and pulling statistics out of your ass."

How does it kill jobs?

30% are killed in the initial blast; essentially any job within 1000m of the tax is instantly vaporized. Medium-term effects like shortwave ionizing radiation kill another 30 to 40 percent of the jobs, while the final third die an excruciating death over a period of several weeks as radioactive Estate Tax Fallout enters their respiratory systems.

Partly because it encourages wealthy Americans to spend their money today rather than invest it in growing a business.

Spending money does not help the economy. Or create "demand" for "products and services." None of which has ever created a "job."

After all, we’re all going to die.

Hey, this guy's right! We are going to die. That's why I don't waste the precious time I have on this planet worrying about what the Waltons will have to cough up when they die and leave a quarter of a billion dollars to their kids. I'm glad we had this talk.

What’s the point of building a bigger nest egg if Washington is just going to take a third of it, a half of it, or even more?

There is no point to acquiring a couple million dollars if any of it is taxed. No incentive. None. You'd be an idiot to do it.

Because the estate tax discourages investment, it also holds down wage growth. Since businesses have less funding, they’re less able to purchase new tools and equipment. So workers are less productive and suffer slower wage and salary growth.

This paragraph was plagiarized from a high school macroeconomics textbook from 1958. This is really very simple, kids. If Mr. Spacely has to pay an estate tax to will the widget factory to his son, then they can't invest in new assembly line machines to help you make more widgets. Ultimately this will cause him to open a widget factory in Guadalajara. Are you still with me? This is all very simple: do what the plutocrats say or they'll destroy you to preserve their obscene wealth.

The death tax also hammers some Americans more than others

Yes, it hammers those affected by the "death" tax – people with assets worth more than $3 million – and hammers the rest of us not one goddamn bit. Quite a hammering disparity.

since it especially targets landowners.

Isn't about time someone looked out for their interests?

Millions of farmers, ranchers and homeowners have, like the Hancock family, improved their land. Yet when they die, the federal government punishes their heirs.

It "punishes" them for being handed millions in assets they did nothing to earn except be born. I don't know how I sleep in a world with that kind of cruelty.

Death and taxes, they say, are both inevitable.

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But it’s not inevitable that one must lead to the other.

This is its own paragraph, denoting how proud Ed was of his clever allusion to the death theme.

Americans are set to get a glimpse of life without the death tax next year. After that, Lawmakers should act to make sure this levy goes away. Completely and forever.

Get mad, people. Then get involved. That exemption of the first $3 million in inherited property followed by a progressive tax that tops out around 50% for estates worth $10,000,000 or more may not seem like it's going to ruin your life, but that's beyond naive. Go ahead thinking that it's not going to hurt you. Let your guard down and then before you know it, the estate tax is taking your house, making you fat, and probably trying to have its way with your daughter.

By the way, might it have been worthwhile for Ed Feulner to point out that he's the President of the Heritage Foundation when appealing to their expert judgment in the column? Apparently Ed was too busy calculating the value of the estate Mom and Pop – who owned a North Shore real estate empire in Chicago – were going to leave him to pay any attention in those college ethics classes.

Leather puppet Mona Charen is one of the most consistent and reliable contributors over at Intellectual Chernobyl, possibly because she began writing opinion columns shortly after the advent of the written word. She is the savings bond of right-wing stupid – never flashy and with limited upside, but a good choice for a safe, predictable return.
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Someone like Doug Giles is a lottery ticket, occasionally delivering a bonanza but more often proving worthless. Mona is like your grandmother. Your insane, not terribly bright grandmother who somehow and to your great displeasure has internet access. Let us peel back the layers of the onion of retardedness that is "Government by Holiday Inn Express." Clever title, and a not-so-subtle way of reassuring us that, yes, Mona Charen does own a television. Possibly with rabbit ears.

You've seen those commercials in which an airline pilot, or surgeon, or nuclear engineer is giving expert advice only to acknowledge eventually to his nonplussed listeners that while he is not actually a fill-in-the-blank, he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

You know it's A) bound to be hilarious and B) aimed at an audience over 70 if you have to explain the joke in advance. This isn't exactly an obscure reference, Mona. You're not quoting Ecclesiastes or the lost plays of Shakespeare here. It's a commercial that everyone with a TV has seen. Thanks for explaining it anyway, though.

Many writers would confuse us by attempting to speak in metaphor, but why make readers do all that heavy lifting?

Do you ever get the feeling that we are getting Holiday Inn Express government?

ZOMG! I TOTALLY SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE! I WASN'T SURE AFTER I SAW THE TITLE AND THE FIRST SENTENCE BUT I THINK I GET IT!

Does anything they say make basic economic sense?

The best judge of that is clearly the woman best known for being Nancy Reagan's speechwriter. Someone with a degree in English from the 1960s. Someone who was an editorial assistant at the National Review. Anyone springing to mind, Mona?

President Obama and the Democratic Party propose to save money (or what they call "bend the cost curve") on health care spending. They will spend less, they say, but also cover more people — the 47 million or 30 million uninsured (Obama has used both numbers). This will be accomplished without reducing care for anyone and without raising taxes on anyone except the rich. In fact, care will be improved.

Their ignorance of all things economic is as obvious as it is all-encompassing.

Sounds great. But do these people know what they're doing? They mouth the words "choice" and "competition" but only, ironically, in praise of a "public option."

How in the hell is that ironic? Do you even know what irony is? More importantly, do you even understand a public option? It's an option. One option in – let me choose my words carefully – "competition" with other options.

The concept of encouraging choice and competition in the health insurance market — say by permitting interstate sales — is off the table.

That is "off the table" in the same sense that phrenology is off the table in medical schools. It is off the table because it is stupid, based on a woefully naive and unrealistic premise, and it makes no sense.

The Wall Street Journal provided a handy chart of "Uncle Sam's Cost Overruns." In 1965, when Medicaid was enacted, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that first year costs would amount to about 8 million.

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The actual price was $1 billion. The program now costs $251 billion annually and is climbing fast. The record is similar for Medicare. In 1965, Congress predicted that by 1990, Medicare would be costing $12 billion. The actual cost — $90 billion. As Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget has admitted, "If costs per enrollee in Medicare and Medicaid grow at the same rate over the next four decades as they have over the past four, those two programs will increase from 5 percent of GDP today to 20 percent by 2050."

I wonder how she managed to forget the war that was supposed to last "six days, six weeks. I doubt six months" and pay for itself. You know, the one that actually cost $700,000,000,000. That's seven hundred billion dollars, Mona. Compare that to the costs of Medicare you've cited here, bearing in mind that unlike the money we're pissing into Iraq, Medicare actually, I don't know, helps the people who paid for it.

It's not necessary to dwell on the risible claim that they will cut half a trillion in waste from the Medicare budget. If they know where that waste is, why aren't they cutting it now?

I think Congress is working on some sort of "health care" legislation right now. The GOP did crap out the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003, which they cleverly passed and then immediately told everyone it would cost $150 billion more than they told Congress! And. And! Eight months after that, they doubled the projected cost to $1.2 trillion. Boy, those Democrats have no credibility when they talk about cost cutting.

Where, on the books, are the federal waste-cutting initiatives?

Well, Republicans like to pass them to make rubes and syndicated columnists slap their fins together with glee. And then they totally ignore them and spend money like drunken sailors on shore leave.

The administration has also highlighted two other ideas that will supposedly provide tremendous cost savings. Both have been in the news lately. Starting during the campaign, President Obama touted digital medical records to reduce errors, improve care, and cut costs.

That charlatan! Everyone knows paper is the way of the future.

More than $19 billion of stimulus funds were earmarked for it. But when the Washington Post examined the matter, they discovered that digital records not only fail to produce the promised benefits, they actually reduce efficiency and cause errors. The digital systems currently available give physicians too much information. Pages upon pages of digital information document every conceivable ailment a patient might have. Doctors have difficulty wading through all of the unnecessary data to reach the critical information. One emergency room physician at a hospital that had adopted a digital system complained, "It's been a complete nightmare. I can't see my patients because I'm at a screen entering data . … Physician productivity and satisfaction have fallen off a cliff."

Well based on your double-blind, peer reviewed survey of this one guy, I'd say it's a resounding failure! Gosh, we should really take seriously the whining of doctors and nurses who hate having to be re-trained or learn a new system once they get set in their ways. I mean, they love change. They embrace it.

Some hospitals have adopted digital systems only to abandon them.

I bought a Model T when it came out. It sucked. Good thing we all abandoned cars. That was a stupid idea.

Another silver bullet the administration has peddled is preventive care.

Ha ha ha! What a bunch of nutbars! Put away the leeches and plague masks, Doctor Quack!

Everyone knows that a timely PSA test will detect prostate cancer at an early and treatable phase thus saving the patient's life and saving money, right? Not exactly. The test is obviously worthwhile for that individual. But testing all men for prostate cancer — an overwhelming majority of whom will never get the disease — is expensive.

Read that. Read that again and again until it sinks in.

Why are we wasting money testing people for prostate cancer? Most of them won't even get it! So why test them? We could save a lot of money this way – I mean, let's just take all the people who are never going to get sick and allow them to stop paying for insurance?

If more and more of us are tested for more and more diseases — even accounting for some illnesses found early — health spending will rise, not fall.

Tell us more, John Maynard Keynes.

By the way, this has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of "preventive medicine" they're talking about, which entails reducing the variable risk factors for diseases. You know, more quackery.

Further complicating the picture, the National Cancer Society has announced that the benefits of cancer screenings, particularly for breast and prostate cancers, have been oversold. They aren't saving very many lives, but they are causing needless tests and surgeries.

This is why the Republicans are so popular. Health care costs too much because of all of you fuckin' pansies won't stop getting tested for diseases you don't even have! This wouldn't be such a mess if you weren't running to your doctor every couple of months whining like little bitches, "Oh doctor, I need a mammogram" or "I'm over 40, I think I should get a regular prostate exam."

The Baucus bill — even before being melded with House versions — weighed in at 1,502 pages of new taxes, fees, and mandates.

Hmm, about that Medicare Modernization Act once again…the summary of which is 148 pages long.

Every single page proclaims something that is dubious — that the Democrats know what they are doing.

Well, "know what they are doing" is kind of a relative concept in a two party system. No one thinks they're rocket scientists. In fact, most voters probably just think they're less idiotic than the GOP. This is a zero-sum game. We get one or the other. And the "other" in this instance might be a viable alternative if it, you know, proposed something. Anything. Anything other than "No" and "Let the market solve it!" Keep plugging away though, Mona. You're really starting to gain traction. This groundswell of teabagging support has really eroded the popularity of a public option and the President, not to mention boosting the GOP's place in the public's heart to historic highs.

Having already established that George Will is a blithering idiot who creates a thin veneer of intelligence with diction, word choice, and tie selection his eventual FJMing was all but inevitable. His tendency to write things so rambling, forgettable, and devoid of substance has delayed the process for more than a year, but his latest exercise in autofellatio ("Olympic Gold for Narcissism") surpasses my admittedly high standards for a pride-obliterating verbal bitchslapping. In an ideological movement composed almost entirely of histrionics and bullshit this Olympics thing has to qualify as the biggest non-event in the history of efforts to manufacture scandal. It's so stupid that the hearts of the pundits don't really seem to be into it; it's like they are going through the motions. Except for Owl Man. Owl Man is legitimately lathered up. I hope you're ready for a white-knuckle ride on Six Flags' newest adventure coaster, George Will's Retardinator.

In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.

"Niagara of words." Huh. Looks like George Will is about to criticize someone for verbosity. George Will. The man who can't order a pizza in less than 800 words. If only there were some sort of analogy involving cookware that applied to this situation.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about … themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds — unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.

Really? That's weird. I'd have thought they would speak about the Olympics. Hmm. I wonder if this is…nah. Owl Man would never distort the President's words. Yep, I just found a transcript of Obama's speech. It is entirely about him. He starts with 20 minutes about how much he can bench press before regaling the committee with tales of how he makes the sun rise each morning. Michelle mostly talked about how her husband is hung like a mastodon, although she did note that her farts cure AIDS and cancer.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences was sufficient to convey the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

Huh. Well, people often give speeches in the first person. In fact, I'm not entirely clear on another way to do it. When lecturing it's possible to avoid using first person, but was he supposed to be lecturing them? I think the purpose was to make a subjective argument in an effort to persuade the people on the committee. Under such circumstances I suppose one might use a phrase like "I believe Chicago is the best choice…" or so on.

You know, narcissistic crap like that.

In 2008, Obama carried the three congressional districts that contain Northern California's Silicon Valley with 73.1, 69.6 and 68.4 percent of the vote. Surely the Valley could continue its service to him by designing software for his speechwriters' computers that would delete those personal pronouns, replacing them with the word "sauerkraut" to underscore the antic nature of their excessive appearances.

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Oh George, you wit! I'm beta testing the software as we speak. Mine is programmed to replace "George Will" with "asshammer.

" As you can see from this post, the kinks are still being worked out.

And — this will be trickier — the software should delete the most egregious cliches sprinkled around by the tin-eared employees in the White House speechwriting shop. The president told the Olympic committee that: "At this defining moment," a moment "when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations" in "this ever-shrinking world," he aspires to "forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world."

This really is a new thing, the idea of Presidents using cliches. Seriously. Brand new. I hear that Ronald Reagan didn't even have speeches written for him. Every word, spontaneous and off-the-cuff.

Good grief. The memory of man runneth not to a moment that escaped being declared "defining" — declared such by someone seeking to inflate himself by inflating it. Also, enough already with the "shrinking" world, which has been so described at least since Magellan set sail, and probably before that.

What were you saying about a "Niagara of words," Owl Man? Anything to work in a Magellan reference, I suppose. Americans relate to Magellan, unlike that fucking asshole Vasco da Gama. Just trust me on this one, G-Dub: don't mention Vasco da Gama.

Americans love their 16th Century conquistadors, but as a people we have been known to fly into a blind rage and uproot the nearest tree at the mere mention of that Portuguese dickwad.

And by the way, the "fate" of — to pick a nation at random — Chile is not really in any meaningful sense "inextricably linked" to that of, say, Chad.

It betrays Owl Man's ignorance of international relations to see how casually he disregards the geostrategic importance of Chileo-Chadian relations, which I believe are currently at an all time low after the Chileans pulled the plug on that undersea tunnel to Chad.

But meaningful sense is often absent from the gaseous rhetoric that makes it past White House editors — are there any? — and onto the president's teleprompter.
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Ha ha! He uses speechwriters and a teleprompter! George W. Bush not only refused to, but he once choked an intern unconscious for asking him if he'd like a teleprompter. He grabbed 19 year old Patrick Henry College sophomore Gideon Kleindorfer by the throat and roared "GET THAT FUCKING THING OUT OF MY FACE! I SPEAK AS I LIVE: WITH HONOR, INTEGRITY, AND SELF-RELIANCE."

Consider one recent example: Nine days before speaking in Copenhagen, the president, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, intoned: "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation." What was the speechwriter thinking when he or she assembled that sentence? The "should" was empty moralizing; the "can" was nonsense redundantly refuted by history. Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?

Good one, George. Tell us more, seeing as how the party that brought us George W. Bush, Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin clearly has the moral high ground here. Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, who George Will has defended in print and who, without speechwriters and a teleprompter, sounds like Chewbacca while his hemorrhoids are being lanced.

Becoming solemn in Copenhagen, Obama said: "No one expects the games to solve all our collective problems." That's right, no one does. So why say that? Then, shifting into the foggy sentimentalism of standard Olympics blather, he said "peaceful competition between nations represents what's best about our humanity" and "it brings us together" and "it helps us to understand one another."

If only McCain/Palin had won. God, what salad days for rhetoric and great oratory we would be living right now.

Actually, sometimes the Olympic games are a net subtraction from international comity.

That's why we should have elected McCain, who would have stridently campaigned against the Olympics. The IOC would have come close to begging, "Please, Mr. President! Let us put the games in Chicago!" and he's look them square in the eye and tell them to kiss his withered old ass before pistol-whipping IOC chairman Jacques Rogge on the convention dais.

But Obama quickly returned to speaking about … himself:

"Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. presidential election. Their interest wasn't about me as an individual. Rather, … "

It was gallant of the president to say to the Olympic committee that Michelle is "a pretty big selling point for the city." Gallant, but obviously untrue. And — this is where we pass from the merely silly to the ominous — suppose the president was being not gallant but sincere.
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Perhaps the premise of the otherwise inexplicable trip to Denmark was that there is no difficulty, foreign or domestic, that cannot be melted by the sunshine of the Obama persona. But in the contest between the world and any president's charm, bet on the world.

What could possibly be your point, George? What was he supposed to be saying? Did the other nations' figureheads – they were all there, by the way – whip out PowerPoint slides, revenue projections, and a cost-benefit analysis? Hmm. I'd be willing to bet that they did the rhetorical equivalent of the "jerking off" motion one would make to amuse one's friends during a speech by George Will.

Presidents often come to be characterized by particular adjectives: "honest" Abe Lincoln, "Grover the Good" Cleveland, "energetic" Theodore Roosevelt, "idealistic" Woodrow Wilson, "Silent Cal" Coolidge, "confident" FDR, "likable" Ike Eisenhower. Less happily, there were "Tricky Dick" Nixon and "Slick Willie" Clinton. Unhappy will be a president whose defining adjective is "vain."

"Grover the Good"??? Who is the name of sweet baby Jesus refers to Grover F-ing Cleveland as "Grover the Good"? Cleveland. The man whose only accomplishment was being a pitiful nonentity of a President on two nonconsecutive occasions.

But yes, history will surely remember Obama as "Barack the Vain" or perhaps "Barack the Vain Nigerian Muslim." And you know what? I'd take that in a heartbeat over how future generations are going to remember his predecessor, not to mention his would-be successors to the Republican throne.

Thrice. Thrice, David Brooks. It's unprecedented. It's spectacular. It was heretofore inconceivable. First you got the FJM treatment. Then you returned for seconds. It was preposterous even to think of gracing this page a third time. That you actually pulled off the three-peat defies comprehension.

Jimmy Carter asserts that the histrionic opposition to the President, and notably the teabagging "movement", is about race. The ensuing controversy has more how-dare-yous than a mid-90s Harrison Ford movie and is slightly more predictable than an episode of Alf. A divided and confused nation yearned for a bespectacled pantload to step in and resolve this issue once and for all. Thank sweet baby Jesus that David Brooks is willing to step in and resolve things with "No, It's Not About Race." Seriously, that's the title. America thanks you for putting in overtime on that one, DB. Keeping in mind that this is not about race, let's go. David Brooks is both verbose and dull, so stick with me. There is payoff.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I go running several times a week. My favorite route, because it’s so flat, is from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol and back.

Uh oh…..

I was there last Saturday and found myself plodding through tens of thousands of anti-government “tea party” protesters.

Son of a bitch. I knew this was coming, David. I knew it. This opening stanza foreshadows the bread-and-butter of the right wing columnist's trade: the "I saw some shit while at the mall / driving to work / having lunch; let's draw the most ambitious, wildly speculative conclusions one could possibly derive from my anecdotal, selectively remembered evidence" column. Undeterred by Thomas Friedman's utter perfection of this art form, David decides to play along. Every right-winger is contractually obligated to do this at least biannually. For every ten "normal" columns they must write one about how they asked a cab driver about taxes and he said "Taxes are too high!" and thus the public is strongly in favor of tax cuts.

They were carrying “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, “End the Fed” placards and signs condemning big government, Barack Obama, socialist health care and various elite institutions.

This is an overly tame, albeit not inaccurate, description of the kind of batshittery on display at these events. There's a difference between a bunch of people holding signs and this kind of stupid. But OK David. It was a protest.

Then, as I got to where the Smithsonian museums start, I came across another rally, the Black Family Reunion Celebration. Several thousand people had gathered to celebrate African-American culture.

You really don't need to be Magellan to plot the course for the rest of this column, do you?

I noticed that the mostly white tea party protesters were mingling in with the mostly black family reunion celebrants. The tea party people were buying lunch from the family reunion food stands.

This is important, because people with A Black Friend or who willingly speak to black strangers or, most impressive of all, purchase goods or services from a black person cannot be racist.

They had joined the audience of a rap concert.

Let me guess. It was these guys.

Because sociology is more important than fitness, I stopped to watch the interaction. These two groups were from opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum. They’d both been energized by eloquent speakers.Because sociology is more important than fitness, I stopped to watch the interaction. These two groups were from opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum. They’d both been energized by eloquent speakers.

Well President Obama is probably one. I give up, DB. Who was the other eloquent speaker? The DC Teabagging keynote speakers on 9/12 were Dick Armey, Stephen Baldwin, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, and Bob Levy of the Cato Institute. In all seriousness David (you being the Seriousest of the Serious) who in the hell gets inspired by listening to that? It might inspire some people to re-assess or end their lives, but inspire to political action? Dick Armey?

Yet I couldn’t discern any tension between them. It was just different groups of people milling about like at any park or sports arena.

"I noted that the coloreds and the whites were not engaged in an open, Mad Max-style pitched battle. If anyone there was racist, wouldn't we have seen some of that? Of course. Of course we would have."

And yet we live in a nation in which some people see every conflict through the prism of race. So over the past few days, many people, from Jimmy Carter on down, have argued that the hostility to President Obama is driven by racism.

I cannot imagine where anyone would get such an idea.

Some have argued that tea party slogans like “I Want My Country Back” are code words for white supremacy. Others say incivility on Capitol Hill is magnified by Obama’s dark skin.

Tell me, David. What does "We need to go take our country back!" mean coming out of Glenn Beck's mouth? Who has had "their" country taken away from them? The message would appear – and remember, I'm not as smart as David Brooks! – to be that creationist rednecks with murderous levels of anger, shitty spelling skills, and no health insurance are the rightful owners of this country and it has been taken away by liberals, coloreds, and colored liberals. That's not too much of a stretch, David, considering that no one "took (their) country" away. The political leadership of the country changed hands. Via the voting booth. Leaving aside the fact that the country doesn't rightfully belong to Glenn Beck's listeners, no one took anything away. If anything, they gave it away by making the 2006 and 2008 elections such a goddamn easy choice for voters.

Well, I don’t have a machine for peering into the souls of Obama’s critics, so I can’t measure how much racism is in there. But my impression is that race is largely beside the point.

My impression is that you saw what you wanted to see. My impression is that your impression means absolutely nothing, being based on anecdotes and pulled directly out of your ass.

There are other, equally important strains in American history that are far more germane to the current conflicts.

For example, for generations schoolchildren studied the long debate between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. Hamiltonians stood for urbanism, industrialism and federal power. Jeffersonians were suspicious of urban elites and financial concentration and believed in small-town virtues and limited government. Jefferson advocated “a wise and frugal government” that will keep people from hurting each other, but will otherwise leave them free and “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

I agree. Black-and-white isn't half as relevant to our contemporary social cleavages as Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians! Sure, rural folk vs. urban folk is an old debate. You know what else is an old debate? Whitey-no-likey-blacky.

Jefferson’s philosophy inspired Andrew Jackson, who led a movement of plain people against the cosmopolitan elites. Jackson dismantled the Second Bank of the United States because he feared the fusion of federal and financial power.

Furthermore, in September 1833 Secretary of the Treasury Roger B. Taney transferred the government's Pennsylvania deposits in the Second Bank of the United States to the Bank of Girard in Philadelphia. This was the successor bank to what in the flying fuck does this have to do with anything David?

This populist tendency continued through the centuries. Sometimes it took right-wing forms, sometimes left-wing ones. Sometimes it was agrarian. Sometimes it was more union-oriented. Often it was extreme, conspiratorial and rude.

This is a great historiography, David. "In the 1830s Andrew Jackson opposed a National Bank. That is why we have teabaggers." In 541 A.D. the Plague of Justinian killed thousands in Constantinople, and that's why Republicans do poorly in New England. Copernicus established the heliocentric view of the universe, which is where babies come from.

The populist tendency has always used the same sort of rhetoric: for the ordinary people and against the fat cats and the educated class; for the small towns and against the financial centers. And it has always had the same morality, which the historian Michael Kazin has called producerism. The idea is that free labor is the essence of Americanism. Hard-working ordinary people, who create wealth in material ways, are the moral backbone of the country. In this free, capitalist nation, people should be held responsible for their own output. Money should not be redistributed to those who do not work, and it should not be sucked off by condescending, manipulative elites.

First of all, this is not the essence of Americanism. It is the essence of the GOP platform. Second, this is very, very far from any definition of populism. Populism is almost exclusively about redistribution. From the overt (Huey Long, FDR) to the Glenn Becks of the world (in what world is demanding reform of the tax code or an end to affirmative action anything but redistributive?) populism is all about Yours becoming Ours.

Barack Obama leads a government of the highly educated…In his first few months, he has fused federal power with Wall Street, the auto industry, the health care industries and the energy sector. Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color.

You do not know what populism is, David. If anything, the man promising Healthcare for All and the handover of the economy from the Few to the Many should be accused of leading a populist backlash. Teabaggers are about themselves. Everything they say amounts to Me, Me, Me. They are solipsists. We could tiptoe toward terms like "selfish" or "greedy" if we were in a mood to impose our values on them. But let me be emphatic: "taking back our country" from a duly elected person because his distributive policies infuriate you is the antithesis of populism.

And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top — since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.

Yes, Huey Long. The great individualist. Scourge of the government handout. And Father Coughlin, champion of individual liberty. Better known as "Live and Let Live" Coughlin.

That's some good populism.

What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.

See, that's where you're wrong, my assheaded friend. Dead wrong. This is not anger directed toward "elites." It is anger directed toward all that which is not like Us. These people are perfectly fine with Elites as long as they're named Cheney or Bush or Our Corporate Overlords. They are the half of the working class that Henry Frick swore he could pay to kill the other half. These "populists" and their ideology are all about fighting for the rights of little guys like Wal-Mart. They fight for a government that will leave agribusiness unregulated so they can eat shit- and ammonia-tainted meat. They fight for Kimberly-Clark's right to dump thousands of gallons of benzene into their drinking water. They fight against safety regulations and enforcement in their own places of work. They fight against unions so that they might win a lower wage, fewer benefits, and the right to see their jobs exported to Indonesia.

These people are populists like loggers are environmentalists. They are blades of grass angrily demanding a visit from the lawnmower. They are, in short, idiots.

“One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy,” the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. “The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice versa.”

"On the verge" my ass. Yes and yes. Fortunately for the progressive elite, it could not matter less what rural white America thinks. They are far too inarticulate, illiterate, and flat-out stupid to mount a serious challenge. Suburban white America, with their college degrees and high incomes, matters. They swing elections. Rural white America is a carnival sideshow that exists largely for our condescending entertainment.

It’s not race. It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old.

Right. Hamiltonians vs. Jeffersonians! Except they're Jeffersonians who can barely wait to grab their ankles for their elite betters and will go to any length, up to and including spilling blood, to surrender what little power they might have and call it "freedom" and "liberty."

You know what the how-dare-Obama-speak-to-our-creationist-children movement needs? It needs a leader. A mouthpiece. A manifesto. A defense of its core principles so spectacularly inept that researchers who uncover it thousands of years from now will consider it the archetype of pre-Ice Age 2100 satire. "My," they will say in their hover-palaces while poring over the fossilized remains of Ed Asner, "those early 21st Century Americans could spin a yarn!" I'm not sure why they'll be using 19th Century slang, but I am sure that they'll be at a loss for alternative explanations of Marybeth Hicks' "America's Uber-Parent? I think not." They will read it and reach the only possible conclusion: Hicks was the spokeswoman of a movement of spectacular vision and intelligence, delivering a message so brilliant that mere logic and reading comprehension are powerless against it.

Every year, on the night before school starts, I announce that it’s time to take a walk.

Leading with a personal anecdote is a common enough tactic, but it takes a Master Writer to lead with one this goddamn interesting.

All six of us fan out throughout the house to find our flip flops, someone gets a leash for Scotty the dog, and we set out in a disorganized band up our street. But it’s not just a walk. It’s a ritual.

This is fascinating. Tune in next week for Marybeth Hicks' riveting tale of the time she folded the laundry.

Quite the creative name for the dog, by the way.

This year was no exception.

Having already said "Every year" and describing it as a "ritual," I'm not sure this was necessary, MBH.

On the evening before we took our second daughter off to college, my husband, our four children and I took turns confiding our goals for the coming school year.

I'm guessing Second Daughter's goal had something to do with making the smallest possible number of visits home.

It's an annual rite

WE GET IT. YOU DO IT EVERY YEAR. ANNUALLY. PER ANNUM. EVERY TWELVE MONTHS.

The message we deliver to our children as they reveal their fondest hopes for themselves is not unlike the message President Obama attempted to deliver in his address to school children yesterday.

I sure would be furious if anyone other than me attempted to deliver my own message to my children.

Make goals for yourself and announce them to others so you’ll be accountable. Work hard. Take responsibility for your success. Get help when you need it.

I'm seething in anger just thinking about that darkie I didn't vote for the President delivering such partisan nonsense to our young people.

Since the President’s message was so similar to the advice we give our own children every year, why am I so bugged by the fact that he took to the airwaves and the Internet to deliver this speech to America’s public school students?

I took the liberty of preparing a list of potential responses, each equally valid.

1. You are a complete partisan hack.
2. You are not real bright.
3. You are a knee-jerk reactionary.
4. You are a partisan knee-jerk reactionary who is not real bright.

Why does it seem so creepy to me?

We're a tad repetitive, aren't we? It creeps you out because the President is black and far smarter than you is clearly stepping over a line.

I’ve wrestled with this question since last week when it was revealed that the speech would take place.

This might be the single most useless sentence in the history of English. You just asked the question. TWICE. You follow by telling us that you are asking yourself the question, an action prompted by the realization that the event existed.

Marybeth, I'm thinking about taking a dump. I've been debating the issue since I realized I had to take a dump. I'm glad we had this talk.

I certainly don’t object to presidential addresses being aired in schools in the event of a national emergency such as 9/11, or during an historic occasion such as an inauguration.

So, just to get this straight, she wouldn't have complained if Obama's inauguration was covered live nationwide in our schools. OK. Also, it was acceptable to expose children to Bush's absolutist, opportunistic neoconservative monologues – how else will our children learn who is With Us as opposed to With the Terrorists, who is and is not Evil? – but not Obama's suggestion that they have goals.

So I asked myself, am I cynical about the overly political nature of this speech simply because I disagree with the President’s politics?

Wait.

MBH, I'm confused. You clearly wrote this before the speech aired, first of all. But more importantly, like THIRTY GODDAMN SECONDS AGO you described the substance of the President's speech as "Make goals for yourself and announce them to others so you’ll be accountable. Work hard. Take responsibility for your success. Get help when you need it." Moreover, you noted that this is exactly the same message you communicate to your spawn annually. Every year. Añualménte. And now it's "overly political?"

Those who favor the president’s speech to school children point to previous addresses by George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan as proof that a precedent has already been set for such an address.

This is a dubious point, of course, because Bush and Reagan are not Negro liberals avoided the overly political nature of Obama's Indoctrination Address which was administered to schoolchildren with the Ludovico Technique.

I’m loath to be labeled a hypocrite, so I went back and read those speeches. Now I know why President Obama’s talk bothers me.

Yes, MBH and hypocrisy are oil and water. Please tell us, Objective Observer, what egregious errors exist in the secret Muslim brown guy's President Obama's speech but not in the others.

George H.W. Bush talked to schoolchildren via closed circuit TV to encourage greater interest in science and math. He used the occasion of a space launch to focus on the sciences at a time when it had been well established that US students paled in comparison to others around in the world in this essential discipline.

I remember that. I was in 5th grade. Very appropriate. You might even say Bush was encouraging us to have goals, try hard, and pay attention in math and science classes.

Even still, then-Speaker of the House Richard Gephardt said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students.”

Well his criticism was ignored, and if you read it (that's the crucial part, MBH) you'll note that it deals with the role of the Dept. of Education and the use of its resources.

Ronald Reagan’s speech was something else entirely.

I will say this only once, MBH: we are in absofuckinglute agreement here.

Was it political? Absolutely.

Yes, and therefore inappropriate by the standards described above.

It was a primer on American political theory. Reagan didn’t insert himself into the personal lives of his audience, but instead asked school children to insert themselves into the public life of our nation. His speech didn’t focus on personal goals but on the sacrifices of our founders to establish the freedom to make such goals.

True, true. It contained non-partisan history lessons like "We also find that more countries than ever before are following America's revolutionary economic message of free enterprise, low taxes, and open world trade. These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes and other economic reforms that they're using, copying what we have done here in our country. I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom — the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state — was central to the American Revolution when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes, and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where, because of a tax, they went down and dumped the tea in the harbor? Well, that was America's original tax revolt. And it was the fruits of our labor — belonged to us, and not to the state."

Right wingers do not even understand that their ideology is an ideology. They think it is simply fact.

That’s the crucial difference, and the reason Mr. Obama’s message bothers me.

In the battle between the imagined version of Reagan's speech in MBH's head and the imagined version of Obama's speech in MBH's head, there can be only one victor.

The President of the United States is not the “First Father.” His role is not to be an uber-parent, offering sage advice on personal behavior for school kids via televised lectures.

Like…telling kids they should be interested in math and science? Or perhaps Father Reagan's History Lessons like "And I definitely believe it is because one of the principal reasons that we were able to get the economy back on track and create those new jobs and all was we cut the taxes. We reduced them because, you see, the taxes can be such a penalty on people that there's no incentive for them to prosper and earn more and so forth because they have to give so much to the Government."

Non-partisan, that.

If we accept this display of “non-partisan parenting,” we’re tacitly acknowledging that the government of the United States of America has an appropriate role to play in raising our children. I don’t think it does.

You know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to keep quoting Reagan's address at this point. "There was talk about having a gun ban in California. I got a letter from a man in San Quentin prison…He was a burglar. And he said, 'I just want you to know that if that law goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison because…the only question we can never answer is: Does the man in that house have a gun in the drawer by his bed?…If you tell us in advance they won't have a gun in that drawer by their bed, the burglars in here will be celebrating evermore."'

Even if the message is a positive one, the very fact that it has been delivered is intrusive and assumptive and just plain creepy.

Wait, so, I'm confused again. Were Bush's and Reagan's messages, positive and "non-partisan" as they were, intrusive and assumptive and just plain creepy? Does "Study math and science rather than making your own educational choices" count as intrusive or assumptive?

Then again, my kids didn’t see the speech. They went for a walk with their parents instead.

You took your kids for a walk between 12:00 and 12:45 Eastern on Tuesday? You sound like mother of the year.

Congratulations on your hard-fought victory over the Straw Man Obama who suggested – or even implied – that the President's role should supersede that of parents. Congratulations on somehow turning this into a False Dilemma in which your children must either go for a walk with their mother or listen to Obama, but not both. Congratulations on putting together a document of such historical significance, one which we can point at for the next few decades and exclaim "See? This is what we had to deal with."

Boy, our media have done such a fine job of reporting the news that matters over the last few years. I think it's safe to say that the contemporary media is simply the best it has ever been. You know what we could use? A paean to the ratings-driven, completely unaccountable, hyperpluralist clusterfuck that is today's media, preferably with noble language about the valuable role of the "citizen journalist!" But who would be brave enough to write such a piece, to cheer when others boo or demand Coke when everyone else is drinking Pepsi? Three words: Rich Fucking Tucker. Finally America has a journalist brave enough to talk about just how amazing the American media are today. God bless you, Rich. "We'd Rather Not Have Fewer Sources" may be exactly what this nation needs to regain its trust in the media. Or it might be a radioactive dog link of a column which will make us all dumber for having read it. But come on, what are the odds of that? It's on TownHall for chrissakes!

Did the following quote appear in The Onion, or a major American newspaper: “An intense period of corporate consolidation over the past 25 years, aided and abetted by deregulation by the Federal Communications Commission, has reduced to a mere handful the sources from which most Americans get their news”?

Well, since it's not even remotely funny, not satirical, and appears to be a mere statement of fact I'm gonna go with major American newspaper. This question was too easy, Rich. Here is my impression of a Rich Tucker-style pop quiz question:

"Did the following quote appear in a Hallmark card for a child's birthday or Mein Kampf? 'I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.'"

Take your time, Rich.

It may read like a parody,

It doesn't.

"May" is a great word, isn't it, Rich? It allows us to say all kinds of things that aren't remotely true! Like, this may be a well-written column.

but those words were actually written by celebrated reporter Dan Rather on the op-ed page of the Aug. 9 Washington Post.

See what Rich did there? It's about Dan Rather and the word "Rather" is incorporated into the title of the piece!!!! Take that, Alexander Pope!

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, as the saying goes, but not his own facts.

This sounds like something a person would say to introduce a column decrying the fact that people now have dozens of ideologically discrete sources giving them news filtered in a way that flatters their personal biases. That's what this is, right Rich?

Oh…

And the fact is that Americans enjoy more sources of information today than ever — and we’ll enjoy even more in the weeks, months and years ahead.

No, Americans enjoy more "media outlets" repeating the same information in different ways, information which almost inevitably originates from real reporters working for one of the dinosaur major broadsheets or one of the big TV networks.

Now excuse me for a moment while I take a big mouthful of hot tea…

Consider YouTube, the non-partisan source of unfiltered information.

*spit take*

Wha-wha-whaaaaaaaat? YouTube? YouTube? YouTube is a sign of progress, Rich? Eight billion terabytes of Fall Out Boy videos, skate bails, people's cats, and millions of jackasses flapping their Bugles-stained lips into webcams?

It certainly is "unfiltered," Rich, which by definition means that almost all of it is utterly worthless shit.

It makes videos of almost everything available to almost everybody,

That's the calling card of a useful and high-quality source of information: quantity. Rich, have you seen those Pizza Hut commercials that promise "over three pounds" of pasta per order? That should make little red flags shoot up, flags indicating that if a food item's selling point is its sheer bulk, it probably tastes like Roy Cohn's asshole. These same flags should be present when revelling in the fact that YouTube promises us billions of videos from and to anyone with an internet connection.

creating idiotic Internet sensations such as the “don’t taze me, bro” guy. But it’s also a powerful political force.

Actually, that was somewhat newsworthy. Not his catchphrase, but the issue of what is and isn't over the line in terms of both behavior at public political events and police use of force to maintain order. Good thing neither of those issues are relevant anymore.

Just ask former Sen. George Allen of Virginia, whose re-election campaign (and, indeed, entire political career) unraveled when he was taped referring to a supporter of his opponent as “macaca.” Allen joked, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!” But he could have said, welcome to the future, when every slip-up will be available on the Web within minutes.

The reason this became a story is that someone recorded it, not that it was loaded on YouTube. The Webb campaign had this in every major news outlet's inbox an hour after it happened. You suck at picking examples, Rich.

It’s also worth pointing out that the mainstream media had little interest in the town hall meetings our elected representatives were holding this month until videos of energized protesters started popping up on YouTube.

Really? Uh, I guess I'll take your word for it on the timing. But you're right about the media taking an interest once they realized what a human zoo these things are. Screaming, illiterate idiots are ratings gold!

Now, such meetings are being covered live by CNN. That’s real progress.

If a horrible stand-up comic accidentally shits himself on stage and the audience bursts out laughing, are his skills progressing?

Dan Rather clearly pines for the world of 1974, when he was a White House correspondent and Americans really did have to get their news from a “handful” of sources. Back then there were only three networks, and they faithfully followed the lead of The New York Times when deciding which stories to cover and which to ignore.

It really sucked when we had to have discussions based on a shared conception of the facts. Thank god the media are now diverse enough to offer several different sets of "facts" so that we all just yell past one another! I don't know how people lived in an era in which there was no TV news network to reinforce our preconceived ideas.

That made folks like Rather rich and powerful.

Unlike Glenn Beck. He's poor and no one listens to him.
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He drives a 1982 Cadillac Cimmaron which is more Bond-O than metal. It has a coathanger for an antenna and a trash bag/duct tape rear window. It reeks of Arby's. He lives in a complex of refrigerator boxes behind a Build-a-Bear Workshop.

But it didn’t help anyone who wanted unbiased news.

Which is what we have today. Exactly. This is my point.

Today’s readers have thousands of sources to turn to

But they're all dog shit, Rich. If 1000 people took a dump in your mouth, would it be better than 3 people doing it? I mean, at least you'd be getting some variety so you could make an informed decision.

from talk radio to the Web to live coverage on three full-time news networks. We can watch President Obama stumble through a town hall meeting as it happens, instead of waiting for a friendly newspaper write-up the next day.

Yeah, he's really been struggling. Unscripted Bush was so much better. Also, there are no conservative newspapers. Never have been.

The old cowboy reporter also misleads when he writes that a desire for corporate profits, “has meant a reduction in news-gathering personnel, the shuttering of overseas bureaus and the near complete subordination of a public trust to the profit motive.”

Wait, is this actually a matter of dispute? This is just a basic fact. Every major newspaper has gutted its most expensive operations to save cash.

Well. Know who profited handsomely from journalism? Gunga Dan Rather. His final contract with CBS (signed in 2001) paid him $6 million per year.

And in an equally relevant point, my favorite New Kid was Donnie.
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Ah, the art of the non-sequitur.

Nothing wrong with making money; that’s what drives capitalism.

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Right, and therefore it drives privately-held corporations which own our media. You're doing a bang-up job making your argument here, shooter.

But the truth is that there are at least a thousand people who could have sat in the anchor chair and read the CBS Evening News for far less than $6 million.

And tens of thousands of socially maladjusted College Republicans who could write horseshit like this for far less than the $79 and two discount coupons to Old Country Buffet that Rich Tucker gets.

Suppose Dan had been dedicated to journalism. He might have taken a salary of $500,000 (still putting him in the top 1 percent of all wage earners) and had CBS spend the other $5.5 million on reporters, producers and videographers. Assuming each would work for $50,000, that’s an additional 110 people who could have been deployed in the field every day, doing the sort of journalism Dan Rather purports to celebrate.

Suppose Rich Tucker was dedicated to writing. He might have taken the 45 minutes he used writing this to procure a copy of Son of Sniglets and plaigiarize it for this column, thus dramatically improving the quality of the final product.

Rather claims journalists have “little incentive to report without fear or favoritism on the same government one is trying to lobby.” Yet his solution to the supposed problem would be a presidential commission to make recommendations on “improving and stabilizing” the news business.

Agreed, that's a pretty lame solution. That invalidates the underlying soundness of his argument. Like, if a doctor tells you "This X-Ray reveals that your leg is broken; go home and rub Goober Grape on your thighs" it is safe to assume that your leg isn't broken. You're fine. Walk it off.

So a federal panel is going to tell journalists how to investigate the federal government? Seems like an odd approach.

True. Let's defend the status quo based on the weakness of the straw man alternative!

The truth is simple: As long as Barack Obama is in office, mainstream reporters will tread gently, because they generally like him and support his agenda.

Unlike the media in 2002 and 2003 which went fuckin' Wolverine on the Bush administration when it was pre-gaming the Iraq War. I mean, they tore him apart like they were a pack of dogs and he was wearing a blazer made of ham.

That’s why the story of the fired Americorps Inspector General hasn’t gotten much play.

Who? Is this from The Onion? That hasn't gotten much play because it's mind-numbingly irrelevant, champ.

Yet when it comes to Obama’s predecessor, there are no such kid gloves.

That much has been established.

That’s why we’ll still see front-page stories about the 2006 firing of some U.S. Attorneys (who always serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired any time for any reason).

What was this column supposed to be about? You're not so good at staying on topic, are you? This reads like 1000 words of "And here's another thing I just thought of…" Maybe don't push the deadlines so hard, Rich.

Also, U.S. Attorneys are exempt from Federal employment laws. They have literally NO legal protection. If the President decides to fire all the Jews, he not only has the right to do so but he can call a bunch of his advisors into his office and say "Go through the list of U.S. Attorneys and get rid of all the heebs." That wouldn't be newsworthy and the fired Attorneys would have no legal recourse.

Dan Rather’s eager to drag everyone back to the Stone Age, when he was able to control the flow of information.

1973 (Rich's reference point at the beginning of the column) was the Stone Age? Ah, he means the figurative Stone Age, back before the media wised up and replaced vast amounts of actual reporting with "commentators" spraying half-assed opinions at the cameras.

News flash: There’s no going back.

Only one way to wrap up a journalistic tour-de-force like this column: with an infomercial grade platitude which summarizes not only the writer's laziness and lack of talent but also the total absence of a purpose to the piece. This had no point, went nowhere, and didn't take a particularly enjoyable route to get there. That is the classic Rich Tucker Experience: getting into a car to drive from Chicago to Milwaukee and arriving in El Paso 72 hours later in a horse-drawn carriage.