TalkingPointsMemo flags a strange piece by Mark Halperin wherein Halperin tells Republicans not to use BurlingtonCoatGate as a wedge issue even though it would be a spectacularly successful wedge issue in his opinion. He specifically condemns — or at least tries to distance himself — from the Fox “News–talk radio–Drudge Report echo machine”.
Halperin has made a career out of pimping Drudge stories, telling us out of one side of his mouth “Matt Drudge rules our world” while lamenting the power of the “freak show” out of the other. Halperin is one of the founding members of what Jay Rosen accurately describes as the religion of savviness, the deeply entrenched belief among elite Washington reporters that:
[I]t’s better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane.
I think Rosen oversimplifies somewhat. For example, the Drudge-Fox echo chamber serves a dual purpose for people like Halperin. They can feel savvy (and burnish their “centrist” credentials) when they promote it and then feel morally superior (and burnish their “serious” credentials) when they criticize its excesses. It’s a neat trick.
Mike E
Classic fence-sitters. Bane of our existence. Fuck ’em.
morzer
If you want to see something truly scary, read this conversation between the vile Amis, the deranged Hitchens and the fanatic Goldberg. These are the ignorant, bigoted hate-peddlers who want to drag us into another war. And what are they? Statesmen? Scholars? Capable of speaking Farsi or Arabic?
No, you have a washed-up alcoholic neo-con hack, a washed-up alcoholic novelist with a new career as a race-baiting bigot, and former Israeli prison camp guard (and IDF corporal) Goldberg, who’s never seen a war against Islam that didn’t give him a tingle down his leg.
These are the people shaping opinion, beating the drum for war – and they are profoundly dangerous to all of us.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/08/hitchens-us-obligated-to-defeat-the-iranian-regime/61501/
Zifnab
So here’s my question. How is this going to shake out in November? I’ve seen the Republicans pushing Deficit Hawkishness and MexIslamic Terror Babies and Ground Zero 9/11 9/11 9/11 as their functional platforms. That’ll bring in the Teabaggers, I’m sure. What is it going to do to the rest of the voting base?
Are we just going to see a giant drop off in voter participation, are we going to see independents and unemployed folks flocking to the GOP banner over these (or other future) issues? Because if we take Clintons “economy, stupid” mantra to heart, I don’t really see how any of these platforms gets anyone a job. Can the GOP win in ’10 based on the winger rhetoric from ’02? I’m not saying they can’t. I’m just curious whether this is just the bigotry summer or whether this is really what they’re going to run on at the end of the year.
beltane
Just finished reading W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants which I highly recommend, especially to smug, cowardly Villagers like Halperin. Anyway, one passage in the book struck me as being particularly relevant to our moment in time. It was spoken by a German quarter-Jew (or 75% Aryan if you like) who said the part of Kristallnacht that disturbed him the most was the obvious schadenfreude of the press in describing the looting of Jewish candy stores by young children.
Would our Villagers react to a similar event any more honorably?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Say what you want about savvyness of the Fox News–talk radio–Drudge Report echo machine, but at least it’s an ethos
Amir_Khalid
My cynical interpretation: Halperin actually wants Republicans to play the BurlingtonCoatGate (ew, didja have to call it that?) card and hammer the Democrats. However, he knows this is the wrong side of the moral argument and isn’t stupid enough to draw condemnation upon for advocating such an odious tactic. This way he gets to bring up the suggestion, and then claim: “But I told them NOT to do it!”
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
I for one welcome our Compassionate Conservative overlords.
The good people outnumber the bad in the population, but the bad tend to be less apathetic in times like these. It’s all about voter turnout. If we sit on our asses and engage in standard Democrat navelgazing and family feuds, we lose.
What’s lost in the noise is that anger and frustration, even if it’s just crazy, is a reliable GOTV motivator. It’s also a reliable tv ratings tool. So there you are.
beltane
@Amir_Khalid: You hit the nail on the head. Halperin is a weaselly, genteel purveyor of hate. If people end up getting hurt over this episode, I will hold the entire DC press corps collectively responsible.
Lev
Halperin has his moments of lucidity, but ultimately he’s a part of a profession that talks constantly about politics but says nothing. He’s like a scientist who just notes effects and tosses out some possible causes, but never does any experiments or publishes any results.
Martin
Clearer Halperin: I think the genocide of Democrats would be tactically very effective at securing Republican seats in the fall, but I don’t think the long term strategic costs are worth it.
I’m of mixed mind on this kind of commentary. It’s not a vacuous truth if some people are actively suggesting it (and there are plenty of people doing so in the case of the community center) so it’s not valueless, but if you’re going to try and walk that line, you can’t do it with Halperin’s weak-ass ‘I’m not going to take sides’ style. Rather than give the suggestion that not only is the bad idea an effective idea, but that it may not even be that bad (because very serious people are very seriously suggesting it), if you’re going to walk the line, I think you need to smack the bad idea down very hard specifically because very serious people are suggesting it.
Bottom line, if a completely fucking retarded idea is called out as anything less than a completely fucking retarded idea, simply talking about it takes on an air of endorsement simply by the act of propagating it.
I flamed the shit out of my mom last night for forwarding me an email that was 100% verifiably false. 15 seconds of Google debunked each of the 10 items in the email. She was hurt that I was so mean about it, but I pointed out that mindlessly broadcasting lies is no different than just lying to begin with. Nobody gives a shit who originated the lie, the problem is when a million people repeat the lie to the point that it becomes ‘common knowledge’. That’s what Halperin too often does.
demo woman
Halperin will run with whatever Drudge tells him. He will then issue a mea culpa but the harm will be done.
Fox news is already running with scary blacks, latinos dropping babies and muslin terrorists. What bothers me is who is next?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Does anyone remember when Halperin’s dad(who used to be an ACLU bigwig) pitched a fit when Greenwald interviewed him like two years ago? And walked out on the interview because Mort basically did a Hitchens.
beltane
@demo woman: It must be so hard for them to refrain from their usual antisemitism. They will go after liberals, of course, as being a fifth column in support of the Black MexIslamic takeover of America, but their Israel/End Times fetish is preventing them from going after their usual scariest enemy.
Hob
@morzer: Oh man, I wish you hadn’t shown me that. I expect that shit from Hitchens, but I didn’t realize Amis (most of whose books I love, though he can be pretty unpleasant) had gone down that road too. Why the Atlantic would be asking him about foreign policy at all is a whole other mystery.
DougJ
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
No, do you have a link?
morzer
@Hob:
There’s what can accurately be called a bigoted wankery of second-tier writers and pundits in the UK, which occasionally overflows into the US. Hitchens and Amis are both members of this repellent coterie, and that’s why Martin was invited along as wingman for this repellent gathering of the thugocracy.