The post-punk David Broder (reference) thinks it’s funny when journalists try to do their job:
After a morning of reading pieces about Paul Ryan’s Lies and Paul Ryan’s Distortions and Paul Ryan’s Distorted Lies, I am impressed and alarmed at the depth of scrutiny and vigorous insistence on literal truth in every phrase. I wish these fact-checkers had been around for history’s great speeches, when we could have gotten some really prime commentary.
For instance.
Franklin Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
FACT: False! We have many things to fear, including ebola, Spanish influenza and the rise of Hitler.
And a Kaplan editorial board member heartily heh-indeeds the mockery.
Thank Jah all teh kids are on Facebook sexting each other instead of reading the serious newspapers. That may be why they haven’t completely propagandized yet.
LanceThruster
And spiders.
John O
Wow. That could be the most spectacularly stupid thing I’ve ever seen written, and THAT is saying something.
Steve
Jonah Goldberg couldn’t have written that bad a column.
Villago Delenda Est
Yup, still displaying all the superb intellectual acumen, brilliance, and sheer “you go girl” of the life forms you would expect to find in a petri dish.
Burnspbesq
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Andrew figures out Romney’s foreign policy:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/a-return-to-cheneyism-ctd.html
Smiling Mortician
So the Romney column the other day was just Bobo doing the double-reverse Poe with a twist or something?
Zifnab
Godwin in one. That’s how you know your argument is on a solid foundation.
Mnemosyne
@LanceThruster:
And bunnies.
rlrr
@John O:
It’s not every day that you get to read the stupidest thing ever written.
Chris
Ebola, Spanish influenza, the rise of Hitler, Wall Street robber barons bent on grinding you into third world poverty, and the politicians on their payroll, most of them Republican but with a very respectable Blue Dog (“Bourbon”) contingent even then, to say nothing of the Solid South.
You’re entirely correct. FDR did miss a spot.
The good news is, Ebola, influenza and Hitler aren’t very big threats to America anymore. Sadly, robber barons, Republicans, Blue Dogs and the Solid South are all still with us.
rlrr
@Zifnab:
And not fair. American conservatives admired Hitler up until events on Dec. 7, 1941 suddenly made such admiration unfashionable…
pragmatism
she’d better hope that glenn kessler doesn’t draw her name in the Wapo holiday gift exchange.
ralphdibny
I don’t normally get out of the boat, but I was genuinely curious–what metaphors of Ryan’s was she claiming are being mistaken for literal truths? Surprise, surprise–she never says. This essay would flunk my freshman comp class.
Linda Featheringill
Have you read the comments to the article? The author [Alexandra] is really getting clobbered.
JasonF
Dear stupid piece of shit WaPo columnist: learn the difference between rhetorical or metaphorical language and a statement intended to be taken at face value. For example, I don’t believe you are actually sentient feces, merely that you provide about as much value to the world as feces.
Wag
With this false retoric, she’s actually falling into the Bush era trap of trembing in fear instead of taking decisive action, although if i recall correctly, the fear we were supposed to be afraid of was actually economic fear. the quote “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” is from FDR’s FIRST Inaugral address, in 1932, years before the rise of National So-cial-ism, and decades before the discovery of Ebola, and decades after the Spainsh Influenza had run its course.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Don’t forget clowns.
John PM
Oh, for f-ck’s sake…
rlrr
@JasonF:
That’s not fair, feces can be used as fertilizer.
KG
@rlrr: seems to me, professional pundits heard bloggers/commenters say “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read!” and responded with “challenge accepted.” ten years on, and they’re still going.
maya
Wait a minute! Did Bobo just sneak a ‘Obama is Hitler’ past us?
Joey Maloney
@JasonF: Not fair. Feces, however distasteful, provides huge value. Crops wouldn’t grow without it.
John O
@rlrr:
I know. It just seems like I have to do it, like, every day. Thank FSM I have a filter.
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
“IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US!”
Brachiator
The noive of some people, expecting newspapers to print facts and stuff.
What is wrong with people?
Romney and Ryan are offering the certainty that comes from bland obedience. Trust them, don’t ask questions, and everything will be OK.
Isn’t this what America really wants?
Waynski
OT: Is it just me or does Ryan look like a character from Lord of the Rings? Frodo? Bilbo? Baggins? Tree person from middle earth? I don’t know because I never read that stuff and didn’t see the movies. What I know about the franchise is osmosis from friends who dug it, but he seems to fit the fantasy.
Poopyman
@rlrr: … and ebola didn’t show up until 1976.
But if you haven’t yet clicked on the link, well, don’t. It really is that bad. Do something constructive, like biting a cuticle or farting or something.
With an intellect like this, how does she breathe when she’s not awake?
Linda Featheringill
@Burnspbesq:
Adelson is probably trying to purchase a war with Iran.
Kudos to Sullivan.
KG
@Mnemosyne: well done on the link. can I just say, I’m digging the idea of Wheddon doing a SHIELD tv show?
Rommie
Yeah, I’d sooner trust Jake the Snake Roberts than anyone supporting the clown show in Tampa. They’re oh-so-close to telling us what they REALLY think out loud.
DH
The Kaplan Test Prep Daily can not go out of business fast enough.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ, I wouldn’t be too worried, not many people know or care about these buffoons.
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Actually, they didn’t lose their admiration of Hitler until Hitler handed FDR the gift of a German declaration of war on the United States.
Up until that moment, it was just Japan we were formally at war with, although the case could be made that an undeclared war with Germany had been raging in the Atlantic for the previous 8 months or so.
Hitler gave FDR all he needed to bury the isolationists.
Ben Franklin
Wir sind alle Bretibarters jetzt
Fact; Yes, they are……..
Linda Featheringill
@Brachiator: #25
From a religious point of view, R&R are asking for the kind of blind faith that should only be given to God. Having that kind of faith in a mere human is a form of idolatry.
[Yeah, I used to be religious.]
Burnspbesq
The name of that column could hardly be more appropriate.
Compost? Umm, yes.
Litlebritdifrnt
Hmmmm someone was reading my mind.
eric
@rlrr: yes it is, wait for tomorrow, and then the day after…these are “professionals”
Burnspbesq
Moving to the Guardian hasn’t done anything to improve Greenwakd’s writing. Dude still needs a good editor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve:
Oh, great, you just slapped him across the face with your gloves.
Doggie D
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself and a President who promises to have no lobbyists in his cabinet except for Mark Patterson, Goldman Sachs’ lobbyist who serves as Tim Geithner’s Chief of Staff. But this doesn’t count because Tim is very special and in complete control of the nation’s monetary policy. But none of this matters because the President honored his pledge to cut the nation’s deficit in half, from $800 billion to $1.5 trillion. No, really, he cut it in half. We can tell from the White House visitor’s log which is kind of secret, out of transparency.
Everybody Loves David Axlerod. Pa-Dump Ding.
Elizabelle
It’s the Washington Post, Jake.
Why, why, why, why, why is Clint Eastwood appearing as the Romney mystery guest tonight?
What is in it for him?
Mike Lamb
“I am impressed and alarmed at the depth of scrutiny and vigorous insistence on literal truth in every phrase.”
I’m Jon Kyl, and I approve this column.
Burnspbesq
In other news, Manchester City got royally fucked in today’s Champions League group stage draw.
I am inordinately pleased by this.
Burnspbesq
The kid has been officially away at college for 18 hours, and there have been no emails or text messages evidencing homesickness. So far, so good.
Jamey
Wow, a WaPo journalist recycles the Dwight Schrute 4chan meme? Color me surprised.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
Tax cuts.
What else.
He obviously doesn’t have enough money yet, like OvenMitt.
Roger Moore
@Joey Maloney:
False! Crops can be grown with synthetic fertilizer.
Meg
He certainly couldn’t tell the difference between facts and opinions.
Water is wet = Pork chops taste good
Villago Delenda Est
@Burnspbesq:
Give him about 36 more hours. He’s way too excited by the change to see the downside yet.
May be delayed by some good looking chick at the ice breaker.
pragmatism
@Burnspbesq: Man U got the easy draw, which is unfortunate. Reina just let in a howler!
Burnspbesq
@Doggie D:
I will not buy this meaningless word salad, it is scratched.
Amir Khalid
It was Paul Ryan’s assertions regarding the Obama administration that were full of lies and misrepresentations. Not his flights of rhetoric, such as they were. And in any case, who the hell fact-checks obvious examples of the latter?
As for Alexandra Petri’s own fact-checking,
A feeble counter-argument like this is not fact checking. There are historical accounts and records that can confirm or refute the assertions in this passage from the Declaration of Independence, which Petri could and should have examined to fact-check it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
No scoffing at killer bunnies!
jgaugust
@Burnspbesq: Fully agree. As a Gooner, I despise City and their financial spending insanity. Takes away from the beautiful game, but I was thrilled when during the draw today, UEFA basically said “Our fair play committee will enforce with our highest power teams acting within financial balance.” That was nice.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elizabelle: Money, and Arnold is out of favor as a RINO.
Meg
@Waynski: Creature with big pale eyes, who lies a lot. Do you mean Gollum?
pragmatism
That was close Burnsy! Suarez saved you. Good luck in group draw and stages.
ETA: Hearts’ keeper didn’t cover himself in glory on that shot. He was in no man’s land.
LanceThruster
@Linda Featheringill:
Yes, except wasn’t everyone at the RCC Convention wearing “Gott Mitt Uns” buttons?
IowaOldLady
Good lord. Talk about angry old white guys!
jl
Yeah, well, lousy pundit Fail by both Petri and Lane. They cannot tell the difference between metaphor and symbolic language and statements of fact.
I do not see people calling Romney a liar with his campaing slogan “Get America Working Again” (Ha! You mean EVERYONE works, even old cripples? or post structuralist quibbles about what America is). I see people complaining that Romney has NOT given anyone any idea HOW his policies will do that.
Ryan makes a statement of fact about when a plant closed that is wrong, and won’t correct it, and GOP hacks tie themselves into pretzels trying to explain how that is a true fact.
Romney makes a statement of fact that Obama want to eliminate work requirements for gov assistance programs, when in black in white, it is clear that Obama did no such thing.
Sure, that is the same thing as “nothing to fear but fear itself” in the context of an economic depression caused by financial speculation and under regulation.
These people have become patent abject clowns, and I think voters can see that. Too stupid to fool anyone except white bigots looking for excuses and don’t care how stupid they look to their neighbors.
Calouste
@Wag:
Roosevelt was inaugurated March 4, 1933, 32 days after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and 5 days after the Reichstag Fire Degree, which suspended most civil liberties in Germany.
SatanicPanic
My elementary school aged child makes jokes like this all the time, based on taking an absurdly literal interpretation of things. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a smart little guy, but I wouldn’t hire him to write newspapers columns. But maybe the Post would.
Ben Franklin
@Burnspbesq:
it is scratched.
Your Firm’s Mission Statement?
The Moar You Know
Lying is awesome.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Damn straight, that’s what he means. Why should our society subsidize the existence of cripples, children, and old people? It’s time we re-instituted workhouses and made those moochers and looters earn their keep!
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
Certainly not everyone will work. The wealthy, of course, are excluded from this. They have “work credits” in the form of gigantic piles of cash stolen from people who do actual productive things.
You’re not going to get Paris Hilton to perform maid service at a Motel 6. No fucking way, Jose!
dedc79
As usual, the simpsons got there first http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF6SNxNIV08
Spaghetti Lee
Facts, FFFFFFRRRRRRRRTT! Only weenies and losers like facts. Unless it’s Obama, then breathlessly reminding everyone that he got a Naval officer’s rank wrong is of the utmost importance, and should be done seriously and gravely.
jl
@Calouste:
I’ll take your word for it, but FDR was talking about the Depression, which was in its depths. The quote in context:
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.html
The Ancient Randonneur
Maybe this is just her failed attempt at humor. The blog claims to “put the ‘pun’ back in punditry.” According to her bio she graduated from Harvard in 2010 which makes her about 24-25 years old. Difficult to know for sure, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to her lame attempt at humor.
Ben Franklin
@Roger Moore:
I prefer abandoning the elderly and crippled to an ice-floe, unless they can carry their own weight.
Violet
I have no idea what she looks like, but clicked on the link and that cartoon/caricature of her makes her look like Barbie’s soccer mom cousin on a dose of Bible study and speed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Burnspbesq: My nipples explode with delight.
rlrr
@jl:
Context. Conservatives don’t do context.
Davis X. Machina
@Burnspbesq: Someone’ broken out the Reactionary Poetry Magnets™ again, I see.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
My hovercraft is full of eels.
Xecky Gilchrist
These yayhoos must be really rattled by people caring about the truth of things.
japa21
@Ben Franklin: Getting harder and harder to find those.
jl
In my next tryout for airhead super instant analysis political pundit on TV, I will breathlessly point out that instant polling response of public to first day of GOP BSathon is Obama micro rebound to over 300 electoral votes and slightly over 70 percent chance of winning.
Landslide! Mandate! Where’s the Ryan bounce?
Culture of Truth
Romney gutted welfare to work requirements when he was Governor of Massachusetts. That’s a FACT you can LOOK UP.**
** I wouldn’t bother though.
Roger Moore
@Ben Franklin:
I would protest that ice floes are going to become too scarce to make that a practical approach, until I remembered that Republicans don’t believe in global warming.
LanceThruster
@Villago Delenda Est:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
Or left on a hillside, provided wolves don’t step in to suckle them.
Ben Franklin
@japa21:
Getting harder and harder to find those
Eskimos have plenty, and the melting ice sheet should be sending some to us, directly.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Do you want to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?
Culture of Truth
I like the cut of that man’s jib
gnomedad
Also, there was no “Iron Curtain”. I understand the Berlin Wall was mostly made of concrete.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Berial
I think we should let Robot Chicken do a better version of this: http://youtu.be/64PWxzW5vZU
And the reprise: http://youtu.be/zLcIAJsaF3o
Calouste
@jl:
Yes?
Where did I say that FDR wasn’t talking about the Depression? The only thing I pointed out was that FDR’s inaugural address wasn’t “years before the rise of National So-cial-ism” as the commenter I replied to stated. It was exactly at the time when Hitler was taking over.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Berial
I think we should let Robot Chicken do a better version of this: http://youtu.be/64PWxzW5vZU
And the reprise: http://youtu.be/zLcIAJsaF3o
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Wag
@Calouste:
I forgot that the Inaugration used to be held in march.
My overll point still stands. America wasn’t afraid of Hitler in ’32.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
LanceThruster
@Culture of Truth:
from: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stephencolbert/a/colbertbush.htm
[L]adies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert, and tonight it is my privilege to celebrate this president, ‘cause we’re not so different, he and I. We both get it. Guys like us, we’re not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We’re not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut. Right, sir?
That’s where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, “I did look it up, and that’s not true.” That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.
Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, okay? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the “No Fact Zone.” FOX News, I hold a copyright on that term.
I’m a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states, and I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow.
[snip…]
And I just like the guy. He’s a good Joe, obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She’s a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma’am. I’m sorry, but this reading initiative. I’m sorry, I’ve never been a fan of books. I don’t trust them. They’re all fact, no heart. I mean, they’re elitist, telling us what is or isn’t true or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that’s my right as an American! I’m with the President. Let history decide what did or did not happen.
The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man’s beliefs never will.
Berial
I think we should let Robot Chicken do a better version of this than the hack listed in the OP.
And the reprise too!
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
jgaugust
By the way, don’t know if anyone else saw this last night, but this is just fucking brilliant:
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/30/must_see_morning_clip_20/
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Suffern ACE
@The Ancient Randonneur: When I look at the caste of pundits who are being groomed to replace the one we have now, I start to get rather depressed about the future. By the time I am finally rid of Bobo, Shields, Kristol and Dowd – I will have this crap as the queen of opinion?
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
I was going to mention Romulus and Remus, but it turned non sequitur.
ThresherK
@LanceThruster: Ah, someone’s been skipping Letterman, Leno, and the late-night SportsCenter for Adult Swim.
ThresherK
@LanceThruster: Ah, someone’s been skipping Letterman, Leno, and the late-night SportsCenter for Adult Swim.
Mike E
@Burnspbesq: My hovercraft is full of Ailes
Ben Franklin
word press
ThresherK
@ThresherK: FYWP. (I feel like I’ve just been intiated into a club.)
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
But what about Romulus and Remus?
xD
Bulworth
I didn’t click on. But it’s gotta be Chuckie Lane, right?
les
@The Ancient Randonneur:
It’s like a Poe’s law for humor–the concept and execution were so execrable, you wonder if was attempted humor. And yet the basic idea she tries to express is frighteningly believable.
LanceThruster
@ThresherK:
Thus it is written, thus it is so.
I learned most of what I know about life from “Moral Orel” (seriously).
I see most of what passes for the pious as the characters around Orel. They (and Master Shake) remind me of your typical Republicurs.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Word Press is intimidating me, maybe later :)
Anna in PDX
I usually just read all of your posts and comments because usually lots of people have said what I wanted to say only better. Which is still the case today as I will be comment # who knows what.
But this really for some reason pushed buttons I did not know I had. Today I actually went through the modest hassle of registering at the WP just to tell the idiot that there is a difference between a metaphor and a factual statement. I cannot stand this flip bullshit from people who get paid to write. It is ridiculous that they have paying jobs. Really.
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
“This place is possessed!” – Beef (Phantom of the Paradise)
jl
@Calouste: I didn’t think you were making a big argument that FDR was not talking about recession but WWII instead, just making context plain for readers who happened by. Sorry if my comment gave wrong impression.
soylenth
The fantasy creature Paul Ryan resembles is Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. Obviously.
DougJ
@Bulworth:
Bien sur.
TG Chicago
@Poopyman: That was the quote I found most grotesque as well.
I’d like to be hired by the Post to write columns on the web. In that vein, I’d like to mention that Alexandra Petri keeps several enfeebled senior citizens chained up in her basement to use as sex slaves. You say it’s not true? Hey, I’m just trying to get a job here. I’m allowed to make up whatever shit I want!
(It would be awfully rich if it turned out that she lied in her resume to get this job…)
ThresherK
@LanceThruster: Gawd but that show is a hoot. All those decrepit, bankrupt people around Orel, and yet he somehow has a humanity that can’t be destroyed.