Mundanely Profound

The irrational outraged liberal in me at times just wants to lash out, sacrificing some legitimacy in my arguments in the process, just to put certain conservative mindset or debate strategies out of political discussion.

So, I know not all of you are political junkies, but you still might enjoy this post. The symbolism is even funny in a non-political way but the message extremely satisying if you take the time to follow the links in this post and find out just how screwy and fake the Powerline guys are.

Now it looks like my discussion with Lyon fizzled out (or has it?). That's all right... don't want to fan the flames of hostility. But the above post takedown is so effective in eliminating almost any respect I have for people who use Powerline guy's opinions to shape their own that its one of those viscerally satisfying blog posts to read.

Here's the tamest paragraph on this site for your enjoyment.

They get nothing right. Their fact-checking skills are atrocious. They neither report nor call experts, it's just whatever they invented twenty seconds ago. Watching them work is like attending a high school debate match in the impromptu event. Arguments are created on the fly, accuracy is unimportant so long as the product accuses the "MSM" or Democrats of some cardinal sin that'll leave Powerline's sycophantic readers moaning with the exquisite pleasure that comes only from having one's biases expertly stroked. The plausibility of their claims ranges from pathetic to laughable (has Big Trunk debated PZ Myers on the biological uncertainty of evolution yet?) and their traffic and credibility is entirely predicated on the work someone else did, success they've been totally unable to replicate. They have failed.

Powerline's extended legal theory excerpts is probably their only good use. This is not about a clash of conservative vs. liberal. This is about people who create scandals out of nothing. It is if, for example, someone cuts and pastes an inflammatory quote from Ward Churchill (hmm, why does he come to mind?), and I reach a conclusion without looking at the citation, source, or context.

My conclusion would be, given the patented Powerline mindset "Well that's obviously a fake person created by Republicans to villify liberal professors and Democrats in general, why he doesn't even exist, how repulsive is it that they are fabricating academic authors and fabricating statements that he made, just so we can look bad. IT'S DISGRACEFUL, IT'S UNAMERICAN, AND I AM SOOOOOOOO JUSTIFIED IN CALLING REPUBLICANS STUPID." And then when its revealed he's real and he did say those things, I would be like "Um, there are still unanswered questions here, BUT I AM NOT IN THE LEAST BIT WRONG."

That was fun. I'm trying to think of other ways to make my point, but when I try to think of photos or evidence that sheds Republican policies in a good light, a lot of the more prominent ones ARE staged to hide the ambigious reality or sad truths of a situation. So in my thinking out loud I've touched on a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative blogging strategies. Conservatives like Powerline try to twist what you see with your very eyes and raise doubt about their authenticity, and takes it one step further by trying their mightiest to prove that the doubt they've created was somehow deliberately manufactured by the original producer of that photo or memo or whatever. Liberals sometimes doubt the images the mainstream media feeds them, check the facts, and find how solid the truth of those images or memos are.

Getting very philosophical here. How about this: The Powerline guys are mean, egotistical, anti-intellectual smelly heads.

Back to paper-writing!