Friday, September 18, 2009

The wearisome neocons

I'm always staggered at how much time MSM outlets give the neocons. At this point, neocon is only a step or two above pedophile in the American lexicon of smears, probably a few steps below Stalinist or LaRouchie. And yet they're all over the cable nets, screaming about appeasement as always, despite the fact that they are probably the most hated political class of people, well, ever and deservedly so. Our "liberal" media at work, I suppose.

I just wonder whether it ever occurs to the media not to cover extremist gasbags whose opinions are shared by a small minority of the public (this includes Limbaugh and his ilk). It's unclear to me exactly why these folks deserve attention--between this and the Town Hall disruptions, it does seem as though the media has finally bought into the notion that yelling means you're right. (Just kidding: I know it's just cynical, raw sensationalism. Expecting the media to inform people is soooo 1950s.) And so, Michael Goldfarb--the same dude who demanded that Israel kill women and children to teach the terrorists a lesson (I don't know if someone has already coined the term "bin Ladenist right", but it applies here)--is treated like a credible voice on this topic.

Oh, and the neocon arguments about missile defense (and foreign policy in general) seem to think that anything that isn't recklessly aggressive = appeasement. I doubt they'll have any more success at turning around the public debate to their favor than they did the last few times they did this (torture investigations, North Korea hostages, the "apology tour", etc.). Each and every time, the neocons whine and complain, but Obama still gets his strongest ratings on foreign policy because people remember the past eight years. Evidently the neocons don't. Nor the media, apparently.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.