Ultimate Wingnut Challenge: The Korner Kids Vs. the Media Wingnuts
Today's the day when the The Korner Kids (John Derbyshire, Jonah Goldberg, and John Podhoretz) face off against the dreaded Media Wingnuts (Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin). And not all of them will survive! (Ann will no doubt smother Jonah within the first ten minutes -- but you will also get to vote one of them off the island, based on their performance today.)
1. First up is Jonah Goldberg with his latest column, "The People, Not So Much."
Thesis: We shouldn't rely on polls to set policy because "the people" are basically stupid, lying bastards.
Highlight:
Because it is a bedrock article of faith among the political classes that the authentic voice of the people is sacrosanct, and the polls are the modern equivalent of oracular goat entrails. Even if 65 percent of the people say a policy stinks worse than a dead aardvark wrapped in old socks, those who benefit from the policy will say the question was worded "misleadingly" - even if the question is asked point blank: "Yes or no: Do you think such-and-such stinks worse than a dead aardvark wrapped in old socks?"
Judge's Comment: Doug Giles wants his metaphor back.
2. Next up is media wingnut Rush Limbaugh, who will deliver a sermon on "TGIB."
Thesis: Now that Iran has said that it's restarting its nuclear prgram, we should thank God that George Bush is our president, because at this critical time he really isn't really on vacation, and gas prices aren't actually that high, comparatively speaking.
Highlight:
That's why I say thank God it's Bush. The economy is moving along nicely, very nicely despite the barrage of trash talk from the media. An example of the trash talk from the media, the oil price. ... If you want to go back to when gas prices were exorbitantly high in relation to everything else, go back to good old Jimmy Carter's presidency. [...]
Another TGIB. Now, we're approaching here a challenging few days, and it could be an important tipping point, and I'm not talking about the search for the missing girl in Aruba and I'm not talking about this overwrought mother being used by MoveOn.org and John Conyers and the media, and I'm not even talking about the attacks on Judge Roberts. Look what our country, look what President Bush has on his table in the next few days during his, quote, unquote -- ha-ha-ha -- vacation. Which he's not on. He's just in Texas. [...]
You know, thank goodness it's Bush and not Gore or Kerry or we would have reason to be triple or quadruple concerned and frightened.
Judge's comment: Yes, thank God that Bush is President instead of Gore or Kerry, because they are useless when it comes to clearing brush in Midland Crawford.
3. Now we'll hear from Korner Kid John Derbyshire, whose NRO diary for the month addresses a variety of topics, ranging from a wish that our generals would threaten to nuke China, to an exciting story which illustrates "the key difference between finite cardinal numbers and transfinite ones, viz., that a set may have the same number as a subset of itself, if its number is transfinite." However, in the interests of time, we'll just pick one section.
Thesis: John Roberts is too nice to serve in the Supreme Court. If President Bush doesn't nominate somebody mean and cantankerous to take Sandra's place, the evil liberals on the bench will take advantage of him.
Highlight:
Nothing wrong with being nice, in most walks of life. Nice is, well, nice. Very American, too: Florence King used to refer to this nation of ours as "the Republic of Nice." Nice doesn't cut it in the culture wars, though. Nice people are just too easy for the Left to sway. Most lefty arguments, after all, are phrased as appeals to niceness. This approach has been so successful for the Left that huge numbers of Americans now believe that liberals are Nice, while conservatives are Not Nice. Niceness — and therefore the Nasty-in-Nice-clothing that is current liberalism — has a terrific gravitational pull on the psyches of present-day Americans.
I know this because, being a fundamentally nice person myself (ask anyone) I am very susceptible to it. Put me in a room for a couple of hours with a Lefty of the smoother kind and I'll come out of there murmuring: "Why, yes, he made a pretty good case..." Then the kids will rile me up, or I'll get a tax demand, or read Ted Kennedy's latest speech, and my dark side will reassert itself, and I'll wake up to the fact that my Lefty friend was spinning the same old stupid yarn.
Judge's comment: We like Derb's claim that liberals seem reasonable and persuasive until one gets mad at the kids, for only then does one realize that lefties are wrong about everything, because PEOPLE SUCK!
We were also amused at Derb's claim that he's fundamentally nice.
4. And here's Media Wingnut Michelle Malkin, whose latest column is entitled "The Democrats' 9/11 slush fund."
Thesis: Because the governor of New Jersey allegedly doled out most of state's federal Homeland Security funds to districts controlled by Democrats, this means that Democrats can never again complain about the Republicans politicizing of 9/11.
Highlight:
For the past four years, Democrats have ceaselessly attacked Republicans for "exploiting" the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
[Skip numerous compelling examples of Republicans exploiting the terrorist attacks]
But when an investigative reporter exposes Democrats raiding federal homeland security grants and turning 9/11 money into a party slush fund, where, oh where, are all the indignant liberal watchdogs to protest such clear and unconscionable political exploitation?
Can't find a single barking hound on the Left. Just chirping crickets.
Judge's Comment: We'd try to work up some outrage if it wasn't common knowledge that a big portion of all the Homeland Security funds awarded to the states are being wasted, and that pork is the name of the game in numerous locales.
For instance, here's a story from Boston: Homeland funds fryin' up like pork. And here's a piece from the Washington Times, Homeland-security pork. And here's a column from Arizona: Congress must stop waste of Ariz. Homeland Security funding. See also Homeland absurdity: Anti-terror funds going to leafy ’burbs, Tax dollars to protect mermaids from terrorists, and many more.
But maybe Michelle didn't hear about any of this because of all the noise from the crickets.
5. But now for something completely different, in that Korner Kid John Podhoretz will explain the The Curse of the Senate (which isn't, surprisingly enough, VP Cheney saying "F--- you, Senator Leahy!")
Thesis: Senators never get elected President, so Hillary Clinton won't run again next year, and Jeanine Pirro just might get elected, although she probably won't.
Highlight:
Here's the thing: If Hillary really wants to be president — and I expect she really wants to be president — she won't run for the Senate next year.
Barry C. Burden of Harvard University put it flatly in an important 2002 article in the Political Science Quarterly: "It is almost unheard of for presidents to come directly from the Senate. Of the 43 presidents of the United States, only two — Warren Harding in 1920 and John Kennedy in 1960 — moved straight from the Senate to the White House.
[...]
But really, does Hillary Clinton want to be so innovative that she can best even this lousy record? Does she really think she's so unbelievably special that she could be only the third person to move her workspace directly from the Capitol to the White House?
Who knows?
Judge's comment: Dick Morris and Peggy Noonan already have dibs on the Hillary speculation niche of punditry, and frankly, they are much better at it than J-Pod, since they would claim to know that Hillary DOES think she's unbelievably special.
6. Lastly (but not leastly, except in charm, talent, and likeability), here's Ann Coulter with "It's 'Let's roll,' not 'Let's roll over'."
Thesis: The reason there's hasn't been a sucessful terrorist attack in America since 9/11 is that the terrorists are bigger dummies than the people in charge of our War on Terror, as demonstrated by the diary entries of British jihadist Zeeshan Siddique. Oh, and New Yorkers are bunch of pussies, so it's "far preferable to fight [the terrorists]in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender)."
Highlight:
Meanwhile, every time Americans get a gander at these lunatics ranting about the "Great Satan" and the "Zionist entity," we can't believe we're at war with such a comical enemy. No wonder they dream of an afterlife with 72 hot teenage girls. These guys are klutzes. Nerds. Dweebs. In the Las Vegas of life, they're at the convention center with the other "Star Trek" fans. Even in Pakistan, Siddique says he is "constantly laughed at & ridiculed."
Ahmed can't get a date, and now the rest of us have to suffer.
But you will notice, the jihadists are not pouring across the Syrian border to, say, Brooklyn Heights. They are running to Iraq, where they run smack dab into the glorious U.S. military.
Judge's Comment: So, I guess it's good that the "savages" can't afford air fare to Brooklyn Heights, where they'd encounter those wimpy New Yorkers instead of the glorious U.S. military -- members of which, sad to say, are still getting killed by the Star Trek dweebs.
Anyway, those are our contestants. Evaluate each one on his or her performance in this round, and vote the weakest one off the island. Do it for America.
2:10:59 AM 
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