bustardblog

The Conservative Demise

It may look like an op-ed with the title "The Conservative Revival", but it's actually a admission of defeat.

The fantasy of a conservative revival is based on the GOP emulating an English Tory; one who recently said:

If we are to make Britain the most family-friendly country in the world, we have to live by the words of the African saying, "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child."

This, from the same neo-con movement that vilified Hillary's use of the exact same phrase.

For once I can recommend reading a David Brooks piece. Concession speeches can be fun, especially when other losers react as did Mark R. Levin, squealing like the stuck pigs they really are.

Previously Brooks' writing of a village's support dripped with a cruel arrogance:

Anybody who thinks it takes a village to raise a child has never sat near a crying baby in first class. In these circumstances, if it were up to the village, somebody would be stapling the brat's mouth shut and somebody else would be locking mom in the overhead storage compartment.

Today's was an admission of defeat - the Reagan revolution is as dead as the permanent Republican majority.

(memeorandum)

 

Read it and Weep

Read the Onion

(h/t Atrios, The Elite)

It's O.K. to Like Good Stuff

A peculiar self-loathing seem to overcome both Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias upon reading reviews by the N.Y. Times of chain restaurants.

First they both felt the need to establish their bona fides as charter members of foodies-elite. Klein wrote of  biking "back from the farmer's market today with a baguette and artisan cheese fastened to my rack." (Yes, he said he bought a "baguette.")  Yglesias is equally torn between asserting his membership credentials, and then denying them:

It "is made all the worse by the knowledge that the attitude of contempt is almost certainly fake. I was actually born and raised in Manhattan by fancy-pants parents who wouldn't dream of darkening the door of an Outback Steakhouse."

Atrios also condemns the sneering condescension he found in the reviews in the Times. This is the same Atrios who can dine for days on crustaceans in Barcelona.

Their desperate drive to avoid accusations of pretension, yet retain their membership in the elite, without looking down on anyone mind you, renders them incoherent. While Yglesias is calling the contempt "fake," Atrios entitles his post "Faux Elitist Sneering."  Is it a faux  sneer or a faux Elitist? A Faux Pas perhaps?

And in fact the Time reviews are not particularly contemptuous. Some of the comments in the article were:

At most of these places, there is indeed something for everyone - frequently with a side of good value.

True Confession: I had a great meal at the Cheesecake Factory.

The menu (with entrees $10 to $21) and flavors are more pan-Asian than Chinese; ingredients unfailingly taste fresh, and vegetables take their rightful place as co-stars to meat. We particularly enjoyed a dish of sugar-snap peas, stir-fried with garlic to peak spring-green sweetness and stir-fried eggplant that retained its shape and texture, as well as the wok-seared marinated lamb over iceberg lettuce.

the fish is just fine: handsomely charred outside, tender and moist inside, with plenty of spice and smoke. The fresh greens are augmented by grape tomatoes, sliced portobello mushrooms and a tangy, creamy vinaigrette

The tiramisù could hold its own anywhere

You want sneering? Here are some comments that the Times reviewer made about a distinctly non-chain restaurant; Alain Ducasse's newest, to which he gave three stars:

Should venison medallions be this bland? Shouldn’t the beef tenderloin with a brick of glazed rib meat be truer to its name?

The reviewer goes on to note that New York's tolerance for Gallic fussbudgets has been tapped "out."

Liberals who believe that elite means the best, and that the best is what we need in a President, should not let themselves get so bolloxed up by articles on steaks and outhouses.

(memeorandum)

Beyond Race.

Great posts by the likes of Sister Toldjah, Betsy's Page and Don Surber go a long way to proving just how crazy, how grossly unfair, is the Rev Wright's tendency to speak of race in his sermons.

They were posting about an Associated Press article by Tim Shipman in which Michelle Obama is portrayed as angered and exhausted by the campaign -with special emphasis on the Rev Wright "controversy."

Shipman collects some comments from around the political spectrum:

A white pastor from Boone is quoted:

I never make political  remarks from the pulpit. It's just not appropriate.

A Clinton spokesman said:

"We are surging"

Jon Violette called Obama's problems with Wright:

"A godsend...People are getting to know him. Hillary has the momentum."

And then:

"James Pickens is typical of those who have been inspired by the black senator from Illinois. A reformed crack cocaine dealer, he is now peddling Obama T-shirts.

Mr Pickens, 50, has served three prison terms totalling 13 years, but vowed to change his ways after hearing Mr Obama speak."

The three wing-nut posters listed above are so far beyond race that they apparently think this juxtaposition entirely appropriate..

(memeorandum)