Carney Blarney May 22, 2013
Posted by Cory Franklin in Uncategorized.add a comment
Jay Carney gets what he deserves. When he was at Time Magazine, he once said he would never take this job.
Well he took it.
Nuts to him..
Front Page Headlines In Great Britain May 22, 2013
Posted by Cory Franklin in Uncategorized.add a comment
It’s Not A Laughing Matter Anymore, It’s Really Really Bad May 22, 2013
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Journalism, Politics.Tags: chilling, dana milbank, first amendment, irs, jame rosen, taking the fifth
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The president’s chief of staff knew about the IRS investigation in April, but didn’t didn’t tell Obama until last week?? Two choices: He’s telling the truth and he and the president are complete morons, or they’re lying and expecting all of us to be complete morons. Neither is an engaging choice. Bad, really bad.
An assistant director of the IRS shows up at a congressional hearing, issues a long statement in which she categorically denies any wrongdoing of any sort, and then proceeds to take the Fifth? Honey, I’m no lawyer, but even I understand that if you’ve committed no crime, it’s pretty much impossible to incriminate yourself. Woefully bad.
And the president’s Attorney General and Department of Justice are expending major time and effort in investigating journalists for doing their job, which is investigating the president and Attorney General for doing shit just like this? The DOJ had the audicity to name James Rosen, the FOX reporter, as a “possible co-conspirator” in another leak case? Dana Milbank of the Washington Post sums it up elegantly:
The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.
To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job — seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public — deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based. Guns? Privacy? Due process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.
That’s not just bad. It’s chilling.
BW
Payback, With Interest May 22, 2013
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in Politics, reader interaction.Tags: dana perino, disinterested, grammar, jay carney, jfk, pierre salinger, press secretary, uninterested
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Is what I’d like to issue on the uninterested/disinterested debate, but instead I’ll offer a qualified concession. I was just being a bit of the devil’s advocate in pointing out there is not 100% consensus on the issue. I know every bit as well as my blogmate the proper employment of disinterested and uninterested (and at this point in the debate, I’m guessing that if we have even one reader left, and it’s not Mrs. Gold, my high school AP English teacher, they are bored to near coma), and in fact, as he predicted, it took me all of half a dozen key strokes to find two opinions matching his:
The constant misuse of disinterested for uninterested is breaking down a very useful distinction of meaning.
To be uninterested is to be lacking in any sense of engagement with the matter: Sallie is uninterested in algebra.
To be disinterested is to lack bias: Let the company call in a disinterested mediator to settle the dispute.
The use of disinterest as a verb should probably be avoided: Her husband tried to disinterest her in taking the course in German. Better: Her husband tried to discourage her from taking the course in German.
If the person you are describing is not interested in something, use uninterested.
Save disinterested for the judge.
I’d like to give Jay Carney the benefit of the doubt. Presidential press secretary has to be one of the most thankless jobs ever invented. Whether you are Jay Carney or Dana Perino or Pierre Salinger, there have to be plenty of times when you are fully aware of the fact that you are spouting utter bullshit, but you have to say it with a completely straight face, and when you are called on it, you have to repeat the very same nonsense while employing slightly different syntax. When the employment ad for press secretary is posted on USgov.net, the first line of the job description presumably reads: “Must be convincing liar.”
BW
I’ll Give You A Concede On Try To Find May 22, 2013
Posted by Cory Franklin in Uncategorized.add a comment
But big effin’ deal on your dictionary.
There are a ton of dictionaries and grammar books out there. Today you can find a dictionary that will let you do anything. So what.
So its OK for Carney to talk like a doofus? (of course, I may be defeating my own argument).
You think I couldn’t find one, no, more than one and more respected than yours that tell the difference between uninterested and disinterested?
Trust me I could, but rather than go into dictionary wars, I’ll point out the while you might be able to interchange the two, and justify it with your Costco dictionary, the distinction is clear and obvious for a reason.
The Same People Who Tell You Your Check Is In The Mail May 22, 2013
Posted by Cory Franklin in Uncategorized.add a comment
Former IRS chief Doug Shulman told a congressional hearing this morning that he “absolutely” did not inform the White House of the IRS’s targeting operation and investigation.
Citing evidence that Shulman visited the White House 118 times between 2010 and 2011 and received information about IRS political targeting from 132 members of Congress, Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) asked whether Shulman had ever mentioned this information to White House officials.
“Absolutely not,” replied Shulman. “It would not have been appropriate.”
Moments later, Shulman testified that, despite the complaints from Congress, he never felt it was necessary to visit the Cincinnati IRS office — the office that handles the bureau’s tax-exempt-organizations operation, and which has been identified as Ground Zero in the political-targeting scandal.
Left On Politics, Right On Grammar May 22, 2013
Posted by Benjamin Wendell in reader interaction.Tags: disinterested, grammar, uninterested, usage
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I’d like to say I’m uninterested in my blogmate’s opinion of my grammatical correctness, but that would be inaccurate. Where “disinterested” and “uninterested” are concerned, I was quoting the freaking dictionary, who rightfully acknowledged the confusion on usage. If my esteemed blogmate thinks he knows better, he can take it up with Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com. Meanwhile, my blogmate continues to fall into the camp who “try and find” correct grammar. I don’t care what he and all those other modern usage mavens say: it’s NOT “try and find”, it’s “try TO find”, and it’s like fingernails on a blackboard every time I see it wrong.
BW
What Do These, And Other Laughs, Mean May 21, 2013
Posted by Cory Franklin in Uncategorized.add a comment
They don’t mean impeachment and they don’t mean Hillary Clinton can’t be a candidate in 2016.
If the Republicans continue to push those things, it will just mean they are as stupid as the Democrats are venal.
Part of the Democratic game plan is to portray these obvious transgressions and coverups as partisan witch hunts, and the Republicans play into their hands if they say those things.
There are obviously 40-50% of the public and more of the media in the tank as it were, they refuse to see that using the IRS as an arm of the Administration, and making up stories about killer videos, and trailing journalists are a threat to our form of Government. And many of them will not see differently no matter what evidence they are presented with.
But the measure of rectitude is not the popularity of the President -if it is we are in big trouble. After all totalitarians do quite well in popularity polls.
What this does mean is that the middle 10-155 of the people and maybe some of the media will no longer be willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. They may pull these scandals off, obfuscate and prevaricate long enough and maybe they will blow away.
But if something else comes down, they will be in trouble. As long as that doesn’t happen they can hang out, as it were.
Their moral standing is pretty much gone, however.
