Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Modern Conservative Punditry

Charlie Pierce nails it when speaking of the young conservative talking heads (and some not-so-young, too):
T]his afternoon, as the program [The Cycle on MSNBC] was winding down, [young pundit S.E.] Cupp spent a good four minutes being, weight for age, the dumbest person in the history of cable television.

[…]

Talking about the president's tax proposal, Ms. Cupp rather loosely termed the president's tax policy "collectivist." [...] Kornacki gently reminded her that an increase in the marginal income tax tax rate is a lot of things — including, to my mind, a pretty good idea, but no matter — but it is in no way "collectivist," if English words have any meaning in, you know, English. Kornacki asked, quite reasonably, whether Ms. Cup believed the country was in the grip of a collectvist regime when Dwight Eisenhower was president and the marginal rate was in the 70's. He then asked her if she thought Bill Clinton, who got passed the rates to which the current president is trying to return, was a "collectivist." She then said, "No." This caused Kornacki to take on the general mien of a man who has spent five minutes arguing tax policy with a marmoset. Ms. Cupp then started flapping her gums about this president's "political" philosophy of taking your salary and making it belong to everyone, or somebody or something. I lost a few minutes because I heard a high whistle and everything went black.

I remain convinced that American conservative thought is now not a philosophy but, rather, a book of spells, a series of conjuring words that have meaning only to the initiates.

  Charles Pierce
I'm not even sure it has meaning to them.  They just spout words they've heard and read from other conservatives, whether they know the meaning of the them or not, or, if they do, whether they are appropriate or not.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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