“Marc Ambinder is the politics editor of The Atlantic. He has covered Washington for ABC News and the Hotline, and he is chief political consultant to CBS News.”
Given Ambinder’s shoulder-deep mainstream media plumage, I was shocked to read that Ambinder thinks conservatives have gone mad.
Much as I contemplated giving you a flavor of Ambinder’s post through some selective quotations, selective quotation cannot do it justice.
Ambinder’s post is a full out concern troll attack. As if Ambinder really, really wanted to take Republicans “seriously” but just couldn’t seem to do so. And he even quoted a couple of conservative critics of conservatives to prove his good intentions.
Ambinder lives is a fantasy world where left-wing commentators (including Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow) are serious policy wonks, while all conservative commentators are “entertainers shouting slogans;” where hyperbole is the exclusive refuge of the right-wing; where the vile language and defamation hurled at George Bush for eight years never existed; where the equally vile attempts by Democratic leaders to equate health care protesters to terrorists never happened.
Every day Democratic politicians and left-wing bloggers hurl epithets like “teabagger” and “racist” and “extremist” at political opponents, yet none of that exists in Ambinder’s precious little world.
Ambinder cannot seem to understand that being mad is not the same thing as madness. The true madness is the direction in which the Obama administration is taking this country.
The deceptive and destructive policies of this administration have been picked apart by people who do not live in Ambinder’s world, and do not watch CBS News.
And if Ambinder were honest with himself, he would admit that the loss of control over the news cycle and the debate is what bothers him most. Hence the gratuitous statements in Ambinder’s post about Fox News and the “conservative echo-chamber.”
The loss of relevance must be a frustrating thing. It can drive some people mad.
Update: Sissy Willis caught the big fish in her Twitter net.
——————————————–
Related Posts:
Saturday Night Card Game
Count Frankula’s Blood Lust
Dems’ Strategy of Crazy
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
A masterpiece of the blogger's art, professor. As I wrote in Ambinder's comments this morning:
Epistemic closure is hard to recognize when one is within the echo chamber, where psychological projection is the defense mechanism of choice . It's scary when you sense that you are headed for the dustbin of history:
Tea Party 2.0: "Just be willing to work hard, and don't try to claim the credit"
http://bit.ly/aQIonR
heh, good post. And yes, they're not relevant any longer, but it sounds like the FCC has some fun plans to ensure that the fringe media keeps gasping its last for the foreseeable future (did you catch Copps on Moyers last night? Scary stuff. Sounds like a new fun tax is coming our way to subsidize the NYT and other out of touch madmen/women . . . er, to "preserve journalism," I think was the quote. After all, Copps noted, they have that in Europe. Uh huh.).
"The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, The TAXPAYERS, will fund the bailout of banks–these aren't meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on.(the banks will fund their own bailouts)"
If I've gone mad it's because their mindset is equivalent to that of a self delusional rapist, it's just political intellictual rape. My mere existence is to be used as they see fit. I am nothing to them but a drone tax money earner.
I agree with Sissy, your writing style is rampped up a notch. Time to write a book ?
It's a lot like Nazi Germany. De-value the perceived enemy to make it easier to eradicate him. The sad fact is the Liberals have now got the Republican party by the throat.
It began with repeated slams against the Tea Partiers (I visited the site of a black radical that called them white nationalists)and escalated when Republicans and Tea Partiers were mentioned in the same breath as Republican.
Wouldn't Democrats joy to know that even Sarah Palin recognized that Tea Partiers are a diverse group when she enjoined them to pick a party and work for that party rather than start another party.
The Republican Party has now become a trash bin. We shouldn't reach in, pick out the pieces of trash and write "return to sender" on them.
Rather, we need to get out front of the headlines and sound bites and we can. A well crafted argument, well documented and of a length amenable to Democratic attention spans, is the best revenge.
Like Sarah Palin or not, she has tirelessly fought the good fight and her numbers have shown she has done a good job of not just staying on message but in calling out Democrats and the MSM when they get out of hand. She is in charge of her image,her message. She has moved toward media mastery. We can reinvent ourselves for mass consumption.
We Conservative and/or Republican bloggers need to not talk with each other so much (strategic huddles notwithstanding) and get out there on the liberal media blogs and news sites. Sarah would tell you that you have to seek out the moose before you can shoot it.
I can see no other way to turn this around aside from finding an advanced civilization on Mars all members of whom are registered Republicans. Where's that Hubbel thing now….
Wicked fun twittering in the morning: http://bit.ly/ar4kAJ
"I just caught a thrashi'g fish on the line, @marcambinder hisself, protest'g he's "regular folks" http://bit.ly/9AI5Lh"
And then was heard no more.
So Marc is sane, but the 30% of the population that self identifies as conservatives are mad. Riiiiight.
Conservatives are wrong to focus on Climategate, Acorn etc because those are irrelevant, but they should focus on what exactly? Pushing an agenda that is to the left of Obama like Olbermann et al? Basically Ambinder's political spectrum is between far-left and ultra-far-left, but it's the conservatives who are mad.
They underestimate us at their peril. This remains a center-right country. I might go farther and say that without Leftist propaganda, this would be a right-right country. There are very few who espouse the Leftist line of more and bigger government is better. Most people understand that they should be able to make their own decisions and suffer their own consequences.
Regarding Conservative talkers like Beck and Limbaugh, they are popular not because they tell us what to think, but they give voice to what we have thought all along.
No, the Maddows and Olbermanns and Ambinders of the world are crazy. Not us. And as the election gets closer, they will become more and more unhinged because it will be more and more obvious they no longer matter.
From Power Line: Marc Ambinder unwittingly defines "epistemic closure"
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/04/026139.php
The reason Ambinder can't take some republicans seriously, is because they are making up their own facts to make politcal points. Does Mitch Mcconnel really think that the financial regulation bill will lead to endless bailouts? No, because it's not true, but it's what Frank Luntz says polls well so he says it anyway. How can you have a debate with that? You should read Jim Manzi's post in the National Review. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTMzMTY2ZmU2ZGY1YzQ3N2Q0MWY4M2M4OTMyZGRjMjY=
Have blogged about it:
"Prof Jacobson of Legal Insurrection had already landed the fish and removed the entrails. They say fish is good for you. Dead, broiled and sitting pretty on your plate. Delicious!"
Marc Ambinder and the epistemic echoes of his mind
http://bit.ly/bYLYZk
The spin has now reached blender on high proportions … so much so that the tea party people and the independents and most people generally …. now reach their own conclusions ..
I would extend the analogy to beyond the "loss of control over the news cycle" by Arbinder and fellow liberals. It is more that the entire elite establishment has lost control of the narrative and who is allowed to participate in the discussion. Those of us who don't live in the elite ivory towers have intruded into their little clubhouse discussion and they don't like it.
It's this sudden realization that they have lost control of everything that has our entrenched criminal class of elected weasels experiencing a nervous breakdown.
As they desperately try to convince us that the problems are too big for us and that they are the only ones who can solve them, they throw gasoline on every fire. It's insanity and we need to separate these crazy people from the levers of power soon before it is too late. And it is getting very late.
Samhenry: Your post is very good except for one point. Yes, now that Sarah Palin has knelt before the GOP gods and endorsed McCain, she is acceptable to the Republican establishment. Her polling has not improved.
In fact, they are awful and for a good reason. Her support is shallow but is now being marketed by those in the GOP who are trying to usurp the Tea Party.
To those of us who care about consistency, she has already sold us out by endorsing McCain right out of the gate. We are not the ones showing up at her "Tea Party" rallies with that other shallow walking talking bumper sticker: Michelle Bachmann.
Palin may now be accepted by the GOP establishment, but not those of us cannot accept her campaigning for McCain. seemingly cutting a deal with the Tea Party Express crowd when she appeared at that phony "Tea Party National Convention" a few weeks ago.
I like her on a personal level but her but I wish she would go away. She has proven to be nothing more than an impressionable hick from the sticks who "went Hollywood" at the first opportunity. Her popularity is now not even a mile wide but it is certainly less than an inch deep.
I posted this comment to a post at Gay Patriot this morning:
Think about this. Obama won over 95% of the black vote. But if the black vote had split evenly between Obama and McCain, McCain would be president today.
The left has a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that Tea Partyers/Conservatives/Republicans are racists in an effort to hold onto the black segment of their coalition. A similar tactic is being used to try to hold onto Independents. To the Independents, the narrative is that conservative Republicans are lunatics (see Marc Ambinder’s article yesterday titled, “Have Conservatives Gone Mad?”).
So to try to hold their loose coalition of blacks and Independents together, we are routinely described as racists and lunatics, respectively. It seems to be a deliberate strategy that started within days of Obama’s inauguration, after the first opposition to his policies emerged with the wasteful stimulus bill. The left has continued the strategy ever since, even though it is clearly failing as polls show Independents have swung overwhelmingly against Obama and more and more blacks are coming to Tea Partys. The first speaker at the Tea Party I went to on tax day was a black small business owner who opened with “how you racists doing?”. Then he and the crowd had a hearty laugh. Clifton at the blog Another Black Conservative posted a video of a black woman, Sonnie Johnson, who spoke at a Tea Party in VA whose message was pure dynamite that every conservative would embrace. And look at all the blacks who are running for office as conservatives: Angela McGlowan in MS, Allen West in FL, Wes Phillips in AL, and Michael Williams in TX – all of whom have spoken at Tea Partys or endorsed Tea Partys.
The left’s strategy of labeling conservatives as racists and lunatics is clearly not working but they seem unable or unwilling to change tactics.
Which appears to be working in our favor.
I wonder why Michael Steele would say that the republican party has given blacks very little reason to vote for them and then elucidated on the rights' southern strategy of appealling to white racist voters after civil rights legislation was passed? Maybe he's a democratic plant sent by Bill Ayers and Acorn.
One could do a lot worse than quoting the founding fathers at rallies, which is what the tea party folks have been doing.
And what has the left been quoting at their rallies? (Glenn Beck caught them on video quoting Marxist dogma and extolling Mao. But remember, Glenn Beck is the dangerous nut job.)
The fact is that the left isn't quoting anyone at their rallies because they're making it all up as they go along.
Let's take the case of government spending. Lately the left has been attacking conservatives with the question of whether we oppose Medicare and Medicaid, as though that is the check-mate argument.
How ironic it is, though, that the two government programs that are sinking our fiscal ship (as even the left themselves argue when they're trying to justify a takeover of medicine) – How ironic that the two government programs that we have no way to pay for could ever be considered such a triumph that no one would dare oppose them.
My answer to the left on this stupid questions is yes – I oppose a broke and insolvent Medicare and Medicaid, as my GOP fore-bearers did when you Dems passed the bill back then.
Thanks for the link. My stats are going over the top!!!
Mad? I am not mad, sir.
Dogs go mad.
Men become angry, and I, for one am angry.
I am angry at politicians who are driving our country into ruin.
I am angry at publishers and broadcasters, who think that their job is to slobber over every pronouncement of those politicians, and to treat their spin as revealed truth.
Basically, I've predicted this would happen back in November 2008. Check it out on my blog:
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-live-with-obama_02.html
Liberals took the wrong time to seize power.
An instalanche once removed: Prof Reynolds links to Prof Jacobson links to me. Hey, I get it any way I can. 😉
Playing with "instalanche once removed" with twitter friends. We've decided what I am experiencing is a LEGALANCHE, which, by the way, results in about 20% as many hits for me as you are getting from the direct instalanche. Because enquiring minds want to know.
As Sissy said:
Epistemic closure is hard to recognize when one is within the echo chamber, where psychological projection is the defense mechanism of choice.
He don't know much about Philosophy.
He don't know much Trigonometry.
He forgot all that French he took.
Don't know what's in those science books.
But he do know that it's obvious
That the nation needs more stimulus.
Then what a wonderful world his will be.
He don't know much about free-markets but hears,
That you always have to pay the cashier!
He don't know much about Free Enterprise.
It's only fair if everyone wins the prize.
But he do know he loves President Oh!
And all those criticisms just ain't so!
He gave the matter some really deep thought,
Described the Critics as a bunch of crack-pots.
But once all the degreed agree,
What a wonderful world his will be.
He don't know what's in those budget books
Still he took a really quick look.
Then cast his gaze over the entire nation.
Sees it needs a massive hike in taxation.
Yes, he knows 2 minus 2 equals Zero.
But that reminds him of his President Hero.
Who's set the town ablaze like Emperor Nero.
But one way to put that fire out,
is to kiss up and pee down and shout —
Because all roads lead to Rome, don't you see?
So concentrate all the power in D.C.
Then what a wonderful world his will be.
Indeed!
Hey Professor:
Maybe Ambinder should visit Burlington County, NJ. $0 last quarter by Democrats in fundraising.
http://wherearemykeys.typepad.com/where_are_my_keys/2010/04/my-couch-has-raised-more-money-than-democrats-in-burlington-county-new-jersey.html
His reference to Ezra Klein as someone holding the President accountable on health care was meant to be a joke…right? It has to be.
There was no blogger, author or expert so in the tank for ObamaCare as Ezra Klein. Seriously. The President himself was less defensive than Ezra, who gave a knee-jerk defense to every criticism. He proclaimed Republican alternatives a joke. He accused Lieberman of mass murder for standing in its way. He proclaimed the doc fix as a separate issue, allowing him to continue the charade that the bill would be deficit neutral. He even lied to his own readers about what he himself believed about the public option after he was caught on tape calling it a "sneaky strategy" to get to single payer.
Does Ambinder know how wildly out of touch with reality he is?
It's been so long since the left abandoned reason for revolution that I believe they've literally forgotten how to argue. I believe there are very few of them who have any memory of what an argument actually is. They seem to think it has something to do with snark.