October 31, 2007

Lou Dobbs and Benjamin Wittes, Predictably Wrong

Governor Spitzer and Matthew Yglesias take a little time out of their respective days - here and here - to put two frequently maddening pundits in their place.

Posted by armand at October 31, 2007 11:21 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Media


Comments

Um, Elliot Spitzer, a hack who built his career on demonization, exaggeration, personal destruction, and shameless showmanship, is sort of the poster boy for "venom and hate", isn't he?

What a fucking scumbag.

Posted by: jacflash at October 31, 2007 11:42 AM | PERMALINK

Why is it that people who are fairly characterized as activist in attempting to limit the prerogatives of corporations "scumbags," while their counterparts, people who are just as fairly characterized as activist in attempting to expand the prerogatives of corporations at the expense of public coffers, consumers, labor, etc., not also scumbags?

To be clear, Spitzer surely has a yen for the spotlight, but I think it's pretty clear that he's done more for the common man than, say, Rick Santorum, another showman, ever did. I mean, we're talking about politicians here -- grandstanding's pretty much the ballgame. Just ask Rudy -- or has he yet changed his name to NineEleven?

Just curious.

Posted by: moon at October 31, 2007 12:50 PM | PERMALINK

Moon, the Cineplex called. They'd like their projector back.

Put another way, I don't know who you're arguing with but I don't yet feel compelled to respond in their stead.

Posted by: jacflash at October 31, 2007 03:59 PM | PERMALINK

ooh, reasoned argument and clever too.

spitzer is an opportunist like just about anyone else who ever managed to get seven digits worth of voters to flip the lever (or touch the screen) on his behalf. as for "venom and hate," i'm having a lot of trouble seeing where you get that with respect to spitzer. i will grant that it was probably a poor choice of words to apply to lou dobbs, who's far too shallow to achieve anything akin to "venom and hate."

what lou dobbs is quoted as saying by CNN in the above piece is predictably inane, and demonstrably false, as one would expect from someone who starts from a point of ordinary populist hucksterism, but descends on the topic of immigration to no better than a apoplectic child in the sandbox who just lost his favorite toy to a bigger kid with a foreign accent. it's nice of him to apologize for calling spitzer names; how about apologizing for propagating blatant falsehoods from his ill-deserved bully pulpit?

anyway, jacflash, you know i was objecting to the resort to "fucking scumbag," and that the objection was amplified in virtue of your other equally superficial slurs. i'm no fan of spitzer, per se, but i'm not even sure i could bring myself to call the prez a "fucking scumbag," and lord knows he deserves it more than any other public figure i can think of, except, perhaps, for his proxies and toadies. certainly, he deserves it more than spitzer, who at least is trying to think up some new ideas for old problems, which of course is why he gets pounded; it's much safer to just keep toeing the same old party line and do absolutely nothing except complain about the other side.

Posted by: moon at November 1, 2007 11:04 AM | PERMALINK

or, put another way, spitzer's done some tangible good in the world. lou dobbs, to my knowledge, has done absolutely no good in the world.

Posted by: moon at November 1, 2007 11:05 AM | PERMALINK
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