Fright or Flight

Eric Alterman makes a persuasive case for the worthlessness of Maureen Dowd.

Maureen Dowd herself makes the same case every time she is published:

"BARBARA BUSH is a word that rhymes with fright."

Blight?
Parasite?
Anti-semite?

My vote: Shite.

If You See Something, Say Something

You've probably seen reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was so radicalized and bloodthirsty that he disrupted a worship service by shouting because the imam was praising a religious pacifist:

Here's one account:

About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur. The rabbi had offered some timid endorsement of peace — peace essentially on Israel’s terms — but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi, from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to “shush” him. It was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?

Elsewhere, the man had frequently cheered the slaughter of innocents through bombing.

The mosque kicked Tsarnaev out of its congregation.   

An Art Lover Inquires

How much do you think it would cost to commission a Jon McNaughton painting of Ben Carson battling Kermit Gosnell in the skies over Jerusalem, and call it "Undercard of The Armageddon"?

Plato and Bacon

The Man of Virtue sings of Bowdoin and the NAS:

[In his Forward to What Does Bowdoin Teach?, Bill] Bennett begins by asserting that “Plato… remarked that the two most important questions in society are ‘Who teaches the children?’ and ’What do they teach them?’” Unfortunately, Plato “remarks” no such thing, at least in any of the works known to me (I invite readers to correct me if I’m wrong). I suppose that the phrase could be a reasonable, if rather simplistic summary of Plato’s thought about education. But the actual source appears to be a Michelle Malkin column. The phrase also appears, without a specific citation, on a number of cut-and-paste quote sites. Misquotation happens all the time, of course. But it’s a bad start for a defense of traditional education–particularly one that claims that Bowdoin students aren’t learning enough about Greek philosophy.

Here's something else Plato didn't say:

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

And Plato wasn't talking about Butterbean Bennett when he didn't say it, though if the quote fits, wear it.

Anyway, had Plato answered the questions he didn't ask, his preferred answers would not have been "homeschoolers" and "wingnuttery."  If one wanted to stoop to conquer, one could argue that Plato was Melissa Harris-Perry back in the day.

In the same two-page Forward, at page 10, Butterbean also uses a fake Lincoln quote.

Many institutions frown on this sort of thing.

But we shouldn't be too hard on Big Bill.  When you pay someone minimum wage to bloviate under your name, you're bound to get inferior work product.

(link via Dr. Berube)

Shattered Ass

Ta-Nehisi Coates has an excellent post-mortem on the excremental Michael Kelly, 
who wasn't so much a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq but a pitbull, rabidly slavering his militaristic fantasies on anyone with spitting distance.

His apologists will claim he was only wrong in hindsight, but that's not true.  As the excepts quoted by Coates illustrate, Kelly wasn't reporting facts, he was seeking to make things true by wishing them to be true (and doing so in a truly obnoxious manner).  

Kelly was wretched.  He was vile.  He was contemptible.

And he was one of a rare breed to whom the phrase "hoist with his own petard" applies literally.