Jonathan Chait! Come On Down!
Hugh Hewitt, in an ongoing effort to show how truly worthless the "Left-Angeles Times" really is had another vict...er, contestant on his show tonight. Jonathan Chait, LA Times columnist and clueless liberal, was his newest plaything. And yes, folks, it was child's play. (I'd cite chapter and verse from this interview care of Generalissimo Duane, but as of 12:44 a.m. AZ time, the transcript still isn't up.)
I can tell you this: The man is positively clueless. After writing this positively pugnacious pap he had the guts to show up at Hugh's doorstep. This man claims that Hillary is not an angry woman, and spent the better part of an hour not only defending her, but trying to spin away from the fact that he, himself, is an admitted angry man. It took some time for him to admit this, though it was easier than Joel Stein or Michael Hiltzik, but he finally admitted that, in his heart, he's a liberal.
And I think this is one of the reasons why Hugh has people from the Times on his show. He wants them to defend what they write. He wants to show the paper for what it is, which is nothing better than a cage liner. However, I can buy filler paper cheaper than I can buy and LA Times, and I get more out of that filler paper. The LA Times is one of those papers that I am thoroughly disgusted with. I'd rather dig old newspapers out of a box from our most recent move than defame my bird's cage with this garbage. I'm sure that a common joke among some bird owners is the Times offends the bird enough that it won't use the paper.
But this is why his show is important, and when he has guests like Mr. Chait on, people need to listen. Not only does this man defend Hillary, claiming she isn't angry, and that only a minority of Democrats truly are "angry;" yes, those on the MoveOn moonbats and Michael Moore-rites, but right now those people are controlling the debate for their side. That is a point Hugh tried to drive home to Mr. Chait, but he seemed completely oblivious to it. The LA Times has had a serious problem over the last year or so. Besides Joel Stein thinking that his columns are funny when they basically insult our troops, and call into question their mission; Michael Hiltzik proclaiming himself a blogger when he has little clue of the term and mindset behind the term, and those that are bloggers; and Barbara Demick writing puff-pieces for a declared enemy in North Korea, they've now added Johnathan Chair to the list.
For a solid forty-five minutes, Hugh kept asking the same or simalr question in "How do you define anger?" Mr. Chair hemmed and hawed, tried to sidestep it, and spin it several different ways, but had to finally relent and admit what he thought was "anger." Narrowly defined by him, he described his frothing, seething base controlling the direction fo the Democrats party right now. Now, does this make the Democrats bad people? No more than the radical Muslims make all of Islam look bad with their continued violent protests over cartoons. However, the Democrats have shown their weakness in key issues facing this nation right now. Mr. Chair, in his piece, fails to recall her outbursts that basically handed the mantle of anger to her. From the "we have a right to disagree" screed to her recent diatribe concerning the NSA program, this woman sounds as angry and unhinged as Howling Mad Howie.
And that might be the one thing that sticks in my craw about Mr. Chait, and the LA Times as a whole: Neither are willing to admit their liberal bias, unless pushed as Hugh did with Mr. Chait, and neither are willing to admit their failings for the party they support. The Democrats in power right now are not only very angry, but extremely bitter. A string of losses at the ballot box since 1994, a complete rejection of their last two presidential candidates, and a flurry of moonbats coming out of the woodwork to slander and demonize a sitting president during a time of war will do that to a few people. The same is true for the Democrats.
The sad fact is that they still don't get the fact that their base is deserting them. The same base that was there for their forty year control of Congress, and supported presidents like FDR and JFK are slowly slipping away; alienated by a party they used to identify with. Tammy Bruce is a stunning example of this sort of defection; a woman who is socially liberal, but gets the clue bus that her party left her a long time ago. Ronald Reagan saw that too, and became the most beloved president in this nation's history. People still attempt to villify President Reagan to this day, but they can't argue with the two largest electoral landslides in the nation's 229 year existence. President Reagan had that.
This fact, I'm sure, is lost on someone as clueless as Mr. Chait. A caller reminded Hugh that the smartest liberal he has on his show is Duke law professor, Erwin Chemerinsky. This is true. Though I believe him to be wrong far more often than he is right, he is the smartest one that Hugh does have on his show. And to win an argument, he makes you work and makes you think. He is not Howard Dean, or John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton; those people are putzes compared to Erwin. So, I will give him that much credit. But he's still wrong.
Now, the interview started to go downhill after Mr. Chait grudgingly admitted that, yes, he voted for Kerry, for Gore, and for Clinton twice. His hand exposed, he went into defensive mode. You could tell by the end of the interview that he wasn't happy with Hugh, and he was doing his best to control his temper. His answers had gone from cordial to short, and you could clearly hear the edge in his voice. (This is the problem with transcripts; you don't get the first-hand view of what the caller sounded like. For me, this is key to a debate.) And Mr. Chait found the fault of his folly in thinking he could hold his ground against Hugh. (For that matter, I'd wonder if he could hold his ground against John Kerry, who proved his incompetance in three separate debates.)
The best thing I can recommend to people is quit getting the rag this man worls for. It is severely slanted to the Left in thie coverage of politics and current events. Their editorial staff, though a few were let go awhile back, has not improved. In my opinion, it's gotten worse. If Mr. Chait can't admit even that, then there's no hope. I can understand being true to an employer, but to blindly follow them over a cliff is ridiculous. And that is what he, and the others I've listed, are doing. Like lemmings playing a game of follow the leader, they're follwing thier colleagues of the MSM right over Mt. Everest.
And to those that think bloggers like Marcie and I are being tough on the MSM, you bet we are. We expect better. Hell, we demand better from the people who claim to be the purveyors of information for America. If they can't be, why bother with them. I hear and read constantly of how the MSM is dying. Good, let it. Let it rot on the vine and die. Make way for the new media who has a level of intellectual honesty when it comes to reporting and commentary. And no, the argument doesn't wash that the center-right dominates the new media. We don't, and there are equal opportunities for both the left and the right in the new media. No offense, but we're living proof. We have a constant group of readers, and we are adding more daily. We're not up the level we'd like to be, but we're doing just fine. Baby steps, folks. No one was running around the house at 1 year old, and those that were were destined to be overachievers.
Also, my suggestion to Mr. Chait and his associates at the LA Times is simple and straightforward. Be honest. Report the news, not what you think is news, or how you see the news. Report the news. Who? What? Where? When? How? Why? These are regular questions that journalists should ask, and if they're not using them, then they're not doing their job. For the opiniuons, throw in a couple of conservatives. Not conservatives like David Gergen, who's a moderate liberal, but real conservatives. The blogosphere is rife with them. From Ed Morrissey to Glenn Reynaolds, Hugh Hewitt to Charles Johnson. Choose a couple, and make them a foil for those on the Left at your paper. And no, don't outnumber them by hiring two conservatives, and keeping the rest of your op-ed guys around to gang up on them. Make it fair, balanced, and honest. You'll attract more readers, even some of those past readers, if you change up those two things. And that goes for local as well as national; Hiltzik's last swipe at the governor was foolish and clearly uneducated; he had no clue what he was talking about when he was slamming Governor Schwarznegger.
And in conclusion, I offer this up to Mr. Chait: When you decide to defend your party, know at least something about what you're talking about. The leaders of the party you choose to support and defend come off as very angry people. Ted Kennedy just about lost his mind during the Alito hearings when he challenged the authority of Sen. Specter. Al Gore has come unhinged more times than I can count, and he's a close second to Howard Dean. Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy consistantly sound bitter. Slow Joe Biden is always two steps behind, and no one seems to comprehend a single thing this man says. Dick Durbin's classless diatribe about our troops in Guantanamo Bay went beyond the pale. Hillary is right up there with them. You have a very bitter party, sir; it's pretty hypocritical to denfend their actions when you are condemning the GOP for their "antics." Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove call it like they see it. Your party seems very angry. You can try to spin it, but it will only result in getting you r head handed to you, which happened this afternoon, care of Hugh Hewitt.
Publius II
Hugh Hewitt, in an ongoing effort to show how truly worthless the "Left-Angeles Times" really is had another vict...er, contestant on his show tonight. Jonathan Chait, LA Times columnist and clueless liberal, was his newest plaything. And yes, folks, it was child's play. (I'd cite chapter and verse from this interview care of Generalissimo Duane, but as of 12:44 a.m. AZ time, the transcript still isn't up.)
I can tell you this: The man is positively clueless. After writing this positively pugnacious pap he had the guts to show up at Hugh's doorstep. This man claims that Hillary is not an angry woman, and spent the better part of an hour not only defending her, but trying to spin away from the fact that he, himself, is an admitted angry man. It took some time for him to admit this, though it was easier than Joel Stein or Michael Hiltzik, but he finally admitted that, in his heart, he's a liberal.
And I think this is one of the reasons why Hugh has people from the Times on his show. He wants them to defend what they write. He wants to show the paper for what it is, which is nothing better than a cage liner. However, I can buy filler paper cheaper than I can buy and LA Times, and I get more out of that filler paper. The LA Times is one of those papers that I am thoroughly disgusted with. I'd rather dig old newspapers out of a box from our most recent move than defame my bird's cage with this garbage. I'm sure that a common joke among some bird owners is the Times offends the bird enough that it won't use the paper.
But this is why his show is important, and when he has guests like Mr. Chait on, people need to listen. Not only does this man defend Hillary, claiming she isn't angry, and that only a minority of Democrats truly are "angry;" yes, those on the MoveOn moonbats and Michael Moore-rites, but right now those people are controlling the debate for their side. That is a point Hugh tried to drive home to Mr. Chait, but he seemed completely oblivious to it. The LA Times has had a serious problem over the last year or so. Besides Joel Stein thinking that his columns are funny when they basically insult our troops, and call into question their mission; Michael Hiltzik proclaiming himself a blogger when he has little clue of the term and mindset behind the term, and those that are bloggers; and Barbara Demick writing puff-pieces for a declared enemy in North Korea, they've now added Johnathan Chair to the list.
For a solid forty-five minutes, Hugh kept asking the same or simalr question in "How do you define anger?" Mr. Chair hemmed and hawed, tried to sidestep it, and spin it several different ways, but had to finally relent and admit what he thought was "anger." Narrowly defined by him, he described his frothing, seething base controlling the direction fo the Democrats party right now. Now, does this make the Democrats bad people? No more than the radical Muslims make all of Islam look bad with their continued violent protests over cartoons. However, the Democrats have shown their weakness in key issues facing this nation right now. Mr. Chair, in his piece, fails to recall her outbursts that basically handed the mantle of anger to her. From the "we have a right to disagree" screed to her recent diatribe concerning the NSA program, this woman sounds as angry and unhinged as Howling Mad Howie.
And that might be the one thing that sticks in my craw about Mr. Chait, and the LA Times as a whole: Neither are willing to admit their liberal bias, unless pushed as Hugh did with Mr. Chait, and neither are willing to admit their failings for the party they support. The Democrats in power right now are not only very angry, but extremely bitter. A string of losses at the ballot box since 1994, a complete rejection of their last two presidential candidates, and a flurry of moonbats coming out of the woodwork to slander and demonize a sitting president during a time of war will do that to a few people. The same is true for the Democrats.
The sad fact is that they still don't get the fact that their base is deserting them. The same base that was there for their forty year control of Congress, and supported presidents like FDR and JFK are slowly slipping away; alienated by a party they used to identify with. Tammy Bruce is a stunning example of this sort of defection; a woman who is socially liberal, but gets the clue bus that her party left her a long time ago. Ronald Reagan saw that too, and became the most beloved president in this nation's history. People still attempt to villify President Reagan to this day, but they can't argue with the two largest electoral landslides in the nation's 229 year existence. President Reagan had that.
This fact, I'm sure, is lost on someone as clueless as Mr. Chait. A caller reminded Hugh that the smartest liberal he has on his show is Duke law professor, Erwin Chemerinsky. This is true. Though I believe him to be wrong far more often than he is right, he is the smartest one that Hugh does have on his show. And to win an argument, he makes you work and makes you think. He is not Howard Dean, or John Kerry, or Hillary Clinton; those people are putzes compared to Erwin. So, I will give him that much credit. But he's still wrong.
Now, the interview started to go downhill after Mr. Chait grudgingly admitted that, yes, he voted for Kerry, for Gore, and for Clinton twice. His hand exposed, he went into defensive mode. You could tell by the end of the interview that he wasn't happy with Hugh, and he was doing his best to control his temper. His answers had gone from cordial to short, and you could clearly hear the edge in his voice. (This is the problem with transcripts; you don't get the first-hand view of what the caller sounded like. For me, this is key to a debate.) And Mr. Chait found the fault of his folly in thinking he could hold his ground against Hugh. (For that matter, I'd wonder if he could hold his ground against John Kerry, who proved his incompetance in three separate debates.)
The best thing I can recommend to people is quit getting the rag this man worls for. It is severely slanted to the Left in thie coverage of politics and current events. Their editorial staff, though a few were let go awhile back, has not improved. In my opinion, it's gotten worse. If Mr. Chait can't admit even that, then there's no hope. I can understand being true to an employer, but to blindly follow them over a cliff is ridiculous. And that is what he, and the others I've listed, are doing. Like lemmings playing a game of follow the leader, they're follwing thier colleagues of the MSM right over Mt. Everest.
And to those that think bloggers like Marcie and I are being tough on the MSM, you bet we are. We expect better. Hell, we demand better from the people who claim to be the purveyors of information for America. If they can't be, why bother with them. I hear and read constantly of how the MSM is dying. Good, let it. Let it rot on the vine and die. Make way for the new media who has a level of intellectual honesty when it comes to reporting and commentary. And no, the argument doesn't wash that the center-right dominates the new media. We don't, and there are equal opportunities for both the left and the right in the new media. No offense, but we're living proof. We have a constant group of readers, and we are adding more daily. We're not up the level we'd like to be, but we're doing just fine. Baby steps, folks. No one was running around the house at 1 year old, and those that were were destined to be overachievers.
Also, my suggestion to Mr. Chait and his associates at the LA Times is simple and straightforward. Be honest. Report the news, not what you think is news, or how you see the news. Report the news. Who? What? Where? When? How? Why? These are regular questions that journalists should ask, and if they're not using them, then they're not doing their job. For the opiniuons, throw in a couple of conservatives. Not conservatives like David Gergen, who's a moderate liberal, but real conservatives. The blogosphere is rife with them. From Ed Morrissey to Glenn Reynaolds, Hugh Hewitt to Charles Johnson. Choose a couple, and make them a foil for those on the Left at your paper. And no, don't outnumber them by hiring two conservatives, and keeping the rest of your op-ed guys around to gang up on them. Make it fair, balanced, and honest. You'll attract more readers, even some of those past readers, if you change up those two things. And that goes for local as well as national; Hiltzik's last swipe at the governor was foolish and clearly uneducated; he had no clue what he was talking about when he was slamming Governor Schwarznegger.
And in conclusion, I offer this up to Mr. Chait: When you decide to defend your party, know at least something about what you're talking about. The leaders of the party you choose to support and defend come off as very angry people. Ted Kennedy just about lost his mind during the Alito hearings when he challenged the authority of Sen. Specter. Al Gore has come unhinged more times than I can count, and he's a close second to Howard Dean. Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy consistantly sound bitter. Slow Joe Biden is always two steps behind, and no one seems to comprehend a single thing this man says. Dick Durbin's classless diatribe about our troops in Guantanamo Bay went beyond the pale. Hillary is right up there with them. You have a very bitter party, sir; it's pretty hypocritical to denfend their actions when you are condemning the GOP for their "antics." Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove call it like they see it. Your party seems very angry. You can try to spin it, but it will only result in getting you r head handed to you, which happened this afternoon, care of Hugh Hewitt.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 2:42 AM
4 Comments:
Bravo!
I especially like your very obvious suggestion of how the LA Times and other MSM outlets could change the continual downward direction of their circulation and credibility by hiring a number of real conservative journalists to balance out their reporting and bring back old readers. It is so obvious, and the LA Times is so unable to see this. The same goes for CBS and their replacement for Dan Rather.
Sounds like he's a typical clueless lib... an he's angry.
To all our commenters, readers, and friends,
First off, TY Hugh Hewitt for the link. We appreciate being recognized.
For everyone else, yes, you;re correct. The MSM doesn't get it. Bloggers do. People like Chait are willing to excuse, and passon excuses, for those that think they know better.
The problem for them is that they don't know what's better. We do, but we don't flaunt it the way they do in utter arrogance and disdain for anything that opposes their world-view. And God forbid you challenge them on their agenda-driven journalism.
We are, after all, the brain-dead masses that know nothing. Nevermind we're the ones driving and striving for intellectual honesty in debate, and they're the ones left to play with the children in the sandbox.
Yes, my lovely fiancee is correct: Bloggers rule, and the MSM drools. LOL.
Thomas
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