It’s my distinct pleasure to have Charlie Pierce as our guest today. Welcome, Charlie!

Charles, Welcome to the Lake.

Watertiger, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Welcome to Firedoglake – we are huge fans of yours, Charles.

The thanks are mine, Bev!

And, yes, he figures out how to work the Intertubes!!!!!!
Whoo-hoo.
Nice to be here in the cool of the shade along the shores of the coolest lake in the land.
And, as old Lyndon used to say, let us continue…

Greetings Mr. Pierce, Hi watertiger.

Are we all bozos on this bus?

I’m just waiting for the electrician….
..or someone like him.

SWEET!

Charles, one of the things that resonated so loudly to me was the concept of the Three Great Premises; i.e. perception is reality:
1. Any theory is valid if it moves units.
2. Anything can be true is someone says it loudly enough.
3. Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.

How do we extract ourselves from this “perception is reality” paradigm? Is there a way out?

Ah, crap. Does that mean I have to get a perm?

“Nearly every day for the past four years, those lyrics have resonated in my head when I’ve scanned the daily headlines or watched the news.”

Which was worse, the lyrics or the media?

WT, I’ve given that a lot of thought and the best answer I can give is that we, as citizens, simply have to do better at self-government. We have to distinguish between entertainment and information. Our powers of discernment have to be sharpened. And, it should be said that, at many of its highest levels, my business has fallen green-room-over-teakettle on this very question. Any journalist who accepts “perception is reality” as axiomatic is committing professional malpractice. Our job is to hammer the reality home until the perception conforms to it.

I have to choose?

Okay, we need to know. Who’s the dumbest, more idiotic network/cable anchor? And is there a useful scale e.g., from idiot to not that bad we can use to rate these people and warn our children?

Paging Marshall McLuhan to the white “WTF” courtesy phone…

It sounds like a very tall order, weaning the country off the “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ infotainment addiction.

Welcome to FDL this afternoon Mr Pierce! I first discovered your thoughtful prose when you were with the Herald.

I was a strong supporter of the Bateman/Pierce ticket (up to the point of, you know, actually voting for you or giving money).

When did you decide to write Idiot America? Is the Republic a lost cause?

I’d keep your young children away from all cable news. I believe that certain states have child-endangerment laws to that very effect. I mean, these are very big fish in very small barrels here but, overall, I’d have to say that, even in partial retirement, Brit Hume gets my vote.

brouhaha…hahaha… antelope expressway, 2 miles.

What about the blogs? Are we helping or just making noise (or making it worse). Half the time we’re ranting about the MSM coverage and half the time about our counterparts on the right. Where do we find another half to make it better?

As a technical note, there is a “Reply” button in the lower right hand of each comment. If you click the reply, it will identify the comment/commenter to whom you are replying.

(Makes it easier to follow the conversation)

‘fraid so, with a girdle on the side

Hi Charlie,

You’re from Worcester! Me too. I knew you back in the day – when the Duke first ran for governor.

I’m looking forward to reading your book!

Good luck with it!

Well, there ARE studies out there showing how plopping your infant/toddler in front of the idiot box has seriously negative effects on his or her IQ.

I realized after the original Esquire piece ran (November, 2005) that the subject was something around which a lot of the work I’d been doing since 2000 could coalesce. The contempt for expertise. The disorder in public thought and public discourse. The lassitude through which nonsense could leach into the public life. There had to be, I think, consequences for believing nonsense. I think there were.
I am a patriot and an optimistic one. I love the fact that this country is the best ever devised for being completely out of your mind. That’s how we got Little Richard and Jackson Pollock. We just need to recapture our sense of relative value.

I was luke warm about (the future) Pres. Obama until I read Charles Pierce’s article about the Cynic and Senator Obama. Still not entirely convinced about Obama – but am convinced that Pierce is one of the best writers in American today.

The “completely out of your mind” American Crank plays a major part of “Idiot America.” Two major characters in your book are James Madison and Ignatius Donnelly, author of “Ragnarok” (the Erich von Daniken of the 19th century). Where in your research did you have that “Eureka!” moment, the point at which you realized that Donnelly was Madison’s doppelganger?

IOW, we ARE the grownups

I do think the blogs are a bit obsessive on the subject of high-profile television meat puppets, which is not to say that this is altogether bad. Those folks can do a remarkable amount of damage. But, by and large, I certainly think that the blogs I frequent are quite valuable, and that started when I began reading Somerby on the 2000 election and realized that he was right, and that everybody I was watching on TV — EVERYBODY — was wrong.

I look forward to reading your book!

News programs are now posting the most popular youtubes of the day and actually spending time sharing them. What a waste of precious news time.

It seems that the left is so busy fighting off the slings and arrows of the outrageous right like say on Obama’s Cairo speech, the left doesn’t have time to really play devil’s advocate and critic and pull at him to go left. Chronic defensiveness of the left to the right still lets the bloviators pull everything to the center or beyond and lets Obama off the hook to give “easy gives” to the left and appease the status quo elite.

Welcome to the Lake, Charles. We are great fans, hate to miss Slacker Fridays if we can help it.

A Great Understanding came over me as I pondered the Three Great Premises and realized they are the causes of my cultural vertigo, especially numbers 2 & 3. I literally would feel like I was turned upside down when listening to people say things like We are a Christian Nation and The founding fathers were devout Christians and You moron, Catholics aren’t Christians. Over the last few years I suppose I’ve grown more accustomed to it, but I still don’t always recognize the country as the place I’ve thought it was for years.

We had one of those school boards a few years ago, where there were stealth ID candidates who never said boo about it during the campaigns but end up trying to change the curriculum and texts books. Fortunately, we were quick to dis-incumbent them before they could do any permanent damage.

Charles — so great to have you here at FDL. Please do many more books. This one had me laughing out loud and spewing coffee on myself every time I picked it up. I soon learned to make your book a “drink free zone.”

Bless you.

If you had to pick the worst offender in Idiot America, who would it be?

oo I LOVE to hate Brit Hume. I immensely enjoy the Foxy News AllStars.

Little Richard and Jackson Pollock? What’s wrong with Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs?

Seriously, the BIG question is, did we blow it? Is it fixable or too late? What are the signs?

Right from the start I wanted Madison to be part of it, because he really is the most underrated of the Founders, as well as the only guy ever actually to overthrow the US government. The more I read of him, the more I realized that he was the guy throwing out the great dare — here’s the chance to prove thousands of years of government wrong. Do it. Don’t do it. But don’t say we didn’t give you the chance.
When I came upon Donnelly, I realized that, in his own mad way, he had taken up that challenge and that, unlike our own modern cranks, he’d done so without demanding prima facie, conventional respectability.

Also, don’t read it on the NYC subway, unless you like unwanted attention. Also.

/Sarah Palin

Tough call.
I think anyone who looked at Obama and saw anything more than a slightly-left-of-center D politically was fooling themselves. I wonder, though, whether or not the usual poo-flinging from the other side is having any effect. It’s being called out as somewhat comical, and the problems he’s facing are so great, that the entertainment value of politics may well be waning, thank God.

I once listened to a book written by a bodyguard to the stars about how to look after your personal safety. In doing so, accurate perception of danger is key. One of the recommendations to avoid getting scared when there is little danger is to stop listening to local news. So, no cable news to avoid becoming an idiot, no local news to avoid becoming excessively frightened. What’s left? Do I have to read the NYTimes, or is even that not good enough?

These days, I think most Americans would think that “The Federalist Papers” was either a communist rag or a brand of rolling papers.

To be fair, all of us.
In the book, I point out that the people who built, and who attend the Creation Museum are not IA. IA is a collective act of will on the part of all of us, as a culture and as a self-governing republic, to allow nonsense to have consequences far beyond the reach of simple ridicule. My god, George Bush, who you’d need the jaws of life to pry off that damn ranch of his, flew back to Washington to sign the bill meddling in Terri Schiavo’s end of life journey. No R — or D — who involved themselves with that should walk down the street without people pointing after him and laughing. We have it in our power to demand better government and better media. We always have.

Lou Dobbs’s problem is that he’s a crank with his own TV show. That drift into the mainstream is what devalues him as a crank. He plays a character.

If you want to have loads of fun, quote contradictory passages on the rule of law from the Federalists and the anti-Federalists to someone in the Federalist Society hierarchy. And then point out that since both persons quoted signed off on the Constitution, there is inherent tension and room for interpretational argument about what individual passages mean.

And then stand back and watch the sputtering begin. It’s fun at parties.

By the way, Charles, I enjoyed your tracing of WLAC to the Civil Rights movement and from there to being the anti-septic right wing world of today.

I’m one of those folks who went to sleep at night with the sound of John R on the radio.

Read a lot. Read everything you can. When people ask me how the country got euchred into the Iraq war, I point out that the info was out there if you cared to find it. The Beeb. el Baradei. Blix. The McClatchy guys in DC.

I envy you.
Did you buy baby chicks?

Aren’t they all just playing a character? Does Hannity really believe all the venom and bullshit?

But the idiot factor re the Cairo speech … whereby he is being accused of being unAmerican by communicating with Muslims, whereas some people wonder why Egypt, why Saudi Arabian leaders who are anti-human rights are the so-called (and so not) moderate countries we are buddying up to, not to mention Israel with Gaza. And he talked tough with Israel about Palestine but no one in press mentioning that $3 billion still goes to them every year.

People running around yelling the sky is falling. Accusing him of being a socialist when many think he is so not socialist enough.

And the bright shiny object the press follows is what the wingnuts are saying.

And Rove on the WSJ as commentator and respected guest. What a freakshow.

Cheney given such deference after the monstrosities he has committed still given the bully pulpit.

(ps when you spoke of the electrician I thought you were doing Firesign Theater from way back when)

Welcome, Charles. Is this the first time we’ve had you back since you judged the Joe Klein contest for us?

PS love the book.

On a serious note, I can’t make heads or tales of the news about subjects I know little about until I read a book or two on the subject, and that’s just for starters. Newspaper articles are simply not substantive enough to read without any background.

And now, for people under 25, books are resorting to comic books in order to sell. I think they’re called graphic novels or some such. Those people are lost forever, imo.

You discuss at length the blurring of the separation between Church and State with Kitzmiller and the Creation Museum as two examples. Is it possible to convince Americans that this isn’t a good thing and (IMO) we really shouldn’t have an Office of Faith Based Initiatives in the federal government?

And fess up. Did you sit on the dinosaur?

One of the House Reps who wanted the 10 commandments posted but then couldn’t come up with even 4 of them on Colbert.

Those guys were a lot smarter than we are, and they also were a bunch of disputatious bastards. But there seems little question to me that their main goal was to create a space within which popular self-government could operate then and, most importantly, into the future. Madison was obsessive in describing the reasons other republics had fallen.

No baby chicks. But I can still recite the ad for Randy’s Record Shop, the LARGEST mail-order record shop in the World!

I believe Hannity fundamentally believes what he says. His rhetoric may be charged because of the genres in which he works, but I’ve never seen any indication that he doesn’t.

I anticipated your answer. I was typing my 47 while you were typing your reply to my 36.

You mean the stunt ranch he no longer needed when he wasn’t playing “President Cowboy” any more?

Oh you are a fun Gal!!!!

During the Dark Ages that were the Bush years, I thought the right-wing leaders’ rejection of reason/science was due to plain vanilla anti-intellectualism. Now I see it served two purposes–getting them to the result they wanted, which if ever subjected to empirical testing would have been “unpossible”, and second, it appealed to their base.

Do you think the American public is still vulnerable to that strategy? I’d like to think once the scales fell from our collective eyes, it couldn’t happen again. But that’s more of a wish than a hard fact…

I wonder if Jonah Goldberg is crying into his fruit cup.

So have you been to the Creation Museum and do you describe it in the book? Because I’m in Cinci a lot and every time I go down there I consider going, but then realize that they charge $20 or something like that, and only an idiot (or a journalist writing a book) woudl pay that much.

But still.

Second question first — of course, I did. (No photos to prove it, alas.)
I think that the acceptance of the notion of “faith-based” things by the Democrats is one of the most distressing things that’s happened over the last 10 years. Read JFK’s speech to the Southern Baptists ministers some time. That was in 1960, and we’ve slid so far backwards in our politics since then.

Absolutely — so was Jefferson. For some real fun, read through the back and forth letters between Jefferson and Adams — especially as they got old and cranky and far more honest with each other as they went. They had a real commitment to civic participation that we have allowed to wither far too much the last few decades.

One of the things I constantly ponder is how to jumpstart that participation and agitation bug again in the national consciousness. And I’ve yet to come upon a good, broad-based solution.

You’re mean. Mean in a way I’m totally supportive of. But mean.

Why did the ENTIRE press corps support that ranch mythology? Once again, access? BBQ leftovers? That documentary Crawford busted that by showing the nearby parking lot and it was a schoolyard, right, where an old barn was that the reporters liked to report in front of. BYOS (bring your own sagebrush?)

First of all, congratulations on the award, and on the great, great work yo’ve been doing.
Pay the money once and go. It’s a hoot, and the petting zoo is really quite nice.

I rarely listen to him, so I can’t really condemn him, but back during the Schiavvo days I heard an MP3 clip of him off-mic telling two pretty chickies he was about to interview that Oh, no, of course he didn’t believe all the religious-right rhetoric about how she should be allowed to live, he actually thought she should be allowed to die with dignity but hey, this is show biz, and it’s a great show, and they will look pretty on camera.

That’s why I assume he’s full of it about everything.

The Midwest resents your use of our national game to describe being suckered into the Iraq War. Can you call it “rummied” into war, maybe?

I have had my fill of Adams, thank you very much. He was a royalist and a paranoid and Abigail was the best damn thing about him. Alien and sedition this, pal.

If you can figure that out, you should be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Or at least the Preznitial Medal of Honor.

Oooh!! A petting zoo. I’ll tell them you sent me.

Pinochled?

I don’t recall that, but I do recall him coaching Iyer, the nutty nurse, on what to say when they came back, and saying that he “really hated” the people on the other side.

Setback!

Dammit. No photographic evidence.

If emptywheel goes, I’ll go. And we can take pictures of each other on the dinosaur.

The fact that it has an English saddle KILLED me!

I think we’re getting a little better at it. The Sotomayor nonsense seems not to be having too much of a material effect on her nomination, and climate change seems to have a far bigger constituency than it has in years. I believe, however, that the anti “elitist” trope is still damned effective. Without it, Glenn Beck wouldn’t have a career.

You see, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether or not my colleagues were doing their jobs.

So what’s been the reaction to the book from the idiots? Any reviews epiphanies from the right you’d like to share?

Hmmm…not sure he does in the way that we traditionally mean “believes.”

Hannity thinks he’s in a zero-sum game and believes in the righteousness of his cause, which is essentially himself. In his mind, anything is fair if it advances the ball. He has no trouble making arguments against an opposing team he would never apply to his own. In his mind, that would be just as insane as telling the ref that the five yard penalty call he just made in your favor was wrong and you’re not going to take it.

His belief system appears to be wildly inconsistent and hypocritical until you understand the rules of the game he thinks he’s playing.

The answer to that appears on the talk shows every Sunday morning. It takes until Tuesday to stop weeping for one’s country.

Oh, and thanks for the kind words. And for joining us here our swamp. Somehow I knew you’d fit in.

The demonization of education is truly disturbing.

I don’t deny that the primary cause of most of these guys is their own self-advancement. The one thing that stuck out to me at the talk-radio conference I attended was that nobody was there to learn anything except how to run a better talk show. That said, I have no doubt that Hannity and those like him have constructed a world-view that requires whatever intellectual defense they can muster. That’s close enough to belief for government work.

Better thank you. I’m a transplant to the Midwest, but protective of the Euchre tradition as only a convert can be.

Did you really say the Rabbits resembled a fraternity much the same way a SWAT team resembled school crossing guards?

Bro!?

I’ll meet you next to Moses’ hideout.

My friend Kip Hodges pointed out that scientists had done a lousy job of explaining themselves, and I agreed with him. However, there was when I was growing up a consensus that, as the stature of Emil Faber in Animal House would have it, knowledge is good. My father and I couldn’t have been further apart politically, but I never had an indication from him that he thought what I was learning was bad for me. I think as we get more distant from those first immigrant generations, we take education awfully for granted.

Uh-oh.

That is unfortunately a very old tradition in this country. It was really big in the last Gilded Age as well.

The Noah portion is the one to meet in. Much more room.

But what happens when the idea-planets in their world views-universe collide? How do you justify being, say, anti-choice and then talking about how you were glad you “chose” to have your baby? See: Sarah Palin.

I have a friend who listens to Glenn Beck religiously. I don’t understand it. She and her DH are my window into the nuttisphere. I, OTOH, watch Rachel religiously and that is where I saw you last!

Excellent! I’ll be graffiti-ing the Ten Commandments with snippets from the Constitution.

You simply explain that the word “choice” means something different when you use it. I am not saying that Jane’s taking-one-for-the-team argument is wrong. (I make it myself toward the end of the book.) I’m just saying that, if you make such a comfortable living at it, and do so for long enough, the difference between what you say and what you believe necessarily narrows to the indistinguishable.

Taking on the likes of would-be soapbox stars such as Jonah Goldberg (whose Liberal Fascism Pierce describes as having been “written with a paint roller”),

good writers make a person think, and Charlie Pierce has already achieved that goal

now I’m thinkin jonah the doughy pantload would probably suck as a house painter too

which would kinda make my comparison of jonah to hitler invalid, cuz I’ve never heard it said that hitler was a lousy paper hanger …

Leave the Commandments alone, dammit.
They have enough trouble on ABC every Easter.

On the other hand, annotating them with a bit of “Render unto Caesar” might be a bit appropriate in this case.

A passage from Scripture surprisingly little used in our modern faith-based national dialogue. (That stuff about rich men, heaven, camels, and the eyes of needles is a little rusty, too.)

Another of my favorites. I do truly believe that the good Rabbi Yeshua would be more than a tad disconcerted by what goes on in his name.

the petting zoo is really quite nice.

Do they have Dinosaurs? I think I’d like that.

“Moses has words. Pharaoh has spears!”

Sadly, no.
To coin a phrase.

Cronyism is a big factor in the dumbing down process, too, wouldn’t you say? And the authoritarian follower stuff. Not just the “gut” feeling stuff. Loyalty to whatever bilge your team is spouting. Even the torture issue. People will take a stand for their team, no matter how sociopathic it goes. Defending torture. Codependency on steroids. People admired Bush for a long time, for his loyalty, praising someone even as they were doing the “perp” walk.

“Moses, Moses, you mad impetuous fool!”

I think distinguishing cronyism from loyalty is a very important thing to do and one that our previous president, alas, failed to appreciate.

Can you expand on that?

Are you working on another book (we hope) and what’s it about?

“Are her lips red like pomegranates?!”

Okay, I’ll stop. Following up on libbyliberal’s point, how did we get to be a country of Gut-listeners?

Not only is Charles Pierce funny in his columns, the bits of IA I was able to read at B&N were loaded with wit. I’ve ordered it for the Wasilla Library, where they could use it. And this thread is hilarious. What a book club!

Mr. Pierce, which of the more likely 2012 GOP prez candidates now in play will most likely connect with their idiot america base and pull through?

Having spent almost all of my life in Massachusetts, I think that cronyism is a system within which merit ceases to be a factor. It is pure quid pro quo. This may involve loyalty, but, often, it does not. Josiah Royce once wrote famously about what he called “loyalty to loyalty,” namely, that we should act loyally to the principles of loyalty, even at the expense of people who might be our friends. Cronyism lacks a kind of moral center. It’s purely a transaction and, you will note, that in a government, cronies are the first ones over the wall when it hits the fan.

Charlie, this is an intimidating thread, LOL.

I have a theory that as society grows ever more complex, it places a higher premium on journalists/bloggers who can make legitimately difficult issues accessible to a wider audience.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Judge Jones had, I think, the best lesson of all:

You can’t take your eyes off the ball.

We did take our eyes off the ball. To watch TV; but there is no Constitution Channel. (Well, maybe C-SPAN some days.)

Can’t do that again.

PRAISE GOD AND DOWN INTO IT!

But there is a condescension, too, among the liberal left at times, a snarkiness, that does rile the right, does it not?

Or is the rage and defensiveness these days, the grotesque anti-intellectualism, a carryover of bitter C-students who want to hoist fellow C students (a/k/a Bush, et al.) on their shoulders to greatness?

William Buckley Jr. was their answer to revenge condescension, exquisite vocab like Spiro Agnew, on the right.

And Ronald Reagan was their saint in being ‘just plain folk” especially from his stint as the Old Ranger on Death Valley Days. And W played the Reagan card.

Oh, BRAVO, sir!

Maybe Palin will look to burn that copy, too.

I think it was always there, and, at very important times, treating experts skeptically could have been very important. (Tragically, had LBJ listened to his gut and not to the Bundy brothers on Vietnam, the world might have been a very different place.) But to exchange intellect and reason entirely to emotion and reflex, and to have smart people act as though they’re doing it, is where the wheels come off.

Tell the Wasillans I’ll come up and sign it.

three answers in one response:

to this:

I’m just waiting for the electrician….
..or someone like him.

I’m kinda like an electrician, here hold these two wires …

and to this:

Ah, crap. Does that mean I have to get a perm?

when he wakes up, get those two wires from him …

and to Elliott, in response to his query:

Are we all bozos on this bus?

I’m not really a bozo type clown

I’m more a “Frowny the Clown” type

so ya might have to change your census numbers, or sumtin

(duckin & runnin)

an I jes wanna say thanks to watertiger and Mr Pierce for helping defend our Nation from the idiotocracy

I think there’s a difference between condescension and snarkiness and, frankly, if people want to take their intellectual insecurities out for a walk, that’s not my affair.

Seb is going to want serious linkage for that Sadly No!

Are you scheduled to appear on Colbert or TDS?

Like the difference between enabling codependency and “tough love” honesty to get self-helpy.

And “cronyism” and exploitation of the “good soldier” chain of command mentality, used on Powell, factoring in his weakness and opportunism.

I feel like all of Congress is joined at the hip or ankle in terms of this accountability coma. With FISA. With torture. With Gitmo closing. With credit card. Or the political class pre-empts any serious bonding with the lower classes even in one’s own constituency. Then again the political class won’t use “tough love’ honesty on an obtuse constituency. Using the obtuseness of the constituency as a rationalization and excuse not to vote for justice and sanity.

By the way, hello to anyone who’s come over here from la Casa de Atrios. And thanks to the Blue Fella for the hitch.
Also, I note that the flying monkeys seem to have landed on my Amazon page. If I can be so bold as to say, Avengers, assemble!

They know where I work, too.
Uh-oh.
Nothing booked on TDS or Colbert yet. When Wait, Wait won the Peabody last year, we got ours at the same lunch as the Colbrt folks, and they couldn;t have been nicer.

Oh dear, monkey poop everywhere!

Atrios’ love is a double-edged sword. So let it be written…

Hiya, GeorgeJohnston!

I couldn’t agree more. Historians are going to be throwing pies at each other for years on why Powell just couldn’t have sucked it up and said no. I mean, before he ever went to the UN, he knew he was being fed unsourced malarkey, and he knew how and why he was being used. (Cheney, it was reported, told him that Powell could afford to lose a couple points off his poll numbers.) That’s why I take his current apologias, and those of Larry Wilkerson, with a couple tons of salt.

Actually figuring out who has the experience and credentials to be CALLED an expert is a job journalists utterly failed to do during the Bush Dark Ages.

Quoting someone with a ABBA-RU (All But BA from Regent U) on the dole at AEI with the same seriousness as tenured faculty at an accredited university published in peer review journals bordered on criminal neglect.

What NobleJoanie said. You cite Andrew Cline’s study of the media that pretty much summed it up: Treat Americans like they’re stupid.

It worked.

My father who was college educated, in Europe as a 1930s expatriate no less, began to get “The Plain Truth” in the late 1960s. He was an engineer and loved technological progress, the latest and greatest devices but, I suspect, that he also probably did not believe in evolution. He was always a Republican but became more and more conservative as he grew older. Why he got that fundamentalist evangelical magazine I never understood, especially since he wasn’t religious. He died in the mid-1990s and I will never know how he would have reacted to the highwater mark of the conservative tide – the Terry Schiavo case.

I’ve pretty much given up on the Catholic Church. The underpinnings are enough to give anyone pause, but the episodes with Teri Schiavo, denying the Eucharist for political purposes, criminal cover-ups of pedophilia, the election of an astonishingly conservative Pope, and worse, supporting the denial of medical care by health care providers because you consider “them” or the Rx. offensive or immoral should have anyone brought up in the church out the door. From centuries of caring for the sick to Fr. Damien, this is the last straw.

Given the Church’s political leaning towards conservatives (who are also in decline) does the Church get better, or suffer the same fate?

I know Jenny McCarthy is an expert on autism because Oprah told me so.

You got that right.
I would suggest that everyone dig up a copy of Tim Crouse’s “The Boys On The Bus” and read it. Every single problem with the elite political media — pack work, false equivalence, the inability to call bullshit for what it is — that drives so many of us craxy today is present there, and that book was written in 1973. Not that much has changed. (The blogs have helped correct the balance, but not nearly enough.) There is no goddamn good reason why, say, David Gregory’s opinion on, say, climate change should be taken with any more seriousness than that of Owen, the bartender at my local. None.
Not for nothing, but did anyone watch The Belmont? I’m not near a TV.

Anybody who gives Amity Schlaes the time of day has automatically lost all credibility.

Really good Newsweek piece on Oprah and her quackery this week, BTW.

Not for nothing, but did anyone watch The Belmont? I’m not near a TV.

The call to the post is just being sounded

That would be cultural history, indeed. I’ll get back to you, Charlie, you betcha!

Nary a mention of Madison from the local tea bag aficionados. Their ideal of the founding fathers is very father figure-oriented.

Most on topic comment yet.

Two thousand American lives later, remember the beginning. One commentator quite plainly made the case that every few years or so, the United States should “throw a small nation up against the wall” to prove that it means business. And Idiot America, which is all of us, cheered.

Above brilliantly said! Great writing, Mr. Pierce! And this:

Idiot America is a collaborative effort, the result of millions of decisions made and not made. It’s the development of a collective Gut at the expense of a collective mind. It’s what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and not merely do we abandon the right to punish them for it at the polls, but we also become too timid to punish them with ridicule on a daily basis, because the polls say they’re popular anyway. It’s what results when leaders are not held to account for mistakes that end up killing people.

I was distressed to hear of Bill Clinton and W so civilly and respectfully chummy on a stage in Canada, speaking of taking one’s ego out for a walk. They both congratulated each other on their good moments and ignored the horrifying. Ego and greed and professional courtesy?

And they got a standing ovation as protesters, God bless em, collected outside. There was even a cathartic shoe-throwing booth. But media reported more on the inside non-debate than the outside truth-demanding.

Corporate media won’t report to America statistics of protestors. Like the media in Fahrenheit 451.

As a semi-practicing RC myself, and one for whom the Church was the family business — two priests for uncles, including a Jesuit — and as a Jesuit-trained student myself, I despair for the institution of the church, but take heart in the fact that not many of us pay much attention any more to bureaucrats in red beanies. As Garry Wills is fond of pointing out, Blessed John XXIII and his Council declared that the church is made up of the entire People of God. I do believe, however, that there is a strong faction within the Roman bureaucracy that’s dying to create a schismatic American church that it can strike down, no doubt with the enthusiastic endorsement of Robert George and the crowd at Crisis Magazine.

I’ll look for that.. wait, “really good Newsweek piece”.. I don’t think I have ever seen those words arranged in that order.

Journalism became a glamorous profession after the Woodward & Bernstein movie. And J-School taught them all the same tricks of inattention.

I completely agree about David Gregory’s opinion.

The cover-ups of torture so remind me of the Church cover-ups. To go on so long and to inspire such intimidation. And the cronyism of the cover-ups.

That sort of falls into the same category as “Liberal Fascism,” doesn’t it? Tailored revisionism for a niche audience.

I only read the books she endorses.

OTOH, at least she encourages people to read. Sadly, it’s often feel-good pablum like “The Five People You’ll Meet in Heaven.”

Charlie, do we know if she’s a Mason?

[/runs out of the room]

Hi, back, WT! Long time no see!

…failed to do during the Bush Dark Ages.

I like to refer to it as the Bush junta in light of his penchant for corruption, cronyism, torture and his fondness for wearing military uniforms.

I went to J-school — it was unaccredited at the time, so I guess I’m OK — and fell under the spell of a dean named George Reedy — the former LBJ aide who wrote “The Twilight Of The Presidency,” which everyone should read — and he immunized me against the worst of what was being taught. I can tell you though that the whole concept of “objectivity” was drilled into you endlessly and, at best, it makes for a fairer press. At worst, alas, it makes for incomprehensible mush and enabled nonsense.

Unfortunately she keeps popping up all over my TV being treated as though she actually had any kind of credibility. Almost as annoying as Megan McArdle.

I’m not telling you.

She has credibility because she represents “the other side.”
I always go back to Krugman in these discussions — “Experts divided on shape of world.”

Ted Rall was very disappointed that Bush was limited to two terms, just because he had so much fun with his Generalissimo character.

Pretty much nails it, doesn’t he?

I do not agree with Ted that Obama should resign.
I do not think I am alone in this opinion.
Yeeessh.

Charles Pierce (July 14, 1926 – May 31, 1999) was one of the 20th century’s foremost female impersonators, particularly noted for his impersonation of Bette Davis.

Learn something new every day.

That really pretty much captures the entire Bush Preznitcy. He was just a little kid playing dress up with no fucking clue what he was doing and throwing a hissy fit anytime he didn’t get his way.

Uh-oh. Does that we have Zombie Charlie Pierce here?

I may finally catch that guy on Google one day.
Kid, I tried to get a series of editors to let me go and write about him. One of the great disappointment of my professional career.
Anyway, this whole project here may have been in vain:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..te-change/

Holy Jeebus on a soda cracker.

My father was a political writer and journalist but no j-school (except a Neiman year in ‘59). He is the reason I have always thought the “liberal press” was just a result of all the research they did into what they wrote about for us. Of course you are a liberal when you know the whole story!

Re Colin Powell, who was it who said, “He was the ONLY one who could have stopped it!” Bush and his military record (?) and Cheney with his string of deferments. Powell was the CLOSER for the Iraq war. Powell’s cred was so manipulated. And there he is today, making Memorial Day speeches to the families of troops who have died. Is that about amends or consciencelessness?

I was . . . at a loss . . . for things to poke fun at after 1/20/09. I learned to cope without resorting to such drastic measures. ;-)

“Holy Jeebus on a soda cracker.”
Can’t wait to use that one. Prolly today.

I hope it’s amends. I truly do.

My uncle was one of the boys in Boys on the Bus. He covered economics not politics and took his job very seriously so perhaps he was less guilty.

First rule of journalism should be: Consider the source. The information is only as good as that. If you can’t explain why the information is credible and reliable, you’re simply a stenographer, as John Nichols and Bob McChesney have been saying for years.

Oh, they’re out there. And you can even poke some fun at the Obama obsessives, if you like.

nj –
Without outing yourself or the uncle, what campaigns did he cover?

Climate change is due solely to cow farts. John ‘Crybaby’ Boehner told me so.

Yeah, well, Abigail had some Alien and Sedition going on too.

Boy, it’s a treat to meet you. I wait for Slacker Fridays.

His last president was Reagan. Began with Johnson right after the Kennedy assassination.

I’ll be sure to tell the folks in Shishmaref that.
They’ll stop packing.

Yeah, me, too. But the people he is comforting, have drunk the kool-aid. Wouldn’t understand the EXTENT they and their children, siblings, parents deserve amends.

The denial in America. The refrain, “Well, we can’t let all those thousands have died in vain.” (not factoring in a million Iraqis which is a lot NOT to factor in… sadly)

He saw him some history there.

Or try the first rule of anthropological interviewing: trust but verify. Cross check everything you learn to determine if it is true, accurate, and you actually understand what it means.

Beat it into the heads of my students when I teach the research methods course.

Nice of you to say.
Don’t forget. For all his shyness and hypochondria, it was little Jemmy Madison who landed the hottest babe in DC.

Charles, thanks so much for being here. Can’t wait to read your book. Are you working on the next one?

WT, I will never forget “dressage saddle-wearing dinosaurs” – simply made my day. And English saddles. thanks.

It is actually belches, not farts that are the problem. Further confirmation of the reliability of Boehner’s expertise.

I think rule number two for political reporters is to learn, fast, that because all issues are influenced by politics, they are not all political issues. It doesn’t matter that there is a powerful political movement dedicated to climate change denial. It doesn’t even matter if that movement is so successful that we have seafront property outside Terre Haute. The fact that one side got more votes doesn’t…change…the…facts. It’s like that sentence from the NYT that I quote at the top of the book, calling Intelligent Design “a politically savvy challenge to evolution.” God-a-mercy that’s bad journalism.

That was a seriously frightening part of your book. For those who haven’t read IA yet, Shisharef is a coastal village in Alaska that is being rapidly swept in to the sea, thanks to global warming. You know, which doesn’t really exist.

I don’t know what the next project will be. I went right from one book to the next on this one so I may take a break. I doubt it will be polemic, though. I like the books to be different.

Climate change is due solely to cow farts. John ‘Crybaby’ Boehner told me so.

He’s just building on the Reagan legacy. Trees are the major source of air pollution.

And, to be fair, the people in Shishmaref, when I was there, long before she hit the big time, were very fond of Sarah Palin, who did some serious stepping-up on their behalf, or so they thought.

Molly Ivins was a great fan of his. I never really saw it, but sometimes I bow to expertise.

More of that he said, she said bullshit that poisons our reporting. They seem incapable, or at least unwilling, to dig around to find the facts or to weigh and evaluate evidence.

And I a great fan of Molly’s, god be good to her.

How much of this lousy journalism can be attributed to newspapers’ shares being publicly traded?

A nice course in statistical methods would help journalists. For instance, they might then understand when a scientist says there’s a 99% chance the earth’s temperature will rise beyond a point where most things can live before 2100, you can bet the farm on it. That doesn’t mean that because there’s a one percent chance it might not go that way you the journalist should give equal time/column inches to those who disagree for political, not scientifically sound, reasons.

How do you keep your sense of humor, not go nuts with all the fresh hells served up by Idiot America you unearth … de-regulation, de-legislation, undoing of the common good … such momentum and horror? Remember Mort Sahl dove so deeply into the horrors and ironies and catch-22s politically his bitterness (they say) detracted from his success as a commentator. George Carlin kept on growing with his awareness for sure, role modeling and courage and go for broke of Lenny Bruce helped. (That was Carlin and Lenny Bruce, or do I have the wrong comedian?) Anyway, is there a tipping point?

Mark Twain with his War Prayer. That was so brilliant and that one was not going for laughs, but truth. But brilliant irony.

A lot of them are trained by editors who don’t know any better. One of the great systemic flaws in American newspapers is that, long ago, it was determined that becoming an editor was a promotion from being a reporter, without taking into account the radically different skill sets involved in doing either one correctly. A great editor is a blessing from above, and I’m lucky enough to have had several. I can’t edit. I’m terrible at working within another writer’s voice. What happens when you take a great reporter and make him an editor is that you lose a great reporter and usually gain, at best, a mediocre editor.

Ah, before she was lured to the lower 48 by the siren call of the RNC…

I saw something the other day on how journalism has moved away from beat reporting so that reporters get routinely shifted around from one thing to the next and never develop the knowledge and expertise need to really evaluate what they are being told. What is your take on that, Charlie?

And I a great fan of Molly’s, god be good to her.

Do you have any pull with the Pope? Can you get her nominated for sainthood for coming up with “Shrub”?

Can’t disagree. Took one myself. Still a bag of rocks when it comes to math, but it helped.

Oddly, for years, people criticized the concepts of beat reporting. People got stale, they said. So the pendulum swings both ways, I guess. Now, the disrespect newspapers have for the institutional memory of veteran reporters, that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

Not this pope.
He hates my shoes.

I went to J-school — it was unaccredited at the time, so I guess I’m OK

an yer countin on that to protect ya ???

I’d sacrifice some chickens, or rake some rocks for a few years, or sumtin like that, just to be certain

what’s next, are you gonna tell me the tin foil doesn’t help ???

(wink)

btw, I’m not really an “avenger”, I’m more of a “nukuler” option, so don’t hold my absence amongst yer defenders as a slight to you. If ya really need to use me, Marcy has the codes …

that’s a yes

we ain’t as dumb as we look, or act, or the best testing indicates …

I still try to be a generalist in my work. I started out in dailies writing sports, and I still try to do a couple pieces of year there. My work at the Globe Magazine goes all over the lot. Here’s this week’s cover, BTW.
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…..mments=all

Can’t really say. There are a couple of obscure corners of US history that intrigue me, though. Probably go for one of those.

I say we nuke ‘em from space. Just to be sure.

So let it be written.
So let it be done.
(Ben-Hur on TCM this afternoon, wt! “Goats and Jehovah!”)

(And speaking of current Norts Spews -
Summer Bird with Desormeaux up
Dunkirk
Mine That Bird)

btw, I’m not really an “avenger”, I’m more of a “nukuler” option, so don’t hold my absence amongst yer defenders as a slight to you. If ya really need to use me, Marcy has the codes …

heehee

Thanks for that
Morel’s still had a helluva month, though.
Close race?

Of course you are a liberal when you know the whole story!

seems to me that lately, the definition of “liberal” has devolved into meaning “People with ETHICS and common decency”

and btw, objectivity without ethics leads to the worst of human behavior

so maybe the “J” schools should work on that

“or so they thought”

Yes, you’ll def need to catch a re-play

god, I loved the chariot races.

Charlton Heston probably would’ve hated “Idiot America”.

The man stood up and went to the March On Washington when a lot of Hollywood liberals were hiding under the couch.
That always made me forgive him for the NRA stuff there at the end.

Well, not towards the end, bless his heart.

Hated it?? He helped create it. That whole “pry it out of my cold dead fingers” schtick? Puh-leaze!

Seems things have changed now that she has national ambitions.
Unpossible!

As we come to the end of this great Book Salon,

Charles, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book. We really enjoyed it.

Watertiger, Thank you very much for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, this is a must read book, if you haven’t bought a copy yet, here is a link.

Thanks all.

Fair enough…though I really couldn’t forgive him for “Earthquake”.

Charlie, thank you SO much for taking the time to chat with us. It was a blast. I hope it was informative, as well. Also.

it only works on individual trolls

even then, I leave radioactive personal insults and residual laughter all over the thread

I’m kinda like a lawyer, once ya use me, I really make a huge mess

it usually ain’t good to send me after a whole group of freepers

I couldn’t find moderation with both hands an a big map …

It’s been a joy. Thanks to Jane and Bev and WT and all the folks. Also thanks to anyone who bopped over and confronted the flying monkeys. Y’all do great work, and that’s including Mr. Bogg who was too damn busy tanning this afternoon to stop by. Get him, Beckham!
Best to you all.
cpp

Really glad you could join us today – best of luck with your next book or project.

Looking forward to a great read. Thanks for being here!

somebody should have warned you about givin us a chance to make a reference to a Monty Python skit:

HE SAID JEHOVAH

(throws stone)

you probably dint expect the Spanish inquisition, did ya ???

It goes back further than that. Her claims that her husband is Native, though marginally true, are totally specious. She is an assimilationist, who really does believe the pointy edge of the cultural war spear is held by folks like Franklin Graham.

see ya on da funny pages …

(thanks)

you probably dint expect the Spanish inquisition, did ya ???

I think of this line often. Who knew that line would resonate so loudly at this point. Pythons no longer hyperbolic.

Jane’s Silo is upstairs!
Now They’re LOSING Votes: Jim Moran Will Vote Against the Supplemental

Atrios sent us over. Thanks for letting us crash your party, firepups!

And thank you, Charles Pierce. Looking forward to reading your book.

Thank you so much Mr. Pierce, and the effervescent watertiger, this was grand.

And you, too, Bev.

It’s Cynthia Kouril upstairs!
The SEC Civil Suit Against Countrywide’s Mozilo: Why You Need to Know About “Parallel Proceedings”

Agh! Sorry I missed this, Charles … hope all is well. Your book is winging its way to my home now …

I’m afraid “distinguishing between entertainment and information” won’t be enough. For one thing, the lines between the two are increasingly blurred, for better or ill (and IMHO Jon Stewart does the best analysis on TV right now, so this may not at all be a bad thing in terms of reaching people and getting “the message” across).

But beyond that, INFORMATION is NOT KNOWLEDGE. Only when received information is put into context, and connections are drawn between new facts and previous understanding, i.e. when information is processed, analyzed, critiqued, and mutually adapted into larger frameworks can true understanding ensue.

That kind of deep contextual understanding is a function of a sound liberal education. Unfortunately, as everything in our culture has been re-defined to serve profit margins and the bottom line, as information itself becomes just another commodity, understanding has–like so many other elements of a healthy society–fallen by the wayside. As long as education continues to become more and more merely a commodity that the consumer student can purchase on his or her way to greater profits of his own, the trend of mistaking information for knowledge will continue to worsen. To the detriment of democracy and the greater good, and other “unprofitable” values . . .

I look forward to reading this book, but I fear I may lose interest when there is absolutely nothing in it that surprises me. In the end, it is quite depressing to either read about or deal with people for whom being idiots is a proud achievement.

As a former teacher who taught in rural areas in New Mexico and Washington, as well as in urban and suburban Colorado, I’ve been fully exposed to the brilliance of both our adults and the children we’re dooming to idiocy in our schools. My short career came to an end when I accepted the fact that neither the students or parents or administration were interested in genuine learning.

When I left teaching, I had resigned myself to the hopelessness of revitalizing the US. There is no way our current levels of stupidity and ignorance will allow us to prosper in the future.

Unfortunately, “Idiot America” is a book that will be ignored by the idiots.

Or try the first rule of anthropological interviewing: trust but verify. Cross check everything you learn to determine if it is true, accurate, and you actually understand what it means

My son, currently a print journalism major @ USC, so loved the little ditty he learned at Northwestern’s summer program for high school journalists:

“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

No no no no! Cribbage is the game of the Midwest!

Or, as BB King sang, “Nobody loves me but my mother and she could be jiving too…”