Combatting Nonsensical Pundit Wankery

When I’m confronted with fact-challenged idiocy from the punditocracy, I like to pretend it is coming from Sam the Eagle of Muppet Show fame. 

That stuffy, "I know far more about this than you." tone of voice reciting factually inaccurate drivel just fits.  Especially with its ponderous tones of solemn disapproval for anything outside his realm of comprehension, making Sam the perfect voiceover for Beltway Brahmins and ill-informed wingnuttery.

Give it a try with any columns from Bill Kristol.

“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Guess it all depends on your definitions of "serious," "respected" "conservative" and "intellectual"? Or what you think of the value of "factually accurate" or "honest" or "integrity" as words which are rarely if at all applied to what your newest columnist writes.  But hey, it’s only the largest editorial platform in the country so why should anyone give a crap, eh, Mr. Rosenthal?

Or, give the Sam the Eagle treatment to the latest High Broderism effort.  As I said to Prairie Sunshine in the prior thread, allowing all of these "leaders" to attempt penance after they ran screaming away from the Gingrichification or the Atwater/Rovification of political dirty trickery within the Beltway when their leadership really could have made a difference?  Not high on my list of priorities at the moment without delving a lot more deeply into their individual motivations. 

That Broder doesn’t bother to ask a lot of critical, skeptical questions about this either — let alone why they have waited so long to speak up, given the last 7 years of Bush Administration failures and aggressive unilateral executive power grabs?  Not nearly good enough.  (Personally, I find this Attytood smackdown from last year to be a particularly amusing palate cleanser after that read.) 

Or  apply Sam the Eagle to whomever else earns some mockery henceforth.  Just a little hint on how to make politics fun again…

Related posts:

1. David Brooks, the Red Queen Pundit, High on Health Care Costs
2. The Wankery of Solomon
3. Late Night: A Passel of Petrified and Pathetic Pinheads
4. Late Night: Maybe One Sign Your Intellectual Movement Is in Trouble Is You Have to Keep Asking If It Exists, Or, Festoon Me, Won’t You?
5. Late Night: Brainnnssss…