Paul Rosenberg: Metrize the Morons
PR:
Open Left:: Metrize the morons: [David] Brooks has long been famous for his imaginary sociology.... The usual way that hack pundits operate, I thought to myself, is by deciding on some argument, then throwing together some scattered facts--perhaps relevant, perhaps not, toss in an annecdote or two, add some cliches, and voila! You're done. Brooksie, however, styles himself a cut above... and so he resorts to his own style of exotica, the imaginary sociology that he's so famous for... the facts aren't scattered, they are carefully tended in the garden of Brooksies own mind--or perhaps transplanted from a select network of trusted nurseries.... We ought to be able to metrize them somehow--to distinguish the various different orders of remove from reality. And not just them. We ought to be able to do this with all of our rightwing friends.... I realized why this item in particular might have struck me with force, when other, earlier absurdities from Brooks had not. I had a pre-existing condition. I was still floored by this from TPM:
Bachmann: Repeal The Senate To Undermine Socialist 'Obamacare' (VIDEO): Brian Beutler: No House majority likes to see its accomplishments buried in the graveyard of the Senate. That's why Republicans, who cherished the Senate's anti-majoritarian rules for the last two years, are already complaining about how their plans to repeal the health care law have just run into a dead end. The logical solution to this problem, of course, is filibuster reform, unless you are Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), in which case it's more repealing of things. Specifically, Bachmann wants to repeal President Obama and the Senate and replace them with something more sympathetic. "This is not symbolic, this is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill," Bachmann said on the House floor Wednesday afternoon....
Bachmann, like Brooks--but in a very different way--takes the normal sort of conservative disconnect from reality, and gives it her own distinct super-charged boost. That's what was still rattling around in my subconscious, bothering me. We need a way to get a better handle on these things. What you can't measure, you really can't do that much about. We need a way to metrize these morons...
