Daily Howler's Bob Somersby - some DUMB postings!

Imploding culture watch: Hardball’s school for stupid!
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

A very bad, very dumb man: Joan Walsh played some Hardball last night. More on that below.

But first, let’s consider something Chris Matthews said during Tuesday night’s opening segment. Let’s understand why he said the very strange thing he said.

Matthews devoted that opening segment to the problem he called “Obama derangement syndrome.” First, he discussed the man who heckled Obama on Monday night—though he didn’t seem to know what the man had said, and he didn’t have the right part of the videotape ready to show.

Matthews is seldom prepared on the facts—but he’s always prepared on the narrative. That explains the weird thing he said about Wayne Lapierre’s latest statement.

Lapierre is head of the NRA. Last week, he made an absurdly stupid claim about Obama. After vouching for Lapierre, Matthews played tape of his statement, then made a peculiar comparison.

Matthews spoke with Ron Christie, a Republican spokesman. To watch the full segment, click this:
MATTHEWS (9/27/11): Well, here’s something—another strain of the crazy far right. Here’s the National Rifle Association’s Wayne Lapierre—and I’ve known this guy a long time. I’m astounded by this new accusation that the president is leading some conspiracy. Anyway, here he is, Wayne Lapierre, head of the NPR [sic]—not National Public Radio, National Rifle Association, at the conservative conference in Florida last week. Let’s listen to Wayne Lapierre of the National Rifle Association.

LAPIERRE (videotape): The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment. But it’s a big, fat, stinking lie! It’s all part—it’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country! Before the president was even sworn into office, they met and they hatched a conspiracy of public deception to try to guarantee his reelection in 2012.

MATTHEWS: You know, I got to tell you, again, Ron. This—the language, “lie," "conspiracy.” It’s almost like, I don’t know, Lincoln talking about what was going on in the Civil War below the Mason-Dixon line! I mean, this is Civil War talk about a president of the United States!

RON CHRISTIE: Oh, come on, Chris. Look—

MATTHEWS: Well, yes! Look at what he just said.
Lapierre’s statement was patently crazy. In this post, Steve Benen described it as a “self-parody,” then explained the obvious motive for such an absurd set of claims. But Matthews never got around to explaining how stupid Lapierre’s statement was. Instead, he made a peculiar comparison: Lapierre’s statement was “almost like…Lincoln talking about what was going on in the Civil War below the Mason-Dixon line!”

Huh?

Why did Matthews make this peculiar comparison? It has to do with the comfort food he’s currently serving the troops. To please his gullible liberal viewers, Matthews is trying to turn every such statement into race war against Obama. He especially likes playing his Civil War cards, no matter how strained they may be.

In this case, his weirdly strained comparison didn’t seem to make any sense; it led to a pointless exchange of culture-war insults with Christie. But it’s obvious why Matthews said what he did—it’s obvious, and it’s stupid and ugly. But then, Matthews has always been like this, even when he was making up ugly shit to please his past owner, Republican honcho Jack Welch, the man who made him wealthy.

This brings us back to what Joan Walsh said about Matthews’ past approach to Bill Clinton. When we saw her on Hardball last night, we finally realized what she must have meant in her recent statement about white liberals and Obama. For our previous post on this topic, click here:
WALSH (9/25/11): In terms of media, today's progressive media infrastructure didn't exist during the Clinton presidency…Salon came to national prominence to defend the president from the GOP witch hunt, but our writers and editors divided over Clinton's various achievements and disappointments. On MSNBC, liberals Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews helmed a lineup that was hugely critical of Clinton (today Matthews is one of Obama's leading defenders, while Olbermann, once a passionate supporter, has left both MSNBC and the Obama camp). The New York Times editorial pages, helmed by white liberal Clinton critic Howell Raines and featuring (once-liberal) Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, savaged Clinton and Al Gore. White progressives at the Nation attacked Clinton harshly on NAFTA, welfare reform and his Wall Street-friendly economic policies, while defending him from impeachment, much like Salon.
Good lord! Walsh’s probable meaning is so absurd that it didn’t occur to us at first. But she probably meant that Matthews was “hugely critical of [President] Clinton” because he, Matthews, was such a big liberal! Within the context of her overall column, this put Matthews on the side of gods. It showed that he, as a major white liberal, was willing to criticize the white Democratic president!

In this case, the story is ever better. In Walsh’s construction, Matthews criticized the white Democratic president—but he’s supporting Obama, who’s black!

One part of Walsh’s statement is true, of course. Matthews was in fact “hugely critical” of President Clinton. After that, he spent two years savaging Candidate Gore in the ugliest, most dishonest ways possible. This had nothing to do with being a liberal. There’s no way on the face of the earth Joan Walsh doesn’t know that.

(Matthews spent the next seven years trashing Hillary Clinton.)

Last night, Walsh played Hardball again. Her lying has kept her alive. Her country stays uninformed.

Timesday: Old times there are now forgotten!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Trend story/Times-in-the-South: The New York Times has long been mocked for its inane, unfounded “trend stories.” Jack Shafer did a million such pieces in his time at Slate.

This morning, the famous paper may have presented the most absurd such effort in its storied history.

“Southern Charm Is Alive, but Ailing.” So Times readers are told today, in a tease beneath a photo out on the paper’s front page.

The photo shows several couples dancing. Everyone seems to be twelve years old. The girls are all wearing white gloves.

The potential for dumbness is apparent in the front-page photograph’s caption: “Students in Augusta, Ga., learn ballroom dancing, but others lament lapses in civility.”

Eagerly, we turned to page A16, just as the caption directed.

Is this the dumbest “trend story” the Times has ever produced? “A Last Bastion of Civility, the South, Sees Manners Decline,” the on-line headline says.

Manners are slipping in this whole region? We were eager to see how the Times was able to document this latest trend! Of course, since the Times was talking about “those people”—those people, the ones who live in “that region”—the rules of the game were clear. Kim Severson’s analysis of the region’s manners had to start with an odd racial hook:
SEVERSON (11/2/11): One August night, two men walked into a popular restaurant attached to this city’s fanciest shopping mall. They sat at the bar, ordered drinks and pondered the menu. Two women stood behind them.

A bartender asked if they would mind offering their seats to the ladies. Yes, they would mind. Very much.

Angry words came next, then a federal court date and a claim for more than $3 million in damages.

The men, a former professional basketball player and a lawyer, also happen to be black. The women are white. The men’s lawyers argued that the Tavern at Phipps used a policy wrapped in chivalry as a cloak for discriminatory racial practices.

After a week’s worth of testimony in September, a jury decided in favor of the bar.

Certainly, the owners conceded, filling the bar with women offers an economic advantage because it attracts more men. But in the South, they said, giving up a seat to a lady is also part of a culture of civility.
Did the men sue the bar for the three million bucks? Or did the bar sure the men? Whatever! In fairness, this opening hook was a bit odd for the Times-in-the-South, since it wasn’t abundantly clear that “those people” were committing an outrage against the presumptive good people.

Severson had found a slightly odd way to begin her tale of a region’s decline. But as she continued, she let Times readers know that hers was a scholarly effort:
SEVERSON (continuing directly): At least, it used to be. The Tavern at Phipps case, and a growing portfolio of examples of personal and political behavior that belies a traditional code of gentility, have scholars of Southern culture and Southerners themselves wondering if civility in the South is dead, or at least wounded.

“Manners are one of many things that are central to a Southerner’s identity, but they are not primary anymore. Things have eroded,” said Charles Reagan Wilson, a professor of history and Southern culture at the University of Mississippi.
"Things have eroded!" And you knew it just had to be true. You see, a professor of history and Southern culture was telling us this tale!

Times readers must always be told that what they are reading is highly intelligent—a bit of a cut above. In this case, Times readers were told that they would be reading about the musings of “scholars.” But who could possibly believe the claim which made for Severson’s hook? Does the Tavern at Phipps case really have scholars of Southern culture wondering if civility in the South is dead?

Even professors can’t be that witless! Just a guess: If you can believe the improbable claim around which Severson builds her story, the New York Times has a twelve-week subscription it’s willing to sell at half price!

Manners in the South are eroding! As she pretends to document this claim, Severson treats New York Times readers to some of the silliest work ever seen in this silliest newspaper. Before long, she's leaning on the greatest crutch known to the writer of trend stories. Severson is letting us know what “some say” about this vast trend:
SEVERSON: Some say the South’s great cities seem to be losing civility faster than country communities, where stopping to ask for directions can still end in an invitation to supper.

Too many outsiders trying to escape the pressures of life in bigger cities have migrated to Atlanta and Birmingham, said Saahara Glaude, a media specialist whose clients include some members of the Martin Luther King Jr. family.

As a result, reliable affinities once based on race or religion are gone. “It used to be that an African-American could trust an African-American down here,” she said. “Those days are long gone.”
Some say it’s worse in the cities! And blacks can’t trust blacks in the South any more! We know that because one person said!

In the future, on-line dictionaries will link to this piece in their entry for “anecdotal.” Consider the strength of the evidence provided to Times readers here:
SEVERSON: Dana Mason, who teaches second grade in Birmingham, says manners have been at the lowest level she has seen in her 36 years in the classroom. Parents who move South tell her they don’t want their children to learn to say “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am.” Too demeaning, they say.

But she and others point out that manners are on the slide everywhere. Mrs. Mason blames a faster pace of life and the demise of the home-cooked family meal.
It isn’t just in the second grade! Manners are on the slide everywhere! And yes, we do mean everywhere. Once again, we know that what follows is true because one person said it:
SEVERSON: Civility is also waning at that most civil of events, the Southern wedding. How comfortable a bride made guests feel was once the mark of a successful event. Now, weddings are more selfish affairs, said Barbara S. Clark, the owner of An Elegant Affair in Raleigh, N.C., and a graduate of the Emily Post Institute.

“It’s more about the bride and groom and what are we going to get out of it,” she said.
“Life in Charlotte is not as pleasant as it once was,” we’re later stupidly told. As evidence, we’re told that, although the city's crime rate has dropped, some people got arrested at a NASCAR event. And this happened just six months ago!

This sort of nonsense goes on and on. This has to be one of the dumbest reports ever put in print, even by the Times. On the plus side, self-impressed subscribers get treated to a real easy-reader, served to them under the guise of scholarly inquisition. By now, though, you’re probably asking a question:

What about those scrub-faced kids at that ballroom dancing class? Aren’t they at least learning good manners? And that’s a question we asked ourselves as we plowed through Severson’s nonsense.

Severson’s story gets major play in the Times. It’s the featured report in the newspaper’s “National” section. And those white-gloved kids are smeared all over the paper. They’re shown in that photograph out on page one—and they’re shown in three more photos inside the paper, including a large, color photo at the top of the “National” page.

(You can see all the photos in this slide show. The slide show carries a comical title: "Civility on the Brink.")

Photos of those kids are everywhere. But Severson plows on and on, talking about lawsuits in bars, greedy brides and second-graders who won’t-say-ma’am, without citing the scrub-faced kids who litter the paper. Until we hit paragraph 37, out of 41 total:
SEVERSON: Keepers of Southern civility maintain that manners will always be a defining characteristic of the region.

One of them is Dorothy McLeod, 70, of Augusta, Ga., who has spent decades teaching thousands of children ballroom dance and etiquette through her program, Social Inc.

Mrs. McLeod attributes the slide of civility on the stress of families with two working parents and children who have not been held accountable for their actions.

But she is undaunted.

“I will not give up,” she said, firm in her belief that Southerners still want to raise children who are kind and well-mannered.

“They must,” she said, “or my classes wouldn’t be full.”
McLeod, the last of Augusta's Mohicans, simply refuses to throw in the towel. With that, we get a happy ending to a big bag of post-journo fail.

Presumably, no one was “hurt” by this big bag of dumb—by this most absurd of all trend stories. Sure, the nation’s IQ may have dropped a few points. But somehow, we’ll struggle forward.

But your nation’s top paper is just dead-dog dumb. We couldn’t help observing this fact as we leafed through this morning’s edition. And a modern nation really can’t function if its “elites” are this dumb.

Coming in today’s other posts: Several more big bags of dumb

CULT OF DUMB: Timesday reveries!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Interlude—Wondrously dumb: Whatever else one might say for the New York Times, it’s clearly our dumbest newspaper.

It’s performance today is so wonderfully comic that we think it deserves feature status.

We’ll therefore postpone part 3 of our ongoing series, in which we’ll see how the liberal world responded to the Washington Post’s latest bomb—that gruesome report on Sunday’s front page about the Social Security system.

Today, let’s enjoy an odd interlude. Let’s examine the comical work which is marbled all through Gotham’s Times.

Additional posts to follow.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Part 3—Your side can’t explain and has failed: Can we talk?

The mainstream press corps simply [HEART] the sexy-time Herman Cain sex chase.

We know, we know: Sexual harassment is not about sex! Except it is—for the mainstream press! Just consider the way this sexy-time tale has played in the New York Times.

This morning, Cain sits at the top of the Times front page. But then, Cain has sat at the top of page one for three consecutive days now! These sexy-time, three-part headlines have all appeared at the top of the Times front page this week. We’re looking at our hard-copy newspapers as we type them up:
Tuesday, November 1:
CAIN CONFRONTS CLAIM FROM 90s OF HARASSMENT
HE DENIES WRONGDOING
New Media Whirlwind Becomes Exercise in Damage Control

Wednesday, November 2:
CAIN ACCUSER GOT A YEAR’S SALARY IN SEVERANCE PAY
CHARGE OF HARASSMENT
Candidate Played Down Outlay by Restaurent Group He Led

Thursday, November 3:
CAIN SAYS PERRY IS ORCHESTRATING SMEAR CAMPAIGN
ACCUSES AIDE OF LEAKS
Denial by G.O.P. Rival—Third Harassment Case Is Reported
Long lists of reporters’ names adorn these thrilling sexy-time tales. The Times has pulled out all the stops to get you the full information. Compare this to the lazy, desultory attempts which were made to explain the Cain/Perry tax proposals and you see the way the balance of interest swings toward sexy-time tales.

(Sorry: Toward important news stories in which the press corps addresses key issues involving the rights of women!)

The post-journalistic cabal called the press corps adores these sexy-time tales. Last night, on our liberal cable channel, Lawrence O’Donnell spent the vast majority of his hour chasing this sexy-time tale all around. Earlier, Chris Matthews devoted about one-third of his program—the first one-third—to this same sexy-time topic, even though he burned two later segments trying to sell his new book.

“The third woman. Let’s play Hardball,” Matthews said as he started his program. Just so you can enjoy a good laugh, this is what this big nut said as he introduced his first guests:
MATTHEWS (11/2/11): We’ll get to the latest with the allegations against Herman Cain, but we start with this big foreign policy blunder this week.

Howard Fineman is Huffington Post’s editorial director and David Corn is the Washington Post (sic) bureau chief for Mother Jones. Both are MSNBC political analysts.

We’ve got to get to this new development here tonight, Howard. How do we weigh the fact this third woman—and now we’re getting to me a graphic depiction, at least, of what one woman is saying. “He offered—he asked me to go to the company apartment.” I’ll read, it’s on the— NBC News hasn’t independently confirmed these allegations, but let me read what the Associated Press is reporting late this afternoon...
Too funny! Chris “started with this big foreign policy blunder”—until the lure of "a graphic depiction" made him forget what he said! For the record, no one has spent more time tugging his dinghy while limning such sexy-time tales than this big socio has. And no, we haven’t done any deletions in that transcript. To watch that comical Hardball opening, go ahead—just click here.

Fineman and Corn knerw they mustn't laugh at the funny thing Matthews had said. For the record, Matthews harassed (liberal) women all through the Clinton-Gore years (and beyond), although the “liberal world” never complained. Now, he’s appalled by such conduct!

The mainstream press and our own cable channel are in love with these sexy-time tales. They devote big time and big reportorial effort to running down every detail. But when it comes to the biggest policy issues—the topics which define the shape of American life—a very different culture obtains within this small, stupid mafia. Just look what happened when the Washington Post ran that top-of-the-front-page report in this Sunday’s paper (click here).

Lori Montgomery did it again—she pushed the standard disinformation about Social Security’s impending failure. Let’s be fair: Some of her report was even accurate, or at least it was technically accurate—but all of her report was grossly misleading. Needless to say, Montgomery’s piece rated three headlines, just like Cain’s sexy-time tales:
Sunday, October 30:
Social Security adding billions to U.S. budget woes
‘CASH NEGATIVE’ MILESTONE CAME EARLY
Fearing backlash, parties reluctant to pursue fix
Montgomery’s report got a very big spread. The report itself ran almost 2500 words. Inside the paper, it was accompanied by a large, sprawling graphic.

Montgomery’s report was grossly misleading. It worked off various misleading frameworks which have been completely standard over the past thirty years. There was nothing new about what she said. It has all been said many times in the past, confusing tens of millions of voters over the past several decades.

And how sad! When this standard disinformation piece led the front page of the Washington Post, your thoroughly hopelessly “liberal” team didn’t know how to discuss it!

Paul Krugman is, by far, our smartest, most important player. It isn’t Krugman’s “fault”—not at all—that the “liberal” world has never developed a way to discuss this particular topic. A sensible person can’t expect Krugman to solve every policy and/or rhetorical problem. In the past dozen years, Krugman has been our team’s most valuable journalistic player by a good strong country mile.

But here’s the way Krugman critiqued that piece. This critique, by our smartest, most valuable player, just massively/totally fails:
KRUGMAN (10/30/11): Social Security Bait And Switch, A Continuing Series

Dean Baker is angry at the Washington Post for spreading disinformation about Social Security. He’s right, of course—and it’s shocking that a well-known fallacy is the subject of a “news analysis” that purports to inform readers.

You see, the WaPo makes a big deal of the fact that Social Security is currently taking in less in payroll taxes than it’s paying out in benefits. Yet this means nothing, except as a favorite point used to create confusion by those who want to kill the program.

I’ve written about this repeatedly in the past, but here it is again: Social Security is a program that is part of the federal budget, but is by law supported by a dedicated source of revenue. This means that there are two ways to look at the program’s finances: in legal terms, or as part of the broader budget picture.

In legal terms, the program is funded not just by today’s payroll taxes, but by accumulated past surpluses—the trust fund. If there’s a year when payroll receipts fall short of benefits, but there are still trillions of dollars in the trust fund, what happens is, precisely, nothing—the program has the funds it needs to operate, without need for any Congressional action.

Alternatively, you can think about Social Security as just part of the federal budget. But in that case, it’s just part of the federal budget; it doesn’t have either surpluses or deficits, no more than the defense budget.

Both views are valid, depending on what questions you’re trying to answer.

What you can’t do is insist that the trust fund is meaningless, because SS is just part of the budget, then claim that some crisis arises when receipts fall short of payments, because SS is a standalone program. Yet that’s exactly what the WaPo claims.

This is what you call negative journalistic value added.
That explanation isn’t “wrong.” It’s something worse—it’s useless. You could never use that explanation to help average voterS understand what’s wrong with that Post report. It’s muddled, murky, wonky and geeky—unlike the carefully crafted talking-points which have produced the massive confusion upon which Montgomery drew.

As a way of informing regular voters, that explanation is a big gigantic fail.

This isn’t an indictment of Krugman; it isn’t his job to solve every problem faced by the liberal world. It is an indictment of that “liberal world” over the past thirty years. It’s an indictment of Dionne and Robinson and the people populating the “liberal journals.” It’s an indictment of Corn and Walsh and the rest of the clowns who kiss the keister of Matthews. It’s an indictment of the new Josh Marshal, who plays the fool and stuffs bucks in his pants. It’s an indictment of Chait and Ezra and the rest of the children who never get too far out of line in pursuit of good jobs at good wages.

It’s an indictment of the whole charade in which you’ve been told that you’re represented within the press. But more than anything else, it’s a failure. That post is an epic fail.

Thirty years into this nasty campaign, your side has wallowed hard this week, enjoying the fun of those sexy-time tales. The New York Times has spared no resources as it tries to run down the truth. But how amazing! After thirty years of disinformation concerning the Social Security program, Krugman’s hopelessly wonky post was the best your side could do. And it was a massive fail.

No, this isn’t Krugman’s fault. By light-years, he has been our most valuable journalistic player. But that post is a fruit of the culture of dumb—even though our self-impressed tribe is much too dumb to see it.

Tomorrow: The eds can’t imagine—again!


Test score watch: Bungling the SATs further!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Who needs summer school now: Now they’ve even started to cheat on the SATs!

So says the New York Times, which reports that some students have hired brighter folk to take the SATs for them. One kid even got arrested!

In its report, the Times describes the lazy security protocols which have governed such affairs until now. This recalled a recent Times editorial, at which we mordantly chuckled.

“Ways to Prevent Cheating,” the headline said. As they began, the editors described the way New York State is toughening up its own testing procedures:
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (9/21/11): Ways to Prevent Cheating

The Board of Regents took an important step this month when it directed the New York State Education Department to develop a plan for eliminating glaring weaknesses in the state testing system. As a first move, the Regents voted to require that state tests for third through eighth grades be given on the same day all over the state. And, from now on, teachers and administrators will have to certify that they have received and will follow the same administrative protocols.

The state is relying ever more heavily on standardized exams to make schools accountable for student performance. The Regents exams now determine whether high school students can graduate, and the yearly tests in elementary and middle schools are used in decisions on how schools are run. In coming years, teachers will also be judged, in part, on how much their students improve on state tests. Given their growing importance, the tests have to have better security measures than exist now.
Sad. Cheating on standardized tests has been an issue for decades. (We wrote columns on this topic in the Baltimore Sun—in the late 1970s!) In New York itself, questions were raised about various testing practices all through the last decade. But the editors of the New York Times kissed the ass of their billionaire mayor, applauding his brilliance, singing his praise and enjoying free booze at his parties. When Gail Collins ruled this roost, she mocked the rubes who were raising those questions—the rubes who turned out to be right.

The paragraphs we have posted speak to a sad dysfunction. Had it really never occurred to anyone that teachers and principals have to follow standardized “administrative protocols” in administering standardized tests? This represents a failure of the state board—but also of the Times itself. The Times likes to talk a good game on these topics. But its own board has slumbered and snored in the face of those “glaring weaknesses.”

Then too, we thought of the letters the New York Times published about this year’s SAT scores.

Average scores dropped a bit this year, even as student participation grew to record levels. Anyone would understand that average scores may tend to drop if more students take part—anyone but the Times and its far-flung correspondents. The paper basically missed this bone-simple point in its news report on the scores. It then published this unfortunate column by E. D. Hirsch, which bungled the point even further. (For our previous posts, click this.)

The Washington Post explained in detail about the way growth in participation might tend to affect average SAT scores. But this bone-simple factor escaped the Times. And then, they published these letters.

The letters appeared beneath this headline: "How to Stop the Drop in Verbal Scores." That headline extends the sense that the drop in scores means that something is going wrong. In fact, the drop in scores may reflect nothing beyond the fact that many more students were tested.

There’s nothing “wrong” with those four letters, but we were struck by the sample the Times selected. Surely, someone must have written the Times to alert them to life as it’s lived on the planet—to let them know how tricky it is to use average SAT scores as a measure of the student population’s progress.

Everyone has always known that the SAT isn’t made for that use. Everyone has always known that, except the New York Times.

Our public school students are very dumb, our biggest newspapers like to cry. When we read complaints of that type, we try to consider the source.