Sadly, Stephens may have it right!

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2023

Meet the Bidens: Concerning Joe Biden's latest docs, Bret Stephens may have it right. 

He and Gail Collins begin their weekly New York Times "Conversation" by discussing those latest docs. Sadly, Stephens may have it right at the end of this exchange:

STEPHENS (1/23/23): Hi, Gail. We discussed President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents last week, but here we go again, with another batch of documents turning up in his Delaware home. Your thoughts?

COLLINS: Sigh. Bret, I don’t think Joe Biden’s story resembles Donald Trump’s at all. Trump piled up tons and tons of documents under the theory that the term “classified” was less important than the term “souvenir.”

Biden’s seems to me like a genuine one of sloppiness that was reported to the authorities by the president’s own lawyers. But I can’t deny this is a very, very disappointing development.

STEPHENS: For the sake of argument, let’s assume the documents are about nothing more serious than what he had for breakfast back when he was vice president. It still seems to me there are two really troubling aspects to this story. First, that the White House suppressed it before the midterms and then for two months after.

COLLINS: Agreed.

STEPHENS: And second, that Biden thought he could get away with saying that there wasn’t a problem because the documents were locked in his garage. It’s a case of ethical misfeasance compounded by political malpractice.

COLLINS: I am not gonna try to excuse any of this, Bret. But it still doesn’t compare to Trump’s deliberate massing of classified documents and then trying to hide them from authorities. Which, I’d say, is a crime.

STEPHENS: I’ll reserve judgment till we learn what the two special counsels have to say.

Collins says that Biden's situation "seems to me like a genuine one of sloppiness." Stephens says he'll reserve judgment until more of the facts are in.

(Stephens also cites two aspects of the Biden story which he finds "really troubling." Collins says she agrees, at least with the first of the two concerns. Concerning those particular matters, we pretty much don't.)

In our view, Trump behaved in very typical ways with respect to his classified documents. Here's what we mean by that:

On this morning's Morning Joe, Charlie Sykes explicitly referred to Trump as "a narcissistic sociopath." His hosts didn't seem to realize that Sykes was using explicit clinical language of a type which might sensibly be discussed with a (carefully chosen) medical specialist.

We've long assumed that Donald J. Trump is seriously disordered in some literal, clinical way. His behavior with the documents seems to be the type of behavior in which such a disordered person would predictably engage.

Key point! Even with the latest discovery, the sheer number of Biden's classified docs (now something like 25) doesn't come close to matching the number of Trump's (325). 

Still, regarding Biden's documents, we'll offer this classic bit of advice: 

Call no man "sloppy" until all the facts about his behaviors are in! 

More specifically, all Democrats should hope that none of those documents have anything to do with the absurd behavior around the world of President Biden's disordered son, Hunter Biden—a disordered person whose loving father persistently failed to rein him in.

President Biden has sometimes seemed to display peculiar beliefs about the greatness of the people he calls "the Bidens." Presumably, everyone has a blind spot or two. This may be one of his.

We close with a small caution flag:

In the colloquy we've posted, Collins seems to assume that the events of this matter won't end up breaking bad. 

We have no reason to think that they will. We also don't know that they won't.

Also, this lingering matter: Who was the source for Maureen Dowd's poisonous column in August 2015 about what seemed to be the late Beau Biden's last words?

Dowd's column, which cited no source, was used as the source of an Amy Chozick news report at the top of the front page of the Sunday New York Times. Along with other high-profile journalistic oddities, the widely discussed column and the corresponding front-page report helped soften Candidate Clinton for the eventual kill. 

President Biden has said that he wasn't the source of Dowd's poisonous assertion. As we've learned about Hunter Biden's deeply unfortunate afflictions, we've begun to think that we might have some tiny idea who was.

We aren't saying that we know. We're saying we've learned how to guess.

STARTING TOMORROW: Disengaged elites!

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2023

With respect to the feature film, Tár: Tomorrow morning, it's going to happen!

A critically praised feature film—Todd Field's Tár—will receive an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Picture. The film stars Cate Blanchett, playing the role of (fictional) composer and conductor Lydia Tár.

To what extent has Tár been critically praised? We'll let the leading authority on the topic do our talking for us:

Tár premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022, where Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, before a wide release on October 28, by Focus Features.

For Field's work on Tár, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named him Best Director of the Year, and his script Best Original Screenplay, as did the National Society of Film Critics, with Blanchett winning Best Actress from the same groups. Tár was selected Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics, becoming only the seventh film in history named as such from the nation's top critics' groups, the so-called "trifecta." Tár was named "Best Picture of the Year" by more critics than any other film released in 2022...

At the 80th Golden Globe Awards in 2023, Blanchett won Best Actress in a Motion Picture–Drama, while the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture–Drama and Best Screenplay.

Tár didn't win Best Motion Picture at the Golden Globes. That honor, such as it is, went to Steven Spielberg's autobiopic, The Fabelmans.

It's also true that Tár wasn't a favorite of every high-end critic:

At the New York Times, for example, co-chief critic A. O. Scott included Tár in his list of the year's ten best films, placing it at #6. But co-chief critic Manohla Dargis didn't include it in her own list of the year's ten best. Indeed, Dargis didn't include Tár among the 24 other films from the past year she said you should "make sure to watch."

Tár wasn't loved by every high-end critic; presumably, no film ever is. That said, it was showered with critical praise at the time of its release and during its theatrical run. That same leading authority offers this additional overview concerning the critical consensus:

On Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 283 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads, "Led by the soaring melody of Cate Blanchett's note-perfect performance, Tár riffs brilliantly on the discordant side of fame-fueled power." Metacritic...assigned the film a score of 92 out of 100, based on 59 critics, indicating "universal acclaim." 

Based on reviews by 59 critics, Metacritic judged that Tár had received "universal acclaim." But in one other arena, the widely-praised film seems to have done less well. The leading authority tells us this about gate receipts from Tár's theatrical run:

The film, in general release and about to be released internationally, has to date made 6.3 million dollars...

The New York Times estimated the total budget of the film at $35 million and argued that Tár and similar highbrow films "failed to find an audience big enough to justify their costs." Some commentators attributed the poor box office performance to the film's subject matter alienating a general audience, while others noted a larger trend in art house releases faring poorly during their cinematic runs following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jut to be clear: according to Box Office Mojo, Tár's current take in domestic theaters stands at $5.9 million. The figure cited by the authority includes some early overseas receipts.

At this point, let's be fair. It's certainly true that the covid pandemic has altered moviegoing habits in a way which may never be undone. 

It's also true that you can't measure the quality of a feature film by the amount of money it generates at the box office. If moviegoers didn't show up in large numbers for Tár, that doesn't necessarily mean that the highly favorable critical assessments were somehow "wrong."

That said, did Tár "fail to find a [substantial] audience" during its theatrical run? That too is plainly true. In our view, it's interesting to see a film die such a death at the box office even as it's receiving such overwhelming critical acclaim.

We've had occasion to watch (and watch; and watch) Tár over the past two weekends. In part, it seemed to us that we were observing an allegory for our (failing) political times.

Tár is indeed a "highbrow film," as it's called by the leading authority and in this New York Times headline. In fact, we'd say the film transports the viewer to the kingdom of the highbrow and continues way on from there.

We'd also guess that, in the matter at hand, we're looking at two fundamentally different reactions to that rather unusual journey beyond the valley of the highbrow:

With whatever degree of sincerity, elite critics swooned about their trip through that distant land. By way of contrast, we'll guess that very few moviegoers who saw the film in movie theaters ever got on the phone and told their friends that they should go see Tár too.

For ourselves, we aren't giant fans of Tár. But we think the situation we have described may teach us several lessons. 

No, Virginia! Our nation's high-end political discourse, such as it is, isn't especially "highbrow." 

Policy matters aren't discussed in any type of detail. All in all, policy matter are barely discussed at all.

Our political discourse over the past thirty years has largely emerged from lowbrow forms of Storyline built around personality issues. That said, there is a major disconnect between the values and interests of the nation's high-end political journalists and the values and interests of very large segments of us the people, including the people who vote.

We aren't big fans of Tár ourselves, but that isn't the point. 

A certain ghost is said to lurk all through the (considerable) running time of this widely praised feature film. As we tried to puzzle our way through the length of this highbrow film, we kept thinking that we were visiting a sister city of our failed political discourse.

Tomorrow: Why we rented Tár

Alex Wagner gets it right!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2023

Joins others in getting it wrong: Last evening, on Tucker Carlson Tonight, the Fox News Channel's "excitable boy" was excitedly at it again.

The youngster started by comparing mask policy during the pandemic to the way women are forced to wear burqas within some Islamist nations. 

Mainly, though, he was excited about gas stoves—and about the Chinese Communists. 

Starting with a bald misstatement about the contents of a recent report by a conservative publication, the excited and excitable fellow thrilled his viewers as shown:

CARLSON (1/20/23): So why do we suddenly know that gas stoves are a hidden hazard? Why did no one tell us this before? Where did this information come from? 

Well as the Washington Free Beacon has reported, government regulators are citing a study from a group called the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Rocky Mountain Institute recently partnered with the Chinese to implement an "economy-wide transformation of America." OK, so the Chinese government, by proxy, gets to decide how you cook your dinner, what appliances you're allowed to have in your own kitchen?  

That's right, declared The Washington Post, and it's a good thing. The "hidden hazards of these appliances," the Post declared with obvious relief, "is finally getting attention." 

Finally! We've been waiting for it. Can you imagine the celebration in the Post newsroom? We've been fretting about gas stoves for decades and finally the science has caught up to their concerns. Well, unfortunately for The Washington Post newsroom and the Biden administration and most of all, the Chinese government, not everyone in America was immediately on board with the idea of getting rid of your gas stoves because they're a hidden hazard. 

"Most of all," it's the Chinese government! In this and in all other things!

Just for the record, no! The Rocky Mountain Institute didn't "recently partner with the Chinese" in the way this nutcase said, and the Washington Free Beacon didn't say that it did. None of that stopped the excitable boy from offering this declaration:

CARLSON: Now, remember. All of this, this moral panic on the left about gas stoves, stems from fake science about the health risks of natural gas pushed by the Communist Party of China. 

"All of this" stems from the Communists! It got even stupider after that, but the excitable boy has reached the point where he's able to spot a Chinese Communist under every stove and bed.

This ridiculous figure spews such statements to millions of viewers each night. We think such conduct should be front page news, but our major journalistic organs choose to walk safer paths.

That said, and in total fairness, the misstatements can be general across the sweep of "cable news."  

Our tribe often hears misstatements too. On Thursday night, to cite one possible example, Lawrence O'Donnell angrily made this statement right at the start of his program:

O'DONNELL (1/19/23): Nobody questioned the Justices themselves...No Justices were interviewed, and that line proves that no Justices were interviewed.

Lawrence angrily stressed this claim. Based on today's New York Times, it seems that his confident statement may well have been false. 

Last night, the highlighted statement by Alex Wagner was pleasing but plainly false. Wagner made this inaccurate statement in the first minute of her own show:

WAGNER (1/20/23): Fox News didn't cover the hearings. Every other major network did. Fox News ignored the January 6 committee hearings entirely.

Through a visual appearing behind her, Wagner cited this NPR report as the source of her statement.  (Headline: "Only one major cable news channel did not carry the Jan. 6 hearing live: Fox News.")

In fact, that NPR report only concerned the committee's first public hearing, the one which was held in prime time.  

In fact, the Fox News Channel did broadcast the January 6 committee's daytime hearings. You can refresh yourself on this point in this AP report.

In all honesty, the current structure of cable news is built for inaccurate statements. 

Few others approach insanity in the reliable manner of Carlson. But whether the channel is red or blue, hosts proceed secure in the knowledge that none of their guests will ever question, challenge or contradict their various statements, whether true or false. 

Bookings are done on a "members only" basis. Seldom is heard a discouraging word. Human nature takes over from there.

Wagner made other factual errors in her opening segment last night, along with some logical lapses. That said, she focused on a very important topic in a highly appropriate way.

She focused on the reign of misstatement and factual error which emerged from the Fox News Channel in the wake of the 2020 election. More specifically, she focused on the $1.6 billion lawsuit being brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems.

Good lord! Rupert Murdoch was questioned, under oath, for the past two days in this highly promising defamation suit. If MSNBC was willing to post transcripts of its TV shows—it's fairly obvious why the corporate behemoth stopped doing that—we could show you more of what Wagner and her two guests said.

Could Dominion's massive lawsuit help bring Fox News down? Could such suits force the channel to rein in its relentless misconduct?

We can't answer such questions. To her credit, Wagner was willing to discuss the channel's behavior in a direct (if sometimes erroneous) way at the start of last night's program.

That said, Tucker had been screeching away, in his normal manner, just one hour earlier. Needless to say, Wagner returned to a safer topic—the pleasurable gong-shows of George Santos—before her program was done.

How can members of our blue tribe peel voters away from the red? As our millionaire corporate tribunes script us in our talking points, they simply never ask such questions—and we think the word "never" is justified.

Tucker was screeching away last night. He does so night after after night after night, and our major journalistic organs rarely take any real notice.

Someday, we may stop pleasuring ourselves in the predictable ways and instead start asking ourselves such basic questions as these:

In what sorts of ways could we work to bring such lunacy down? In what ways might we stop talking to ourselves—to "our favorite reporters and friends," even including our "very dear friends," and to no one else on the planet?

In what ways might we hope to show (some of) The Others that what they're hearing is wrong? What sorts of approaches might work? 

That's a fairly obvious question. Have you ever seen any such question asked?

A WEEK IN THE LIFE: Tucker explains how Nixon went down!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023

The ghosts of Shaker Heights: Last night, Tucker Carlson went so far that the bosses at Fox News have apparently made a decision.

They've apparently decided to withhold the transcript from the web site of Tucker's highly rated TV show, Tucker Carlson Tonight.

The transcript of Tucker's opening monologue doesn't appear at the web site, where it normally would. In its place, a transcript appears for a different part of last evening's show.

What did Tucker say last night? Right at 9 p.m. Eastern, he repeated his declaration from last Thursday night:

President Biden is being taken down by "permanent Washington"—in this case, "by his own political party." According to Tucker, that explains why Biden suddenly finds himself in the throes of the classified documents scandal.

It's all the work of "permanent Washington," Tucker said again and again. Indeed, you can see the monologue, and read the transcript, simply by clicking this.

As it turns out, Fox News did prepare a proofread transcript of last night's opening monologue! The transcript simply hasn't been posted at the program's site.

What did Tucker say last night? He started by saying this:

CARLSON (1/19/23): If you're a normal person, it's a pretty weird experience watching Joe Biden's presidency get euthanized by his own party. On one hand, there's an undeniable thrill to it. You have to admit that. Biden is the most destructive president in American history. More things have broken under his watch than under any other president.  

Joe Biden deserves to be driven from office and disgraced, but for this? Breaking federal classification rules, some of the stupidest and most dishonest laws Congress has ever passed? It's like arresting El Chapo for expired plates. It's missing the point, but it looks like that's what's going to happen. 

It seems like every day, one of Joe Biden's lawyers shows up with more sheaves of classified documents like a dog who has found another dead chipmunk under the house. This bunch was in his office at Penn, the one paid for by the Communist Party of China. These were found next to his sad, little midlife crisis sports car in a garage in Delaware and so on. You keep waiting for the White House physician to announce another document trove has been discovered after a routine colonoscopy. It could happen because at this point, you know exactly where this story is heading.  

Permanent Washington does not want Joe Biden to run for president again. This is how they're sending that message. Even CNN has decided to become interested in Joe Biden's misdeeds two years into his presidency. They're doing segments in how classification laws protect this country from its mortal enemies like Russia. So, you know for certain the order has gone out. Biden is done.

That's the way Tucker got started last night. At 9:07, he began explaining how far back this sort of thing actually goes, "permanent Washington"-wise.

As you can see from the tape and the transcript, Tucker's historical exposition started with Richard Nixon. More specifically, it started with what President Nixon said, or possibly didn't say, to Richard Helms about the murder of President Kennedy.

According to Tucker, President Nixon believed that the CIA was involved in that murder. Unwisely, Nixon shared this belief with Helms, then the head of the CIA.

On that basis, "permanent Washington" knew that Nixon had to be "forced to resign." Tucker spent four minutes explaining this, not failing to explain the secret roles of Bob Woodward and Gerald Ford.

From 9:07 through 9:11, Tucker explained these past events. As he explained, the chyron beneath him said this:

NIXON WAS REMOVED FOR QUESTIONING THE DEEP STATE

"None of it's secret," the confident Fox star said. "Most of it actually is on Wikipedia." he actually said, even adding this:

"It's so obvious, yet it's intentionally ignored and as a result, permanent Washington remains in charge of our political system." 

(For a different discussion of those past events, you can just click here.)

At any rate, according to Tucker, permanent Washington remains in charge. And at present, permanent Washington has created the classified documents scandal in order to take Biden down! 

Everyone is involved in the plot. Even CNN!

That's what Tucker told red tribe viewers last night. As he did, our blue tribe tribunes were continuing to cluck about George Santos.

Tucker's monologue was the latest event in a week in the life. So is our tribe's collective shrieking about Santos—about the money he stole from the dog; about where his mother actually was as of September 11.

Santos is an utterly meaningless backbench member of the 435-member House. We'd be inclined to assume that he has some major psychiatric problem, but our journalists don't discuss such matters, nor do they ever consult medical or psychiatric specialists concerning cases like this.

That said, Santos is enjoyable to talk about on a tribal basis. From the standpoint of profit-driven "journalism," these discussions constitute extremely good tribal product. 

It's fun and easy to talk about Santos, and it's very good business. In part for those reasons, the beat goes on, then on and on, just as it ever was.

Almost surely, you can't run a giant nation this way—with people like Carlson telling wild tales; with people like Nicolle Wallace scheduling daily echo sessions involving her "favorite reporters and friends."

Our blue tribe tribunes spend the bulk of their time talking to themselves and to no one else. Then too, there are the ghosts of Shaker Heights, those who will not be discussed.

At present, the nation's red tribe tends to run on crazy belief. Our own blue tribe tends to run on the bogus belief we're the extremely good and decent people, especially on matters involving the topic called race.

We say it and say it and say it and say it. That doesn't mean that it's true.

The ghosts of Shaker Heights appeared online at roughly this time last week. The report in question appeared in the print edition of last Sunday's New York Times—in the Real Estate section!

The report was written by Debra Kamin, who we'd say is very plainly a good, decent person. That said, she isn't an education writer, and we'd have to say that it showed.

The ghosts of Shaker Heights are a bunch of the kinds of kids our blue tribe never discusses. (More precisely, we never discuss them unless they get shot, and in that circumstance only if they were shot by a policeman.)

We've been following education writing for the past fifty years. We don't think we've ever seen a serious journalistic attempt to discuss the topic in question, or the children we turn into ghosts.

According to Kamin's report, the ghosts of the Heights are found on the low end of a large "achievement gap." Every once in a while, newspapers like the New York Times publish an article like the one in question—an article which may convey the fleeting impression that our blue tribe actually cares about the kids of the Heights.

In fact, we don't seem to care, though that doesn't make us bad people. It simply makes us people people, but it suggests that we might consider toning down our excessively high self-regard concerning our obvious moral greatness concerning matters of race, as opposed to the snarling racism of The Bad People Found Over There.

The article which appeared in the Times concerns the nation's public schools. Within our blue tribe, we praise ourselves for our racial greatness—and we relentlessly disappear the kids discussed in that Times report.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our own blue tribe largely runs on such acts of performance. We perform the role of moral exemplars as we conduct self-contained gab sessions with our "favorite friends."

Our tribunes will continue to talk about Santos. It's excellent cable news product. 

They won't discuss the ghosts of the Heights. Also, they won't discuss the reasonable questions about immigration raised by Carlson in the midst of last night's pseudo-discussion of the way Richard Nixon went down.

Tucker will continue to do what he does. So will our favorite friends.

Can a major nation function this way? We'd have to say the answer is no. Experts say it isn't clear that there's any way out of this mess.

The ghosts of the Heights were one small part of the most recent week in the life. The report appeared in the Real Estate section, and the ghosts then disappeared.

How we knew: We think it's obvious that Debra Kamin is a good, decent, caring person. 

In our view, it's also obvious that she isn't an education writer. In our view, that became clear when we read this passage:

KAMIN (1/15/23): At least 73 percent of Black eighth graders in the [Shaker Heights] district were reading at or above grade level in 2011; by 2021, that number had dropped precipitously to about 27 percent, according to Ohio’s Department of Education.

On their own, those numbers don't tell us anything about the ghosted kids of Shaker Heights. Thanks to decades of not caring, editors at the New York Times show no sign of knowing such things, nor do they seem to care.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE: Within blue tents, Stormy Daniels returns!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2023

In red tents, Tucker Carlson: A week in the life of the national discourse is a journey of many steps.

Quite routinely, the journey involves an imitation of public discourse—on a journalistic basis, an "imitation of life."

Consider the first two reports we read when we sat down, this very morning, before our computer machine. 

We'd already been surprised by certain manifestations on today's Morning Joe. But the first two reports we actually read appeared beneath these headlines:

‘I Don’t Want to Die’: Fighting Maternal Mortality Among Black Women
A St. Louis doula program, part of a nonprofit that received funding in the $1.7 trillion federal budget bill, looks for solutions in a benefit largely associated with affluent white women.

Tucker Carlson Announces Jacinda Ardern's Resignation By Mocking Her Appearance

That first report received prominent placement on the front page of today's New York Times. We quickly clicked and read the report because of our growing interest in the topic—an interest which was partially fueled by an implausible claim on a recent NPR program.

As it turned out, the implausible claim was sourced to what turned out to be completely unpersuasive evidence. It was just another run of the mill event in a week in the life!

Obviously, you don't want women to die as a result of giving birth. Also, you don't want major journalists to offer classic "links to nowhere," as the New York Times does early in today's report.

This afternoon, we'll detail this error. (In fairness, everyone makes mistakes.)  For now, let's move ahead to the latest disordered behavior from Carlson, the highly popular "abandoned boy" of the Fox News Channel—a disordered performer who now exists in a state of headlong decline.

The second report we read today came by way of Yanoo News. It involves Carlson's comments last night regarding Jacinda Ardern, who has chosen to step down as prime minister of New Zealand.

Yahoo's headline said that Carlson had mocked Ardern's appearance. For the record, that statement is  true, as far as it goes. 

That said, the craziness of Carlson's conduct went well beyond that familiar type of schoolboy denigration. Complete with videotape of Carlson, this was Ron Dicker's full report:

DICKER (1/19/23): Tucker Carlson reported the resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday by insulting her appearance, mangling her name and making absurd claims about her leadership. (Watch the video below.)

“And some rare good news: The appalling prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern―that’s the lady with the big teeth who tormented her citizens―has just announced she is leaving office,” the Fox News host said in a news alert.

Ardern, popular worldwide for her empathetic leadership, said in a speech that she no longer had the energy for the job. Although her popularity has dropped, she is credited with overseeing a ban on military-style assault rifles after mass shootings there and instituting strict COVID-19 measures that minimized the island nation’s death toll.

Carlson, however, framed her tenure differently. He called her “an appalling abuser of human rights of her own people” who’s the “most authoritarian leader that country has ever had.”

“What are the chances she was a puppet of the Chinese government?” he said. “We don’t have enough evidence to prove that, but we would rate that as about 100% likely.”

Ardern, who became the world’s youngest female head of government at age 37 in 2017, said she will step down no later than Feb. 7.

For the record, Dicker did a bit of editorializing himself. Concerning Carlson's behavior, what would you say? Pathetic? Disordered? Deranged?

However you might choose to score it, Carlson did mangle Ardern's name. Also he did insult her appearance. 

For ourselves, we were most struck by the novel he quickly composed—a novel concerning Ardern's imagined role as "a puppet of the Chinese government."

Sad! The Fox News star admitted that he lacks the evidence to prove his claim, but he went ahead and rated that claim "as about 100% likely." This is the kind of disordered behavior the defective fellow displays each night—defective behavior his corporate channel is happy to sell to the public.

Last Thursday night, also sad! On that occasion, Carlson quickly assembled a novel about the classified documents which had been present in an office maintained by President Biden, and at his Wilmington home. 

(At present, the number of such documents seem to be about 18. By way of contrast, 325 classified documents have been retrieved from former president Donald J. Trump after a year of serial misstatements and wrangling. Roughly sixty (60) of those documents were classified Top Secret.)

Last Thursday night, the abandoned boy took out his dolls and his action figures and staged a tribally pleasing play about the Biden documents. He invented a pleasing set of claims concerning the (imagined) reason why the documents had come to be found.

Needless to say, Kamala Harris was present in the invented story he told. (He tends to mangle her name too.) You can read and watch the bulk of what Carlson said simply by clicking this link. 

The childish Carlson was playing with dolls on his program that night. That said, he engages in such childish play on a regular basis.

Strikingly, his conduct routinely passes without mention or notice from major blue tribe sources.

What sorts of claims does Carlson make? In the course of answering your question, let's run through a few events—red and blue—in our current week in the life:

Tuesday, within our pathetic blue tribe, Stormy Daniels returned! On Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace and her "favorite reporters and friends" were hope-hope-hoping that Alvin Bragg was going to change his mind and charge Donald J. Trump with a crime for the payment he made to Daniels back in 2016.

As we've long noted, Deadline: White House routinely examines exactly one topic: 

Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail!

As we'll further note tomorrow, the friends display little interest in anything else. On Tuesday, the friends were thrilled by new indications that Bragg might be returning to this topic in the quest to throw Trump in jail.

For us, this pitiful conduct raises two questions. Our first question would be this:

Why hasn't Daniels herself been charged with the crime of extortion?

Quickly, let's review. According to Daniels, she engaged in one (1) act of consensual sex with Trump. (Trump says the number is zero.)

According to Daniels, this one (1) act of consensual sex occurred in 2006. Now it was the fall of 2016, and she was trying to get paid.

Daniels told Trump that she'd go public with her claim if he didn't give her a bag of money. We saw this conduct described on Fox as a textbook case of extortion. 

That's what we saw on Fox. Within our own blue tents, this money-grubbing behavior by Daniels got her hailed, in major organs, as a "feminist hero."

We return to our original question. Why hasn't Daniels been charged with extortion? We aren't lawyers, but it does seem to us that that's what Daniels did.

Our second question is this:

Over here in our pitiful tribe, can this possibly be the way we want our elections to work?

Really? Do we really think that our White Houses elections should turn on unverifiable, last-minute claims about who may have had consensual sex with someone ten years earlier? Because that's the profoundly dumbnified world currently being erected by Wallace and her Mouseketeer-adjacent friends.

Over here, in our own tribe's tents, Stormy Daniels was back! In fairness, that constituted only one moment in the current week in the life. 

Yesterday, a different moment occurred. Wallace actually presented a serious topic for viewers to  review! She presented Rep. Eric Swalwell, speaking about the types of death threats he and family receive.

Quickly, the conversation focused on allegations against Kevin McCarthy. 

McCarthy has removed Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee, but why did McCarthy do that? Here's the start of what Swalwell said:

WALLACE (1/18/23): You were stripped of your committees. Why?

SWALWELL: Political vengeance. You know, Kevin McCarthy seems to want to heat up the leftovers of a story that goes back to Barack Obama's first term.  

The FBI has said three different times, and in a rare forum—they never talk about investigations—that all I did was help them. Never suspected of wrongdoing.

Today, the Washington Post fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, put out a story giving McCarthy four Pinocchios for his claims. But the consequence of his claims is not just that I'm not on the committee... It inspires these death threats. People parrot what McCarthy is saying when they call and make the threats.

Swalwell went on to say that McCarthy has been told about this problem, but that he just doesn't care. We can't verify those claims. We can tell you this:

It's true! Kessler did fact-check McCarthy's recent statements. Also, he did give McCarthy four Pinocchios for the various things he has said.

Kessler even cited the most inflammatory part of the backstory, in which people like Tucker Carlson have said that Swalwell was involved in a sexual relationship, way back when, with a smokin' hot Chinese spy.

McCarthy didn't make any such explicit statement. Just last week, Tucker Carlson did. But no one mentioned Carlson's behavior on yesterday's Deadline: White House and, as a matter of policy, Kessler only fact-checks public officials. No "journalists" need apply! 

What did Carlson say last week? You can see his presentation here. 

He offered no verifiable evidence for the claim he loves to make about Swalwell. In the end, though, he did say this:

"If you're having sex with a Chinese spy, sorry, you can't be on an intel committee. It's that simple."

Thus spake the prominent pundit, even as he jumped to the present tense.

Carlson has never produced any verifiable source for this accusation, which he has made for the past several years. Also, Jacinda Ardern was a Chinese puppet, and Biden is in trouble with the documents for the (wholly imagined) reasons Carlson broadcast last Thursday night.

Long ago, Carlson became an abandoned boy. We all seem to be paying the price for that plainly unfortunate event.

At any rate, his conduct went unmentioned on yesterday's Deadline: White House. Also, it went unmentioned by Kessler. Carlson fabulizes night and day, and other stars tend not to say so.

The fact that Carlson's fabulizations go unremarked is a fairly typical part of a modern week in the life. In this case, it was a week which featured Daniels' return over here in our own tribe's tents.

Going all the way back to Rush Limbaugh, we've said that it should be front-page news when people disinform millions of people in the way Carlson does. That said, the ship of discourse sails ahead, with our major news organs strongly inclined to stay in their own safe lanes.

It's all part of a week in the life! Our public discourse is deeply disordered—and the vast disorder of which we speak isn't all found Over There!

Tomorrow: Banquo's ghost (and Shaker Heights)

Germs may be lurking in your spice drawer!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2023

Or within your "national discourse:" Admittedly, this topic can seem to get old. 

That said, we were struck again today when we traveled to the remarkable web site of the (online) Washington Post.

It was 10:45 a.m. The first three reports on the (online) paper's front page could be reached by clicking on these headlines:

Election conspiracies behind plot to shoot at Democrats’ homes in N.M., police say

Six Ukrainian officials killed in helicopter crash near Kyiv
Minister Denis Monastyrsky and other top officials were on a helicopter that fell near a kindergarten, killing at least 17 people, including four children

Single-use coffee pods are often better for the environment than regular filters. Yes, it’s true.
A new study of coffee consumption found that using pods can be less wasteful than brewing traditional filter coffee.

The first two reports involved traditional news topics. After that, we were directed to the debate about single-use coffee pods versus the regular filters.

Three more reports were receiving banner treatment at that point in time. The headlines looked like this:

As meetings grow wild, officials try to tame public comment
Across a polarized nation, governing bodies are changing—and sometimes even halting—public comment amid an unprecedented level of invective, misinformation and disorder from citizens.

Cultural limitations have always galvanized Madonna. But this time it’s different.
Madonna pushes against old assumptions about gender and age at a time when the public dialogue can be mean and unforgiving on those very subjects.

The germiest spot in your kitchen? A new study found surprising results.
Bacteria could be lurking in an unexpected spot: your spice drawer.

Disruptions at public meetings might qualify as traditional news. After that, the online Post was peddling germs in your spice drawer, and it was selling Madonna.

This is now standard fare at the online Washington Post. By the way, what sorts of reports are readers of the online Post actually choosing to read?

Right below those six bannered reports, the paper was offering its MOST READ section. At that time, these were three of the five most-read items in the whole of the Washington Post:

MOST READ reports, online Post, 10:45 a.m.:

1) Single-use coffee pods have surprising environmental benefits over other brewing methods

[...]

4) Carolyn Hax: Mom friend can’t resist their daughters’ teen dramas

5) Parents across the country share their skepticism over sleepovers

We can't quite parse that Hax headline either. We almost decided to click to Hax just to see what the headline meant.

After that, the Post was offering its DON'T MISS section. As is often the case, the four reports we were told not to miss read a bit like an Onion parody. These were the DON'T MISS headlines: 

Is it better to book direct or use an online travel agency?

What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report

These common recipe instructions make food safety experts cringe

Ask a Doctor: Are my bowel movements normal?

One of those reports seems to involve traditional news. Meanwhile, the online Post just can't seem to quit that evergreen report about your bowel movements.

It seemed to us that the online Post was even more dumbnified than usual at that time this morning. Before we reached the online WORLD news section, we had to scroll our way through these proffered distractions:

Five reports in the online SPORTS section. Six more reports in online ADVICE. 

Five reports in the online LIFESTYLE section. All those very soft reports, followed by four reports in the online FOOD section!

The online reader had to scroll past all those distractions before he hit the online paper's WORLD section. Finally, the reader was allowed to consider the Post's idea of world news.

As this dumbnification proceeds, we remain amazed by a pair of facts:

We're amazed by the simple fact that this profit-seeking dumbnification is actually taking place. Also, we're amazed by the fact that this dumbnification project has gone completely unnoticed and unmentioned.

Germs may be lurking in your spice drawer! Also, a cancer may be growing on your "national discourse" at the (online) Post.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE: Something seems to be wrong with George Santos!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2023

Could something be wrong with Us? This past Monday—Monday, January 16—was a federal holiday.

Right at the start of her TV show, Nicolle Wallace alluded to that widely known fact:

WALLACE (1/16/23): Hi, everyone! It's 4 o'clock in the East. And on this day when our country celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the embodiment of the very best of what our country stands for when it's at its best, on this day of all days, it is impossible to ignore what is fast becoming arguably the worst of what this disgraced, twice impeached ex-president's party now stands for today.

We are talking, of course, about George Santos, the newly minted Republican congressman from New York whose professional resume, his education, even teeny tiny little details of his personal life have turned out to be either little white lies or outright pathological falsehoods...

Too funny! On this day when we honor Dr. King, it was impossible to avoid talking about George Santos!

Several analysts tore at their hair as Wallace opened her program. We suggested that they should instead treat themselves to a moment of mordant laughter.

Wallce quickly introduced a group of "our favorite reporters and friends." Inevitably, she and her favorite reporters and friends spent the next 39 minutes talking about George Santos—though, in fairness, Denver Riggleman was rarely able to stop talking about himself.

At 4:39 in the East, Wallace finally teased her TV show's next topic. On this day when we honor Dr. King, as on every day of the year, she and her friends would be discussing the "most prosecutable" events from January 6—that is to say, the events which might be "most prosecutable" in the case of Donald J. Trump.

Visitors, can we talk? George Santos, the newly minted Republican congressman, simply isn't a very important political figure.

He's one of 435 members of the House. In our view, it would have made much more sense, on the merits, for the House to have refused to seat him—but seated he was, and there he sits, a "teeny tiny" blip within the vast field of federal political power.

Santos isn't very important—but on a tribal basis, he's a whole lot of fun to discuss. Wallace herself had suggested that there seems to be something "pathological" about his vast array of misstatements, and at least one of her friends used that language too.

That said, no one ever suggested that something simply seems to be wrong with Santos—that he may simply be in the grip of some diagnosable psychiatric problem. Instead, the reporters and friends spent 39 minutes discussing the weird behavior of one member of the House—one completely powerless junior member out of 435.

Is something wrong with George Santos? Is he diagnosably, clinically "pathological" in some way? 

Only a few minutes had passed before the reporters and friends lit upon the latest ridiculous Santos claim which has come to light. On the day when we may forget to honor Dr. King, Wallace even played the tape of this ridiculous (though we'd also say pitiful) exchange from a New York City radio show, the ridiculous WABC’s ridiculous Sid & Friends in the Morning, 

SANTOS (2020): I actually went to school on a volleyball scholarship.

SID ROSENBERG: You did?

SANTOS: I did, yeah. When I was in Baruch, we were the number one volleyball team.

ROSENBERG: Did you graduate from Baruch?

SANTOS: Yes, I did.

ROSENBERG: So did I.

SANTOS: Oh! Very cool! Great school, great institution. Very liberal but very good professors who don’t show their bias, which is very interesting, but that’s a whole other conversation. 

But it’s funny that we went to play against Harvard, Yale, and we slayed them. 

ROSENBERG: Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!

SANTOS: We were champions across the entire Northeast Corridor. Every school that came up against us, they were shaking at the time. And it’s funny. I was the smallest guy and I’m 6-2.

[...]

SANTOS: Look, I sacrificed both my knees, and got very nice knee replacements from HSS playing volleyball. That's how serious I took the game.

ROSENBERG: That's how serious you're taking politics as well. Remember that name, "George Santos."

To listen to that inane exchange, you can just click here.

(For the record, Hospital for Special Surgery—"HSS"—is a hospital in New York City which specializes in orthopedic surgery. That said, is Santos really 6 foot 2? Does somebody have a tape measure?)

As many people know by now, Santos actually wasn't a star on the Baruch volleyball team. (At the time when Santos wasn't there, it was the strongest male volleyball team in the whole New York City area.)

In fact, Santos didn't attend Baruch University at all! Where did his claim about stardom come from? Citing Inside Edition, People magazine recently told us this:

CHAMLEE (1/13/23): The chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee said that, during his first bid for congress in 2020, Santos claimed to be a college volleyball "star" at Baruch University.

"He said he was a star and that they won the championship and he was a striker," Joseph Cairo, chair of the committee, said in a press conference Wednesday.

As Santos has since admitted, he did not attend the school. And while it's unclear exactly where his lie about playing volleyball stemmed from, Inside Edition reported that the story bears a striking resemblance to the resume of his former boss, Pablo Oliveira.

According to the outlet, Oliveira—who was Santos' boss at financial services company LinkBridge Investors—graduated from Baruch University, where he played on the school's winning volleyball team and was a two-time All-American volleyball player. A LinkedIn profile appears to back up Oliveira's resume, though little is known about LinkBridge itself.

Assuming that report is correct, Santos seems to have commandeered that part of Oliveira's life story. We would assume that such behavior is diagnosable in some way, though it may not be diagnosable by Wallace's chortling friends.

Sad! We've long suggested that people like us should consider having pity for people like Santos—for people who seem to be psychiatrically unwell.

That doesn't mean that such disordered people should be seated in the House. It doesn't mean that they should be relieved of accountability for their financial scams.

It does suggest the possibility that we shouldn't fill our tents with talk about Santos, a highly insignificant back bench member of the House. That said, Wallace devoted her first 39 minutes to Santos, saying it was impossible to do anything else on the day when our country honors Dr. King.

To us, that pretty much seemed like another moment in a week in the life. More specifically, and journalistically, it struck us as another moment in a week in the imitation of life here in our failing nation.

For us within our blue tribe tents, it's pleasing to hear about George Santos. Lots of money can be made by the corporate entities who pleasure us with such discussions.

Those entities know something else about us. 

They know that we won't sit around listening to serious talk about the lives, the interests and the happiness of our nation's black kids. For that reason, you will never hear Wallace and her bevy of friends discussing the public schools of Shaker Heights or the unimportant children within them.

During this past week in the life, this report about Shaker Heights has hung in the background of our field of vision, a bit like the way Banquo's ghost lurks about in one of Shakespeare's plays.

That flawed report about Shaker Heights went unmentioned by all concerned in this latest week in the life. We're going to get to that (admirably well intentioned) report before the end of our own current week.

Something is plainly wrong with George Santos. On the week we devote to the late Dr. King, we will pose the following question:

Something is wrong with the pitiful Santos. Also, though, could something be wrong with Us?

Tomorrow: One day after we honor King, Stormy Daniels returns!

A WEEK IN THE LIFE: Less than a dozen, though possibly more!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023

Two imitations of life: As of last Thursday night, the first few facts about the matter had started to emerge.

A limited number of classified documents had been found in a Washington office belonging to President Biden. That said, how many such classified documents had been found? 

On that afternoon's Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace asked one of her favorite reporters and friends to explain:

WALLACE (1/12/23): Carol Leonnig, tell me what we know to be the facts at this hour about the classified documents that the Biden White House and the Biden lawyers have turned over to the [National] Archives and DOJ.

In the first four minutes of the show, Wallace had already offered an early primer in the ways the facts of this case seemed to differ from the earlier, year-long struggle involving classified documents and Donald J. Trump. 

That said, the facts of this new case had just begun to emerge. Wallace asked Leonnig for the facts as they had come to be known at that hour.

Providing unintentional comic relief at one point, Leonnig replied as shown:

LEONNIG (continuing directly):  Nicolle, you couldn't be more right in focusing on the differences between the so-called Trump case and the Biden case. What we know so far about Biden's classified records is that an assistant in his office is feeling very badly because there were less than a dozen, but still at least 11 or 12 copies of documents that were classified. that were in and discovered, in early November, in his center based in Wilmington, and also with Washington offices.

Later, very much later, in the last couple of days, more, a handful more of documents were found that were closer to Biden's home in Wilmington...

In fact, that additional "handful more of documents" had been found in Biden's Wilmington home. That said:

As is required by Cable News Law, Leonnig started by telling Wallace that she couldn't be any more right in what she had already said. These "deference rules" are now widely observed on blue and red tribe "cable news."

Weirdly, Leonnig then vouched for the sincerity and good faith of an unnamed Biden adviser. This Biden adviser was said to be "feeling very badly" about some unspecified aspect of these emerging events.

That was an extremely strange journalistic statement. The unintentional humor came when Leonnig tried to define the number of classified documents involved in this new chase. 

How many such classified records had been found in the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.? There were "less than a dozen, but still at least 11 or 12," Leonnig told Wallace and the rest of the circle of friends.

Quickly, let's be fair! Leonnig is a very experienced, very high-ranking reporter for the Washington Post. It's also true that everyone gets their language tangled up on occasion, especially when they engage in contemporaneous, off-the-cuff speech.

Still, the analysts chuckled! According to Leonnig, the number of documents found at the Penn Biden Center was less than a dozen, but at least 11 or 12. We've spent the past four days trying to puzzle out what that formulation could correctly be said to mean.

("Less than a dozen" would mean that the number of documents was 11 at the most. "At least 11 or 12" would somewhat fuzzily seem to mean that the number was 11 at the least, and possibly more than 12.)

Everyone's can get tangled up, but the analysts chuckled at that. Much, much stranger was Leonnig's instant act of vouching for the Biden team's apparent good faith. 

To this day, it remains hard to know exactly how many classified documents are involved in this new and unfortunate news event. Beyond that, our pundits rarely provide exact numbers about the number of documents involved in "the so-called Trump case."

For the record: 

By most counts, 325 classified documents emerged from Trump's Mar-a-Lago lair during the endless attempt by the federal government to get the documents back. By most counts, sixty (60) of those documents had been marked Top Secret.

As far as anyone knows at this time, the basic numbers in these two cases are therefore vastly different. By most current accounts, fewer than twenty documents seem to have emerged in the Biden matter—and twenty is a substantially smaller number than 325.

That said, the Biden number is hard to define, in part because the Biden team has started reporting the number of classified pages found at his Wilmington home (apparently, six), rather than the number of classified documents. Inevitably, such distinctions will fly over the heads of the modern American journalist, including at the Washington Post, a famous American newspaper which is currently being transformed.

If you're interested in the basic facts of this case, the facts will often be hard to find. Something else won't be hard to find:

We refer to the dueling Storylines which will often be driving the action.

Last Thursday, when very few facts were actually known, Wallace was already working from tribal Storyline on her very popular blue tribe TV program. Within that tribal Storyline, Biden was a bewildered innocent in this evolving matter. 

It may turn out to be the case that Biden actually was a bewildered innocent. That said, Storyline was running well ahead of known facts as Wallace unveiled her scripts.

Leonnig added unintentional comic relief with her puzzling account of the numbers. That night, on the Fox News Channel, a different Storyline emerged.

That Storyline came from Tucker Carlson. In fact, the Storyline which emerged from Carlson was much more like a self-published true crime / horror novel. 

The transcript of the bulk of Carlson's opening monologue can be reviewed right here. To its credit, Fox News was at least willing to publish a record of (most of) what its TV star said—and the transcript carries these headlines:

TUCKER CARLSON: This is the beginning of the end for Biden
Tucker reacts to Biden allegedly mishandling documents

In fairness, the headline writer had thrown the word "allegedly" in. Tucker was much less circumspect as he crafted his thrilling red tribe novel.

Leonnig's account of the number of documents provided some comic relief. Other parts of what she said seemed to betray an unattractive acquiescence to instant Storyline.

On yesterday afternoon's Deadline: White House, the clowning was ugly and stupid. We hope to get to that by the end of the week—but even yesterday's stupid behavior wasn't as striking as the screeching novelization performed by Carlson last Thursday night.

Everywhere President Roosevelt looked, he saw "one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."  Everywhere we look today, we see imitations of (journalistic) life.

What we don't see or hear from our own tribe is devotion to various serious topics of a type which actually matter. 

You will never see Wallace and her favorite friends discuss the types of events described in this (deeply flawed) report about the public schools of Shaker Heights—about the needs and the interests of the black kids who attend school in that well-known Ohio town.

Yesterday, Wallace pretended to honor Dr. King. In truth, she and her circle of well-heeled friends happily piddled the day away in service to Storyline.

These endless events are all part of A Week in The (Imitation of) Life. Tomorrow, we'll turn to the dumbfounding novel Tucker created on his very strange program that night.

Journalistically speaking, Nicolle Wallace presides over a daily imitation of life. Tucker tends to take things a bit farther, though he does occasionally seem to raise questions which someone might sensibly ask.

Tomorrow: Tucker's imitation of life

Given precedence over the war in Ukraine!

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2023

An imitation of life: Is our nation's public discourse an "imitation of life?"

There's no single answer to your question! For today, let's examine one manifestation. Let's examine the (extremely lengthy) front page of the (online) Washington Post.

As we type, at 11:15 a.m., the WORLD section finally appears, quite far down that extremely lengthy front page. 

More specifically, you have to go roughly three quarters of the way down that front page before you hit the online Post's WORLD section. When you finally reach that section, the headline on the featured report says this:

Western allies to discuss Ukraine aid; no respite in battle for Donbas, Zelensky says

That sounds like an important topic. Now, let's list some of the headlines today's reader will confront before he or she reaches that WORLD news section.

The reader will reach the NATIONAL section higher up on the front page. Insultingly, the first headline in that NATIONAL section says this:

Wedding trends: Dogs and cats up for adoption at the reception

For the record, the reader will already have hit the SPORTS section, where five different headlines appear.

Moving right along from the dogs and the cats at the wedding receptions, the reader will hit the section called THE HOME YOU OWN. These five headlines appear:

Why talking to your plants is good for them (and you)

A rotting wood door will only get worse. Here’s how to fix it.

8 steps to painting a room like a pro

She’s terrible with Legos. Ikea? Forget about it. But she built this DIY air filter.

How to safely dispose of old medications, according to experts

Before readers reach the war in Ukraine, they encounter those five reports, with one report sourced to experts.

Soon after that, readers will come to the ADVICE section. These six headlines appear:

Carolyn Hax: Must snoring and light sleeping drive a couple apart?

Ask a Doctor: Are my bowel movements normal?

A rotting wood door will only get worse. Here’s how to fix it.

Expect smaller refunds and continued phone delays this tax season

Miss Manners: Atheist debates how to respond to religious sign-offs

Ask Amy: Husband’s paranoid and erratic behavior scares his wife

In that section, that rotting wood door takes a curtain call! 

Readers still haven't reached Ukraine—but as they continue to scroll, they reach the Post's FOOD section. These four headlines appear:

How to make the most of your stand mixer

Bag the lettuce for a winter fruit salad that is all fun stuff

10 casserole recipes for hearty meals on cold winter nights

What we’re really fighting about when we fight about gas stoves

Bagging the lettuce will lead the reader to a whole lot of fun stuff!

At long last, the reader now hits the section called WORLD. Having fought through a maze of distractions, the Post reader is offered a link to news from the war in Ukraine. At long last, the endlessly distracted reader of the online Post is finally told about this:

Western allies to discuss Ukraine aid; no respite in battle for Donbas, Zelensky says

All in all, whatever! Dogs and cats come first!

Is the American public discourse a mere "imitation of life?"  That, of course, is a matter of judgment, but we will offer this:

The ongoing reinvention of the (online) Washington Post strikes us as a visit from moral and intellectual Hell. So too with this unmistakable fact:

As with the tree which falls in the forest, a major American newspaper can reinvent itself in this way without anyone so much as hearing a sound!

Is the (online) Washington Post's front page really an "imitation of life?" We'd be inclined to say it is, but so is the overwhelming bulk of our failing nation's sorry and sad pseudo-discourse.

"A rotting wood door will only get worse?" So too, major experts insist, with a rotting national discourse!

UPDATE! MOVING RIGHT ALONG: As with the constantly moving river in which a person can't step twice, the online Washington Post's front page is in a constant state of flux.

Even now, as we post, a major news topic has been added to the online Post's cavalcade of important topics.

We refer to one of the six news reports now featured at the very top of the online Post's front page. The headline alerts us to a major news topic. The headline in question says this:

Prince Harry’s rejection of fashion is a fashion statement of its own

Is our discourse an imitation of life? We've reported, you can decide!

STARTING TOMORROW: A Week in The (Imitation of) Life!

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2023

For today, King on King: We're going to start with Colbert King, the veteran Washington Post Saturday morning columnist.

As far as we know, Colbert King is no relation to Dr. King. We thought he went horribly wrong at one point in the weeks before the 2000 election, but we've long admired Colbert King because of columns like the one which appeared in Saturday morning's (print edition of the) Washington Post.

In our view, Colbert King has kept his eyes on the prize. His headline thay day said this:

What would Martin Luther King make of our spiral of violence?

To what particular "spiral of violence" did King make reference this day? Just to establish the lay of the land, he started his column like this:

KING (1/14/23): On past occasions, I have used Martin Luther King Jr. Day, observed on Monday, as a moment to take stock of progress toward establishing the “reign of freedom and a rule of justice” that King called for in his Dec. 10, 1964, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance address. But today I pause to take a look around.

Dr. King might be distressed by what he would see today.

No one can say what Dr. King would think of today's society. That's why Colbert King discusses what Dr. King might see and feel today.

That said, here comes the spiral of violence Colbert King had in mind:

KING (continuing directly): The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was an apostle of nonviolence. “The ultimate weakness of violence,” he said, “is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.” He would see that darkness settling upon this city. Carjackings, shootings, fear, anger, weeping.

Last week, I railed about a drive-by shooting in an area of Northwest D.C. that I consider extended neighborhood turf. The gunfire that erupted near the corner of Georgia Avenue and Sheridan Street NW left one person dead and three others wounded, including an 8-year-old. Said D.C. Police chief Robert J. Contee III to an upset community, “Out of an abundance of caution, we will be deploying police officers to different sections of the 4th District.” Contee’s quickest actions were either too slow or the dudes with guns were too fast. The downward spiral continued.

Colbert King is 83 years old. 

Born in 1939, he grew up in "black Washington" at a time of legal segregation. He went on to pursue major careers within the federal government, within the banking industry, and then within the world of high-end journalism at the Washington Post.

In his pursuit of those three careers, he benefited from belatedly changing times. But King has kept his eyes on the prize. His column continued as shown:

KING (continuing directly): Wednesday, eight days later, a man and two children, 6 and 9 years old, were shot and injured at Sheridan and 14th Streets NW—two blocks west of Georgia Avenue and near the intersection where my family lived for decades.

As with the 8-year-old Georgia Avenue victim, the three victims did not appear to be the shooters’ targets. Not that it mattered to the guns and bullets. Neither, perhaps, to the man who brandished the weapon and fired the shots—described by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) at the scene as “an idiot with a gun.”

How would we explain any of this to Martin Luther King? How to explain that among the first victims of deadly shooting this year were two teenagers under 18? Or that on a single day last week, eight people, including three teens, were injured in separate shootings over four hours.

I think of King’s reference to a “descending spiral” and am reminded that 105 youths were shot last year—nearly twice the 2021 figure.

And so on and so on from there. Colbert King still lives in his native D.C., and by some miracle of stasis, he somehow remains able to care about such matters as these:

KING: There’s more to what’s driving crime in our streets than easy access to guns: families without structure, love or discipline; schools that warehouse, not teach; revolving-door justice and oversold alternative programs; and some faith leaders seemingly on mute.

This King holiday will be observed with the traditional tributes, parades and prayer services. But this year will also find committed neighborhood groups, such as Ron Moten’s Don’t Mute DC and Phil Pannell’s Anacostia Coordinating Council, stepping up with actions directly aimed at youth violence.

What is driving the kind of youth violence which has injured and killed Washington children and teens? In that passage, King lists a group of possible causes. Amazingly, he still seems to care about children and teens such as these.

We mention Colbert King as a way to mention something about the rest of our blue tribe. You will never hear about these topics on our tribe's corporate "cable news" TV programs.

Those corporate channels pay gigantic salaries to a selection of clowns to keep us entertained and self-impressed. The clowns who spill out of those cable news cars tells us that We are the good decent people, and that the very bad people are Them.

Colbert King has long been struck by the deaths of the (very young) innocents in the streets of his native D.C. Your cable news stars never mention those kids, any more than they ever discuss this part of what King wrote:

KING: There’s more to what’s driving crime in our streets than easy access to guns: families without structure, love or discipline; schools that warehouse, not teach; revolving-door justice and oversold alternative programs; and some faith leaders seemingly on mute.

Do we really have public schools "that warehouse, not teach?" You will never hear that topic addressed by the multimillionaire corporate clowns who proceed to sell us pleasing script every day of the week.

In the face of all this silence, those clowncar riders keep telling us that We are the good / decent / moral people, and that The Others are racists. We love love love love love that message! Sometimes it sounds like this:

VILLAROSA (4/11/18): In 2016, a study by researchers at the University of Virginia examined why African-American patients receive inadequate treatment for pain not only compared with white patients but also relative to World Health Organization guidelines. The study found that white medical students and residents often believed incorrect and sometimes “fantastical” biological fallacies about racial differences in patients. For example, many thought, falsely, that blacks have less-sensitive nerve endings than whites, that black people’s blood coagulates more quickly and that black skin is thicker than white.

These white medical students today! At other times, the message we love may sound a bit more like this:

ATTIAH (1/6/23): Considering that nearly 70 percent of the NFL’s players are Black, the Hamlin episode is a reminder that almost every weekend, Americans tune in to watch mostly Black men bash into one another for the profit of White team owners.

[...]

[N]ot talking about race and the racial dynamics in the NFL only placates the consciences of the large White conservative fan base, people who simply want to enjoy their Sunday nachos while watching players risk brain damage.

These "Americans" today! Especially those "white conservative fans," with their gruesome modes of enjoyment!

Today, we're happy to tell you that there is zero evidence supporting the claim that These White Medical Students Today "often believe fantastical notions" concerning matters of race. 

Meanwhile, if you can't see what's wrong with the flippant statement that "Americans"—though perhaps exclusively "white conservatives"—watch NFL games for the reasons provided, we'll no longer try to explain.

For today, we'll offer this instead:

The self-impressed stars of our blue tribe elites almost never discuss the deaths (and the lives) of the innocents to whom King attends. They'll discuss only one of the possible elements which may be "driving crime in our streets."

Beyond that, you'll wait and wait and wait and wait before our wealthy tribal stars stoop to the level of discussing what happens in our public schools, where the future interests (and the current happiness) of lower-income kids are at stake every day.

Instead, they feed us pablum day after day. (George Santos lied!) This pablum keeps us barefoot and happy, and it keeps the stars rolling in dough.

Whether on an intellectual or a moral basis, our public discourse is a sick joke—and our blue tribe is one obvious part of the problem. Starting tomorrow, we'll try to examine a week in the life—though we'll start with the latest dispensation of The Crazy by the red tribe's Tucker Carlson.

That said, our own tribe isn't the ultimate repository of journalistic and moral brilliance. Despite that fact, the clowncar rolls up every day: 

"Our favorite reporters and friends" spill out of the car and proceed to dispense that message. 

Through some miracle of inertia, Colbert King's eyes have remained on the prize. He's even concerned when children are injured or killed by people who aren't the police!

Starting tomorrow, we'll offer a very limited selection of gruesome moments from A Week in The (Imitation of) Life. All in all, our public discourse is an imitation, and our tribe is part of this too.

Tomorrow: Tucker Carlson "explains"

Manifestations of The Crazy!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2023

Donald J. Trump and Us: Lawrence O'Donnell started Thursday night's Last Word in a highly informative way. 

He started the program by reporting a manifestation of The Crazy.

In this case, The Crazy had been given voice by one Donald J. Trump. As Lawrence explained, Trump had posted this analysis on his oddly named Truth Social site:

TRUMP (1/12/23): Page 1. The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as “an unfair Savage,” & is best friends with the craziest Trump haters, including Lisa Monaco who runs “Injustice.” The Boxes Scam is a HOAX...

For the record, that was just the first page of a three-page screed by the overwrought former president. 

We won't bore you with the second page, though you can read the text of all three pages thanks to this Mediaite report. That said, Trump's Page 3 went like this: 

TRUMP: Page 3. Fire a man who may very well turn out to be a criminal, Jack Smith. His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of “getting Trump.” Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead. Like Bill Barr, the U.S. Attorneys in Delaware and Illinois are weak, ineffective, and afraid to do what must be done. The Election was RIGGED, and we are now losing our Country. We can’t let that happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

We've long suggested that Donald J. Trump seems to be deeply disordered, in a way which might best be discussed by appropriate medical specialists. 

Is he (severely) "mentally ill" in some diagnosable way? Is he (severely) cognitively impaired? We aren't equipped to answer those questions. But it seems to us that his behavior should be understood and critiqued within some such framework, rather than by screaming and yelling, in pleasing ways, about his endless "lies."

As it turned out, Donald J. Trump wasn't done with The Crazy that day. As O'Donnell explained, he'd gone on "a right-wing radio show" and expanded on his analysis.

Inevitably, the gruesome radio program in question was The Mark Levin Show, whose home stations are WABC in New York and WMAL in Washington. Thanks to this second Mediaite report, you can hear Trump offer these remarks on that highly influential program:

TRUMP (1/12/23): My prosecutor is Jack Smith. I wonder what his name was before Smith? I don't know, maybe it was Smith, but it seems like such a nice name, Jack Smith. He is a terrorist. He is a Trump hater. His best friends are [Andrew] Weissmann and all of these characters. Lisa Monaco at the Justice Department, one of the top officials. This is a disgraceful situation. He should resign. His wife hates Trump, probably even beyond him. And his wife—and his wife has a sister who openly hates like, a level that you can’t even believe.

In those remarks, Trump went beyond his earlier claims about Smith's wife, expanding his field to comments about the sister of Smith's wife. 

(We assume that Trump's comments about Smith's name are meant to suggest that Smith may secretly be Jewish, though of course we can't say that with certainty.)

In short, Donald J. Trump seems to be deeply in thrall to The Crazy. Given the limitations of human cognition; given the reach and the power of certain modern technologies; these manifestations of The Crazy—whether from Trump or from various other red tribe players—may be quite hard to confront.

It would help if we, over here in our tribe, stayed away from similar nuttiness of the kinds to which our own tribe seems ineluctably drawn. 

It would help if we could stifle such instincts! That said, inconsolable major experts have told us, again and again, that this is unlikely to happen.

More on these dangers next week. Our tribe is confronting a very serious political / cultural challenge. In our view, it would help if we reined in our own unfortunate inclinations in various obvious ways.

We like to believe that we're morally great. On the whole, all in all, we just aren't!

CASE STUDY: The kids in med school are all right!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2023

Our blue tribe elites, not so much: Today, as our endless Case Study ends, we offer some excellent news.

We're here today to tell you this:

The kids seem to be all right!

At this point, let us make a correction. The "kids" to whom we refer aren't exactly kids. 

We refer instead to the 328 medical students and medical residents who participated in a UVa study back in 2015. The UVa study's alleged results are frequently by the journalists of our failing blue time. 

With that correction made, we're here today to tell you this:

Those medical students and residents seem to be all right!

At this point, another correction! In the UVa study in question, many of these trainees were surveyed, but only some of the trainees' responses were reported. 

Responses from 108 "nonwhite" trainees were essentially disappeared. For reasons which went unexplained, the authors only reported the responses of 222 "white" trainees.

According to ongoing blue tribe lore, those 222 "white" trainees plainly weren't all right. According to one account of the study, this is how disturbing and shocking those (whites only) trainees actually were:

SABIN (1/6/20): “Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.” “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.” “Black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than white people’s.”

These disturbing beliefs are not long-forgotten 19th-century relics. They are notions harbored by far too many medical students and residents as recently as 2016. In fact, half of trainees surveyed held one or more such false beliefs, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. I find it shocking that 40% of first- and second-year medical students endorsed the belief that “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.”

For the record, the headline on Professor Sabin's essay said that these were white medical trainees. And, as you can plainly see:

In Sabin's assessment, half of those white trainees just weren't all right at all. 

Those (white) trainees held false beliefs about biological differences between whites and blacks which were shocking and disturbing. Indeed, their false beliefs seemed to come straight out of this nation's long forgotten 19th century past.

Everyone knows what such claims mean. In our tribe, we find such claims highly pleasing.

We've never seen anyone overstate this case to the extent that Professor Sabin did. The professor's a good and decent person, but she really ran wild in that piece.

That said, this UVa study is frequently cited by blue tribe journalists, and the assessment is always the same. The assessment goes like this:

Half a group of (white) medical students gave voice to racist-adjacent beliefs!

With all that said, we're here today to share the good news! Those 328 medical trainees, white and nonwhite alike, don't seem to have given voice to shocking and disturbing beliefs after all! 

Also this, not that it actually matters:

The nonwhite medical trainees—the trainees whose responses were disappeared—were actually slightly more inclined to give voice to allegedly false beliefs! That said, the difference between these two groups of trainees was very slight. 

Once again, here's some of what Kevin Drum found deep inside the bowels of the widely cited UVa study. Drum is using "S&Rs" as shorthand for "[medical] students and residents:"

DRUM (1/4/23): S&Rs were allowed to mark an answer as "possibly," "probably," or "definitely" true or false. With one exception, which I'll get to, virtually every single person who marked a false statement as true said it was only "possibly true." Among all the false statements, there were 229 marks of "possibly true" and only 9 marks of "probably true." There was not a single mark of "definitely true."

I said there was one exception, and this is it: I didn't count the marks from the question about the thickness of Black skin. This is the huge outlier, with 41% of first and second-years believing it and even 23% of thirds and residents believing it.

[...]

Beliefs of white and nonwhite respondents are virtually identical. In particular the average score for nerve endings is 1.94 vs. 1.83 (nonwhite S&Rs are more likely to believe it) and 1.76 vs. 1.73 for skin thickness. Overall, the belief in false statements is 2.06 vs. 1.98, meaning that nonwhite S&Rs are slightly more likely to believe them than white S&Rs.

Belief in false statements is not a problem. The percentages are low and the responses are almost all tentative.

We'll strongly disagree with Drum on one important point. He seems to accept the absurd procedure in which respondents were judged to have scored an allegedly false statement as being "true" if they merely marked the statement as being "possibly true."

Since respondents weren't allowed to say that they simply didn't know if a given statement was true, that procedure strikes us as a baldly absurd—as a ludicrous, disgraceful and ugly thumb clamped down on the scale. 

(For the record, we assume that this is what Drum means when he says that responses which stated agreement with an allegedly false belief "[were] almost all tentative." We presume he means that all such responses merely said that a statement was possibly true.)

We very strongly disagree with Drum on that point. Other than that, Drum brought the good news from his laborious deep dive into the UVa study:

The medical trainees, white and nonwhite together, voiced agreement with very few false statements. Indeed, they almost never said that any of the allegedly false statements were probably or definitely true.

In this way, these (white and nonwhite) medical students seem to be all right! They didn't stand in line to voice agreement with the shocking, disturbing racist beliefs of our 19th century past.

That said, Drum noted one exception—the allegedly false statement "about the thickness of black skin." The statement in question was this:

Black people’s skin has more collagen (i.e., it’s thicker) than White people’s skin.

Is that statement true? Is it true that black people's skin is thicker than white's people's skin?

For ourselves, we don't have the slightest idea. Nor do we know of any basis on which any such minor biological difference could possibly matter. 

That said, quite a few respondents "agreed with" that allegedly false statement. This means that they at least chose to say that the statement was possibly true (as most statements are). 

In that vastly limited sense, quite a few respondents "agreed with" that particular statement. Let us say this about that, this time with reference to this pregnant footnote from Drum:

DRUM: However, it's worth noting that this is an active area of research that has produced some contradictory results. See here, here, here, and here. 

Is it possible that black people's skin really is somewhat thicker? Almost everything is possible, and Drum offers links to four studies which seem to suggest that this allegedly false statement could possibly be true.

You can journey to Drum's report to click on his four links. For the record, the headlines on his second link read exactly like this:

Black Skin
Asian and black skins have a thicker dermis than white skin, the thickness being proportional to the intensity of pigmentation.

Briefly googling, we found a fair number of reports which seemed to make roughly similar claims. Lacking knowledge in this area, we have no idea what the (utterly pointless) truth may actually turn out to be.

That said, is it possible that some of those medical students had been exposed to such reports? Could that be why this one allegedly false statement drew much more "agreement" than any of the others, even among the third and fourth year trainees?

We don't know how to answer that question. Neither does anyone else.

In Drum's assessment, this UVa research effort was "a dog's breakfast of a study." We'll quote him at greater length:

DRUM: Overall, this is a dog's breakfast of a study. The authors end up focusing on whether S&Rs who harbor more false beliefs also tend to rate pain lower in Black patients compared to better-informed S&Rs. It turns out they don't, but they do rate pain in white patients higher. However, the amount is smallish; it makes little difference in treatment; and the statistics presented seem cherry-picked and gnawed at a little too carefully. I'm not really sure I put much stock in the authors' conclusions.

"The statistics seem cherry-picked," Drum unkindly says. In our view, several basic procedures involved in the study are astoundingly hard to explain.

First among those strange procedures was the unexplained decision to disappear the responses by the "nonwhite" medical trainees—responses which Drum found to be "virtually identical" to those of the "white" trainees.

From there, the jet plane rumbled down the runway, lugging tribal narrative as its dominant load. Soon, our blue tribe had the latest exciting claim which helps to drive the self-defeating, ugly Storyline we very stupidly like.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—but our failing blue tribe is deeply in love with the spotting of racists. Joe McCarthy found Commies under every bed. Today, our blue tribe goes him one better.

Alas, our poor failing nation! The red tribe traffics in crazy beliefs. Our own deeply unimpressive tribe traffics is conduct like this.

The Others can often see how disordered we are. That disorder is a basic state of affairs we can't seem to see in ourselves.

As we close, we return you to another account of the UVa study. This account appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, written by a healthcare journalist who is a good, decent person and who currently sits at the very top of the field:

VILLAROSA (4/11/18): In 2016, a study by researchers at the University of Virginia examined why African-American patients receive inadequate treatment for pain not only compared with white patients but also relative to World Health Organization guidelines. The study found that white medical students and residents often believed incorrect and sometimes “fantastical” biological fallacies about racial differences in patients. For example, many thought, falsely, that blacks have less-sensitive nerve endings than whites, that black people’s blood coagulates more quickly and that black skin is thicker than white.

According to Professor Sabin, the UVa study showed that These White Medical Students Today held shocking and disturbing beliefs straight out of the 19th century.

("For example, many thought, falsely, that blacks have less-sensitive nerve endings than whites?" Alas! Of the 87 third and fourth year white trainees who participated in the UVa study, only one failed to rate that statement as some version of untrue. In that sense, we'd say that those trainees were all right. We're less sure about the acclaimed medical writer who made the statement we've quoted.)

According to Linda Villarosa, the UVa study showed that These White Medical Students Today often, or at least sometimes, believe “fantastical” biological fallacies. It's very, very, very hard to affirm Villarosa's account of the UVa study.

The white kids surveyed in this study held shocking, disturbing beliefs. They sometimes believed "fantastical" notions. 

"Virtually identical" responses by the nonwhite kids were disappeared by these tribal elites. This is the way the game is played by our own failing tribe at this time.

Sadly but plainly, our failing, deeply unwell blue tribe loves claims of this type. We seem to love these invidious claims more than we love life itself. 

The red tribe now runs on crazy belief. As can be seen on a daily basis, our own tribe now runs on this!