BREAKING: It's time for Lithwick's crowd to go!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2018

Decades of self-dealing:
We will assume that Dahlia Lithweick is a perfectly decent person in her private life. In our view, most people are.

That said, we're forced to agree with the assessment she launched this morning at Slate: According to Lithwick, a bunch of teenaged high school kids are better advocates than she and her useless, privileged crowd of establishment pundits have been.

Lithwick's generation of liberal pundits has been a careful, ear-to-the-ground gang of careerist losers. Luckily, kids who are 17 years old aren't yet as compromised at the Lithwicks have been.

How worthless are the Dahlia Lithwicks? Consider this passage near the end of her accurate group confession:
LITHWICK (2/22/18): Conservatives prefer their victims silent and passive. When they start to actually evince anger, they are denounced as either lying fabricators (like Rob Porter’s former wives) or “crisis actors” (like the students at Stoneman Douglas High). Unless you are calling for more cops, more guns, more walls, more prisons, and more punishment, you are a nuisance to be derided and denied. And that’s the beauty of the Parkland kids. They don’t care. We scoff that theirs is a generation raised on reality shows, Instagram, and YouTube, but they are more aware of what is real and what is fake than the adults around them. Far from acting, or ritualized performance, these students have veered so far from any received post-tragedy script that, one week after the shooting, they are still dominating the news cycle. This is what being awake and alive and human and compassionate actually looks like. Pitting all that against Dana Loesch’s hard, shiny little NRA talking points reveals the made-for-cable fakery we’ve bought into en masse.
A lot of that is hard to follow. But there's no doubt that the Parkland students, imperfect as they inevitably will be, are "better than the adults around them," if by that we mean the utterly useless adult liberals of Lithwick's generation.

Note the pathetic way Lithwick chooses to argue her points even in that confessional passage. In a standard bit of passive-aggression, she refers to "Dana Loesch’s hard, shiny little NRA talking points" while providing a link to this video.

She doesn't attempt to say what's wrong with the statements Loesch makes in that piece of videotape. Right to the point where she hands the reins over to the high school kids, she remains too useless to stand on her two hind legs and speak.

Lithwick links to a piece of tape in which Loesch is making a claim which deserves to be analyzed and evaluated. Along the way, the student with whom Loesch is speaking makes some deeply unhelpful remarks, starting with the vastly condescending remark right at the start of the tape.

To Lithwick, this extremely young, inexperienced person is better than she herself is, and there's little doubt that that judgment is right. Example:

"For twenty years," Lithwick wouldn't blow the whistle on this federal judge because it might have hurt her career. But then, she and her gang of super-establishment liberal pundits have played the game this way every single step of the way for the past twenty-six years:

Play it safe! Play it safe! Whatever you do, don't ever tell the truth if it will put your career and social standing in jeopardy. Their relentless self-dealing gave us Bush. Later, it gave us Trump.

Lithwick needs to get a job. Teen-aged students aren't going to save us, but it's long past time for her horrible crowd to go.

33 comments:

  1. 'Play it safe! Play it safe! Whatever you do, don't ever tell the truth if it will put your career and social standing in jeopardy. Their relentless self-dealing gave us Bush. Later, it gave us Trump.'

    Actually,what helped to put Trump in power was the right wing, media which Somerby totally ignores.

    His focus is on the truly important things in life:
    1) Attacking Maddow
    2) Attacking liberal opinion writers such as Litwick
    3) Defending Trump and his circle.
    4) Attacking liberals
    5) Doing nothing
    6) Nitpicking.

    Each to his own, Bob, but it's clear that your goal is not completely aligned with Trump cultists.

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    1. Excuse me, I meant it's clear that Bob's goal is completely aligned with Trump cultists. Fortunately, that group comprises a large part of his miniscule audience these days.

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    2. See if you can pick up a life cheap on eBay. You need one.

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    3. One Trump cultist of the miniscule audience takes exception to being so classified !

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    4. Anon. @ 3:36: You clearly are missing Bob's point if you truly believe what you have enumerated, especially 3 & 5. Either that or you are on Putin's payroll.

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  2. I had to smile when I heard the chant "Hey, hey NRA, how many kids have you killed today?".

    In another time, when my views were much more conservative, the chant was "Hey, hey LBJ".

    The kids eventually won that one and I think and hope they c an win this one. Just don't get distracted by bullshit about bump stocks and hardened schools. It's the AR-15s stupid.

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  3. The problem is systemic, Bob.

    The problem is not that they are a "horrible crowd", it's that only their kind can successfully climb the ladder and become part of the establishment. Pleasers. Reliable servants who will cause no trouble.

    Go read Manufacturing Consent or something...

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    1. You've just described the problem with the system, the status quo, and Somerby's misguided railing at liberals for not successfully changing it.

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    2. Technocratic liberalism is the system. And the liberals, liberal zombies are the dogmatic, bien pensant, disciplined fodder for it. Every question has the right answer, according to the official set of talking points, narratives. Any dissent, any doubt is evil ('bigoted', 'offensive', and these days outright treasonous).

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    3. More pathetic Russian word salad.

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    4. Nothing says "Anti-establishment" like Trump's EPA allowing the elites to pollute our land, air and water for a few more bucks. Amirite?

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  4. Note to future op-ed writers: never admit to having made a mistake, because Somerby will rip you a new one for it.

    Lithwick wrote a confessional about her failures regarding that judge. In so doing, she illustrates why it was difficult for a woman to come forward in cases of sexual harassment. But Somerby lays into Lithwick, not the judge.

    It's good to know that Somerby is morally superior to just about any other liberal.

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    1. Somerby is no liberal. Note that he doesn't criticize Loesch at all, but the criticizes the student speaking to us. He should join BretBart.

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    2. Lithwick had ample opportunity to speak out about Koszinski because he'd been in trouble before about sexual improprieties and having porn on his office computer.

      Women knew 10 and 20 years ago the difference between right and wrong. Gimme a break.

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  5. What does Bob mean by "save us"? Presumably he means whatever it is that the anti-gun or gun-control demonstrators are demanding. But, what do they actually want? What realistic legislative change do they think will ameliorate the problem?

    I recommend reading this entire article from WaPo:

    I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.

    By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.8b7b9494a035

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    1. So explain again why you believe any idiot - and I mean idiot, like that moron who went a-hunting in a pizza parlour based on a rumour only an idiot would believe - should be able to buy an M-16-Lite?

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    2. "... what do they actually want?"

      It's clear what you and your heroes want - to exploit tragedy after tragedy in order to sell more weaponry.

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    3. Anon 6:39 -- your comment illustrates that nastiness and snark are your logic.

      What I want are policies that will actually reduce these awful killings. Better work by various authorities might have prevented the recent attack. Allowing trained teachers with concealed carry permits to carry guns at school might perhaps reduce the number and severity of these mass school shootings. Hopefully people more knowledgeable than I are thinking up other useful approaches. OTOH demonizing the NRA will save no lives.

      Steve B. - of course I wish idiots like that shouldn't have guns. The problem is to distinguish the idiots and to find a Constitutional basis for keeping guns out of the idiots' hands. I don't know how to achieve that. What are your thoughts?

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    4. The solution is easy. Ban all guns for everyone.

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    5. 8:04 -- this country will never ban all guns. Two reasons:
      1. the second Amendment and the SC decision mean that individuals have a Constitutional right to bear arms.
      2. Half the country strongly support guns, so our democracy won't ban them

      Wishful thinking just takes us away from the goal of finding realistic approaches to actually reduce murders.

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    6. Hardball did a hilarious little segment tonight cutting back and forth between Wayne LaPierre's speech at CPAC today and statements made by his pet poodle, The Great Donald J Trump. Trump was like a parrot just spitting back almost word for word what LaPierre had spoken earlier in the day.

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    7. The SC Heller decision stated clearly that the 2nd Amendment does not extend the right to the AR-15.

      Justice Scalia wrote:

      “We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. ‘Miller’ said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ 307 U.S., at 179, 59 S.Ct. 816. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”


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    8. mm -the AR-15 IS in common use.

      Anyhow, a semi-automatic rifle with no military stuff would be just about as dangerous as the AR-15.

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    9. Fine DinC. You have just described all semi-automatic weapons as "dangerous."

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    10. the AR-15 IS in common use.

      Oh, really, David? As what? Penis enhancers?

      It's OK, David. You don't have to worry your delicate little brain about what "they" want, "they" being something like 97% of the population.

      When the NRA says people need the AR-15 for self defense, this is what they mean.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=rancher+standoff&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic9JiJ8bvZAhXDmuAKHU70AdQQ_AUIDSgE&biw=1600&bih=754#imgrc=vGJD1i7j7KU88M:&spf=1519383638704


      Don't worry, David. The kids got this now. You can go back leading your charmed and privileged life inside your gated community. We got this now.

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    11. David, I think the point Justice Scalia was making is that the AR-15 wasn't in common use when the amendment was written.

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    12. DinC: "Hopefully people more knowledgeable than I are thinking up other useful approaches."

      A pool of about 325M people in this country alone.

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    13. "2. Half the country strongly support guns, so our democracy won't ban them."

      You're forgetting that we will be offering "thoughts and prayers" to those who mourn the loss of their firearms. Those thoughts and prayers will soothe the public like they always do.

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  6. Lithwick says that the Parkland kids are more aware of what's real, more alive and more awake than the rest of us.

    Those Parkland kids just survived a shooting in which they too were targets but were spared. Of course they feel more alive than anyone else. That is what it is like when you experience near death and yet survive. That feeling passes.

    In the meantime, those kids are more effective advocates because they have greater standing, just as the parents of the Sandy Hook children do and those who attended the concert that was attacked in Las Vegas. No volunteer or paid advocate on either side can have the same legitimacy when they voice their opinions. But such legitimacy comes at a terrible cost and no one would suggest that any of us should seek it out.

    Today's long time gun control advocates have been doing the best job they know how. It is not their fault they haven't been able to accomplish change yet. It is wrong for Somerby or Lithwick to blame them, as they appear to be doing here. Somerby blames all liberals for everything wrong with the world, so his stance is no surprise. Lithwick shouldn't be undercutting the efforts of liberal activists by suggesting that they are somehow jaded or don't know what is really real when it comes to people getting shot. We all know who bleeds.

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  7. Loesch attacks liberals at CPAC (liberals are OTHERS there), but Somerby can't bring himself to criticize her. Instead he takes a potshot at a traumatized teen. All this so he can attack Litwick.

    I'm not sure why Somerby even claims to be a liberal any more. He is a fucking moron and a liar, who wants liberals to lose.

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  8. Bob is a liberal in the same way that Zell Miller was a Democrat. Bob's fundamental point is that Trump is right about "fake news." The problem is with the phony New York Times, Washington Post, and MSNBC--not Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Steven Miller, Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, Kellyanne Conway, Scott Pruitt, and Sarah Sanders. His occasional side long put downs of the Administration are merely cover for his often pedantic and over-the-top attacks on the left. In this he differs little from Howie Kurtz and Brent Bozell.

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    1. At least Zell didn't claim to be a liberal and switched parties too. Somerby claims to be a liberal, wheras the fact is that he spends all his time attacking liberals and defending Trump

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    2. How many times has anon 10:36 cut and pasted the above.

      Why are so many obvious bots and trolls repeatedly going after Bob? Who and what's behind it?

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