The New York Times did this earlier, deleting Obama's line about whether incivil debate caused the Tucson shooting -- "It did not," Obama said, fairly directly, contradicting the New York Times' Narrative.

But The Narrative is more important than a president's actual words, so the actual words had to be changed to reinforce The Narrative.

It's always comical when a religion becomes more important than the god itself. There's a funny scene in Return of the Jedi where the Ewoks want to cook Threepio's friends in honor of his golden divinity, and Threepio keeps saying don't do that, but they ignore him, because the religion says the god gets a feast and it doesn't matter if the god says otherwise. What does he know? He's just a god, after all. What does he know of his own religion?

So it is with Obama and the high priests of the Worshipful Media. The high priests have decided that their hero-god is a bit potty lately, and so they must correct his spaketh-ings so they become inerrantly perfect, as they should be, as the Sacred Scrolls prophecized.

And now High Priestess of Advanced Dementia With Paranoid Complex Joan Walsh of Salon is pressed into the great duty of fixing her god's words so they agree with the prophecy.

Here's what Obama actually said:

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do..."

Emphasis added. Note that segment seems to be taking both right and left to task.

Here's how Joan Walsh quotes him.

At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to blame all that ails our world, it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, and not in a way that woundsÂ….

She simply omits the patch about being eager to blame "those who think differently."

And then she attempts to argue the speech was not, in fact, a rebuke of the left at all. She says:

Now conservatives are reporting that Obama's speech was meant to scold those on the left who have dared to discuss the fact that Giffords had confronted violence before her shooting: that someone dropped a gun at one of her town hall meetings, her office door was shattered after she voted for healthcare reform, and she herself told MSNBC that the cross-hairs imagery Sarah Palin used to target her might "have consequences." Obama was brilliantly fair in his remarks, and I've reproduced the relevant section above, so people can decide for themselves if he was in fact pointing fingers as he urged us not to point fingers.

But you didn't, Joanie. You specifically omitted the part where he cautions your ilk against being so eager to blame all the ills of the world on "those who think differently." So how can your tiny handful of readers actually "decide for themselves"?

DW pointed this out, and has written a letter of complaint to Salon. So far, no correction, no explanation. Further...

By altering the content of a quote, Joan has breached one of the highest ethical codes in journalism. I myself and other readers have called her on this in the readers thread repeated, but have not gotten an acknowledgment, an apology or even a correction. The mangled misquote still stands. Is this what Salon has become, Mr. Lauerman?

So in the comments section, it's also been pointed out, and yet as of now, eight days since the breach, the error remains.

Can't. Stop. The Narrative.

Reality-based community or community-based reality?

They're like the dead in Sixth Sense -- they only see what they want to see. So they don't know that they're... ghosts of a fallen age.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (96)
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Complete with references to Goebbels, blood libel & the Holocaust. This is the "new tone" that President Obama called for?

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," [Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)] said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing, blood libel. That's the same kind of thing."

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

This isn't new. Rep. Giffords made a Nazi reference back during the healthcare debate in 2009.

Video of Rep. Cohen is below the fold.

Incidentally, Cohen relies CBO's claims that repeal of ObamaCare will increase the deficit that have been thoroughly debunked. The CBO score is a result of clever budgetary gimmicks; it's not a genuine projection of the costs of the law. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:21 AM | Comments (99)
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Before this statement, there likely would have been no laws passed in the wake of Tucson. The Democrats had been too afraid to even broach the question -- I think that's a central reason why they are trying to tie Sarah Palin and Glen Beck to the shootings. Since they are too cowardly to even ask for some kind of new gun law, but what some political victory from the six deaths, that leaves them sputtering about rhetoric.

But that was before Cheney, a member of the strong conservative wing in good standing (despite his understandable ambivalence about gay marriage), offered this up.

It had occurred to me, as I'm sure it occurred to many, that 33 round pistol magazines aren't used in hunting, and probably not in home defense, either, begging the question of precisely what the usefulness of such a magazine is. But I know the general stance of the Second Amendment caucus is that no additional regulation shall be passed, because, even if a regulation is more cosmetic than serious, it sets a bad precedent, re-affirms the government's right to impose other regulations, and ultimately moves the possibility of a real "gun grab" slightly along the confiscatory track.

Still, I'm always less than impressed by that sort of slippery slope argument. There is some truth in the slippery slope argument, but generally the argument is put forward when there are few other good arguments available -- thus the argument becomes not that x is so catastrophic, but x makes y more likely, and y is bad, and y makes z more likely, and z is terrible. But I can't avoid the implication contained in this argument -- So you're saying x, by its own terms, really isn't all that bad? Except to the extent that it makes y possible? Well, can't we just stop y, then?

Of course, I am not really a member of the Second Amendment caucus.

Anyway, I didn't bring that up because there seemed to be no point -- I don't think that banning large-capacity magazines is unconstitutional, nor do I think it will prove to be terribly effective at all; it's mostly (mostly) symbolic pap that can only have the most trivial effect on things either way. And so it's probably not worth it to even concede a trivial point.

As I said: The Democrats are too scared to bring this up, except for the super-safe Representatives in super-liberal districts. But the few remaining Blue Dogs are scared to death to broach the question, and even liberals in gun-friendlier states aren't going to take chances.

So, since it wasn't going to happen, why bother even mentioning it?

But Cheney's statement does actually now make this a live possibility, if only a small possibility. Some Democrats might find "courage" in hiding behind Cheney and argue in favor of it.

Which means it's now an issue for Republicans, too: Can we advance any strong argument, besides the slippery slope, that people should have 33-round pistol magazines?

Extended Clip? 33-round mags are extended clips, right? That is, they extend well below the grip of the gun.

Usually that is just used with automatic pistols, right? Or like tiny machine guns like the Uzi? But automatic pistols are generally illegal, right?

Just asking.

Posted by: Ace at 09:24 AM | Comments (539)
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Evil.

He is charged with the death of a woman, plus seven babies that were born alive, but then killed with scissors.

If you ever wondered whether abortion clinics actually follow the law or if state authorities ever check to see that they're following the law, wonder no longer:

District Attorney Seth Williams says state regulators ignored complaints and failed to visit the clinic since 1993.

Williams says the women were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, which was shut down last year.

If there were any justice in the world, the "state regulators" would also find themselves in handcuffs right now. There is no doubt in my mind that abortion clinics break the law all the time and receive exceptional forbearance from the agencies that are supposed to regulate them. In the minds of liberals, abortion is, after all, one of the "protected" rights and if complaints are coming in, it's probably just the usual God-botherers.

Do you really believe that just this one facility went unregulated for fifteen years?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:21 AM | Comments (236)
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For those who have never had the pleasure of reading Harper's magazine, it can best be summed up by likening it to a weak-tea version of the New Yorker. It is a literary magazine for the scones-and-crumpet set, and for people who find The Atlantic too gauche. In short, it is a magazine for leftists who fancy themselves both intellectuals and possessed of a certain exquisite taste, and nowhere is this more evident than in its owner, John MacArthur.

MacArthur is something of a Luddite, disdaining much modern technology, and it is this aversion to technology that has hurt Harper's in recent years. Where other periodicals have moved to the web to stay viable, MacArthur has stubbornly kept the Internet at arm's length. The result is a torrent of red ink at the magazine, and MacArthur has attempted to stem the bleeding by laying off staff. Which leads to the hilarity!

MacArthur has on many occasions given loving tongue-baths to unions, at one point calling the UAW "the countryÂ’s best and traditionally most honest mass labor organization". So you'd think that having his own staff organize under the auspices of the UAW (an auto-worker union organizing a magzine? WTF?) would just send him into a lefty spasm of delight. Well...not so much, as it turns out.

MacArthur is finding, as so many business owners have before him, that the interests of the union mainly involve protecting their own jobs rather than the viability of the company they work for. And so now the poor liberal champion of unionization now finds himself cast in the role of corporate robber-baron, a capitalist thug crushing his poor working-class minions beneath his hobnailed boot. I wonder what the chances are that MacArthur will publish an angry denunciation of the same union he so lavishly praised not so long ago.

It's all liberal solidarity until your own employees turn on you, isn't it, Mr. MacArthur?

Posted by: Monty at 05:43 AM | Comments (133)
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This feels like a hangover I didn't deserve.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:12 AM | Comments (280)
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CAC is busy with "an extraordinary set of circumstances" related to work this week and asked me to do the art thread. ("Extraordinary circumstances" = "the check cleared.") If you have submitted some things to CAC that haven't been posted, send them to me at rdbrewer4(at)yadayadayadagmail.com. Like that secret code there? I'll try to put together a post for tomorrow night.

For tonight, please feel free to link to art or criticism you feel is noteworthy. I'd like to put up a sample of criticism that would help teach the meat and potatoes art consumer "how to see" abstract art, since so many seem to be repulsed by "blobs of paint" and "doodles." If you know of something useful, please put me some information. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 07:27 PM | Comments (35)
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Yet another ONT crawls out of the bog of suckitude....

David Carradine's Final Movie

So it looks like David Carradine's final movie is going to be El Dorado, a Nazi-musical starring Steve Guttenberg. Yes you heard that right. And did I mention that it's going to be in 3-D too?

This is a live action 3D comedy/horror/musical/road movie and is the first ever British movie to be shot in 3D.

After wrongly being sent to a Neo Nazi fund raiser instead of the stripper, Blues Brothers tribute band ‘The Jews Brothers’, Stan and Ollie get offered a gig in El Dorado to make amends for a gig gone sour.

Of course the movie still might have some redeeming qualities - after all even Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden had at least one catchy tune. And if you aren't completely repulsed/intrigued by all this, then I present to you the El Dorado trailer:

And in other movie news the long talked about Alien prequel is now dead. Well not dead-dead - it's now going to be a completely independent sci-fi film called Prometheus to be directed by Ridley Scott. This is probably fitting since the late Dan O'Bannon once said that the best thing to do with the series would be to end it.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:01 PM | Comments (366)
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Hey, gotta start somewhere. A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking about real savings.

Posted by: Ace at 04:17 PM | Comments (207)
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They just found a 1956 film of an acid-test at the Veteran's Administration featuring a housewife.

Kinda funny.

And now I sorta want to try some acid. I want to see molecules in color, too.

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 PM | Comments (315)
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