Stanley Kurtz reviews a new book about "The New (Political, Unihinged) Anger" called A Bee In The Mouth.

Although the book notes that the right picked up some of this unhinged anger during the Clinton years, it's the left that wallows in the hate. An interesting read.

Look, it's true. I couldn't publically wish death upon people I dislike even were I moved to do so -- readers would criticize me harshly for it.

And yet, such is the stock in trade of leftwing blogs, and their readers delight in it. Three leftwing bloggers, ranging from highly prominent (Daily Kos) to somewhat promient (Wonkette) to, well, Tbogg (Tbogg), have wink-wink nudge-nudge expressed their hopes that Michelle Malkin doesn't come home from Iraq, and no one much seems to mind.

I was thinking about responding in kind, but it's simply beneath me. This is just pathetic impotence expressing itself through venom born of lifelong failure.

The decline of our old ideals of self-mastery and reserve both caused and flowed from the unraveling of the family. What remained was a vast new realm of restlessness. According to Wood, the effect was strongest, not in the baby boomers who first broke with the old emotional restraints, but in their children. The boomers, after all, for all their rebellion, were raised in the shadow of traditional emotional norms. Yet the children of the boomers have grown up with still less restraint, and this, says Wood, has produced a personality type that both lacks and craves self-definition.

Restlessly seeking some restraint against which to define or prove ourselves, Americans must now imagine and oppose oppressive authorities or hateful enemies, even where none exist. The newly unbounded American self, says Wood, is a ghostlike figure, perpetually in search of “something solid against which it can prove its own existence.” New Anger, Wood concludes, “is the desperately intense effort of these ghosts to feel real.”

I hate, therefore I am.

They can have it. That's their thing, and they're welcome to it.

Oh, and... Of course Tbogg will respond he meant nothing of the sort. (Kos and Wonkette won't respond; they have better things to do.)

But of course all three meant to express a death wish. No writer is unaware of glaringly obvious implications of his words. When one writes something that implies something one doesn't mean, one usually immediately follows it with a parenthetical denying the unwanted implication. None of these three cats did that. They're quite happy with the obvious, implied death wish.

And they couldn't explain away their statements with a parenthetical like "(Of course I don't mean I wish her to die in Iraq...") because, one, that is what they meant, and two, their pathetic curses make no sense any other way. What, they want her to stay in Iraq and continue reporting, writing, and blogging with the added authority of being an embed? How does that help their cause?

They avoided saying something that would make more sense, like "I hope her time in Iraq opens her eyes to the horrors she's been defending," because that, alas, lacks the death-wish element they intend.

So, you know. We've got a bunch of pansies impotently spewing death-wishes like 90-year-old Gypsy women who are angry about the sprinkler system their landscaper installed. "I curse thee, I give thee the Evil Eye, I give thee the Devil's Horns!" The Old World primitivism of it is, let us say, somewhat incongruous coming from proud self-declared members of the Reality-Based Community.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (26)
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Nifong's strategy is even more cynical than we thought. At least if Sowell's speculation is right. And it reads true.

It is an old ploy to keep some charges hanging over the heads of accused individuals, even if you don't have enough of a case to convict them, just so that they can be persuaded to plea bargain down to something with minor penalties, in order to get the hassle over with.

That would also get the heat off Nifong, who could then claim that in fact he had some basis to prosecute in this case, when in fact he had nothing from day one.

If bad gets to worse, Nifong can take the case to a jury, hoping to find at least one juror so biased by racial resentments as to refuse to declare the Duke students not guilty. A hung jury can save Nifong from being hung for a groundless prosecution.

We can only hope that the Duke University students hang tough, even though this whole process is costing their families money, beginning with bail set several times as high for them as for someone accused of murder in the same jurisdiction.

What he said.

Posted by: Ace at 12:09 PM | Comments (10)
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I like the sound of this:

2006: Without much fanfare, much less a press release, the government and Coalition troops have gone to war with Moqtada al Sadrs Mahhi Army militia. Leaders are being arrested or killed. The raids are being carried out with overwhelming speed and force, so that pro-Sadr gunmen have little chance to put up effective resistance. Some of the raids are in support of an effort to find five civilian security contractors (four Americans and an Austrian), who are held by a Shia militia for ransom, or political purposes. No one is sure, and that apparently includes the kidnappers. The five men were seized six weeks ago.

That jibes with a report about the arrest of one of al-Sadr's top aids. The US military and Iraq government downplayed his relationship with al-Sadr, and said he was merely a suspect in bombings. It's cute -- the Muslim way of war. Go to war without admitting you're doing so.

And on those hostages: MyPetJawa has video of them, released by their captors, the Sadrist Militia "The Mujadeen of Jerusalem."

Thanks to Arthur for the Strategypage tip.

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (7)
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She gushed with praise for reporters reporting stuff that just didn't happen during Katrina as well.

Michelle Malkin, Curt from Flopping Aces, and Hot Air's Bryan Preston are all shortly departing for Iraq to find the Man Who Doesn't Exist. As well as report from the field with the troops.

Katty Carroll, of course, blasted bloggers after the fauxtography scandal as criticizing those in the field from air-conditioned offices.

So I'm sure Ms. Carroll will be leaving her air-conditioned office any day now.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (6)
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Mild caution, as the story has a risque pic running with it.

The culprit here was a refurbished memory card, not the PSP itself.

[The boy's mother] made the horrible mistake of buying a refurbished PSP memory card from a GameStop store. She gave the present to her son, who was surprised to find some pornographic material stored on the memory card...

Beats the hell out of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Best. Mom. Ever.

Thanks to FreakyBoy.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (21)
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More, please. Hume's mention of Eason's article is nice, but no one listens to Fox. At least not without original reportage, with a bona-fide Joseph-Rago-approved media expert trying to track down this man and coming up empty.

For crying out loud. We know his name, his rank, and where he works. How frigging hard is it for the media to make a few visits and a few more phone calls and ascertain whether anyone's ever heard of him or not.

Posted by: Ace at 11:35 AM | Comments (7)
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Princeton can use a man like Ban Ki Moon.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said Tuesday that Iraq and other countries have the right to impose the death penalty, adding that the world should never forget Saddam Hussein’s “heinous crimes.”

BanÂ’s first public reaction to HusseinÂ’s execution signaled a sharp break from his predecessor, Kofi Annan, an ardent death-penalty critic who opposed U.N. participation in the Iraqi war crimes tribunal that sentenced Hussein to die. Human rights advocates expressed concern that BanÂ’s comments lend credibility to what they see as a flawed trial of the former Iraqi leader, and complained that he could set back efforts to abolish the death penalty.

The remarks suggest that the former South Korean foreign minister, who began a five- year term on Monday, would defer to the United NationsÂ’ 192 member states on some of the dayÂ’s most controversial and unsettled issues. Nearly 70 countries, including the United States and South Korea, retain the death penalty.

“Saddam Hussein was responsible for committing heinous crimes and unspeakable atrocities against the Iraqi people,” Ban said in his first news conference as secretary general. “The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide.”

Full article and round-up of blog reactions at the link.

Posted by: Ace at 11:32 AM | Comments (6)
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They're very, very concerned that other people are producing so much greenhouse gas.

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (26)
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Why? Because Jamil Hussein will it to be such.

Oil falls to under $59/bbl. Thanks, Global Warming!

Dow up around 100 points. Thanks, Nancy Pelosi!

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (12)
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There was speculation they'd adjourn without ever voting on the state constitutional amendment either way. Bu t they've buckled to pressure and voted to put an amendment overturning the court-imposed gay marriage law to the public.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts, the only state where gay marriage is legal, voted Tuesday to allow a proposed constitutional amendment to move forward that would effectively ban the practice.

The amendment's backers had collected 170,000 signatures to get a question on the 2008 ballot asking voters to declare marriage to only be between a man and a woman, but they still needed the approval of legislators in two consecutive sessions.

On Tuesday, 61 lawmakers voted in favor of moving the measure forward, compared to 132 opposed. The amendment need 50 votes of support to advance.

If it makes it on the ballot and residents approve it, the constitutional amendment would leave Massachusetts' existing same-sex marriages intact but ban any new ones.

About 8,000 same-sex couples have wed in Massachusetts since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state Constitution guarantees gays the right to marry. A few other states offer civil unions with similar rights for gay couples, but only Massachusetts allows gay marriage.

Backers of the amendment argue that it should be up to the people, not the courts, to define something as important as marriage.

Supporters of gay marriage say the civil rights of a minority should not be put to a popular vote.

Democratic Gov.-elect Deval Patrick on Tuesday had met with leading lawmakers and urged them to skip the vote, calling it a "question of conscience" and saying the amendment process was being used "to consider reinserting discrimination into the constitution."

Four years of this guy. I can't wait to get out of here.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (403)
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