The American Spectator

Current Wisdom

(Page 3 of 3)

MSNBC’s David Shuster, full of admiration for the American citizenry, explains how Fox News Channel manages to top his network day after day:

Look, if Fox wants to consider themselves the GOP house organ, that’s fine. They completely backed it up. When Fox starts describing themselves as journalists or a news organization, that’s where I think it’s appropriate to describe Fox as disgraceful.… Their coverage on the Fox News Channel has been atrocious. The stuff that comes out of Sean Hannity’s mouth has been infuriating. The stuff that Bill O’Reilly says has been illogical. You go up and down the schedule and it’s insanity over there.… The number of lies, perpetuated, promoted by Fox News is just shameful and it hurts everybody.

(April 30, 2009)

American Prospect

Another bolus of the inscrutable heaved into the American Prospect, American Liberalism’s most dependable cuspidor:

Going a few years further back, the explanation for Republican decline may lie in the strategy of governing adopted when the right was in power. With a narrow majority based in the white South, and with demographic trends running against them, the Repub licans pulled out all the stops and tried to wring every possible advantage from the moment, a strategy exemplified by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s “majority of a majority” rule, under which he would refuse to bring to the floor any legislation that wasn’t supported by a majority of Republicans, blocking many bipartisan coalitions. Trained to govern in this desperate, high-stakes mode, the Republicans have no ability to step back into the role of a constructive minority that actually tries to collaborate in governing. They governed more like a high-flying hedge fund than an investor with a long view. In opposition, they take the same approach.

(June 1, 2009)

From the Archives
Timeless Tosh from Current wisdoms Past
(July 1989 & August 1989)

Washington Post Magazine

Mr. Richard Cohen demonstrates with charming ambivalence that she is indeed a woman:

In fact, I would like to be almost anything or anyone that I am not. The list is a long one, but it includes, among other things, a woman. I would like to be a woman—not permanently, mind you, or, even really.

(May 28, 1989)

New Woman

New Woman’s vision of the New Age Marlboro Man, this one named Norman:

“Sometimes I think I’d rather experience a good cry than good sex,” says Norman. “The cry is much more elusive. I know it’s a cultural phenomenon— we men are supposed to want sex constantly, and we’re not ever supposed to cry. It’s like crossed signals in our bodily fluids; we’re allowed to emit sperm, but not tears.”

Life is so mean. Let’s order those men a few crates full of Kleenex, then put on our teddies and show them what we really want.

(March 1989)