PJTV Does Gitmo
I’ve had mixed feelings about Pajamas TV since it began. Roger Simon is a real talent, Andrew Klavan often has intelligent points to make, and Glenn Reynolds, a pioneer of the blogosphere, alerts me to a good link I wouldn’t have otherwise seen almost every time that I read his blog. The guy who interviewed me when I appeared on the site was very nice. Instapundit also regularly sends traffic to Megan McArdle, Mickey Kaus, and Radley Balko, so Professor Reynolds and I obviously have overlapping tastes in journalism.
But I am dismayed at some of the content that the folks who run PJTV host on the site. Take the PJTV item that Instapundit teased today. It is a video titled “The Real Guantanamo Bay.” The segment has its merits. I enjoyed seeing some of the faces of men and women serving over there — whatever you think about the existence of Gitmo, it’s a fact that lots of folks serve honorably there. But things start to go downhill when the heavy-handed 9/11 footage is invoked to “remind liberals” that Americans are the actual victims “in all this.”
The most shameful single line in the piece is surely this one:
Maybe we should ship these guys to American prisons. I personally believe that prison should be as unpleasant as humanly possible. Let them bring their prayer rugs and everything. They’re already on their knees five times a day. While they’re at it let’s let them make a few new friends.
But it’s the disingenuous way that the whole debate about Gitmo is rendered that rankles most. The folks who exercise editorial control at PJTV never produce work this shoddy, so they are clearly capable of insisting on better content. I hope they start doing so.
Let’s remember that Instapundit is Reason-approved, a real libertarian, welcome in the libertarian community.
Libertarians can overlook all of the torture and abuse. Oh, they say that’s unfair. But really, if Reynolds comes out against taxes and name-drops Hayek and Rand a few times, the torture stuff is small-fry. For libertarians, taxi drivers are acceptable losses in the war against big gubmint.
The fact is that the PJTV/Fox axis drives a lot of traffic to libertarian websites, probably accounts for a good fraction of Reason subscribers and funding (just guessing, but I bet I’m right), and therefore a lot of radio silence and sometimes outright support for stuff like this.
There are people like Brink Lindsay and Bruce Bartlett out there, but there is NO money in (relatively) left-leaning libertarianism. Maybe in 10 years – maybe. But probably none, ever. If I had to bet I’d wager that the people you mention are a bunch of burgeoning Jonah Goldbergs – had potential, but ultimately decided to say fuck it and go for the cash.
— Steve C · Nov 18, 05:47 AM · #
This kind of pathetic vindictive imagery is par for the course among a segment of the outraged right. They don’t care if terrorists are tried for murder. If this was the case, they would advocate for a forum in which at least semi-transparent justice could be applied. They would be troubled that dozens of Gitmo prisoners were released under W’s watch because of negligible evidence or evidence entirely compromised by torture. Instead, with lazy aggression and bluntly partisan motives, they peddle Mel Gibsonesque fantasies of bloody redemption and anal rape.
You see it repeatedly on Michelle Malkin’s very upset blog. She mewls about those who would disparage her people as “teabaggers,” yet eagerly jumps at the opportunity to portray the President as prison-bitch-in-chief. How offended she is that someone would conflate with nut-lappers those who disparage Obama as a socialist for the very policy decisions that, had McCain ruled the roost, they would have silently accommodated.
Give her a cartoon depicting a praying Muslim or Obama with his ass presented to an autocrat, and she craves a piece. PajamasTV is equally horny. Both are dense adolescents who claim the moral high ground from the vantage of a sewer.
— turnbuckle · Nov 18, 05:55 AM · #
I can’t read the words “I personally believe” without hearing them in Miss South Carolina’s voice.
— bcg · Nov 18, 01:04 PM · #
Instapundit actually has mentioned the issue of prison rape (and the politicians who approvingly refer to it) as something he cares about stopping; I’m guessing that if you e-mailed him, he’d say that he didn’t see the reference you noticed.
— Klug · Nov 18, 01:30 PM · #
I think you overestimate Pajamas Media in general. I’ve never found much to admire there.
— Ray Butlers · Nov 18, 04:34 PM · #
“Instead, with lazy aggression and bluntly partisan motives, they peddle Mel Gibsonesque fantasies of bloody redemption and anal rape.”
Wow…you’re quite the armchair psychologist, aren’t you? Mel Gibson and anal rape fantasies? Just curious…how many times have you seen “Mad Max – Beyond Thunderdome”?
“She mewls about those who would disparage her people as “teabaggers,” yet eagerly jumps at the opportunity to portray the President as prison-bitch-in-chief.”
So you see no difference between Malkin criticizing Obama’s policies – which is what I assume you mean by your florid “prison-bitch…” comment,
and the media and others (such as yourself) using Castro-District slang to disparage American citizens who also are protesting O’s policies.
“How offended she is that someone would conflate with nut-lappers those who disparage Obama as a socialist for the very policy decisions that, had McCain ruled the roost, they would have silently accommodated.”
So you’re saying that, if John McCain had been elected president and he:
Had a bunch of America-loathing Marxisists and radicals in his circle of advisors, or
Took over 60% of GM and ordered the board of directors to fire the CEO and replace him with an approved flunky, or
Demanded that Chrysler Corporation merge with an Italian company, or
Tried to exert complete government control over such a huge and vital portion of our economy and well-being as the entire health-care system, or
Went around the world bemoaning what brutes we Americans are and apologizing – near and far – for our transgressions, or
Folded like a cheap suit when the Russians demanded we halt the missle defense systems which were to be installed in Poland, or
Could not string together 3 intelligible sentences without his trusty teleprompter, or
Spent his first 1o months in office puling and simpering about the “mess he inherited” and bitterly denouncing his predecessor as if the Presidency was thrust upon him without his consent,
That the “nut-lappers’ as you so eloquently describe folks who do not agree with turning America into The European Socialist Follies would be A-OK with all this? That they would overlook? ignore? the hard-left turn the nation has taken since January?
Really?
And why would they do that? Oh, yeah…because they’re all a bunch of racists, huh?
— tomaig · Nov 18, 05:56 PM · #
Did my comment lurch into screed territory. Okay, yes.
However, I stand by my speculation that McCain might have indeed pursued policy efforts essentially similar to Obama’s. This seems quite conceivable. McCain has expressed more than passing reservations, even outright denunciations, of Gitmo and the torture and spying programs of the last administration. He, too, would have felt pressured to take multiple government interventions to shore up a collapsing economy. Including the purchase of controlling shares in an enormous automaker upon whom tens of thousands of American jobs depend? Yes, completely conceivable.
We’ll have to agree to differ on most of your other points about Obama. Outside of your circle of sore losers, most observers don’t see the president as “simpering” or obsessively “bemoaning. . . transgressions.” Most do not regard his advisors as “America-loathing Marxists.” And please, watch his press conferences more closely. Your tired refrain notwithstanding, he does just fine off teleprompter. Your caricature of Obama feels as lame, dated and clumsy as those that regularly make the covers of the Weekly Standard.
The problem with my screed is that I left the impression that I disapprove of the rape and rug-burn imagery that tickles the genitals of many writers/cartoonists on the glowering right. I don’t. I say, go for it, no harm done. It’s a kind of comedy that has an audience. Why not take advantage?
Don’t, however, turn around and feign offense when the “Castro-district slang” is applied to your sympathizers. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t stoop that low, because you have and you do on a regular basis.
About Mel Gibson, I have mixed feelings. Braveheart was a guilty pleasure, and Apocalypto was simply terrific. Not sure why you bring up Beyond Thunderdome. It was his vehicle, yes, but it wasn’t really his film, the way many of his later projects have been. He had nothing to do with its writing or directing. I did unfairly link him to rape fantasies. But fantasies of a bloody, juvenile vendetta satisfied by somebody steeped in his own righteousness, that’s completely fair, and it applies equally well to the comedy shared at “tea parties.”
— turnbuckle · Nov 18, 07:35 PM · #
In hindsight, I withdraw the term, “Gibsonesque” from my earlier gripe. No reason to drag the drunken dreamboat into this. He has problems of his own, what with siring his next set of kids by his updated wife and memorizing the script for “What Women Want II.”
— turnbuckle · Nov 18, 09:50 PM · #
“Took over 60% of GM and ordered the board of directors to fire the CEO and replace him with an approved flunky”
And here’s why conservatives like tomaig can’t ever be trusted with political power again. The Obama Administration did not “take over” 60% of GM. They stepped in to prevent the company from going extinct. Not just bankrupt, but actually not existing anymore.
To characterize that act as some sort of power grab demonstrates a studied indifference to reality.
Mike
— MBunge · Nov 19, 12:55 AM · #
“ The Obama Administration did not “take over” 60% of GM.”
Really? Then how did the federal government come to hold a 60% stake in GM? Did the shareholders vote to allow Washington to assume a majority ownership of the company?
We’ve had big businesses fail before…we’ve faced recessions and downturns and never once has the govenment decided that, in order to “save the economy”, we need to nationalize one of the automobile manufacturers.
Never ever.
To act as if this unprecedented move by the Federal Government is just business as usual; to be SO trusting of this inexperienced, surrounded-by-Chicago-hacks naif of a President; to positively assert that this is not some expansion of federal power – that, Mike is a REAL “…studied indifference to reality.”
— tomaig · Nov 20, 02:59 PM · #
I love how “Chicago” has become an insult. It’s now a little Lesotho surrounded entirely by the “Real America.”
— rj · Nov 20, 03:43 PM · #
Okay gentlemen, here’s the scenario: mini-Ditka vs. the real America? Who wins, and what’s the score?
— turnbuckle · Nov 20, 04:49 PM · #
“We’ve had big businesses fail before…we’ve faced recessions and downturns and never once has the govenment decided that, in order to “save the economy”, we need to nationalize one of the automobile manufacturers.
Never ever.”
We’ve never been faced with one of the automobile manufacturers going out of business before, either. Never ever.
Sheesh, it’s like arguing with a 5 year old.
Mike
— MBunge · Nov 20, 05:49 PM · #
“We’ve never been faced with one of the automobile manufacturers going out of business before, either. Never ever.”
Really. Mike?
Ever hear of Studebaker?
Here’s part of the Wikipedia entry for this – get ready for it – defunct automobile manufacturer:
“Studebaker’s total plant area was 225 acres (0.91 km2), spread over three locations, with buildings occupying seven-and-a-half million square feet of floor space. Annual production capacity was 180,000 cars, requiring 23,000 employees.”
Studebaker went out of business in the mid-1960s and guess what? The economy survived.
Maybe you’ve heard of American Motors Corporation? Makers of Ramblers, they were bought by Chrysler in the 80’s but are now out of business. The econonmy (again) survived the blow without the federal government stepping in to assume control of a majority of the company.
Guess these were before your time, huh?
Almost like you were a five-year-old.
— tomaig · Nov 20, 06:15 PM · #
“Then how did the federal government come to hold a 60% stake in GM?”
GM declared bankruptcy. It couldn’t pay it’s debts. The Feds provided capital to continue paying GMs debts in exchange for part ownership of the company. Essentially they bought a big chunk of a broke company. This all happened in bankruptcy court with a judges approval. They did this to preserve the jobs of 10-100 of thousands of workers.
Or at least that’s what the MSM would have us believe, right tomaig? The real story is that Obama wanted secret technology that GM was working on. This technology was designed to seruptitiously insert a bug up the ass of real americans. This bug then bugs the crap out of real americans so they get really scared and nervous. That’s what’s happened to you tomaig. That’s why you are so antsy all the time. That’s where the sense of dread is coming from. Obama stuck a bug up your ass.
But the worst is yet to come. The sense of unease is just a side-effect. When the bug is activated in nov. 2010 it will take over your brain and direct you to vote for the democratic party which, who after their total victory, will change their name to the Islamo-Nazi-Communist party and repeal the constitution. Meanwhile the bug will direct you to the nearest work camp where you processed into “cheese-food,” which will then be distributed by community organizers to people on welfare.
So essentially, you will end up as government cheese. But at least you will be at peace.
— cw · Nov 20, 06:24 PM · #
When somebody asserts that the Obama Administration is full of “America-hating Marxists” he’s telling you, right then and there, that he’s off his effing rocker (or is a troll). Engage him for fun, sure, but do not expect any sort of rational discussion.
— Rob in CT · Nov 20, 07:21 PM · #
“Really. Mike?
Ever hear of Studebaker?”
Yes, tomaig. I’ve heard of Studebaker. Did you know that at the start of 2008, GM had roughly 110 thousand employees or roughly 5 times as many as Studebaker did when it went out of business? Did you know that in the late 1970s, GM had over 600,000 employees? Do those numbers penetrate your thick skull and help you to understand that GM disappearing in 2009 would have been juuuuuust a bit different than Studebaker doing the same in the mid 1960s?
Oh, and did you know that Studebaker going out of business led to an expansion of government regulation? Yup. So many Studebaker employees lost their pensions after the bankruptcy that the laws governing such things were actually changed. Now try and imagine what kind of governmental action would have followed GM vanishing off the face of the Earth.
Again, it’s like arguing with a 5 year old.
Mike
— MBunge · Nov 20, 10:00 PM · #