The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show 3/7/13

Chez, Salon and AlterNet have nothing on Truthdig. For every sensible column the site runs—and in fairness, it does run a fair number—there are three pieces that are pure, frothing-at-the-mouth, worse-than-Bush argle-bargle.

HuffPo’s business model depends on clickbait. There are a couple of very good reporters working there, but the front page is mostly outrage porn (Drones!!) and sideboobs.

Bob, arguing with an obsessive is seldom worth the effort. I know you feel compelled to do it, but Glenn Greenwald won’t—or can’t—change his opinion and will always circle back to his original argument. It’s the equivalent of arguing with a tape loop. I’m with Chez: I applaud you for it but I’d never dream of arguing round and round with someone like that myself (and not only because you couldn’t pay me enough to be on Twitter).

Matt Bai included this famous quote in his October 10, 2004 profile of John Kerry:

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview [than George W. Bush]. ”We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” Kerry said. ”As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.”

Abandoning the “war on terror”—a lousy metaphor which has taken on a life of its own—and giving primary responsibility to law enforcement would be the rational way to deal with the real problem of terrorism, but anyone proposing it would be savaged by the Right. Real counterterrorism is slow and painstaking and doesn’t (usually) involve blowing stuff up, so the average Righty wants nothing to do with it.

Not that I expect intellectual consistency from Righties, but doesn’t requiring every homeowner to own a gun force people to engage in economic activity, possibly against their will? And wasn’t that one of the Right’s favorite arguments against Obamacare?

Roger Ailes correctly assessed Newt Gingrich, but that’s almost entirely by accident: Ailes hates Gingrich almost as much as he hates Barack Obama.

Chez, I think we all need to create a fund so Bob can get his own personal replica Oval Office. Of course, he’d start opening the podcast with, “My fellow Americans …” so there would be a downside.

Since the Rs have been responsible for most of the provable voter fraud in the past several years, I say we defund the GOP and its subsidiaries and successors. It makes as much sense as defunding ACORN did and much more sense than continuing to defund an organization that folded in 2010.

Bob, most of the time your cri de cœur is not only accurate, it’s the most sensible summary of and commentary on the day’s news I can imagine.

–alopecia