Powerline Failure
January 30th, 2007 |Local right-wing smuggers at Powerline are off their game since their political agenda was handed back to them under a steaming heap of Abu Ghraib, Katrina, untethered Iraq, mounting deficits et al at the polls in November. Their rhetoric has toned down, which made me nostalgic for the halcyon days of their blog when they were turning up the noise machine as loud as possible.
So I dug through the wayback machine for some of those good feelings from 2004, when they were busy betraying themselves at warpspeed in the name of a prez unworthy of their efforts.
These guys could be thoroughly delightful by sticking to their professed guns: righteous Federalism, rigor of intellect and expression and civic probity. I love conservative intellects who can articulate their well-founded arguments. I see their merit.
But they spend so much time belittling their own values to earn my contempt (or maybe this is how to restore traditional moral values, integrity, work ethic, etc and I just don’t get it):
- Swift Boat Vets for Truth? Everyone with integrity knows that guy’s been trying to smear Kerry since 1971, and was in the wilderness until mercenary Rovians decided to echo it and see if it stuck. White House denies any involvement, and mystery funding launches attack ads. Sound like a Rove smear job? And Powerline pumped it over and over for months before 2004 election.
- Pres Bush? How about words on his pathetic powers of inquiry sitting in the hallowed oval office? Yeah, that’s what the framers had in mind…
- Fiscal restraint? What happened guys, afraid to rock the Republican boat with a bit of truth? Or is bankrupting us OK when your guys do it?
- Abu Ghraib, all the MSM’s fault? How about chain of command, or torture contributing to moral laxity and bad troop morale? No, the MSM is making a mtn out of this, that’s the issue. That’s so lazy, guys!
Their reification of rigor seems to go out the window when applied to people in their own party or issues that may tip the electoral balance.
The thing that REALLY bugs me about them is that if you’re a partner in a large corporate law firm or a VP at TCF bank you somehow have time to write multiple lengthy blog posts each day. And I’m trying to find a spare minute to click ‘publish’ on a post I wrote in a hurry in the middle of the night. Phew.
