If you want to see partisan hackery on spectacular display, you have to see this post by Hugh Hewitt spinning the Foley situation. He's taking the tried and true tactic of blaming it all on the media and changing the subject:
The Washington Times wants Speaker Hastert to resign. To do so would be to capitulate to Democratic-activist-induced and MSM-abetted hysteria. Not only should Hastert not resign, he should use every opportunity to swing back hard at a MSM deeply compromised by its ideological extremism and a Democratic Party committed to retreat and defeat in Iraq and fecklessness in the war generally. If Republican candidates recognize that the "clamor" is just the echo chamber, they'll quickly come to understand that this is another Wellstone Memorial Service moment, when the left has persuaded itself that the American electorate is stupid and easily stampeded, and where overreaching appeals to emotional and unjust conclusions cannot be sustained in the new media environment.
The more I see from Hewitt, the more I wonder why anyone takes him seriously.
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I stop taking anyone seriously as soon as they type the letters "MSM".
Should I know who Hugh Hewett is?
Hugh Hewitt is one of the major stars of the blogosphere. He's also a talk radio host and law professor (I believe my friend Tim Sandefur had him as a professor in law school, in fact).
I see, thanks. I do think I've seen something on his site before, but not written by him.
I find pretty funny the part where he says the Washington Times "have done their credibility great damage" by diverging from Hastert's side of the story. I kind of have to wonder whether "credibility" here means something other than I'm used to. Also, I can't figure out-- is he considering the Washington Times as part of the "mainstream" media here, or no?
Actually, 'men who have sex with men' ('MSM') is considered the appropriate terminology among public health researchers. This is because alot of men will say that they are not gay but will say that they are MSM. When I graduated last August, another student was graduating with the dissertation title: "Barebacking among MSM internet users."
Ed,
Did you hear the latest from Foley? "I was molested by a priest."
No, I hadn't seen that. Hell, it may well be the truth, but that certainly doesn't excuse what he did.
He's also checking into an
Okay, wow, Hewitt's article makes WAY more sense now.
Well, the part where he seems to be saying MSMs can be ascribed a specific ideology is kind of bizarre, but probably not all that surprising in today's political climate.
Uh, I garbled the above post. What I was trying to say is that Foley has also checked into a rehab clinic. For alcoholism. This is according to his lawyer, who at one point seemed to be trying to say that Foley only started hitting on teens when he was drunk. Which I really, really hope was not the case, because at least one of the IM logs in the hands of the media was sent from the house floor during a vote. Ugh.
Yeah, it's all the media's fault for reporting the story. ABC should have taken Representative Reynold's Friday night offer of an exclusive on Mark Foley's resignation instead of publishing the instant messages.
Please.
I've got a fair number of gay friends, and yet I've never understood "MSM" to mean anything other than "MainStream Media," especially when written by someone of the ideological persuasion of Hugh Hewitt.
Foley was Scientology's man in Congress, and he appears to be in a rehab facility in Clearwater, FL, home of Scientology's Flag Land Base and the Sea Org.
He may be getting treatment in the form of "touch assists" and niacin injections from Scientology's Narconon program.
Uh, source? Or is this a joke?
On second thought, I guess Hewitt was using MSM to refer to "mainstream media".
No, no, I like your other guess much better.
Bloggers are REALLY taking themselves too seriously these days. They haven't even reached the lower rungs of talk-radio (bleeech!) influence, but Ed bothers to warn us constantly about those anti-ACLU clowns, and now this non-entity with a minor following of flunkies and fools.
Why seek these idiots out? It is not, as is the fights against the ugly Hydra of creationism and the concealed almost unhumanly cynical elements that have captured the Republican Party, of need of refutation, much less exposure.
goddogtired: Both "Stop the ACLU" and Hewitt's site show up as 'news' sources on news.google.com. Whether influential or no, they're going to get read.
As far as I can tell Dispatches from the Culture Wars is a blog. Refuting other bloggers seems to me like as good a use of a blog as any.
Meanwhile, you seem to be saying you'd consider refuting the creationist movement[s], but considering that their post-Dover output is rapidly falling to just Dembski's little UD empire and the DI's "evolution news and views" page, we may reach a day soon when the ID movement consists entirely of blogs.
goddogtired-
In the space of half an hour, you've told me in a comment on one post to "drop it", while condescendingly telling me that there's "no apology necessary", and in a comment on this post that I shouldn't write about a subject I just wrote about. I don't suppose it would be out of line for me to tell you that I'll write about whatever I choose to write about regardless of whether you think I should, would it?
Jim Lippard wrote:
Now that is very interesting information, and given your history with scientology I'm not surprised it's in your possession. Are there any others in Congress with close ties to Scientology? We're on the verge of electing the leader of another cult, Amway, as governor here in my home state.
You probably won't find to many people agreeing with you about what Ed shouldn't write about, considering we are all here to read what Ed writes about...
Right on Ed... Write on!
This is what James dug out so far on the Foley-Scientology link.
Yeah, I just heard the "priest molested him" story on the radio on the drive home. The way my brain parsed his press representative, it went something like this: "The poor man has an excuse. A priest molested him. Of course, we're not using that as an excuse. We're just bringing it up as an excuse."
"No offense, but [offensive statement]."
"I'm not a racist, but [racist statement]."
"I'm not making excuses, but [list of excuses]."
Howard, you add nothing here but your own stupidity. You said you were going away but you haven't, so I'm just going to delete every comment you leave. If you don't like that, you are cordially invited to go out in the street and play a rousing game of hide and go fuck yourself.
That's right, He loves you enough to make you burn in Hell forever if you don't love Him back. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Not to mention sending his own son to a painful, tortuous death.
Awww man, now I'm curious as to what "Howard" had to say... ;o)
How dare Mr. Hewitt suggest that Hastert disobey the Messiah? I mean True Father and Messiah Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who owns the Washington Times.
Howard-- Since you reponded to me, I will assume that you're the one who said that God loves Ed and you're praying for him. That's proselytizing, and is what annoys me. If it wasn't you who said that, then feel free to ignore my comment. However, it's also none of your business to tell Ed who he should and shouldn't "censor."
Super. I didn't claim you were incapable of making appropriate posts.
Your dig, your rules but I vote for disemvowelling of trolls and troll-feeding, rather than outright deletion.
That way the intellectual masochists among us can parse them, and the rest of us can just move on... It also has the advantage of not removing outright the evidence of the conversation from the public record.
I think PZ Myers has some software that does the trick.
- JS
There is no point in responding to Howard. His posts will be deleted the moment I see them. There's no point in Howard continuing to post either, but he's obviously a rather persistent little troll.
I had my own "Wellstone Memorial Moment" listening to Hewitt the day after the Memorial. I was shocked that he immediately went for the spin that the event was a calculated political moment. I had watched the memorial and considered it a passionate response to a very beloved politician in this state. I couldn't imagine an event like that for any other politician. Yeah, one or two people at the event got political. But Wellstone inspired that. I got excited seeing him speak at my state legislative district convention when he would stop by to speak.
In my mind Hewitt is a hack who sold his morals and ethics to Karl Rove. I hope he got a good price for them, because I no longer can stomach listening to him. Michael Savage is much preferrable to Hewitt. At least we know he's brain damaged.