Compulsive Centrist Disorder
mikethemadbiologist | November 27, 2006
To avoid possible brain damage, the Surgeon General recommends that Sebastian Mallaby's columns only be read using the StupidVu 9000
Someone needs to tell Bush that when I wrote a post titled "Democrats Crush GOP; Bush Declares 'Mandate'", I was joking. Now that El Jefe Maximo has psychologically disinvested from the Iraqi Occupation, he has decided that the message the American electorate sent in the 2006 elections was "You've done such a great job with foreign policy, FEMA, and the budget deficit, we would really like you to screw up Social Security."
Really, Bush is once again, after…
mikethemadbiologist | November 26, 2006As a part of the Carnival of the Liberals, I wrote a post about our failing political discourse. Here's something related from the archives.
In an excellent post on news reporting, Thoughts from Kansas writes (italics mine):
The same thing is a major part of the ongoing creationism battles. A good reporter with a background in science would not feel obliged to go to a scientist and get a quote to balance a story about creationists. Nor would such a reporter feel obliged to troll the waters for some bottom-feeding creationist to "balance" some claim about actual science.
But that's what many…
mikethemadbiologist | November 13, 2006Now that the Democrats have taken both houses of Congress, there will be loud calls for them to govern from center. This silliness will be promulgated by the likes of David Broder and other Mainstream Media Mandarins who suffer from Complusive Centrist Disorder. Complusive Centrist Disorder has always bothered me because a certain policy or view will mysteriously be labelled 'centrist' regardless of where it actually falls on the political spectrum, and suddenly it will be far more respectable than other policies. It's intellectual cowardice and laziness of a high order.
One problem is…
mikethemadbiologist | November 12, 2006Usually, I add good weekend posts to my weekend roundup, but Glenn Greenwald's post about the soulessness of the Mainstream Media Mandarins is so good, it deserves some special Mad Biologist commentary. Greenwald writes about how the Punditocracy has completely misread Sen. Russ Feingold because they are unable to comprehend how any politician could act on principle or belief (italics mine):
Beltway pundits and the leaders of the Beltway political and consulting classes all, in unison, immediately began casting aspersions on Feingold's motives and laughed away -- really never considered --…