HOW TO ALTER THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY

Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report has a rather stunning expose of how the "hope and change" people do their thing. In essence, they rely on distorting and falsifying reality in order to conform with their political agenda.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."

David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow.

What follows is the kind of investigative journalism that we used to expect of our news media, but which no longer can be counted on when it comes to the truth about Democrats. Read it all to understand how cynical and manipulative the purveyors of "hope and change" really are; and how they hope that their lies and manipulations will change the minds of American voters.

As Ace notes, as soon as this was exposed, the videos in question were hastily taken down from YouTube. But you can still see them at Jawa. Ace also reports:

If, as seems to be the case, Axelrod hired Winner and Associates to do this, then there had better be a disclosure somewhere in Obama's FEC filings that he's hired this company through Axelrod. If he's deliberately hiding firms he knows to be working for him, that has got to be a violation of the law.

I know Rusty has been searching the disclosure forms and hasn't seen Winner and Associates listed yet. If Axelrod is hiring them through some cut-out to deliberately avoid disclosure....

Background: David Axelrod, "the Master of Astroturfing," according to other PR agents quoted by Business Week.
In the past he's created "grassroots" front-groups to, for example, gin up public enthusiasm for utility company rate hikes.

And you know how quickly "grassroots organizations" spring up to demand utility companies raise their electricity rates.

As many have noted, legions of CCC's (Concerned Christian Conservatives) have suddenly sprung up all over the internet to attack Palin and repeat Obama talking points.

We already know the news media is in the tank for Obama. So let's not hold our breath that this will become front page news anytime soon--like Obama's connections to Ayers, this too will remain amazingly invisible in the MSM.

UPDATE: Be sure to read this update at Ace.

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Keep those entries coming in every week, and try to get them to me by Saturday. If you have questions, go here before submitting an entry. You can also submit an entry via Blog Carnival.

Try to make it funny, ironic, or clearly insane, people...I get a lot of "self-help" stuff that doesn't seem particularly funny or even ironic to me--and, if it doesn't seem that way to me, then its likely it won't be included-- unless it just happens to fit in with one of the COTI themes for the week.

Also, a link back to the Carnival if your submitted post is included would be appreciated...and some extremely harsh penalties await those who do not comply with this simple and reasonable request!

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. GET THE CAPSLOCK ON !

2. We need to look at the root cause--isn't that what they always want to do? She was a chump.

3. Meanwhile, our brave Democratic lawmakers keep themselves high and dry...

4. Hockey Moms for TRUTH !! Because, it's back to the 60's....

5. Hillary's most recent 'Suha kiss'. But it's bad news for those with PMS or Palin'sanity for that matter. The Palin scandal of the day?

6. The comedic potential of academic feminism is definitely underexplored.

7. Stop the presses! This is real news.

8. Blogger single-handedly brings down Al Qaeda. What a guy!

9. You'd think committees are a good thing for a community organizer. See how well he 'organizes'? Not to mention this sort of community action. Never doubt the Dalibama! It's sacrilege.

10. But he was obviously right on top of the bridge to nowhere and he enjoys meddling, which I guess is not outside his job description. Foreign aid is imperative just not to Iraq or to help our troops...

11. Oh dear, somebody hacked into his email! So, how important is Delaware?

12. This election is Mac vs. PC ! You know you're a racist if....

13. Diversity, diversity, and more diversity. The mask is off.

14. Shocked, shocked by a politician practicing politics! Liar, liar pants on fire.

15. 5 out of 5 ex-secretaries of state recommend.... The ultimate pinhead? No, these guys are the ultimate.

16. Noah's Gore-ah's Ark. Maybe there's something to global warming after all ?

17. Pity the children of this 'martyr' for communism. Like starving in Gaza.

18. I guess this very religious person belongs to the same church as Nancy Pelosi. One that worships the culture of death?

19. 2nd generation Nigerian spam! Then there's royal Nigerian spam--awarded posthumosly?

20. Le Fromage de Satan? Why Tuesday sucks. Personally, I hate Wednesdays.

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

BREATHTAKINGLY AHISTORICAL

Michael Totten in Commentary:

Senator Barack Obama’s answer to Katie Couric’s question a few days ago about why he thinks there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001, was bizarre.

“Well,” he said, “I think that the initial invasion into Afghanistan disrupted al Qaeda. And that was the right thing to do. I mean, we had to knock out those safe havens. And that, I think, weakened them. We did some work in strengthening our homeland security apparatus here. Obviously, the average person knows that when they go to the airport, because they are goin’ through taking off their shoes … all that. The problem is when we got distracted by Iraq. We gave al Qaeda time to reconstitute itself.” [Emphasis added.]

Jennifer Rubin correctly noted that Couric asked Obama why the U.S. has not been attacked, but let’s leave that aside. The notion that “we gave Al Qaeda time to reconstitute itself” is breathtakingly ahistorical.

The U.S. and NATO have never let up in Afghanistan. At no time were American resources redeployed from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Obama could, perhaps, argue that fewer resources were available for the fight in Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. That would be true. But that’s also true of Al Qaeda’s resources. They also deployed manpower and material to Iraq that otherwise could have been sent to Afghanistan.

The Al Qaeda leadership emphatically has not agreed with Obama that Iraq is a distraction. It has been their main event for years.

“The most important and serious issue today for the whole world,” Osama bin Laden said on December 28, 2004, “is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world’s millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.”

It’s only natural that an Arab-led and mostly Arab-staffed terrorist group like Al Qaeda would be more concerned with a strategically critical country in the heart of the Arab Middle East than with a primitive non-Arab backwater in Central Asia.

Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri explicitly spelled out Al Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq on July 9, 2005. “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq,” he said. “The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate—over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq.”

The war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq can plausibly be described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda. But the war against Al Qaeda in Iraq cannot possibly be accurately described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda.

Read it all, and perhaps wonder how Obama has the temerity to question Sarah Palin's foreign policy credentials and mock her as a VP candidate. She has more wisdom in a single neuron than the Democrat's 'Messiah' has in his entire brain.

Obama has had the benefit of being involved in running for President for a few years now, with some 200 "advisors" to brief him and lay out the details of what has been going on. It is his judgement about all that information that is so appalling. His 'instincts' and priorities are all warped and perverted by the same tired, leftist ideology and dogma that had nothing to offer in the 20th century and most certainly has nothing to offer us now in defeating the challenges America and the world face.

WHO KNEW IGNORING REALITY HAD CONSEQUENCES ?

Jim Manzi summarizes the whole sordid financial mess we are now in today.

Meanwhile, Congress is simply shocked. As one blogger put it, "Wait — you mean corruption, graft, and political protectionism for said corruption and graft can have consequences? Yikes. Who knew?"

There's plenty of blame to go around, of course. But, on the whole, it is not the "failed economic policies of Republicans"--especially not conservatives-- that got us here, even if Saint Obama and his Holy See try to pretend that it is.

Consider how warm and fuzzy things are in this video of the 'family':


(hat tip: STACLU)

I know! Let's 'bail out' the Democratic Party by voting them into the White House again! That way they can continue to pretend that reality doesn't exist! It's only fair that these pathetic losers not have to take any responsibility at all for their incompetence in dealing with the economy....

Let's pretend with the Democrats that it's all Bush's fault! Let's pretend that McCain caused it! Let's pretend that it is conservative fiscal policy that is behind all those bad loans to people who couldn't afford them.

Let's just keep pretending and even elect the Messiah, the One, the only person who feels our pain; then everything will be ok.

Right?

OMG ! THE VICTIMHOOD IS SPREADING !

(sent to me by reader, "Oh Bloody Hell")

I am out of town and in meetings most of today. More blogging later if I have the time....meanwhile, enjoy the interview of Todd Palin in the post below this one. He is a fascinating guy in his own right and gives the listener some valuable insight into the Palin family.

FIRST 'DUDE'

Greta van Susteren interviewed Alaskan "first dude" the other day, and here is Day 1, Part I of that interview:



Part II:



A pretty neat fellow, I think. The rest of the interview can be found here.

WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE VICTIMHOOD PIMPS

John Stossel has an interesting column up at RealClearPolitics in which he quotes Shelby Steele:

Complaints about racism still dominate media discussion of the disparity between black and white success. Comedian Chris Rock tells white audiences, "None of ya would change places with me! And I'm rich! That's how good it is to be white!"

I assumed that the success of Barack Obama, as well as thousands of other black Americans and dark-skinned immigrants -- many of whom thrive despite language problems -- demonstrates that America today is largely a colorblind meritocracy. But a white campus lecturer, Tim Wise, gets tremendous applause from students by saying things like, "[W]hite supremacy and privilege continue to skew opportunities hundreds of years after they were set in place" and in America, "meritocracy is as close to a lie as you can come." His message is in demand -- he is invited to more than 80 speaking engagements a year.

But black writer Shelby Steele argues that whites do blacks no favors wringing their hands about white privilege.

"I grew up in segregation," Steele told me. "So I really know what racism is. I went to segregated school. I bow to no one in my knowledge of racism, which is one of the reasons why I say white privilege is not a problem."

Steele claims, "the real problem is black irresponsibility. ... Racism is about 18th on a list of problems that black America faces."

Whites' preoccupation with guilt and compensation such as affirmative action is actually a subtle form of racism, writes Steele in his book "White Guilt". "One of the things that is clear about white privilege, and so many of the arguments for diversity that pretend to be compensatory, is that they advantage whites. They make the argument that whites can solve [black people's] problems. ... The problem with that is ... you reinforce white supremacy. ... And black dependency.

"White privilege is a disingenuous idea," he adds. In fact, now there is "minority privilege."

How much is this glorification of black victimhood hurting blacks? Well, it would be interesting to look at the scientific data. But even asking such questions appears to be out of bounds and the victimhood pimps fight tooth and nail to prevent that information from being collected:

Americans have been debating the fairness and efficacy of racial preferences in college and graduate school admissions for more than 30 years. Now a UCLA professor is seeking to test his hypothesis that affirmative action programs actually hurt the career prospects of minority law school graduates. But he has been hampered in his research by the indefensible failure of the State Bar of California to provide the statistics he needs.

The professor, Richard H. Sander, has requested data about the performance of white and minority law school graduates on the bar examination, along with information about the schools they attended and their grades. In resisting his request, bar officials cite the need to protect the privacy of test takers and to honor an agreement that test material will remain confidential. At the same time, some defenders of affirmative action have argued against releasing the data because they think Sander's project could have only one purpose: to discredit the idea of racial preferences.

In the holy book of leftist belief, "victimhood" is the most celebrated quality deserving of attention and pity. This is in part because many on the political left have a pathologically narcissistic need to see themselves as "champions of the oppressed", hence the constant preoccupation with identifying and maintaining 'oppressed' groups of people to champion. It is not a coincidence that their most sacred belief also happens to dovetail nicely into the the whole Marxist dialectic nonsense that underlies their ideology. The world is divided up into two groups, you see: the oppressors (i.e., white, male, heterosexual, Republican, Americans or Israelis) and the oppressed (everyone else).

Shelby Steele has also written eloquently in the past about one of the highly negative consequences of the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's. That unintended consequence was the mainstreaming of victimization, which became a necessary claim for indisputable moral authority and a thereafter a bludgeon to be used to obtain political power. "Community organizers", such as Barack Obama early in his rise to political stardom, has made a career--and a run for the White House-- out of exploiting this connection.

The culture of victimhood has trapped many blacks within its narrow and infantalizing world view; and the political left is, of necessity, very wary of any person from one of their "designated victim groups" who dares to break out of the procrustean bed of the victimhood mindset. Every successful black person or woman who succeeds without their intervention; or by eschewing the victimhood role, is a potential whistleblower exposing the con.

We see this dynamic in the "race-traitor" talk that the left unleashes on any successful black (Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, Thomas Sowell) or woman who does not conform to holy leftist dogma. We see it in the unmerciful feminist trashing of successful women like Sarah Palin who dare, DARE, to think outside the Marxist feminist box. There is even a carefully constructed socialist food chain that determines how to decide which victim is 'better' than another (i.e., determining which one to support in any conflict so as to optimize political mileage and power).

The entire leftist scam is really quite clever from a psychological perspective. It offers your typical leftist minion who mouths the slogans and mindlessly makes decisions based on race, gender and the proper ideology with positive reinforcement about their moral superiority in "standing up" for the downtrodden and oppressed; while insuring that the downtrodden and oprressed stay that way and remain eternally grateful for the crumbs the left throws their way.

That's why you see leftists and Democrats squealing mightily when any scientific research on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness their lovely programs is proposed:

There's every indication that preferences may be hurting the intended beneficiaries, but affirmative action proponents are struggling mightily to keep the evidence from public view.

Who the hell cares as long as those beautifully conceived (but infantalizing and dependency-promoting programs) continue to stoke the moral righteousness and sense of superiority of the oh so compassionate leftist elite? Science? We don't need no stinkin' science--we know we're right; we feel it deeply. Creationists have nothing over these leftist true believers.

Steele is very kind to call it "subtle racism" (I suspect he believes that the left means well), but it is actually a particulary virulent form of overt racism--or sexism as the case may be.

Racism and sexism certainly exist in our society today, but the political left has merely hidden its own deeply entrenched ideological racism and sexism under a cloak of perverse moral posturing. When they open the cloak in the exhibitionistic style to which we have all become accustomed, they only manage to expose the ugliness, hate and prejudice of their own souls.

Stossel notes, and I wholeheartedly agree with him: There is black privilege -- and white privilege. It's time to stop complaining about past discrimination and to treat people as individuals, not as members of a certain race.

FLAWLESS ?

Katie Couric to Barack Obama:

What one personal flaw do you think might hinder your ability to be president?

Barack Obama to Katie Couric:

I don't think ... there's a flaw that would hinder my ability ... to function as president. I think that all of us have things we need to improve.

Same question to John McCain:
You know I'm not an objective observer. I think that would have to be to make sure that I don't make any decisions that are not fully informed by every source of information that's credible I can possibly get.

IF THE ELECTION WERE A MUSICAL....

Barbra Streisand sang her support for Barack Obama last night at a glitzy $25,000 a plate dinner attended by the starving American proletariat Hollywood elite.

McCain meanwhile, sings his response to Streisand.

WHICH IS THE GREATER SCANDAL ?

THIS:



OR THIS?



Which do you think is making a bigger splash in the media?

This is how Obama gets back to "substance":



[More cartoon by Eric Allie]

UPDATE and bump: From Captain Pete Hegseth:

Taheri’s column comports with second-hand reports I’ve received from those with access to top U.S. decision-makers in Iraq. Rather than use his touch-down trip to Baghdad to fact-find and consult with senior Iraqi and American officials, Sen. Obama made a concerted effort to push his post–Bush administration agenda, undermining — in word and deed — current diplomatic efforts in Iraq. Tuesday, the Obama campaign essentially confirmed the details of Taheri’s reporting.

Some will see this interference in foreign policy during a time of war and cry, “Treason!” While the episode truly is a scandal, I will check my emotions — as I find the overabundance of outrage in our politics tiring and toxic. I believe, rather, that the underlying naivety of Obama’s overtures is the more disturbing lesson to be distilled from this discovery.

It’s not just that Sen. Obama doesn’t believe in the mission in Iraq, it’s that he still doesn’t get it (to plagiarize from the senator himself). Fundamentally, he doesn’t understand the mission in Iraq, what it takes to win a war, or the ramifications of the outcome of this war for the U.S.’s enduring national security. He just doesn’t get it.

In Obama’s world, foreign-policy contorts to meet domestic politics, and commanding generals accommodate arbitrary political timelines. From his perspective, facts on a foreign battlefield exist to the extent they comport with his judgment, rather than his judgment comporting to facts on a foreign battlefield.

Despite recognizing security gains in Iraq, Sen. Obama continues to declare the surge a strategic failure because it hasn’t created necessary political progress — an assertion that has been patently false for some time now. Nonetheless, Senator Obama won’t adjust his stance before the election because, as Taheri so aptly points out, “to be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire.”

Consider the circumstances of Sen. Obama’s trip to Iraq: Not only did he make his first trip to Iraq in over two years only after much prodding, he also laid out his Iraq plan before his visit. Only someone willing to solidify their plan before meeting with subject-matter experts would have the audacity to then pester and pressure those experts to pursue policies advantageous only to him..

Surely Sen. Obama doesn’t want to lose in Iraq? No, he just believes winning or losing there doesn’t matter. Surely he doesn’t really believe our presence in Iraq to be “illegal”? No, he just doesn’t understand existing strategic agreements. And, as explained by Taheri, surely he doesn’t think we can withdrawal in 16 months? No he doesn’t, he just remains politically wedded to a discredited policy.

Read it all....and determine for yourself if this is the man you want to be Commander in Chief.

WE SHOULDA SEEN THIS ONE COMING....

With all the bad news about Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG, we should have seen this one coming!

Well, why shouldn't Wall Street get in on the victimhood game? Taking responsibility for one's choices and actions is soooooo 20th century (or 19th, perhaps).

Meanwhile check this out if you want to understand how these irresponsible Wall Street firms lost their way in a Democratic wonderland:

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”

This sort of thing will repeat itself ad nauseum if we ever are stupid enought to elect an unrepentant "community organizer" as President.

SOME PERSPECTIVE ON THE US ENERGY CRISIS

From July, 2008:



Watch and learn. Then consider this latest energy atrocity being pushed by Congressional Democrats (via Iain Murray at The Corner)

Energy Gangsterism
The House is about to start debating its version of the aptly-named "Gang of Ten Sixteen Twenty's" purported compromise Energy Bill. Anyone who believes this is a pro-drilling bill is fooling themselves. It allows a tiny amount of drilling while pushing forward all the fever dreams of the anti-energy environmentalist movement. I urge everyone to read Marlo Lewis' post on this from Planet Gore yesterday. Note in particular that the bill will:

Permanently ban access to about 97 percent of the undersea oil lying within 50 miles of the California coast.

Continue the ban on energy production in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Impose a brand-new ban on oil and gas leases in Alaska’s coastal waters out to 50 miles.

Not allow states that approve new leases beyond 50 miles to share royalties with the federal government, thus stripping any financial incentive for states to stand up to environmental pressure groups, who will continue to agitate against any new oil and gas operations offshore.

This is not a compromise. It is a sell-out to the anti-energy gangsters.

Ed Morrissey has more background on the origins of this crisis here.

Watch the entire video, and then think about what is going on today in our pathetic Congress. Let me be perfectly clear if it is not already obvious: Anti-energy gangsters = Democrats/leftists-- who are betting our energy future on Barack Obama being elected so that they can continue to do nothing...yet again.

YEAH, LET'S TALK

This news from Iran should not be in the least shocking:

Last week, Iran's Majlis ratified a bill under which any Muslim who converts to another religion would be put to death, with no possibility of pardon.

The bill was approved by a majority of 196 to 7, with two abstentions.

The few Iranian media outlets that covered the issue played down their reports, while on others, such as the Majlis website and the website of the conservative daily Resalat, the reports were removed after a few hours.

Under the bill, anyone declaring publicly that he was knowingly abandoning Islam of his own free will face the death penalty.

Yeah, let's talk to these maniacs. You can see that they really respect the opinions of our culture and are reasonable people at heart. I'll bet they don't consider it an honorable pastime to repeatedly lie to and jerk infidels like us around, right?

NOT ALL HUMOR IS CREATED EQUAL

I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for those who gently mock the left; and no one does it better than Greg Gutfield... AND he does it on their own territory, the vastly overinflated HuffPo

Calling Sarah Palin a murderer might seem a stretch.

At first.

But alarmingly, Sarah Louise Heath Palin was born on February 11, 1964 - a suspicious beginning, as it is also the forty-eighth anniversary of the arrest of the free-thinking "first-wave feminist" Emma Goldman, for lecturing on the benefits of... birth control.

This "coincidence" could be easily dismissed, if poet and woman Sylvia Plath had not committed suicide one year (to the day) prior to the birth of Palin. Whether Palin was aware of this fact as a child isn't known - and whether the banning of the book "The Bell Jar" was actually discussed with her parents cannot be said for certain, but there had to be a reason why both mother and father landed comfortable jobs at various schools of learning - convenient locations that gave them easy access- not simply to books - but to bells, jars, and to children as well.

Yes: Our children...many of whom at the time were childlike - and vulnerable, like the late Sylvia Plath. If Plath could not weather the already considerable exploits of a youthful Palin - what harm might come to these young and helpless individuals?

One must wonder if George Orwell would have seen the irony in Palin winning the Miss Wasilla Pageant, for it happened, of course - in 1984, only a few miles from a local animal farm. Eerily, this is the same year that Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker, claimed his first victim. Whether Palin was in contact with Ramirez at the time cannot be verified, but when Palin finished second runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, it is unlikely that the outcome sat well with either of them. Few experts know what drives serial killers to kill serially - but later, Palin winning the "Miss Congeniality" award, must have been icing on the cake.

A very deadly cake, one might add. With murderous frosting. Made of death.

And murder.

Gutfield skewers the entire mind-set that has joyfully embraced 'scandal' after supposed 'scandal' involving the Republican VP nominee, and exposes it for the nonstop neurotic nonsense it is.

Mockery is a form of ridicule, contempt, or derision. When effectively combined with gentle blend of humor it can be very funny. When focused on a specific indivuals it can be cruel, vicious, sadistic and painfully insulting (think of the over-the top portrayals of Bush as Hitler or a terrorist in 'cartoons' and print, for example). For some--usually at the mental level of a 6 or 7 year old, this kind of humor may also be funny.

From a psychological perspective, not all humor is created equal.

Satire is considered a highly-sophisticated and intellectually-demanding display of wit, and it furnishes a satisfaction quite distinct from what we experience with less cerebral forms of humor. There is no other pleasure quite like that of inflicting intellectual torment on one's adversaries, proving them wrong and rendering them ridiculous. Because of its allusive complexity and subtlety, satire's insulting humor may surprise an unsuspecting victim like a "literary Trojan horse" which "promises to tell us what we do not want to know" (Connery and Combe 1-2). Or, the reader may be a "co-despiser" (Freud, Jokes 163) who identifies with the satirist's viewpoint and partakes of all the satisfaction accompanying the triumph of the humiliator over the humiliated. The satirical blade cuts deeply, littering the field with the shreds of an opponent's politics, intellect or pride. Satire is the most gratifyingly bellicose of the belles lettres....

Fundamentally then, the satiric sense of humor can be quite vicious; yet satire really provides a relatively benign emotional vent for civilization and its malcontents.

Some forms of humor can be quite vicious, but even those are a non-violent emotional strategy for discharging aggressive, angry and even sadistic impulses. At it's core, all humor has some negative emotion at its heart. But, there are varying levels of successfully discharging that humor in positive, even pleasurable ways. Some satire and wit-- like the Gutfield's piece--are not at all cruel, because it mocks an idea or attitude (in this case, a meme about the 'horror' of Sarah Palin as a VP candidate). It manages to make its point without resorting to cruelly attacking a specific individual or individuals and utterly humiliating them.

This is also true of the Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey portraying Palin. The mocking there is also fairly gentle and thus it is able to provide pleasure for almost everyone (even Sarah Palin who jokingly retorted that she once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween!) The skit includes a good take-down of both Palin and Hillary, and it's too bad that the McCain campaign officially chose to be insulted. But I think it is quite successful at being funny precisely because of the intellectual mockery that is used. It could have been buffoonish or tasteless, but it overcomes that tendency with good writing. Lisa Schriffren picks up, however, on one flaw, which for some might make the humor a little flat:

Putting politics and the economy to one side for just a minute, this is a pretty funny, immediate classic Saturday Night Live routine. Yup, they sure got Hillary's inner monologue down. Tina Fey delivers the character with perfect pitch, but over time writers may come up with a more accurate-sounding rendering of what Sarah Palin thinks. Or would that not be so funny?

Best line: "I didn't want a woman to be president. I wanted to be president." We knew that.

Not all political mocking is mature and effective humor; nor does it always utilize the specific psychological defense mechanixm which allows the transformation of negative of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) in a way that gives pleasure to others. The most effective humor allows you to call a spade a spade, while what passes for "wit" (very common in the blogshere) is actually a less mature form of psychological displacement).

There are important differences between mature humor and displacement or it's cousin, passive aggression. The latter are also a psychological defense mechanisms, but less mature ones (neurotic), that are not quite as effective in bringing 'pleasure to others.'

Let's go back in time to the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner where Stephen Colbert mocked President Bush. Comedian and commentator Richard Cohen had this to say about Colbert's performance at the time :

The commentary, though, is also what I do, and it will make the point that Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.
[...]
Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders -- and they are all over the blogosphere -- will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences -- maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or -- if you're at work -- take away your office.

But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in. He also knew that Bush would have to sit there and pretend to laugh at Colbert's lame and insulting jokes. Bush himself plays off his reputation as a dunce and his penchant for mangling English. Self-mockery can be funny. Mockery that is insulting is not. The sort of stuff that would get you punched in a bar can be said on a dais with impunity. This is why Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.

Read the entire piece, which accurately deliniates the significant differences between humor and displacement. True humor offers a catharsis for more than just the person using it; and while displacement may be funny to some, it is the childish/adolescent version of humor that is more like disguised cruelty.

Humor is an extraordinarily mature and healthy psychological defense. It is the overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) in a creative manner that gives pleasure to others. Often humor can let you call a spade a spade in a way that transforms the negative into a positive. As an example, President Bush himself displayed considerable humor of the self-deprecating variety, in his own skit with the Bush double. As Cohen notes above, self-mockery can be funny; and it can also demonstrate maturity and honesty.

So, what are we to make of Colbert's humor at that dinner? Rude and insulting is too nice a word for it (and I must admit that I usually find Colbert rather funny).

It was very revealing precisely because it revealed something about Colbert and any of those who found it hilarious--it revealed immaturity and intolerance. To be precise, it was just another attempt at displacement, the underlying psychological motivation of Bush Derangement Syndrome. The purpose of this kind of "humor" is to hurt. It makes very few feel pleasure except at the pain of someone else.

Mostly, this kind of humor is found in children and adolescents. The "ha-ha!" shout of the character Nelson, who makes fun of everyone's pain; while blissfully unaware of his own family's psychopathology in The Simpsons is an example; or one of the three stooges beating up on another.

Kids love that kind of humor because it lets them act out their aggression in a slightly less...physical manner (and therefore a more socially appropriate). While displacement may be a bit psychologically healthier than actually physically hitting the President over the head with a baseball bat, it is hard to see how those on the "caring and compassionate" left--so sensitized to others people's feelings-- are not exactly aware of how insensitive and loutish it was to attack someone who cannot respond. They rationalize their own behavior by making Bush a monster. This is only projection (an even more primitive psychological defense), however.

In short, Colbert's behavior at that dinner and that of those who approved of it (and see him as some kind of courageous hero for speaking "truth to power"); are expressing a typical kind of adolescent behavior that allow the immature and uninsightful to be indifferent to their own cruelty and insensitivity towards others.

This is why no one at the dinner actually laughed at Colbert's jokes. Such rudeness in the name of humor is actually painful to witness (i.e., not funny) because when someone resorts to it, they are unintentionally revealing their own deepest--and darkest--soul.

Now, I don't think that the humor of the SNL skit was even close to that insulting; as is the kind of thing that passes for humor at DU and a lot of (particularly lefty) blogsites--though immaturity knows no political bounds.

The Colbert moment described above, however, cannot even remotely compare with the sadistic "humor" that is often prominent in the Arab world and which is usually directed at the Jews.

I believe that the underlying motive is readily apparant in these cartoons that come from the Arab media; and which are particularly sadistic and humorless, considering that they are supposedly "cartoons". Such sadistic and even malicious humor can be very funny to a 6 year old (think of the "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoons from The Simpsons, which are egregious in this regard). The overt hostility inherent in the violence is obvious to anyone who looks and detracts from any psychological benefit of the humor--either to the originator or to the observer. This particular kind of humor is actually a form of passive aggression or displacement--as are most of the cartoons from Arab newspapers linked above

Thus, the more immature psychological defenses--such as displacement or passive aggression-- can produce a warped type of humor that is decidedly inferior and far less effective at discharging aggression and anger in socially acceptable ways that give pleasure to everyone. Not all humor is created equal when it comes to being healthy and psychologically mature.

IN THE TANK ? DECIDELY

(More cartoons from Eric Allie)

Check out some headlines this weekend:
New York Times Palin story, "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes." Today's front-page feature in the Washington Post is "As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood."

You'd never know that Sarah Palin is the most popular governor in the country with an 80% approval rating.... Only her enemies manage to speak to the press.

And here is something that sorta "snuck in" a NYT Book Review (

And Now For Something Completely Different... [Mark Hemingway]

Author Robert Stone in this week's NYT book review:

“If, in this campaign, illusion triumphs over what we must believe is reality, we will fail as a nation. There is, after all, a point of no return. If McCain wins, history is here big time, scythe, sackcloth and all four horsemen.”

You know given the Sarah Palin hysteria currently gripping the left, it's almost refreshing to hear venomous hyperbole about the other person on the ticket.

I won't even go into detail about this little bit of political pornography. Compare and contrast to these images:

THE TRAGICOMIC DEMISE OF THE POSTMODERN PSEUDO-HERO

Victor Davis Hanson:

Anyone who had read a Greek tragedy could have predicted what is now happening in this close race. For almost 3 months, the Obama campaign has been running victory laps, fueled by ever more hubris that led to really silly and unnecessary things like the Berlin extravaganza (how many vote in Germany?), and the faux Greek temple and outdoor rock concert, as well as an absolutely shamelessly biased media that did all but coronate Obama. (In Obama's defense, he cannot control the petty foolishness that despised Hollywood celebrities offer daily, that only ends up in raging Drudge headlines that even more so turn off moderate voters.)

Meanwhile amid the high-fives no one seemed to notice an existential problem in that Obama's actual positions—more taxes, more government, indecision on key foreign policy issues, cultural liberalism, big-city scratch-back machine politics—were not all that different from, or indeed more out-of-touch than, past liberal platforms that for a quarter-century had doomed all northern liberal presidential candidates who did not have a southern accent and a southern governorship to fall back on as moderate/conservative cover.

All it took, then—the more messianic Obama got with this stop-the-seas-from-rising and planet-from-heating nonsense, the more enthused the in-house media became—was a small needle to deflate the balloon, which would then loudly zoom all over the place as it lost air.

That jab partly came with Alaskan Governor, mom of five Sarah Palin, partly with the growing unease of the inexperienced and suddenly rather professorial and boring Obama in interviews, partly with his rather brazen (but politically necessary) back-peddling on campaign finance reform, FISA, NAFTA, abortion, capital punishment, guns, Iran, the surge, drilling, etc.

So hubris finally evoked nemesis.

What we are seeing now, unfortunately for Obama if it doesn't cease, is a weird sort of puerile panic and hysteria on the part of Democrats. They are losing it with wild and rather vicious talk about Palin's various supposed misdemeanors, Obama's campaign itself that is suddenly shrilly whining and screaming about lies and liars, when Obama himself is not gaffing like Biden with silly lipstick riffs and arrogant dismissals of small town mayorships (and after his Pennsylvania clingers speech no less!)—all while liberal bloggers, the MSM columnists, the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, etc are losing their sanity seeing Karl Roves everywhere stealing their hope and change dreams.

Watching some of this hysterical outpouring of anger is surreal, as grown-ups sound like children whose mothers did not buy them a snack or failed to take them to the zoo as promised.

Unless Obama's team can get a handle on this self-induced and paranoid madness, they risk turning a small, natural, and probably temporary 2-3 point bump—quite normal in such a tight see-saw race—into a permanent and insurmountable 5-6 point McCain lead, as the quiet swing voters shrug and say to themselves, "Hmmm, liked that Obama, but if he and his supporters panic and go wild and vicious like this, what in the world would they do when elected?"

Yes, the Obama camp in many ways mimics classical Greek Tragedy; it even has its very own Chorus of demented left-wing blogs that whine and screech with fury at the fates as the drama plays out; blaming Rovian conspiracies and lamenting their victimization at the hands of the evil Republican gods. But in a more fundamental way, what we are seeing is just another act in the neo-Marxist drama of the political left. In that particular offshoot, hubris is just another word for intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

Last year in a post titled "Political Hysteria and the Neo-Marxist Drama", I wrote :

If you want to understand the consequences of psychological hysteria in the world today, look no further than this post at the Belmont Club which discusses the 21st century heirs of Marxism's "New Man". In Wretchard's post, we hear about a group of new age "healers" who nearly cooked a man to death as part of a ritual to bring them "closer to Mother Earth":

The "healers" stuck a man inside a steam cooker and when he collapsed, danced around his prostrate form to speed him on his astral travel. We've managed to replace the Blessed Trinity with the Three Amigos in the 21st century and call it progress. Communism collapsed after a eight decades of trying to "strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest" without establishing itself as a replacement, but having in the meantime dissolved every human institution it deemed to hold it back. Having set out to destroy all the old beliefs so that it could set up New Man in its place, the great indigenous European religion of Marxism succeeded in the first but dismally failed at the second. It created a cultural vacuum in which the family, the church and even the legitimacy of Western civilization have been melted in an acid bath of cynicism; created a void into which anything may rush -- anything that is, except the beliefs which the West had adopted from long historical evolution because they worked. They are disallowed by definition precisely because they work and are therefore instruments of "domination". In their place is anything that can be labeled "alternative": that is, the alternative to what works. The scientific method is abandoned in favor of steam tent healing and astral travel. The emancipation of women is cast aside in favor of sharia law. The most "progressive" journalists of the day fall over themselves to endorse Hugo Chavez's crackdown on the Venezuelan press. It's justice in a way -- for the Left -- but it is catastrophe for the rest of us.

It is worth looking for a moment at the psychological dynamics of people who are so blind to the real world, that they would mistake a coma for "astral projection".

Hysteria is a concept characterized by a wide variety of physical and mental symptoms resulting from dissociating one's cognitive functioning from one's emotion and/or behavior. The psychological defense that makes this happen is known as dissociation.

For the hysteric emotions are primary and are not bound by objective reality. Historically, this psychological phenomenon has been associated with women (hence the uses of the word "hysteria", indicating an association with the womb), but although the clinical syndromes are more commen in women, men are hardly immune from behaving hysterically (watch any sports event for confirmation of this). The newer term that is often used to get away from female/womb association is "histrionic".

When we speak of someone becoming "hysterical" or "histrionic", we are talking about behavior that exhibits overwhelming or unmanageable emotional excess.

Welcome to the wonderful world of feelings, nothing more than feelings (cue the music), where there reality is nothing more than whatever you happen to feel!

This is a world where there is no objective reality or truth; a world where, if you believe something is true, then it is. In other words, it is a world where something can be considered "fake but accurate"; where a "religion of peace" beheads people regularly and is so terrified of women's sexuality they must "liberate" them by forcing them to wear sacks over their bodies. It is a world where this religion, with a straight face, promotes blowing one's self up in a crowd as a devout religious act; and where 21st century men dance around a man in a coma, celebrating his "out of body" experience.

What, you may ask, are such people thinking? The truth is that they are not thinking at all.

The dissociative process often results in a variety of altered states of consciousness. In one dissociated or hysterical state, sleep-walking (sonambulism), the person appears to be out of contact with his environment, is seemingly unresponsive to external stimuli, and in many cases appears to be living out a vivid, hallucinated drama.

That particular emotional state essentially describes the political left and the marxist/ socialist/communist/pick your utopian fantasy/ dead-enders.

Mass hysteria occurs when large groups of people engage in psychological dissociation; and political mass hysteria is the appropriate name when all the emotional excitability and excess happen to serve a political function or ideological agenda. Most of political theater is histrionic--appealing to the emotions (usually the baser ones -- like envy, greed etc.)

Drama of any sort suits the hysteric's modus operandi extremely well.

One of the most persistent dramatic productions of the last century, which unfortunately is still playing to certain easily amused crowds in this one, is the same old- same old Marxist passion play titled "Oppressor vs. Oppressed" which remains on the billet in spite of the catastrophic reviews it continues to receive.

When Act I of this sad little drama began, the world was about to be saved from the horrible evils of the American Capitalist Oppression of the masses by the brave Soviet Socialist Republic.

Unfortunately for the "New Man" of the Socialist Republic, reality reared its ugly little head, and by the time the curtain was about to go up on Act II, the deaths and thorough subjugation of millions under the boot of the utopia called the USSR provoked most of the intelligent members of the audience to quickly depart the theater. The incredible economic successes of capitalism and the freedom that fires it, compared to the pathetic lives of most under the yoke of communism, made most people who were not in the grip of some intense altered state of consciousness realize that Marxism in all it's iterations was a complete dead end--a really bad one act play that deserved a final curtain.

That's why it's interesting that the neo-Marxists of this century have carefully rewritten the play and are starring in the revival, all dressed up in a new postmodern wardrobe. The play's the thing after all--reality be damned! [I described the rewriting and editing process in this post on the four pillars of the socialist revival].

Armed with postmodern philosophy and rhetoric, the neo-Marxists of the left continue to churn out the same message in their revised play. The role of "evil" has been reprised by American Capitalist/Imperialist Oppression. The only differences in the rewrite from the original are the identities of some of the poor, helpless victims of these evil oppressors. The original victims--the "workers of the world" had cleverly invested in the capitalist systen and made managed to make their way out of victimhood status (much to the dismay of their leftist overlords), and pretty much loss interest in revolting against their "evil oppressors" who were making it possible for them to prosper.

Let us consider a comment by someone who is routinely annoyed at this blog for suggesting that the left has betrayed any claim it might have once had that it champions the poor and oppressed. He writes with a pathos that comes from his soul:

Why are little ones born only to suffer for the want of immunity or a bowl of rice?

Well, that is a very good question. Why are they? What are the political forces that keep this little one down? If this commenter really wanted to alleviate the little ones' suffering, you might think he would look at what policies have had the most effect in bringing people out of poverty. You might think he would support such policies. That would be rational.

But the sad truth is that very often people who agonize over questions like that one don't seem to care much about what actually works in the real world. They cares mostly about those answers that tend to make them feel good; and they support the same vapid policies that assuage their guilt and make them feel righteous and a champion of the poor; but which also guarantee that these little ones--and all the little ones thereafter-- remain in poverty and victimhood their entire life (and, of course, remain dedicated Democrats or leftists).

I'm very sure it makes such people feel really good to demonstrate how much they cares. I'm even sure they consider themselves caring and compassionate people-- especially compared to those evil- Republican-neocon-warmongering-hate-filled-bastards-whose-only-goal-is-to-oppress everyone-under-the-yolk-of- the-evil-capitalist-imperialist-United-States.

Gagdad Bob in a post titled "The Triumph of the Will and the Reign of Nothing" had this to say:

...concrete reality has a way of clearing aside so much abstract intellectual theory. There is a reason why Marxism only exists in universities, and that you will never find a businessman who operates his business along the lines of Marxist doctrine.
[...]
It is one thing for an adult to believe such leftist claptrap. If they want to ruin their lives in their adolescent rebellion against God, that’s fine by me. But to ruin a child’s life by inculcating him with these dysfunctional values is an unforgivable sin. For example, to raise a black child in contemporary America by telling him that this is a racist country, that white people hate him, that he is a victim from the start, and that his efforts will be for naught, is soul murder pure and simple.

Likewise, to brainwash an Arab child into believing that 15 million Jews in the entire world are the cause of a single problem among the world's billion Muslims--let alone all their problems--is a heinous form of abuse, because when you create a victim, you create a nihilist. Why? Because once victim status is secured, then you are no longer burdened by a conscience. You may destroy and kill plentifully, because the order of the cosmos is unfair and illegitimate, and anything you do to set things right is inherently moral, no matter how immoral. One is sanctioned to abandon oneself to one’s most primitive instincts. And the violence will not end until the Old Order is overthrown and the New Man is created, free of the existential categories that define man to begin with.

Meaning has been vanquished. Man is liberated from himself. The Triumph of the Will and the Reign of Nothingness are complete. God and man are dead. Long live the Beast!

...[T]he political left acutally believes in nothing. In fact, they have almost reached the natural endpoint of their postmodern intellectual journey and arrived at the core nihilism that animates their belief system. Once reason and reality are finally jettisoned as a basis for human action, one is left only with passionate feelings swirling around in the wonderful postmodern emotional universe.

Let us take a peek at just a small part of the political mass hysteria of today's left as it is applies the plotline of the neo-marxist drama.

Remember the mass hysteria that ensued when Bush described Iraq, North Korea, and Iran as the "Axis of Evil"? Well, with the activities of two of the countries in that Axis , many pundits and intellectuals bemoan the fact that by attacking Iraq, the third member of the Axis, we essentially "attacked the wrong country." The context of such remarks is that the U.S. should have gone after North Korea and Kim Jong Il; or after the mullahs of Iran--all people who really really meant us harm--and not poor, innocent, misunderstood Saddam.

Now they say, we are in deep trouble because we didn't--and it is all Bush's fault, of course.

But you see, if we had say, gone for regime change in North Korea --what they now insist we should have done--then only the names of the dramatis personae (especially the character of "The Oppressed") would have changed in this leftist drama. [Note: and now, if we go into Afghanistan,"where we should have been all along" according to the left, then watch as the hysteria mounts about that battlefield. It will soon be indistinguishable from the left's defeatist rhetoric about Iraq)

Instead of the poor helpless victims of American oppression in Iraq that we hear so much about; we instead would be hearing about the poor, helpless, starving North Koreans -- victims of... American Imperialism/Capitalism! (Good guess)

Even now, we get some glimpses of this meme, which the MSM--the opiate of the leftist masses-- is ready to insert into the psychodrama at a moment's notice. If only the U.S. would negotiate in good faith with Kim Jong Il![ NOTE: today it is Iran, they demand we negotiate in 'good faith' with] If only we would talk to the Mullahs! All will be well. All these dear leaders want is to talk directly with the U.S.! Is that too much to ask for? And so on, ad nauseum.

Replay and insert same tragic plot line for Iran, Syria, or any other country that is a potential "victim" of the U.S. Replay and insert any other recognized and established victim group and the storyline is fundamentally unchanged. The sole source of the power of the left comes from convincing anyone who disagrees with them and their agenda must be: a) Islamophobic; b) homophobic; c) sexist; d) racist etc. etc.

That's the beauty of the eternal neo-marxist drama. It does not depend on reality. It does not require truth. It does not even require thought! All it requires is a surplus of emotion spread around to the masses, a few slogans liberally splattered on posterboard, and heaps of self-indulgent and self-righteous nincompoops to buy tickets for the next performance.

The Triumph of the Will and the Reign of Nothingness will be then be complete. Long live the Beast!

How strange that the "New Progressive Man and Woman" so idealized by the neo-Marxists and denizens of the left side of the political spectrum, is just modern man who has abandoned the trappings and advances of civilization.

In other words, he/she is isn't a "New" or "Progressive" at all; he has merely regressed back to the prototypical "Primitive Man"--content to live in caves, drink pine needle tea, and dance mindlessly around a lifeless body. 21st century Primitive Man desires (for our own good, of course) that we turn back the clock and return mankind to its proper place in the primeval, natural order--back to a time when emotion ruled and brutish humans lived in abject fear for most of their short, miserable lives.

These days, that vision is considered progressive, egalitarian and socially just; and we can thank the political hysteria of the neo-Marxist left for the ensuing human catastrophe.

A complete unknown named Barack Obama has managed to capture all this hysteria at its peak and parlay it into an unprecedented run for the US Presidency. In him, the left has found the personification of all their fantasies. According to their pre-set script, his election would vanquish the evil infecting the land; slow the rising of the ocean and heal the entire planet. If he were not to be elected, then it is already predetermined that it will happen because America is racist and evil. Quod erat demonstrandum.

But hysteria is just another way of avoiding reality, and with the left's unintentional (but extremely creative) integration of Marx (Karl), Marx (Groucho) and Sophocles, we are witnessing the tragicomic demise of the glib and pretty postmodern man of inaction.

THE DOCTOR IS OUT

I've decided that I will take the rest of today off-- my own personal mental health day, if you will. So, contrary to what the sign says, the Doctor will be "Out"!

Watch for the Carnival of the Insanities tomorrow and feel free to consider this a Saturday Open Thread. Don't forget to watch Part II of the Palin-Gibson interview, posted directly below.

PALIN INTERVIEW, Part II

Here is the Palin-Gibson interview, Part 2:




Tell me in the comments what you think about her performance.

UPDATE: Well, this is jut too much. Is the MSM competent and experienced enough to bring us the news? Apparently they edited out key portions of the interview. Go to the link for the actual transcript.

Sheesh.

DEAD SILENCE AT COLUMBIA

I watched the [rather ridiculous, I thought] ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University last night and had the same reaction as a reader at The Corner at one point:

Did you notice how McCain received absolutely NO applause when he talked about how Americans have shed blood around the globe in defense of freedom and should be commended for that? I thought to myself — is there not an audience at this event? The camera panned back and did reveal an audience. What kind of people don't respond to such positive statements about the history of America?

Here is the portion in question:
WOODRUFF: Senator, I want to come back to something you said earlier, I think you used the word exceptional and unique about being an American. On this 9/11, this special day, what — help us understand what you think it means to be an American. And I don’t mean that in the obvious way.

I mean, people who live in Canada, who live in Mexico, around the world feel special about their country, so what is it that’s different about being in America? Are Americans better than people in some of these other countries? We hear the term “exceptionalism” about the United States.

MCCAIN: I do believe in American exceptionalism.

MCCAIN: And I think it was best articulated by our founding fathers. But I also think that my hero, Teddy Roosevelt, expressed it very well, and other leaders throughout our history.

We’re the only nation I know in the world that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal and endowed by our creators with certain rights. And those we have tried to bring to the world. And we have not so much militarily, but through example, through leadership, through economic assistance.

Look at what we did for Europe after World War II, look at the continuous efforts we make throughout the world. Look at the efforts we’re making to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. There’s a lot more America can do.

And I love these other countries, and I’m not trying to denigrate them. But I know of no other country in the world with the generosity of spirit and the concern for fellow human beings than the United States of America, and I think that goes back to our very beginnings.

WOODRUFF: Does that make America better than these other…?

MCCAIN: I think it makes us exceptional. I think it makes us exceptional in the kind of citizenry we have and the kind of service and sacrifice that we are capable of.

And I mean that in no disrespect to any other nation, our close and unique relationship with the British. I have — I’m not trying to in any way denigrate any other nation, but it doesn’t in any way diminish my pride in the history of this nation, which has literally shed our blood in all four corners of the earth many times in defense of someone else’s freedom and have tried to further the principles of freedom and democracy everywhere in the world. I think we’re dedicated to that proposition. And, frankly, I think we’ve done a pretty good job.

McCain's passionate statement about American exceptionalism (and Woodruff's sense of disbelief that anyone could possibly think America was better than any other country) evoked absolute dead silence from the Columbia crowd. I think John McCain was somewhat taken aback that there was no response to this.

I think this perfectly exemplifies what it has come down to in this country: a great number of Americans--mostly of the Democrat and brainwashed leftist persuasion--don't think America is anything special. They live in the freest, best off, most productive, most generous country on the globe, and they don't think that's anything special.

Instead of being proud of their own country, they feel shame. Instead of seeing America as a "shining light on the hill" they believe it exemplifies all that is evil in the world. "No, no, no! Not God bless Amerika! God Damn Amerika!" And you wonder why the Reverend Wright saga didn't take down the Obama campaign when far less incendiary comments have thoroughly destroyed previous presidential campaigns?

The dead silence at Columbia, one of the supposed "gems" of American academia bespeaks of a deadness of the soul that is truly pathetic.

UPDATE: David Feith has an article at NRO, "Duty, Honor, Country...and Columbia", discussing Columbia's decision not to allow ROTC on campus; and how military service remains an unrecognized and unappreciated service there -- at least by administration and the leftist professoriate.

BREAKDOWN

More Cartoons by Glenn McCoy