Comedian Jon Stewart, widely acclaimed as an inspiration to LIberals everywhere, is taken to task in the Boston Globe by a Harvard graduate for ruining LIberalism, for "undermin[ing] any remaining earnestness that liberals in America might still possess."

You just can't make stuff like this up.

Comments

[Jake]

I always thought left-wing ideas were silly. Now a left-wing Harvard graduate confirms that I was correct and gives us a person to blame for all of their silliness.

[cactus]

I wouldn't make too much out of the fact that the author of the piece is a Harvard grad. One Harvard grad said the other day that Pakistan is a "a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world." (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-03-03-bush_x.htm) This statement is clearly wrong on a number of levels, and I note the guy who said it is (or at least until recently was) widely considered to be conservative. The fact that one conservative is clearly a buffoon with silly ideas who has not been particularly successful at accomplishing what he sets out to do (or at least what he tells us he is going to do) isn't generalizable to all conservatives or conservative ideas. Note that the conservative Harvard grad who spoke about Pakistan clearly has a lot more sway over the conservative movement than the liberal Harvard grad who wrote in the Boston Globe.

[JorgXMcKie]

Hmmmm. Did the conservative Harvard graduate say it because he meant it, or for public consumption? And I don't know where you graduated from, but why is your opinion ipso facto better than his? Also, the buffoon appears to be defeating his intellectual 'betters' with a regularity that is shocking, given you estimate of his abilities. Hmmmmmm, again.

Also, it appears that Mr. Kalin may have graduated from Harvard, but evidently didn't learn much US history there.

[cactus]

JorgXMcKie,

"And I don't know where you graduated from, but why is your opinion ipso facto better than his? " My opinion is irrelevant. Even the White House saw fit to issue a correction that Pakistanis are not Arabs.

I presume the whole bit about implying that Pakistan is a democracy was indeed for public consumption. Of course, the Pakistanis weren't the audience for the speech. Perhaps some of the Arabs listening to this speech would understand it to mean that having a dictator in place is indeed a democracy. (Put another way, if Pakistan is a democracy, it is hard to argue that there is a single Arab country that isn't also a democracy, which I assume isn't the message GW was hoping to send.)

"Also, the buffoon appears to be defeating his intellectual 'betters' with a regularity that is shocking, given you estimate of his abilities." Its not like this country is a meritocracy. When one buffoon who inheritted a fortune defeats another buffoon who inheritted a fortune you still have two buffoons, not one super genius. I don't know what you do for a living, but I know that if my business fails (obviously I hope it never happens), there won't be anyone there to save my butt as happened to him a few times, nor do I have the pull to get the city to eminent domain me some land for a new stadium as he did. I also note that I had to start with nothing, doing all the work myself. So I'm not hugely impressed with his business acumen. Perhaps if I had inheritted a lot of money I would be impressed, I don't know.

As to his political skills... well, all I can say is that from what I can tell, the two big items in his presidency has been the economy and security. On the economy, well, he promised back in 2000 that he was going to cut taxes which would lead to increased revenues allowing us to pay off all but (if memory serves) 7% of the national debt (not the deficit as he promised in the year 2004 - there was no deficit in 2000) by 2010. I'm hoping he's going to pull it off but somehow it doesn't look to me like its going to happen. (Of course, as you pointed out, there is nothing that makes my opinion ipso facto better than his, so he may yet do it.) I note the average American is worse off - median income has fallen in real terms every year since 1999. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h06ar.html)

As to security, I guess opinions can differ here too. One has to agree that finding all those WMDs in Iraq and halting the WMD programs in Iran and North Korea has really improved our security dramatically... oh, wait... Additionally, the Katrina episode has indicated (and yes, I know, a lot of people, including the locals, messed up really bad) that if Osama were to personally call the president and tell him the precise location that five bombs were set to go off three days later in a busy US city, the result would be a lot of dead Americans followed by even more finger pointing about who dropped the ball.

[cactus]

Error in a sentence...
"Of course, the Pakistanis weren't the audience for the speech" should read " Of course, the Pakistanis weren't the only audience for the speech." Apologies.