Brew City Brawler

Shame on Rick Esenberg or Shark and Shepherd says something wrong on the internet

It takes a law professor to pack as much Obama Derangement Syndrome into 153 words as Rick Esenberg does in his latest opus,"Shame on Obama." The subject of his Ese's ire: Obama not going to Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Shark sets himself up as a voice of considered moderation. "There are some criticisms of Barack Obama that go too far," he says. Like, I dunno, fact-free accusations that Obama's stage at the Dem national convention was going to be a Greek temple. But Obama skipping the Berlin ceremonies goes too far! The fall of the wall was "one of the most significant and improbable events of the past fifty years; brought about, in large part, by constancy in American policy."

Let's unpack:

1. "Significant" -- sure
2. "Improbable" -- only improbable if one believed in hyped estimates of Soviet strength
3. "Brought about, in large part, by constancy in American policy" -- in this formulation, false; drop "large" and this phrase works fine.

Ese moves on:

To stay away is to send a message and it is the wrong message. Whether he seeks to placate the Russians, repudiate American exceptionalism or refuse to acknowledge a Republican accomplishment, rejecting what brought about one of the most remarkable and peaceful victories over tyranny is shameful.

OK:

1. Given Medvedev was in Berlin --  and Obama did deliver a message via video -- it's difficult to see how Obama's absence was motivated by fear of Russians
2. I'm not sure how Shark would articulate American exceptionalism, so can't comment on this. Obviously it's not clear that American exceptionalism, broadly defined, is a good thing.

Republican accomplishment. Ah, a laugh out loud line. This is Rick's defense of this statement, in comments at his site:

It's a Republican accomplishment because Reagan decided to win the Cold War. Had Carter been reelected, it would not have happened because he wouldn't have applied pressure when he had to.

One hopes that Rick expects a bit more supporting evidence from his students because this is about as fact-free assertion as one can make. Here are some facts. There is no evidence that the Reagan arms buildup "bankrupted" or weakened the Soviet Union. There is no evidence that bellicose Reagan rhetoric frightened the Soviets out of their wits -- quite the opposite (and seriously, apparatchiks who survived the Hitler invasion, either  as vets or as kids, were going to quiver over comments by Reagan?) . To the extent the ending of the Cold War was anyone's accomplishment, it was the accomplishment of Mikhail Gorbachev,who didn't want to play anymore. Had he wanted to take the USSR down the bellicose path, the country could have lumbered on. But he gambled that he could change it (and lost). Reagan's contribution was recognizing that Gorbachev could be dealt with and tried to deal (earning the wrath of the right).  As James Mann puts it in "The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A  History of the End of the Cold War": "Reagan didn't win the Cold War; Gorbachev abandoned it."

Just ask Angela Merkel:

She lauded Gorbachev, with whom she shared an umbrella amid a crush of hundreds, eager for a glimpse of the man many still consider a hero for his role in pushing reform in the Soviet Union.

"You made this possible — you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect," she said.

Now, the Brawler doesn't know why Obama didn't show. Presumably it had to do with passing a health care bill -- a defense Esenberg sneers at before muttering about the need for more debate as if the GOP had any interest in being an honest debate partner.

In any event, Esenberg demonstrates his true seriousness by concluding thusly:

For the winner of a faux peace prize to ignore one of history's singular triumphs for peace is an embarassment.

OH! Faux peace prize. The Brawler would suggest that the Shark should think about who's embarrassing himself here.

The Brawler scoops Dan Bice Again:The Obama wants Barrett to run for guv edition

WOW! Did Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have a scoop today! Check this out: The Obama Administration wants Barrett to run for governor!

Here's the story:

 Tom Barret got a phone call from the president after making national news. Should he expect another call, this time to throw his hat in the ring for governor?

Whoops! That (erroneous spelling and all) was of course from a a Brawler post dated, lessee... September 5,  2009.

So it only took Dan "Bloodhound" Bice a mere month and 21 days to sniff out a story that the Brawler, by managing to put two and two together, figured out without any, you know, sources. Just the power of thinking things through.

Let's see what else the Brawler had to say back then, when the situation was much more fluid because of Ron Kind's flirtation with running:

Given that early Obama supporter Doyle and his team aren't particularly high on Barb "Vote Hillary" Lawton ....and that while Pelosi had apparently given Kind her blessing to run (and Kind's been making the rounds among muckity mucks to gauge support), the D's can't want to lose a seat they don't have to in 2010 ... perhaps he will. I'd imagine Tom could get Team Doyle support (noting how they're teaming up on taking over MPS ... a move that wouldn't play at all badly with out-of-Milwaukee voters).

It is indeed difficult to imagine a Dem from Milwaukee winning the governor's seat. But given the rise of  in Dem identification in Wisconsin, maybe it's not as outre a concept as it seems.

And if it's Barrett vs. Walker, how many out-state voters stay home? Or does JB Van Hollen see his chance?

Shoot! What will those pajama clad bloggers think of next? (Though, indeed, it remains to be seen whether VH throws his hat in the ring.)

Of course, long time Brawler reader knows that the Brawler has a penchant for reporting Bice's news in advance.

For instance,  The Brawler was able to determine thatChief Flynn was not happy about the musty cop "voter fraud" report being pushed without his OK (a report, that btw, pointed out a lot of RPW claims of voter fraud in 2004 were entire crap, a fact that would be apparent to voter fraud true believer Patrick McIlheran if he read such report.) And then Bice did the same!

And most famously, the Brawler figured out that RPW honcho Rick Wiley pimped "voter fraud" conspiracies to Karl Rove almost a month before Bice managed to piece it together.

No quarter, indeed.

The latest evidence Charlie Sykes is a cobag

Charlie Sykes was never a particularly coherent thinker/propagandist -- it's difficult to reconcile being a moralizer with being married three times -- but the cognitive dissonance has been to 11 ever since Obama was elected. Sykes will say on his show he thinks Sarah Palin is over (yet continue to shill for Sarah Palin because that's the goddess of his herd) and he'll say he opposed TARP (even though he adocated it).

In short, Charlie Sykes is a cobag -- he's full of shit and he floods the airwaves with it.  A rude comparison, to be sure, but Sykes deserves nothing more.

The latest example of his general cobaggishness would be an asinine post showing people lining up for swine flu shots, saying "Ladies and Gentlemen, I Bring You Government Health Care." To which really, the Brawler says, Amen, because where is the miracle of the market on this right now? But lines are bad, so Charlie has an intellectually coherent point.

Meanwhile, MU law professor Rick Esenberg believes Charlie Sykes is a man to be taken seriously:

Another theme was to take me to task for suggesting that Charlie Sykes is a reasonable guy. As I have said before, talk radio is not a faculty workshop. It's entertainment and, because it is, there needs to be a certain vibrancy that can get in the away of a perfectly detached and neutral conversation. Within the confines of the medium, I think that Charlie does a fairly good job of maintaining a civilized discourse.

Hate to see Ese's definition of uncivilized discourse.

UPDATE: Slightly edited

When will Patrick McIlheran run a correction?

Patrick McIlheran says the networksrallied around Fox New as it was blocked by the White House!

Only it's not true!

When will Patrick McIlheran run a correction? Or if he starts, does he fear he will never stop?

Does Charlie Sykes have a pulse?

Because the latest Charlie Sykes blog post makes him seem more brain dead than usual.

He hails a Pew poll that claims:

Regarding health care reform, many of the key provisions remain popular though support for the overall package has slipped. More people now generally oppose the health care reform proposals in Congress (47%) than favor them (34%). This represents a decline in support for health care reform since mid-September, shortly after President Obama’s nationally televised address to Congress on the issue

Wow! Obama and the Democrats must be really out of step with Americans because god knows Merikans don't want a public option, higher taxes on the plutes to pay for health care ... except they do!

From the actual Pew site (which, admittedly, would have  required Charlie to click through the story he Ed Morrisey story he read (and seriously, Hot Air ought to get residuals from Sykes given he gets half his content from them)):

 Nonetheless, large percentages continue to support many of the essential elements of legislation being considered. Two-thirds (66%) favor mandating that all Americans have health insurance, with the government providing financial help for those unable to afford it. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) favor requiring employers to pay into a government health care fund if they do not provide health insurance coverage to their employees. A similar majority (58%) also favors raising taxes on families with incomes of more than $350,000 as a way to pay for reforms. And 55% say they favor a government health insurance plan to compete with private plans, which is largely unchanged from late July (52%).

Weird ... so solid majorities of Americans support policies that are anathema to Sykes' benighted listeners. Will Sykes share that science with his listeners? The Brawler has his doubts, as Charlie's contempt for their intellect (i.e., his refusal to share facts that conflict with their worldview) is well-known.

But why would this disconnect noted by the poll exist?

The disconnect between support for specific elements of health care legislation and overall opposition to the proposals in Congress appears to be driven by a lack of understanding about what is being proposed, the complexity of the topic, and declining trust in Congress. The percentage of Americans saying they have heard a lot about the bills in Congress to overhaul the health care system fell from 60% in mid-September to 46% currently. A separate weekly News Interest Index survey, released Oct. 8, found that a substantial majority of Americans (66%) continue to find the issue of health care reform “hard to understand.”

Surely, none of this lack of understanding is driven by folks like Sykes, who frequently make up shit about the various health care bills. Sykes, as you will remember, was an early disseminator of Elizabeth McCaughey's euthanasia lies.

How Fox News invented the term teabagging

Rightwingers, who had no problem denouncing opponents of the Iraq War as un-American, are outraged that hatebloggers use the term teabagging to describe tea parties, such as the September 19 Milwaukee Tea Party.

Thing is, the term teabagging did not enter the lexicon until (as noted by the illusory tenant) Fox News' Griff Jenkins, covering the incredibly racially diverse anti-Obama rallies, alluded to how some protesters said they were going to teabag the White House.

The Brawler subsequently heard tea partiers refer to themselves as holding tea bag rallies, etc.

But give Griff credit: The unwitting use of the term captured perfectly the general witlessness of the protests, a refusal to deal with reality that most palpably manifests itself in hilariously overblown estimates of crowd sizes.

Charlie Sykes and his compatriots on the right, however, would never seize on such a gaffe in ridiculing the other. Right?

Just in! Tea partiers self-identifying as teabaggers at a Washington DC tea party in February. Funny how in the interweb era a case of sign fail can brand a "movement."

Libertines!

Patrick McIlheran tries to estimate size of Milwaukee Tea Party

There's a lot to parse in this column about the September 19 Milwaukee teabagging by Patrick "Iraq war opponents are a surrender caucus" McIlheran, and the Brawler hopes to get to it. But he did want to zero in on this claim by McIlheran apropos of the crowd's size:

5,000 to 10,000 fellow Wisconsinites protesting high taxes

Based on the Brawler's observation of the baseline crowd at the Milwaukee tea party (perhaps just north of 1,000 when festivities began) it is difficult to imagine, based on simple logistics, how  the crowd hit 5,000. That size, indeed, seems on the outside. Claims of 10,000 are ludicrous. And while it may be difficult to distinguish a crowd of, say, 800,000 from 1 million,  a crowd of 5,000 vs. 10,000 at a relatively narrow strip of ground at the lakefront would look very different. So it's not clear how McIlheran came up with this estimate. (For what it's worth, Charlie Sykes pimps the 10,000 number.)

The Brawler would also note that a claim of 10,000 people directly contradicts the reporting of an actual JS reporter with actual reporting experience (as opposed to Patrick's two years of reporting experience in small town Minnesota before being kicked to a desk) of  "several thousand."

But, to borrow from a different headline by Pat "Astrophysicist" McIlheran, "not whether it's true; whether it's useful."

Also: was Patrick there to gauge the crowd size?

Below: Teabagger, who must be taken seriously, protests high taxes.

Has Obama called Barrett to ask him to run for guv yet?

A while back the Brawler wondered whether Barrett had, or was about to, receive a second phone call from Obama, this time urging him to run for governor. Then comes today's Kind announcement. Has the call come through?

After all, the Obama team has reportedly taken an aggressive role in state races. Surely they wouldn't ignore Wisconsin -- and the Brawler has to believe that Obama would tilt toward Barrett given 1) that's the way most members of Team Doyle would lean 2) as an early Obama supporter, Doyle conceivably would have some input -- and his input would not be favorable to Lawton and 3) if memory serves, Lawton was a Hillary supporter. That wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker, but given other factors, can't help. Of course, this would be a fairly sensitive primary for the White House to weigh in on.

JUST IN! The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel waits until after I've posted to write this:

Democratic sources say the Obama administration is paying close attention to how the Wisconsin governor's race is shaping up and wants Barrett to run.

"They've been interested in him running for a while," said one Democratic source. "I'm sure they're concerned about keeping the office in Democratic hands."

To what extent would an all-Milwaukee gubernatorial race potentially dampen outstate enthusiasm? And does Barrett running make the Republicans look at someone besides Walker?

JUST IN! Folkbum, yesterday, notes:

The takeover talk suddenly seems a lot more like Barrett and Doyle (who us no great fan of Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton, the only announced Democrat so far) setting the stage for a state-wide campaign.

The Brawler, from his previously linked piece of clairvoyance, dated September 5:

Given that early Obama supporter Doyle and his team aren't particularly high on Barb "Vote Hillary" Lawton ....and that while Pelosi had apparently given Kind her blessing to run (and Kind's been making the rounds among muckity mucks to gauge support), the D's can't want to lose a seat they don't have to in 2010 ... perhaps [Barrett should expect a call from Obama to run for guv]. I'd imagine Tom could get Team Doyle support (noting how they're teaming up on taking over MPS ... a move that wouldn't play at all badly with out-of-Milwaukee voters).

Patrick McIlheran talking climate change at wingnut summit

Patrick "I possess skills"McIlheran will be deploying his knowledge of climate change (i.e. whatever he's read from PowerLine or the Heartland Institute that morning) October 10 at the "Future Wisconsin Conference" at the Days Inn at 11703 W. Bluemound Road. That's per a flyer someone thoughtfully handed me at the sparsely attended Milwaukee Tea Party on September 19.

Joining McIlheran on the panel, "Climate Change: Fact, Fiction, or Folly" (Hey Patrick, while I may not have your copy editing skills methinks you need a question mark there. Also, dispose of the superfluous final comma.) will be State Rep. Jim "Paul Joseph's Caddy" Ott and Dr. Yuri Maltsev. Maltseve of Carthage College is a man of many skills, as he also will be talking about missile defense.

Is Patrick getting paid for this gig? Or is this just an effort by the Journal Sentinel to whip up subscriptions among wingnuts?

Other highlights include a panel called "The War Against Christianity," moderated by Judge Randy Koschnick. Sue Armacoast of WRL tackles "Preserving Life in a Hostile World," Rep. Tom Petri and State Sen. Glenn "Mutter" Grothman bemoan how the shiftless will always be with us in "Back to the Past: Welfare Reform," and Mark Block will talk about the 2 million attendees of the September 19 Milwaukee Tea Party. You can optionally attend a viewing of  the movie "Rendezvous with Destiny" by nutter David Bossie's Citizens United Productions, and caps off with a happy hour sponsored by the Conservative Young Professionals of Milwaukee.

Business casual -- no suits please! $60 a head. You can also sponsor students to attend. It is, after all, a waste to lose ones mind.

A sober defense of the Bush Administration

I think Sadly, No! nails it in this shorter version of Ross Douthat's Bush apologia (registration required):

Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money to avert a complete zombies-roaming-the-streets type of disaster. In conclusion, Bush was a good president.

More on target, say, than this analysis of the spending habits of Bush vs. Obama offered up by Roland Melnick in retort to the Brawler's photo of an Obama supporter at September 19's sparingly attended Milwaukee Tea Party (sparingly attended, at least, in comparison to AFP's ludicrous crowd estimates):

Brave...maybe, but not in the way you think. Mathematically inclined? Not so much. Obama's flaccid stimulus spent more in one stroke of the pen than the entire war in Iraq. Claiming GW's military spending would buy 50 years of Obamacare is almost as dishonest and stupid as claiming you can pay for it by making government more efficient.

The  Brawler is one of society's producers, so he needs to hurry to work. But just one point. The Brawler appreciates Roland desired a more turgid stimulus,. But the Brawler wishes Roland had a better sense of how much of our treasure Bush wasted in the Iraq War (particularly if he's going to quibble about someone's mathematical inclinations).