Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

?

Doug TenNapel is a graphic novelist, video game designer and writer. His
video game creation EARTHWORM JIM enjoys unmerited respect in the world of gaming.

Please No More Super Bowls for NBC [Andy McCarthy]

A game so fantastic it even overcame the coverage by the awful NBC — Al Michaels and John Madden honorably excepted.

People tuning in to football for an escape were treated, as they have been all season, to Keith Olbermann. I used to like Olbermann as an ESPN sportscaster when sports was all he did, but that was a long time ago. Now, just the sight of him turns off a lot of the audience — though I am nut for football, I generally just don't watch, turn off the sound, or switch to something else when he's on, and I know I'm not alone. If I'm stupid enough to watch his nightly rant on MSNBC and succeed in getting myself aggravated, then fine — he's got a right to his views, they have a right to put him on the air for the 15 or so people who evidently watch, and everyone knows what the deal is, so I should just change the channel or not turn on the TV in the first place. But the Super Bowl is a national event and (is supposed to be) a non-political event for a captive audience. Why Olbermann?

But even he was not as blood-boiling as Matt Lauer's cloying interview with President Obama. It would have been mildly annoying, but par for the course, if we had only had to endure Dear Leader's views on football (Matt Lauer's he's-so-cool gape as POTUS wows us with his intimate knowledge of flaws in the BCS system, his breakdown of the Steelers/Cardinals, and Look, mom, he even uses his own Blackberry!). But lapdog Matt, of course, couldn't leave it at that. So minutes before gametime, we were treated to the correspondent's observation that "many people were disappointed" when not a single one of those awful Republicans voted for the "stimulus" bill in the House — remarkably, of the two guys in the room, Obama was the only one who approached fair-and-balanced, telling a seemingly incredulous Lauer that Republicans had "a lot of good ideas" which he hoped to incorporate. (I found myself cheering when NBC had technical trouble and lost the audio feed for stretches of the interview.)

Years ago, before Fox started and NBC finally dove headlong to the Left — to the point that they are more agitprop than news network anymore — NBC did nearly half of all pro-football coverage (the old AFL and, after the two leagues merged, the NFL's American Conference) and they were just terrific — all game no politics. They then dropped football for many years and they haven't been missed because all their best people got snapped up by other networks. They had also dropped baseball, so for the past several years, as they've hyper-politicized, we've only needed to endure their making the Olympics unwatchable every couple of years. But now they've got a slice of the football coverage pie back. Again, the Madden/Michaels duo that calls the game is great, and I guess that's the important thing. As for the rest, though — yuck! Fox may be the conservative news network, and CBS obviously leans Left, but when they do football, they do football. For NBC, it's just part of the permanent campaign.

So did Andy give up on the 'he wasn't really born here' crusade, then?

remarkably, of the two guys in the room, Obama was the only one who approached fair-and-balanced, telling a seemingly incredulous Lauer that Republicans had "a lot of good ideas" which he hoped to incorporate.

lol at this, it's like they've never actually seen or heard Obama speak and just know him from the "most liberal liberal who ever liberalled" propaganda

I imagine they hop around the room with their hands clapped over their ears, chanting "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" when he's on tv.

I also love this backhanded rhetoric where they get to grudgingly praise Obama while still maintaining an appropriate level of frothing outrage

Al Michaels and John Madden honorably excepted

^^ all you need to know, really

Oh boy:

Obama's Cool Clothes [Michael Ledeen]
He lectured us about "virtue" in his Inaugural Address, and he was quite right to do it. But ever since, he has thrown virtue under the campaign bus—an attorney general who lied under oath, tax cheats at Treasury and HHS, and now (h/t Instapundit), despite all the pious talk about putting an end to torture, he seems to be retaining what is arguably the worst component of our "interrogate the terrorist" programs: rendition.

I well remember the first time I heard about this noxious practice. An intelligence-community official told me, with evident satisfaction, "We're sending these guys to places where they don't have Miranda rights. Or lawyers." I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. It's a total moral copout: We enable torture while claiming to have abolished it.

This is what appears to be the SOP of the Obama administration—moral lectures, immoral practices. They pose as virtuous citizens and tell us what to do in myriad ways, and then install serial offenders in the highest positions. They pose as human-rights defenders, and then turn over our prisoners to some of the worst human rights offenders.

This is a prescription for moral and political disaster, because either the electorate will figure it out, and deliver a stinging rebuke to Obama and his people (with considerable disruption at a time when we need to seriously address our many problems), or there will be an immoral free-for-all, to the ruin of the common good.

...sounds more like Morbsy than the Corner, wtf.

loldeen

Return to Render [Mark Steyn]
I agree with Michael re rendition, and the President's newfound enthusiasm for it. He won't abolish torture, but he's happy to outsource it, and make it one of those jobs Americans won't do. And everyone else seems content to be governed by moral poseurs: Re that Human Rights Watch flip-flop—"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for rendition—the circumstances seem to be limited to when there's a Democrat in the White House.

On balance, I prefer an Administration with the cojones to waterboard you themselves rather than stick a bag on your head and ship you to some Third World genital-clampers.

I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES
I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES
I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES
I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES
I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES
I PREFER AN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COJONES TO WATERBOARD YOU THEMSELVES

"Rendition" Revisited [Michael Ledeen]
An author I don't know, writing at The Washington Monthly, which I have long considered one of this city's minor cesspools, argues that "rendition" would not permit CIA to transfer terrorists to foreign countries that practice torture. I hope he's right, and I'll try to follow it, although it's not at all easy. Anyway, thanks to an alert reader who was kind enough to call my attention to the article.

02/02 02:32 PM

I was that alert reader!! Woo!

TEh Corner <3's me!

i think alert could also = 'not a histrionic righty loon' but good work nonetheless~

Of course, they still can't get Hilzoy's gender right, but anyway...

Somebody clarify the rendition thing for me?

I thought O said he was shutting down the black sites?

yeah he's pretty racist :/

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-renditions_01int.ART.State.Edition2.4c55e62.html

Obama's decision to preserve rendition has not drawn major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations said that reflects a sense that the U.S. and other nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."

I don't know how much of this I buy/believe (or in which direction).

there's this from "the opinionator" blog at the new york times re the rendition issue. make of it what you will.

On rendition and stupid conservatives:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/02/renditions/

you made history mordy!

Reefer Madness [Andrew Stuttaford]
Look, I don't blame Michael Phelps for apologizing. He has a living to earn, so he did what he had to do.

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man's failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone's health—and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.
02/03 09:37 AM

Sorta OTM?

ha no kidding. have we talked about l'affaire phelps anywhere? what a fucking crock, leave the kid alone

the corner would be the place where stoner conservatives chil

which Cornerite inherited William F. Buckley's pot-smokin' yacht?

"Sorta OTM?"

What sorta? Totally OTM. Never thought I'd agree with a Corner writer, but there ya go.

Except for K-Lo the disapproving old-maid schoolmarm. xxpost

i don't even want to think about some of those ppl high

She's never had an ounce of fun in her whole life. xp

i would love to hang out with k-lo when she's high--think of the blowback

I'd rather not!

Never thought I'd agree with a Corner writer, but there ya go.

Stuttaford is one of the few partially sane ones of the bunch there and has long expressed his contempt for drug laws. Also he is British and has had great fun, along with fellow Brit John Derbyshire, regularly trashing Christian fundamentalists on the Corner.

k-lo probably considers phelps a man who has now fallen from grace while she spends her evenings downing claim jumper frozen dinners and watching o'reilly

My "Sorta" was reservation over agreeing with anything someone from the Corner said. Even if I can't figure it out, I'm sure there's something insidious going on.

Yeah I don't read the Corner so I am unable to recognize if there are sane ones. The ones quoted here generally are not.

Only partially sane, as noted -- and mostly that batch is or was from the UK and/or Canada (thus Frum before he left), and what binds them all is what you can tell is a barely concealed "Good GOD you US conservatives are a bunch of ignorant fools but we hate everyone else even more so I guess we're stuck with you...dammit."

Mark Steyn is of course the great exception to all this.

we really need a brit's perspective on just how sane these british tories who write for The Corner really are -- just b/c they seem sane compared to our wingnuts doesn't mean that they ARE sane.

Oh, they're not! It's a sliding scale thing at best.

Mark Steyn is of course the great exception to all this.

thought he was only blogging at stuff white people like now???

i'd go out with ledeen on a huge bender but u know after too long he'd have a serious downturn into some gruesome il duce shit and pull a handgun on a cabbie or something

on no evidence at all i'm positive steyn is deep in 'the game'

Hahah I was about to nominate Ledeen as a classic example of someone not to be trapped in a room with. (Though Levin's worse.)

Ned, go tempt K-Lo to post a thread here called, "Questions for The Corner."

go tempt K-Lo

What kind of sick bastard are you, Alfred.

it puts the mayo on its skin

it puts the creme filled twinkie in the hole

guys stop

The sound you just heard was libidos imploding across the globe

Little starbursts light burst from the screen towards me.