Since politics increasingly resembles satirical representations of it, Senator Al Franken makes a particularly apt sigh of the times. He's more articulate than Caroline Kennedy, more credible than Ted Kaufman, and more likely to step onto the Senate without a sergeant-at-arms tackling him than Roland Burris. Fortunately for Franken, voters were more able to differentiate his Stuart Smally persona from the man playing him than they were able to separate Tina Fey's Sarah Palin from the genuine article. This weekend on The McLaughlin Group, to cite but one example among millions, Montgomery Clift's sister-in-law attributed Fey's "I can see Alaska from my house" to Palin in deriding the Alaska governor. Elinor is able to discern that her brother-in-law only played a mentally-damaged man sterilized by the Nazis. Why does she conflate Sarah Palin with the woman who parodied her on Saturday Night Live?

As Rush keeps saying: it's like one big sitcom.

Our government is certainly becoming a mockery and considering that enough Minnesotans voted for bridge troll Franken to even make it close in the first place is amazing.

But, I suppose no more amazing than that Royal MENSA Caroline Kennedy expecting to be given a Senate seat or no more amazing than the same Democrats who will accept and welcome unqualified political neophytes will reject a guy like Burris who has more experience than the Obamanator.

What the F* kind of name is Roland Burris anyway!!!

Wow, Horse is at it again with another cogent argument. (That was sarcasm for you Horse. Your arguments are never cogent.)

You've got to love the hypocrisy of the left. Grand Wizard Harry Reid not only refusing to seat Burris but calling Blago and telling him which black appointees he doesn't want while suggesting some white ones that he does.

Seems like a lot of racists in politics carry the 'D' next to their names.

lol (in agreement)at Mike's post.

Horse is probobly looking up cogent as we speak trying to figure out what it means.

"Horse is probobly looking up cogent as we speak trying to figure out what it means."

Do you speak douche-bag? You should re-read the comments from http://www.flynnfiles.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2763 to get my joke.

You should pick on someone your own size Mike, someone with a brain the size of a walnut, and a dick no bigger.

There is the idiot we know and love.

Wow, nice comeback. How cogent of you.

Hey, looks like you used the word appropriatly. There may be hope for you yet. But I doubt it.

Besides I didn't really feel like reading your moronic prose that you seem to think makes alot of sense.

I was addressing asdf's racist moronic prose of asking "what the F kind of name is Plaxico [Burris]??"

You really have your head screwed on backwards if you think asdf makes sense and has ever formed a competent argument.

I don't care what you are addressing. If someone doesn't agree with you then you go off the deep end. Your arguments are either black or white with no middle ground. You think you are right while everyone else is wrong. You claim some wrong was made where there was none. Get over yourself. And please continue to argue with me over nothing. It is entertaining.

But then again I did just read your post about incest and I do agree with you there regarding the medical aspects of it
Sometimes we take the concept of "liberty" to far for the sole sake of "liberty". And I think that is a large problem with the fight for liberty of all kinds or die crowd.

Speaking of our current politics becoming the satire of it here are the reflections on my account of my homeland's ruling parties of a mighty monarch I once had the fortune to meet:

"His Majesty in another Audience was at the Pains to recapitulate the Sum of all I had spoken, compared the Questions he made with the Answers I had given; then taking me into his Hands, and stroaking me gently, delivered himself in these Words, which I shall never forget nor the Manner he spoke them in: My little Friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable Panegyric upon your Country: You have clearly proved that Ignorance, Idleness, and Vice may be sometimes the only Ingredients for qualifying a Legislator: That Laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose Interest and Abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some Lines of an Institution, which in its Original might have been tolerable, but these half erazed, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by Corruptions. It doth not appear from all you have said, how any one Virtue is required towards the Procurement of any one Station among you, much less that Men are ennobled on Account of their Virtue, that Priests are advanced for their Piety or Learning, Soldiers for their Conduct or Valour, Judges for their Integrity, Senators for the Love of their Country, or Counsellors for their Wisdom. As for yourself, (continued the King,) who have spent the greatest Part of your Life in Travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many Vices of your Country. But by what I have gathered from your own Relation, and the Answers I have with much Pain wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth."

"Your arguments are either black or white with no middle ground."

In 'Damn Intellectuals' liberals got pounded for arguments where there are 'infinite shades of gray', so to say my arguments are either black or white seems like you are calling me a conservative.

"You claim some wrong was made where there was none."

The wrongs that were committed were mindless insults directed either towards Plaxico or myself. You may not be the culprit all of the time, but asdf is consistent with baseless and ignorant logic in an attempt to make himself look like he knows something. The problem is that he is a 'yes-man' without his own thoughts, regurgitating conservative talking points and insults while never considering his own infallibility.

The difference is that I try and apologize if someone can show me my view is wrong. I should have apologized about the hitler thing, but we all make mistakes. I have never seen asdf admit fault or error, which I can't really expect from a person of his caliber.

Horse: "In 'Damn Intellectuals'[sic] liberals got pounded for arguments where there are 'infinite shades of gray', so to say my arguments are either black or white seems like you are calling me a conservative."

Lol. Irony. Dan mentioned "endless shades of gray" in his piece, and nobody applied it specifically to liberals. Although it was put into a mixture describing pretentious "intellectual" liberals and "poseurs".

If it were a set relationship at all, it would imply that all endless-shades-of-gray-pseudo-intellectuals are liberal, not that all liberals are shades-of-gray guys. You made a classic distribution error. That some liberals see endless shades of gray, does not mean that others don't see things in black and white.

I find neither to be the case. Of course "endless shades of gray" describes the theory of psuedo-intellectual liberalism, but black-and-white too often describes their behavior. So while Horse sticks up for "shades of gray" he often acts like it's black-and-white. Which is what again makes certain observers see the same poverty and naivete in the theory.

Then again, a key concept is endless shades of gray. Seeing shades of gray--or seeing numerous shades--does not make one's world "devoid of black and white" so by making it into an if-then proposition (in the wrong direction, I might add) is a rather black and white reaction.

Back to DI, only myself and James mention "nuance". I mention it as something which liberals (in the main) only play at, when it suits them. And James attributes it to Lincoln. I'm the only one that mentions "subtlety" (or any form using "subtl") or any string of "complex" and that's again making the point that liberals feign at this understanding, and because Kristof invokes "comfortable with complexity". And Sandra M is the only one who uses any form of the word "sophisticate-", only to say that Palin's handlers thought themselves more "sophisticated" than "the country's most popular governor". Dan's the only one that mentions "shades" (or even the four character sequence "shad") or "gray", thus that you got "hammered" for liberals being this is pretty much an overstatement. Again the suggestion of understanding complexity outstrips the application of it.

Here's another way that you're missing the complexity. Liberals pride themselves as seeing "shades of gray" regardless of whether or not that's a consistent motif. Thus to ask if you are a pseudo-intellectual liberal it would be wrong to ask "Is your world devoid of black-and-white and full of endless shades of gray--but really you only pretend at seeing gray, and act in a black-and-white way?" if liberals wouldn't describe themselves in that manner. And face it, most people do not self-describe themselves as pretending at anything. Of course, Dan breaks with this mold with "Do you speak douche-bag?" but that does not invalidate the pattern of self-description for everything else.

On the other hand--here's a lesson in complexity: a conservative can see shades of gray, but think that somewhere there is a line being crossed into definite a black and white, and they even have a sense of where that line is, without denying any of the three.

"Dan mentioned "endless shades of gray" in his piece, and nobody applied it specifically to liberals. Although it was put into a mixture describing pretentious "intellectual" liberals and "poseurs"."

So he used subtly and nuance to keep the blood off his hands like a true polititian. When he says, "Do you wear a turtleneck underneath a tweed jacket with patched elbows? Do you subscribe to the New York Times, or better yet, the New Yorker? Do you sport German-style eyeglasses? Are you passive aggressive? Does your car have a "War Is Not the Answer" bumper sticker? Do you speak douche-bag?", he lists things commonly associated by conservatives against liberals without saying 'liberal'. I take that as pounding liberals.

"So while Horse sticks up for "shades of gray" "

When did I do that?

"a conservative can see shades of gray, but think that somewhere there is a line being crossed into definite a black and white, and they even have a sense of where that line is, without denying any of the three."

So I can't use universal generalizations, but you can. Cool, now I know how the game is played. Just keep making up the rules as you go...

"Universal generalizations" because a conservative can see shades of gray? Does it really smack of generalization to attribute a type of capability to a subset of conservatives given the case that they see shades of gray?

It provides simply a description of a state and not a distribution or a tendency.

Nice job on totally ignoring that the case I made against liberals getting "pounded" on shades of gray--especially, to the point where you can use it as a litmus test for a liberal/conservative designation. So if you weren't defending the liberal side (that got "pounded"), what the hell was your objection?

And you totally missed the point of what I was saying about Dan's wording--or anybody else's for that matter.

Also, the distribution thing is important. A college education commonly feeds into the pseudo-intellectual liberal. But it would be erroneous to suggest that a single element contributes to a wider category than the target (from pseudo-intellectual liberal to general liberal). For example, that a college education makes for many pseudo-intellectual liberals does not mean that a college education characterizes one as a liberal.

It makes your challenge mostly noise. You really didn't have much of a point besides taking conservatives in general to task for something that mainly Dan said (satirically) anyway--basing it on the perception that it was far more widespread than it was. I already established how limited the scope of that was on the comment thread in question--its just that you answer in most cases as if you were simply countering a mindless hoard.

"I take that as pounding liberals."

Yeah, but you didn't say "pounding" liberals in general. You specifically applied it to pounding them on "shades of gray" to the point that you applied it to a conversation that had nothing to do with Dan, as a key objection about "black-and-white". And suggested that as a rule that would imply you are a conservative.

You should take that liberals are being pounded. We pound them daily. You pound conservatives daily. Big deal. My point is not that you either are or are not being pounded, my point is to pound on you for diversion tactics that there was some sort of general rule established about liberal/conservative/gray/b&w distribution. And to deflect in an irrelevant fashion the idea that you act in terms of black and white.

"Does it really smack of generalization to attribute a type of capability to a subset of conservatives..."

You mention no subset, nor did anyone else. Maybe if you said, some conservatives, or most conservatives, or something like that, but you say 'a conservative'. There are some hick @ss conservatives that see no gray on some issues, refuting your claim.

"Also, the distribution thing is important. "

Point taken. I stand corrected and see now that I said 'liberals got pounded' when I should have said 'a liberal mindset got ...', as in there are many other mindsets a liberal could have. It is semantics, but you have a valid point. If we weren't just a mindless hoard we would all stop using the generalization of conservatives/liberals, and say what we really mean. We all know people who don't fit into the perfect little box of either title, but are still called con/lib. I will try and be a little more choosing with words on how I pound some conservatives.

Horse: "You mention no subset, nor did anyone else."

A conservative. A conservative is a subset--it is the most basic subset: member of a group. You basically can't refute that a conservative does blah, by pointing out a (+nother) conservative does not. Among reasons to cite a member, the two to be likely the most polar are 1) to distribute a common characteristic among the group, or 2) to reconcile a perceived disconnect with a member of the group.

Writing this, now I realize that "a conservative might" makes the connection more obvious as opposed to "a conservative can". It might not have been clear immediately, but "can" bears the meaning of "may" often enough, and the room for it should have been obvious as I went out of my way to point it out.