Grouches at National Review strike again

How big a deal is it that Stephen Colbert is taking over for Letterman on the CBS's late show? I can well imagine that his Comedy Central fans will miss his pointy political satire. Lots of people wonder what his personality is. Outside of his parody (a take-off of Bill O'Reilly's pomposity), do we have the faintest idea who he is? We don't know whether he can carry a late night talk show.

But the old grouches among the conservatives have a vastly different concern. They see another major slap at the heartland of the US. At least that was Rush Limbaugh's response-- though that's moderate for him. Limbaugh might have railed against Colbert for roughly a minute, much less than law student Sandra Fluke got.

So why does National Review need three posts letting their curmudgeons sound off about Colbert being an unfunny liberal replacing yet another unfunny liberal? Because National Review basically doesn't have thoughtful critique from a conservative viewpoint anymore. Instead, it's cut and slash against everything Dem and liberal. This is the longest post, giving the old grouches the most place to wheeze about "his perverted version of a conservative character."

I realized earlier this year that I had to stop reading National Review so often. The low point was the flaying of Pete Seeger on the occasion of his death. Seeger wasn't the singer of "Puff the Magic Dragon" to them. Instead he was a bagman for Stalin.

So Stephen Colbert may be a traitor in the war on the heartland, but at least he didn't work for Stalin.

Image: colbertrally.com

Extra. Ben Shapiro (creep-in-chief of Breitbart) writes a creepy post comparing Colbert to blackface comedy. There's something ironic (meaning hypocritical) about the editor of Breitbart complaining about the worst aspects of conservatives being lampooned. So does that mean parts of Limbaugh's show are vile blackface comedy riffing off liberals? (Hat-tip to The Atlantic Wire. National Review didn't link to it because it makes conservatives look pretty bad.)

Merry-go-round of irony and lies

First horse on the merry-go-round: Brietbart's story that Chuck Hagel took funding from a group called "Friends of Hamas."

•  Second horse: Lots of conservative news sources pick up the story.

Third horse: "Friends of Hamas" doesn't actually exist.

• Fourth horse: Is the editor-in-chief, Ben Shapiro, who published the story, still at Breitbart? Or was he fired like the NBC producer who was caught doing misleading edits on the Zimmerman 911 tape? Of course he's still at Breitbart. Scruples are for sissies, as are truth and accuracy.

Fifth horse: Breitbart tells the Washington Post 5 ways to clean up its act, like no longer publishing false charges and mysteriously removing them. Also, not publishing fraudulent stories about racist statements by an Ag Dept official Palin going to Al-Jazeera.

• Sixth horse: How can Breitbart complain about WaPo when they just days ago inflated this fake story about Hagel? Well, it was attributed to a "Senate source [that] told Breitbart News exclusively."

Seventh horse: Didn't something similar happen when Harry Reid "heard" some story that Romney hadn't paid any income tax one year? Oh, that's probably another politically convenient fabrication.

• I'm feeling sick. Stop this ride. Yes, stop the lies and hypocrisy.

Image: flickr.com

Update 2/20/13. The ride is still spinning. The inadvertent source of the rumor has been self-identified. He emailed a question to an unnamed "Republican aide" and less than 24 hours later it morphed into a headline at Breitbart.com. Ben Shapiro at Breitbart continues to practice "do what I say, not what I do" by claiming that [HORRORS!!!] the source, reporter Dan Friedman, knew he was wrong before he published his piece claiming to be the unwitting source. Shapiro, are you saying that's wrong? My heavens, I never would have known that from your example.  Just to say it again, the conservative media can gripe all it wants about the MSM, but until it follows more of the same rules of good journalistic practice, it won't gain credibility. As this case illustrates, again...