In The Blogs

Corn To Weekly Standard: I Accept

Please, you can stop with those congratulatory emails, telephone calls, Facebook messages, tests, and Twitter DMs. I already realize that I have won the much-coveted award: the Weekly Standard's "Twitter of the Day." On a daily basis, the staff of that conservative magazine reviews tens of millions of Twitter messages—"tweets," for those in the know—in order to identify that one very special less-than-140-character message deserving of their notice. We salute them for this hard work. After all, it does entail much sacrifice. Were they not poring over all the world's Twitter feeds, they could be reporting on Dick Cheney's hourly observations regarding national security. Thankfully, Cheney has not yet begun to tweet—he's dithering on Twittering—for were he doing so, the rest of us would not stand a chance to win this particular prize.

What won the judges' fancy was this tweet of mine:

And hundreds of millions don't. RT @GOPLeader: AP: ‘Thousands rally’ to protest Pelosi #healthcare http://bit.ly/1JUFJP #Housecall #killbill

I was responding to a message that had been sent out minutes earlier by Republican House minority leader John Boehner, who was celebrating the arrival at the Capitol of thousands—yes, thousands!—of conservative citizens who were willing to yell and scream and hold signs of hate to beat back the emerging health care reform legislation.

The award citation, written by Michael Goldfarb (who last received attention in these digital pages for confusing disagreement with treason), was direct and simple in its reasoning:

Good point, Corn. Just like the hundreds of millions who didn't march on Washington for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't take to the streets to protest the Iraq war. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't vote for Barack Obama. The silent majority strikes again!

Who knew that Goldfarb could perform such an exquisite imitation of Stephen Colbert? His portrayal of a right-wing fan of twisted logic, who is unable to discern the purposeful excess of my winning Twitter message, was spot-on. (Hooray for you, sir.) Of course, just such a person would suggest that the presence of a few thousand angry conservatives trumps the massive electoral majority assembled by President Obama in last year's election. And just such a person would also ignore the inconvenient fact that both houses of Congress are controlled by sizable Democratic majorities that were placed there by millions throughout the land. And just such a person would most certainly claim, all evidence to the contrary, that the thousands who were bused by conservative outfits to this mid-day gathering represent the true majority of this great country.

Given Goldfarb's bravura performance—inspired by my few meager words—I can only humbly say one thing: I accept.

You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter—as Michael Goldfarb knows.

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Comments
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This is stupid

Goldfarb's comment is perfectly reasonable. For one thing, for every protestor that shows up, there's a hundred that weren't able to make it. For another thing, he didn't say the protestors represented a majority (correct me if I'm wrong), he just said their voices deserve to be recognized. Implying that because hundreds of millions didn't turn out to protest the protestor's message is stupid or wrong or whatever, is itself stupid.

Look, I'm as liberal as they come, I disagree with these people on everything, but we need to take them seriously. Not give in to their every demand or anything like that, but just listen to them. That's democracy. That's everyone having a voice.

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Reasonable?

I don't think Goldfarb's statement is really as reasonable as all that. Of course the "loyal opposition" is important and deserving of respect and the point of representative government of our type is that those out of power are not trampled by those in. I don't think any sane person would truly argue that that's the case.

Between the Tea Parties, Town Halls, and every other publicized mewling of faux-populism, the underlying message that conservatives are trying to push across is that there is a great, silent majority still out there. What they're ignoring is that it's just not true. So they continue to try and "take back America" and lament "losing their country" to people for whom the very language they use suggests an other-ness and disdain; i.e. the progressive majority in America.

Democracy is when that majority of representatives enacts the legislation they were voted in to accomplish.

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Weekly Standard

Good point, Corn. Just like the hundreds of millions who didn't march on Washington for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't take to the streets to protest the Iraq war. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't vote for Barack Obama. The silent majority strikes again!

underoath

Facts no longer matter to this society

I have come to believe that facts are no longer need's in this society.

Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob - Stephen Colbert

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Delaware beats Switzerland

Delaware beats Switzerland as most secretive financial center

http://joshfulton.blogspot.com/2009/11/delaware-beats-switzerland-as-mos...

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Boehner's boner.

We should pronounce his name a Boe-Nr from now on anyway, since Limbaugh et al. love to come up with "humorous" nicknames for people, but on to serious matters.

We can't worry too much about Boehner, I mean after all he is the House Minority Leader who believes that the Declaration of Independence is actually the Constitution even while brandishing the Constitution from which he could just directly read. I mean that is such colossal stupidity. I mean if the House Minority leader can't tell the Declaration from the Constitution what hope do we have for Constitutional government, especially since the Declaration contains such great statements as "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." ?!

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