C-SPAN funnies

(via Nosh)

Culture11 we hardly knew ye

What happened when one conservative website ventured outside the movement bubble?

I really do miss Culture11 :'(

It was so breathtakingly fresh to interact with sane conservatism.

Washington Independent adds:

The best conservative/gleeful take on why Culture11 failed came from Robert Stacy McCain, whose arguments are too numerous to summarize here, but can be boiled down to: “If you want to create a brand of conservatism that doesn’t yet exist, you have to do more than write columns and movie reviews.” If you want to write columns and movie reviews, they have to be in the “liberals are awful and destroying freedom” mold.

Reihl World View flaunts his ignoramus credentials:

Dan Collins links to a Washington Monthly item on the Culture11 fail - evidently it dismissively discusses Big Hollywood, as well. I'm familiar with Breitbart's BH.

I sure don't know everything out here. But I've been knocking around the Internet for too many years to count and blogging daily for five on the Right. There are few if any major memes I miss, even if I don't blog on them.

I never even heard of this Culture11 site until I read that it was gone. If someone wants to know why it failed, extrapolate that out to other bloggers and web surfers, that was it.

Having never seen it, all I can conclude is that it really must have sucked.

Read that last sentence again, for you won't find a more ironic statement of the incuriously vapid logic so emblematic of the last decade's republo-conservatism.

Replacement trickle-down

Now that Douthat succeeds Kristol at the Times, who will replace Douthat at the Atlantic?

Wilkinson proposes:

I’ve always thought the carnival of erudition that is Reihan’s mind deserves a more prominent showcase, which is why I dearly hope the Atlantic will do the natural thing and hand Ross’s blog over Reihan. The blog would be sort of the same but completely different all at the same time.

Andrew adds:

There's Conor too. And Suderman. And Poulos. And Jacobs. And many others given a chance by the American Scene and Culture 11 and the blogosphere. I'm just glad I work at a place which has given these new voices a platform, and has done more already to blow some air at some dying conservative embers than much of establishment conservatism.

While it would be very interesting to see Conor with a larger platform than TAS and the late Culture11, I think he may be too similar to Andrew himself (who he also interned with).

Suderman is dating Megan so it would be odd to see them putting their eggs in one basket and writing as cohabitating coworkers.

I think that leaves Reihan and Poulos in the running.

Larison and Dreher's existing perches aren't quite as high, but high and visible enough that it would be odd to see them moving to the Atlantic unless they really love the place.

A darker horse is probably someone formerly of NRO. Jim Manzi is already with the Atlantic Business blog, hmm. I suppose Yuval Levin could make it, but my ideal choice is Ramesh Ponuru.

Street fighting

"Yes we can" marches on?

Prohibition: massive collateral damage that we can't even afford.

My prediction is that we'll get more headway after the 2012 election. There are too many less controversial fish to be fried before then.

How to make a treehugger cry

It's the wood chopper from hell:


(via Nosh)

"I pledge to be a servant to our President" revisited

You remember this, at 3:54 ?



Creepy.

But now: parody!

Real life facebook

It's kind of like that.

News flash

Politics is like family, and family is like politics.

No, you can't be outraged, and wishing otherwise won't make it so.

2 seconds of fame

I got parenthetically credited in a post on a blog with a readership that exceeds single digits!!

But it was just for commenting with a link to this Wilkinson post.

So of course I had to offer what I hope is a constructive reply

Update: and then again later today at Will's place. This could be a pattern, guys. Fear my hyperlink-in-comment prowess!

Libertarians heart Obama

It can't last long, but Radley Balko tallies up Obama's orders, and along with John Schwenkler is as pleased as I am.

John asks:

Remember when it was conservatives who could claim to stand for liberty and government accountability?

Update: You can add Will Wilkinson to the list of thankful libertarians.

Obama's (first?) inaugural address

Text as prepared -- as delivered -- Reax -- C11 reacts

And for one last time, remember: It could have been Ms. Clinton speaking this day. Ugh! You can forget now.

On Matt Taibbi on Thomas Friedman

I'm with John Schwenkler:

This piece has been making the rounds of late, and while it may be a bit too profanity-laden for some, there is a lot of very, very good … err … stuff in it. I for one can predict with the utmost confidence that I will never look at a Friedman column the same way again.

Mac vs. PC

Another great Nosh find. Stick with it past 1 min:

What is time ?

Conor finds one explanation. It's provocative.

Beware the doghouse, you may never get out

Via Nosh:

"should’ve done better, and a lot of other presidents would’ve done better."

Conor nibbles at Ross Douthat's formidable post on torture and what George Bush did for us.

Dept. of little things that make me smile

Reading a blog post discussing Obama's Secretary of Education pick and halfway through coming across a sentence beginning "When I was Secretary of Education,"

Apparently Mr. Bennett has some well-developed ideas of what he's talking about!

That mix of "anger, uncertainty and guilt"

Ross posts Thinking About Torture.

There's some discussion at C11.

I think the post is very illuminating.

To answer the "Did we ask for it?" question for myself, I think I can offer a fairly emphatic NO. The special status of "enemy combatant" never made any sense to me. Ever.

We declared a "War on Terror". Bush has pounded the phrase in his speeches. So "prisoners of war" follow naturally.

Prisoners of war have rights. Regardless of what atrocities they've comitted: the Nazis, Japanese, Soviets, and Al Qaeda operatives all have the same rights when captured by the military.

The only alternative is civilian court, in whatever jurisdiction applies. Should the military decide someone is not suited to remaining a prisoner of war but still a criminal, then that person should be turned over to whatever civilian authorities claim jurisdiction.

Torture and torture-lite must never be legal options. We can conceive of a situation in which someone would have reason to decide the ends justify the means and go forward with these things. But when all is said and done, it was still illegal and must be prosecuted. Jury nullification and presidential pardons are the only recourse.

And if Officeholders like a President were involved, they should face impeachment.

No one is above the law.

Condensed inspiration

Via C11.