Jonathan Alter, in the opening line of his NY Times article last Thursday entitled "The State of Liberalism", stated this:

It’s a sign of how poorly liberals market themselves and their ideas that the word “liberal” is still in disrepute despite the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow.

Chalk up anticipated failures at the ballot box to "marketing".  Right.  With such an ally in the media, the problem is marketing?

More likely, the word “liberal” is still in disrepute because of the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow.  But the liberal elite in this country are completely convinced that the populace is too stupid to realize how good liberalism is, and must be drawn in with flashy marketing.

It’s insulting, and you don’t win elections by insulting the voters.

Nina Totenberg is an NPR news correspondent.  She’s supposed to report the news straight and without bias.  This has not kept her from offering opinions over the years anyway.  She went so far as to wish AIDS on Jesse Helms or his grandchildren. 

So Charles Krauthammer wanted to know the difference between what she’s been doing for at least the past 15 years, and what Juan Williams did that got him fired.  Juan is, or was, an NPR news analyst, which Krauthammer argues might have less of an appearance-of-objectivity standard than a correspondent.  So he asks, what’s the line that Juan crossed?

No one can give him a straight answer, not even Totenburg herself.

NPR’s long history of liberal bias answers the question itself.  You don’t get a second look if you wish death to a Republican or his grandchildren.  But express your honest fears, even acknowledging that they are irrational, and you’re out the door. 

There should no longer be any question whatsoever of the overwhelming bias of the NPR news organization.  Intellectual honesty demands an accounting of the Juan Williams firing, after which that is the inescapable conclusion.

More links this week since I didn’t get around to it last week.

What’s keeping this recession going for so long?  Ask James Madison.  Yes, that James Madison.

The 6th Circuit judge that upheld the health care reform individual mandate to buy insurance has really redefined terms in order to make his ruling.

With that reasoning, Judge Steeh thoroughly unmoors the commerce clause from its concern with actual economic activity that Congress can regulate to a more amorphous realm of “economic decisions” which apparently include the decision to NOT enter into commerce at all.

A better example of an activist judge you’re not likely to find soon.

Roger Ebert, in reviewing “Waiting for Superman”, acknowledges that the private school highlighted does better than public school, proclaiming “Our schools do not work”.  His solution?  (Wait for it…)  More money for public schools, for the ones that don’t work instead of encouraging what does work and at typically a lower cost per student.  Liberal education policies are now just talking points rather than reasoned arguments.

Remembering a sociopathic mass murderer, who is extolled by liberal students T-shirts everywhere.  (No, not Charles Manson. I’m talking about Che Guevara.)

The Rise of the (Conservative, Christian) Woman in American politics.

Juan Williams responds to the NPR sacking.  Ah, the tolerant Left in action.

And to close it out, two cartoons to make up for missing a week.  I just love Chuck Asay.  (Click for larger versions.)

It’s a trend that has been going on for some years now, but the latest manifestation of it is troubling the pot sellers.

Coffee shops legally selling cannabis have been a feature of Amsterdam’s streets for more than 30 years, both a magnet for younger tourists and a symbol of the Dutch brand of liberal exceptionalism.

But the fragrant haze found in the city’s 200 or so establishments could be dispersed under plans by the incoming government, which is looking to roll back the “tolerance policy” that has allowed such coffee shops to operate since 1976.

Coinciding with a tightening of laws around prostitution – another tolerated industry – the authorities’ new stance on cannabis is raising questions as to whether Dutch society is moving away from laisser-faire traditions, which have included some of the earliest gay-friendly policies in Europe and the provision of free contraception to teenage girls.

Certainly the outlook for coffee shops is bleak. Among the few policies that the three parties in the new coalition agree upon is the need to cut back on, if not entirely abolish, coffee shops. The governing agreement released last week laid out plans that will force them to become member-only clubs and shut down those located within 350 metres of schools.

This comes, as I said after years of gradual restrictions.

The new stance comes after years of gradual tightening of the rules governing cannabis sales and a 2007 ban on the selling of alcohol in the coffee shops. After proliferating in the 1980s and early 1990s, their number in the Netherlands has halved from a peak of 1,400 in 1995 to just over 700 today.

Is this a result of conservative knee-jerk reactions, pandering to their base?  No, it appears that there’s a good reason for this.

For Paul Schnabel, director of the Social and Cultural Planning Office, a state advisory board, the move reflects a growing view that the tolerance policies have not achieved their aims of controlling the ills associated with drugs and prostitution, rather than a recasting of Dutch liberalism.

“There’s a strong tendency in Dutch society to control things by allowing them. It’s always been there, a pragmatic tradition, typical of a trading nation. We look for better alternatives to problems that we know exist anyway,” he explains.

But, he adds, “Dutch society is less willing to tolerate than before. Perhaps 30 years ago we were a more easy-going society.”

Heh, a "recasting of Dutch liberalism".  That should read, "the Dutch becoming more conservative", I think.  And liberals here in the US keep insisting that this policy, controlling things by allowing them, will work here, but the society that they hold up as a model, is moving away from that.  Will we learn from them (I’m looking at you, California)? 

And what are some of these ills?

The equation that led to the policy of tolerance has changed in the past decade, as large-scale crime around both coffee shops and the legal sex trade became more visible. In particular, the absence of legal means for coffee shops to acquire the cannabis they sell has highlighted its association with organised criminality.

But, but, I thought legalizing pot would get the criminals out of the equation?  It hasn’t, and former allies are even turning against this.

But the open-minded instincts that helped foster the tolerance policies in the first place have also come to be questioned. And it is not just the far-right that is opposing coffee shops. The traditional parties of power on the centre-right, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal VVD party, have also moved against the tolerance policies they once promoted.

It’s not working there.  Why do we think it’ll work there?  Is American liberalism paying attention to the Dutch when the facts go against their policies?  Appears not.

The “One Nation” rally of liberals vs. the “Restoring Honor” rally of conservatives.  What a study in contrasts.

Let’s start with the numbers.  Now, you may say that the numbers really aren’t that meaningful; what matters is the message.  Fair enough, except the number really mattered to the Left.  As pseudonymous writer “LaborUnionReport” notes from RedState:

You see, the size of the Saturday’s OneNation rally would not really matter if…

1. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz didn’t foolishly make the claim that he would have 300,000 people at Socialist Saturday;
2. Leninist labor boss Richard Trumka hadn’t predicted 100,000 union members;
3. The SEIU hadn’t claimed 75,000 of its purple progressives would be bused in (unless the SEIU really meant that 75k of its janitors would do park clean-up for all the SEIU signs that were left lying around), and;
4. Some dolt didn’t come on stage and claim that a satellite image proved that the Marxist March on Washington was bigger than Beck’s 8/28 rally…

Identical aerial views of the two rallies clearly show what one would call a gaping enthusiasm gap.  Keep those shots in mind when you read media articles that try to equivalence the two.  And consider, too, how many bought-and-paid-for attendees were there for “One Nation” (including students getting school credit for attending) and they still couldn’t hold a candle to the crowd from “Restoring Honor”, the vast majority that came on their own dime.  Nancy Pelosi once called the Tea Party “astroturf”, but clearly the plastic grass is on their side of the fence.

Oh, and another contrast is how you treat something you pay for vs something that’s provided for you.  You care more for something you paid for yourself, and thus there was quite a difference between how the “One Nation” attendees left the Washington Mall vs how the “Restoring Honor” attendees did.  When you pay for something yourself, you tend to take better care of it, which is a truism that can apply to government policies in general; a lesson the Left  never seems to learn.

And as Doug Ross notes, socialism played a big role in the rally.  Do these people even know the sordid history of socialism in the world?  That’s where this bunch wants to take us; further and further dependence on government and the power grab that is part and parcel of places like Venezuela.

This is their “America”?  What an awful place, and what a contrast between liberal and conservative.  I still do have hope.

Media Bias Dept.:  The Left got upset when Rupert Murdoch gave money to right-wing groups.  No mention, of course of the 88% of TV network donations go to Democrats.  And how much coverage did you hear about the BBC’s Director General admitting that the state-run news organization has had a "massive" left-wing bias?  Yeah, me neither.  Also, Patterico explains how the media has shaped the national discussion by selective coverage.

Market Watch:  The market is doing more for troubled homeowners than the government it.  CNN is, apparently, shocked to discover such a thing can happen.

"Recovery" Summer Dept.:  Germany’s recover has been fueled to a large extent by private sector consumption and growth, as opposed to the graph I posted earlier showing most of our jobs went to the government.  And irony of ironies, a French bureaucrat had to tell the US about cutting spending spurs growth.  Why can our own guys understand that?

ObamaCare Dept.:  After helping pass the health care bill, one Democratic Senator, using language he helped craft in the bill, is trying to use it to exempt his state from the individual mandate.  "Yeah, it’s a great idea … for everyone else but me."  Also, reality is putting the lie to the promise that nothing was going to change for you if you like the health care you have.

Film Corner:  The trailer us up for "Blood Money", an expose of the abortion industry.

Government (In)action Dept.:  The Justice Department is refusing to enforce voter fraud laws, and they’ve plainly said as much.  So one lawyer is using a provision of the law to file the lawsuits the Obama’s Justice won’t.  Our President respects the rule of law insofar as it furthers his own agenda.  No good can come of that.

Gossip Column:  Fidel Castro himself admits that the communist economic model doesn’t work.  It "works" only insofar as you get influxes of cash from, say, a beneficiary either internally (the "rich") or externally (the USSR).  But on its own, it is an abject failure.  Would that the Left would hear this and stop trying to move us closer to it.

And finally, the last word on the "Ground Zero Mosque" and the burning of Korans, from Rick McKee.  (Click for a larger image.)

He was a rabid environmentalist.  He considered babies "parasitic human infants", and wanted all "pro-birth" programs to push "stopping human birth".  He was extremely anti-war, and equated having more humans with more war.  He considered civilization "filth", and its religious roots "disgusting".

And ThinkProgress, an extremely popular liberal blog, calls out the Right over this guy, James Jay Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, because one of his eleven points refers to immigration. 

Really?  Is this what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left these days?  A guy who said Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" woke him up is a product of the Right?

None other than President of the United States Bill Clinton blamed conservative talk radio for Timothy McVeigh, and recently brought that back up in light of the Tea Party.  Conservatives against the "Ground Zero Mosque" were blamed for the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie (until it was found that it was a GZM supporter who stabbed the cabbie who was against the Mosque).  And Caleb Howe reminds us:

Lee acted irrationally. His environmental extremism was likely a function of his derangement, rather than the source of it. He latched on. He took it to the extreme, to say the least. Lee was not, by any measure that I would choose, a sane man. The story told by his brother-in-law – one of temper, erratic behavior, and irrational views – recalls Jerry Kane.

Jerry Kane, and his son Joe, killed two police officers and were killed themselves, in a shoot-out precipitated by a simple traffic stop. Jerry Kane, too, was an unstable man. His hometown mayor said of him that “You were always looking over your shoulder to make sure he wasn’t there. You never knew what he was going to do. I always thought he was an unstable individual.” Like Lee, the aftermath anecdotes painted a picture of paranoia and fear. But that didn’t stop liberal sites like Crooks and Liars from laying him at the feet of the conservative movement. Or Joseph Stack. Or Richard Poplawski. Or Byron Williams. It didn’t stop them from suggesting that Erick [Erickson] was responsible for a census worker slaying.

In fact, every time someone is shot in a lone gunman scenario, the right, and the tea parties and talk radio in particular, are virtually instantaneously blamed by the left at large for “violent” rhetoric and instigation.

Stop me, again, if you’ve heard THAT one before.

We never stop hearing from the MSNBC left how the Fox News right is stirring up violence. But when someone clearly basing his murderous intent on the idea that humans are going to destroy the world, and soon, acts on the dire prophecies of Al Gore … well suddenly you can’t blame rhetoric for crazy people.

Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz will simply not take responsibility for this guy.  I don’t think they should, but they should then not require the Right to take responsibility for the acts of other nuts.

But they will, as will Bill Clinton.  This is what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left.

No, I’m not talking about the "Ground Zero Mosque".  I’m talking about the Dove World Outreach Center’s plan to burn Korans on September 11th.

There’s nothing unconstitutional about doing with your own property what you wish.  Insofar as there are any relevant ordinances, it’s a local issue.  But also, people are free to exercise their right to protest and express their displeasure at such a thing, and try to convince those who are doing it to reconsider their plans, as I am trying to do.

OK, now I’m talking about the "Ground Zero Mosque".  Or both.

Are liberal websites who criticize the Dove Center’s burning of Korans and mock them anti-Christian bigots?  Certainly this criticism, in and of itself, is not proof of any such bigotry.  They just feel it’s wrong and are expressing their opinion.  I would be building a straw man to suggest that they are motivated by hate of Christians.  Equally, appealing to the constitutionality of this would be ignoring the other, more substantive, points of their protest.

And yet when the tables are turned, out come their straw men and their baseless accusations.  Liberal talking heads speak of constitutionality of building the Mosque on private property and accuse opponents of Islamophobia.  A nutty and drunk cab passenger killing his Muslim cabbie is pointed to as an example of the alleged overall fear, even though the perp was for the Mosque and the Muslim victim against it. 

Why can’t we have a civil discussion about race, religion or any sort of sensitive subject in this country?  This is a big reason why. 

Yes, it’s that time of the week again, where I toss out a bunch of links that I was too lazy to do a full blog post on.

Turns out the Iraq war didn’t break the bank.  It’s understandable that you might think that, but that only indicates a need to get your news from more sources.  The MSM loves to parrot DNC talking points.

(Liberal) feminism is dead.  Long live (conservative) feminism!

Jim Wallis said that Marvin Olasky (World magazine editor) “lies for a living” when Olasky noted that Wallis got $200,000 from George Soros.  When it was pointed out that he, in fact, did, then came the abject apology in sackcloth and ashes, “Well, it was so small I forgot.” UPDATE:  Wallis has issued a formal apology.
Three months ago, James Cameron was ready to “call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads”, speaking of those who dispute anthropogenic global warming.  At the very last minute, after changing his demands over and over for how a debate was to be run, he cancelled.  Now that takes guts.  Or something.

In England, teachers are dropping history lessons on the Holocaust and the Crusades, for fear of offending Muslims who are taught Holocaust denial and a different view of the Crusades at local mosques.  They’re afraid of challenging “anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils”.  So much for academia being the standard bearer of truth and free speech.

A back door repeal of the First Amendment by … social workers?  Well, when liberal ideologues get ahold of professional organizations, nuttiness does ensue.  Look at most unions.

And finally, a US district judge put a temporary halt to embryonic stem cell research.  Some believe this will devastate scientific research, but  Steve Breen puts it in perspective.  (Click for a larger image.)

An Islamic cabbie was stabbed by a white guy in New York City.  The all-knowing Left jumped on this as clear proof that Republicans are to blame for this.  Juan Cole said this explicitly.  Foster Kramer at the Village Voice wondered aloud if this was the first "Ground Zero Mosque" hate crime.  (More finger pointing from the Left noted by Michelle Malkin.) 

Turns out the attacker supports the building of the mosque.  Little inconvenient truth, that.  And the cabbie?  He’s opposed to it.  This just turns the Left’s arguments upside down and they’re scrambling to deal with it, updating those posts to try to tie this attacker to the Right, or blame the Right for him regardless of his politics.

What’s next, liberals firebombing the offices of a Democrat?  Why, yes.

But hey, those Tea Partiers are just so violent, right?  Right?