Category: Politics

Geoff Nunberg, the leftwing political activist and linguist who wrote Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show, is upset with me for connecting George Lakoff with his former professor, Noam Chomsky:

Many people assume that there’s some connection between Chomsky’s politics and his linguistics, and a lot of them go on to conclude that linguistics itself is constituitively a leftish discipline. So when Lakoff emerged as an influential political figure, it seemed natural to blur both his politics and his linguistics with Chomsky’s, particularly if for those who didn’t know jack about linguistics. Whatever your political views, it’s a depressing reminder of how widespread the ignorance about the field of linguistics is (not that we exactly needed another one). But then it’s probably asking too much to expect people who find it expedient to conflate Lakoff’s garden-variety liberalism with Chomsky’s anarcho-syndicalism to take the trouble to learn the difference between Chomsky’s minimalism and Lakoff’s cognitive linguistics. Oh well, they have the sense they were born with.

Please. I called Lakoff a “protege” of Chomsky’s because one of the meanings of that word is “pupil”. I’m aware that Lakoff went on to develop his own school of linguistics and a set of political beliefs that differ from Chomsky’s at the margins. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Chomsky was the prototype of linguist-cum-lefty-activist, and Lakoff was a student who follows in the master’s footsteps along the broad program while differing in some of the details. Nunberg follows the same (by now) well-worn path, so (naturally) he sees distinctions that don’t matter to civilians. For the record, Lakoff’s linguistics are much less loony than Chomsky’s, but that never was the issue. I’m concerned about the use of the science of linguistics to mislead voters, and on that front Chomsky and Lakoff are strongly aligned.

UPDATE: A more accurate description of Lakoff is “Chomsky wannabe.” When you criticize linguists, be very careful about your terminology as they’ll pick you to death with meaningless distinctions.

This is wonderful:

The issues dominating this election season remain Iraq, terrorism and various scandals, but the Schiavo matter may prove to be a sleeper issue. It has cropped up in contests across the country—from the Florida governor’s race to close congressional campaigns in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and points west. Schiavo himself has helped stoke the debate by campaigning for candidates who backed his position on Terri’s case and lambasting those who opposed him. Using funds raised by TerriPAC, a political committee he founded last year, he has also given 15 candidates a total of $20,000. All of it is aimed at driving home his message: “Government should not interfere with personal matters,” says Schiavo, who still seethes at the memory of Congress’s and President Bush’s attempts to block removal of Terri’s feeding tube.

After mourning Terri’s death, Schiavo had planned to move on with his life (he has a second wife and two kids). But in the course of writing a book about the case, he reviewed news footage that he’d never seen from the height of the controversy. He became incensed all over again—and decided to do something about it, teaming up with Democratic consultant Derek Newton. Schiavo’s hardly an electrifying speaker, and he mangles names on the stump. But he has an ordinary-guy appeal and a wrenching tale. Formerly a Republican, he’s now a Democrat, though he has supported candidates from both parties. As Election Day nears, he’s trying to squeeze in one more round of campaign stops, in response to requests from candidates in Georgia, Iowa and Virginia. And after Nov. 7? “On to 2008,” he says. An activist has been born.

H/T John Cole.

Remember Ned Lamont, the puppet of lefty bloggers Markos and Jerome Armstrong who shook the world by beating Joe Lieberman for the Senate nomination in Connecticut this spring? Well, things aren’t going so well for Mr. Lamont:

The apparent end of the much-ballyhooed Lamont phenomenon is causing a great deal of soul-searching and recrimination in all corners of the Democratic Party. The bloggers that once championed Mr. Lamont as an awkward but earnest savior now alternately blame Washington’s strategists for hijacking their candidate and Democratic leaders for abandoning him. Beltway consultants fault the Lamont campaign for failing to move the candidate beyond his left-wing celebrity and define him for a greater electorate.

The election is a week away, and already Democratic Party insiders speak of Lamont in the past tense, and all Markos has to show for all his money-raising is a reduction in the number of Democrats in the Senate.

Oh, and did I mention that Lamont’s champions are leaders of the net neutrality cause? Well, they are.

Lest the democratic wing of the Democratic Party gets too excited about cable guy Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut yesterday, let’s not forget the original anti-war populist:

DECATUR, Ga. — Cynthia McKinney, the fiery Georgia congresswoman known for her conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks and the scuffle she had earlier this year with a U.S. Capitol police officer, lost a runoff election Tuesday for her district’s Democratic nomination.

Could it be that voters are simply tired of the status quo? Granted, McKinney has certain special features, but voters sent her to Washington several times despite them. Perhaps we’ve simply got higher standards now.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see more incumbent-crushing in November, on both sides. You read it here.

Looks like Holy Joe is toast, with 99% of the returns in he’s trailing by 4%. Welcome to the Independent ranks, your Holiness.

UPDATE: Il Duce Digital, Markos, says Lamont and what he calls “people-powered politics” have won the election in Connecticut. Note to Markos: the election is in November, this was only the primary. If your puppet wins that one, you’ll have a right to crow. All this means is that you’ve successfully ripped the party in two in one small New England state. Stay tuned.

UPDATE AGAIN: Let’s face it, Lieberman is finished. There’s no way in hell he wins the November election as an Indpendendent. The party is for Lamont, and the people have spoken. So it’s time for him to go, and to do it graciously as possible. And Markos has every right to crow right now. This is his first victory, and it won’t be his last.

H/T to John Cole for this opinion.

Chuck Calderon is going back to Sacramento. Damn, that’s sweet.

It’s official, Republicans won the primaries and special elections in California. Bilbray edged out Busby:

Republican Brian Bilbray beat Democrat Francine Busby early Wednesday in a close race to replace imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the 50th Congressional District, a contest seen as a gauge of voter attitudes for the national midterm elections.

And Arnie was re-elected Governor, essentially:

After months of vitriolic campaigning, state Treasurer Phil Angelides laid claim early today to the Democratic nomination for governor and pledged to turn his candidacy into a “fight for the California of our dreams.”

Arnie will have an easy time painting Phil as the second coming of Gray: long-time party hack, tool of the unions, big spender, in thrall to special interests. Voters are still intrigued by Arnie enough to let him have some more fun in Sacramento, so status quo will continue. The statewide sentiment in this election was clearly for fiscal responsibility, as two big-ticket initiatives failed, a library bond and Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s lavish pre-school program funded by higher taxes on Sergey Brin.

The people made a wise choice in nominating Debra Bowen for Sec’y of State, the main elections officer, over Debbie Ortiz. Bowen is way smarter and more Internet-savvy than Ortiz, basically a moron with a sad story about life as a welfare brat. Bowen was getting marriage proposals on the Internet 10 years ago (she’s easy on the eyes) and Ortiz couldn’t find her office in the Capitol for several years.

I’m disappointed that my friend Jackie Speier didn’t get the nomination for Lt. Governor. It’s not much of a job, but she’s a noble person and deserves credit for taking a bullet at Jonestown following the effort of her former boss, Leo Ryan, to break up the Jim Jones Kool-Aid party. (She told me to call her Jackie several years ago, so I do.) It wouldn’t surprise me to see Tom McClintock win in November because he’s a strong campaigner. He never told me to call him Tom, but he was always decent.

Lockyer gets another term as AG, and if he can shed his current wife he’ll be in good shape to move into the Governor’s office when Arnie goes back to Hollywood (or the White House, as the case may be.) It’s going to be funny to see Lockyer suffer from the divorce laws he passed for his party’s faithful while he was in the Senate. Karma, dude.

I wonder the people currently clambering for Rumsfeld’s head would feel if his replacement were, say, Karl Rove? The president’s brain will soon have some time on his hands to explore other opportunities.

Just a thought.

But seriously, if you believe that Rummy’s not cutting it, and it’s really hard to argue that he is, what reason do you have to believe that a replacement would be any better? The same guy who appointed Rummy, etc, would be making the selection, after all.

So is the call for Rummy’s head actually a vote of confidence in the President? Apparently.

A shocking new study reveals that people don’t process political information with their rational brains, but with their hysterical emotions:

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.

Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.

The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.

“None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged,” Westen said. “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.”

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning.

The tests involved pairs of statements by the candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, that clearly contradicted each other. The test subjects were asked to consider and rate the discrepancy. Then they were presented with another statement that might explain away the contradiction. The scenario was repeated several times for each candidate.

The brain imaging revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

“The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,” Westen said.

Duh.