Monday, August 10, 2015

Lift that barge, clutch them pearls

Update: Welcome Mike's Blog Round Up readers!
Erich Erichssohn, in it up to his neck. Via Welcome to Pottersville.
I'm about to do something I hope I'm never compelled to do again: agree about something with famed Iraq combat attorney (well, maybe that's not what it's called, but he gives the impression it's a thing) and National Review hack David French, who writes:
Approximately 98 percent of the professional politicians, pundits, and consultants embroiled in the conversation over Trump’s comments about Kelly, in which he may or may not have said that her tough questions at Thursday’s GOP debate were due to menstruation, are most assuredly not “offended” or “outraged” by his words. Quite the opposite: In the political world, there is something like an electric shock of glee that passes through the community when someone says something “outrageous.” Controversy is energizing. Consultants, candidates, and pundits immediately begin working the angles...
Does anyone seriously think that Erick Erickson — a blunt-speaking radio host and pundit last seen urging his supporters to mail fake testicles to John Boehner and fake dog poop to Democrat Earl Pomeroy, and saying all manner of vile things about political opponents (he’s apologized for some of his worst statements, including calling Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-f**king child molester.”) — is offended by Trump’s statements? Does anyone seriously think that Megyn Kelly, one of television’s most talented and powerful personalities and one of the most feared and respected interviewers in the news business, has been emotionally wounded by Trump?
I mean, I'm not on board with where he goes with it, which is to say that the pearl-clutching of Herr Erichssohn is just like those baby-chopping Democrats with their political correctness, even as they chop up the babies and mail their bits to the dead baby-bit collectors or whatever the hell it is he thinks we do with them, but I do think the shock is bogus and the glee he detects is there. Bogus in the first place because it's Trump saying them and, really, you're surprised he's a misogynous swine? And it's Herr Erichssohn who's listening, and moreover Kelly is a pretty tough cookie by the Ilse the She-Wolf look of her and the cool demeanor with which she puts questions that will hurt even a Republican candidate's feelings.and I bet she could turn Donald Trump into stone with her eyes, if she were so minded. Hey, Megyn, why don't you try that?

But it's not so much the reaction of Erik the Red(neck) that disturbs me, pearl clutchers gonna be clutchin, as that of the "legitimate" press. Acting as if this incident has shown them a startlingly unexpected side of the Trumpster that has changed their minds on the question of his electability. As if his other statements have been pretty presidential on the whole and they have some idea of what kinds of policy he's advocating (hint: he hasn't advocated any plausible policies yet). Except the thing of not making insulting and sexist remarks about women. He's on the record opposing that:

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