Close readings: Michele Bachmann warns of “nation of slaves”

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 3 Comments

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It’s technically unfair that I have used this picture, since today’s Combat! is not an edition of Meanwhile, inside Michele Bachmann’s head, which series is explicitly devoted to things that Michele Bachmann did not say. It’s a terrifyingly confusing system developed by a probably incompetent man, but we’re stuck with it. Today is an edition of Close readings, in which we analyze in detail one particular public statement made by one particular individual—in this case, that most particular of US congresspeople, Michele Bachmann. Speaking to the Western Conservative Summit in Denver on Friday, Representative Bachmann warned that President Obama, the Democratic Party and health care reform were turning the United States into “a nation of slaves.”* It’s possible she was taking a page from Rick Barber. It’s possible she was connecting her remarks to the writings of the Founding Fathers. It’s possible she’s a crazy person whom we have inadvertently vested with the power to make laws. Only the skills we learned as English majors can tell us for sure, and the time has come for us to perform a close reading. Won’t you join me in the study?

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Bill Keller, in the Times, with “political correctness”

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 1 Comment

In all the rush of moving, celebrating our nation’s independence from Britain, and getting on a plane at six in the morning to go to Iowa—plus keeping up with our drinking—Combat! blog missed this gem about the New York Times and the word “torture” in Salon. Overdue props to Pete Jones for the link. The Times, like most newspapers, had used “torture” to refer to waterboarding until shortly after the September 11th attacks, when the Bush administration quietly explained to editors that A) it was waterboarding the shit out of everybody and therefore B) waterboarding was obviously not torture. After that, the Times started referring to waterboarding as “intense interrogation techniques” or “the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks.”

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Friday links! Unprovable assertions edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 0 Comment

One can only imagine what life is like for an engineer, or a commercial fisherman, or some other person whose survival is predicated on their assessments of things actually corresponding to the world around them. The real racket is commentary, where ontology goes out the window in favor of epistemology, and once epistemology gets comfortable it stops wearing pants and starts leaving Mountain Dew bottles full of chew spit on the coffee table, while simultaneously claiming that it cleans up “all the time.” As in fashion, the trick in commentary is not to be right so much as memorable. Even being publicly proven wrong is a moment of career advancement, providing at worst an occasion for further commentary. Frankly, we at Combat! blog are a little jealous that we’re not getting a bigger piece of the pie. We’re wrong all the time, but nobody ever pillories us for our specious claims, much less our constant use of the word “rimjob.” One suspects that we simply need a bigger megaphone.

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Holy crap! Anne Coulter agrees with me

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 5 Comments

"Excuse me, Ms. Coulter, but a large number of seagulls are converging on the park, and we'd appreciate it if you'd put on slacks."

It was only for the duration of one sentence, though. In reference to Michael Steele’s claim that Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing,” Coulter has declared that “Michael Steele was absolutely right.” She does not mean, of course, that Steele suggested that Obama invaded Afghanistan. That would be absurd. She means that “Afghanistan is Obama’s war and, judging by other recent Democratic ventures in military affairs, isn’t likely to turn out well.”

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Recession looks a lot like a depression to young people

By Dan Brooks in Millennials 4 Comments

The New York Times managed to make me feel both sad and angry—my two basic emotions!—with this article about the career prospects of recent college graduates as compared to their counterparts in previous generations. That’s the sad part. The angry part comes with Louis Uchitelle’s framing device, which wisely presents the article’s many surprising/dry economic statistics in the context of one particular Millennial, Scott Nicholson. If he still hasn’t found work, I suggest Nicholson hire himself out as the world’s least sympathetic protagonist. He graduated from Colgate in 2008 and has lived with his parents since, unable to find work. He also just turned down a job with Hanover Insurance Group that would have paid him $40,000 a year.

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