Posted 9:40 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Steve Kornacki on the real nature of birtherism.

Posted 10:47 AM by Scoobie Davis

Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the Miami University Theodicy
It didn’t surprise me when I recently found out that Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), whose draconian budget proposals are the latest rage in GOP circles, is a devotee of free market cult leader Ayn Rand. I don't know much about Ryan, but I can see how Ryan’s academic environment encouraged his worldview; Ryan and I attended the same undergraduate institution: Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Miami University (AKA Miami of Ohio) was a blast (I wrote about my Miami U. experiences here) but it was extremely sheltered and homogeneous. I could see how it could encourage a sterile, self-serving, venal, and supercilious ideology like Rand’s Objectivism. Charles Taylor, writing in Salon about Ann Coulter and other “Conservative Fembots,” describes his own undergraduate experience that is reminiscent of Miami University’s prevailing ideology and theodicy:

I don't know the social background of Coulter, [Laura] Ingraham, [Kellyanne] Conway or [Lisa] Pinto, but I've encountered their type before. They are the essence of the white, privileged kids at the small New England college I attended during the conservative heyday of the early Reagan years. What characterized those kids and what characterizes the [Conservative Fembots] is that they seem unaware that not everyone shares their privileged existence, or seem to believe that anyone who doesn't has only themselves to blame. It's a small world, after all, and the CFs are absolutely secure about their place in it and the rightness of their views.

When Rand wrote, "No one helped me nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me," it reminded me of some snotty upper-class Miami University students I knew who laughably attributed their lot in life to their supposed efforts. A professor of mine at Miami noted that such people were born with so many advantages that they would have to work overtime to fail. (Rand was also full of herself; in reality, she was a sponge who lived off her Chicago relatives and, once she hit the big time, reneged on her promise to repay them—she’s the last person to call anyone a moocher.)

In essence, Rand’s ideology is a feel-good elixir for self-aggrandizing people who have a huge sense of privilege. Assimilating its message is a way for people who were born on third base to convince themselves they hit a triple. Miami University has been fertile ground for this kind of non-thinking.

Addendum: I’ve never liked anyone who liked Rand’s sterile and ham-handed novels; they all seemed to be joyless and miserable people. I saw the cinematic adaptation of Rand’s The Fountainhead and it was plodding and hilariously pretentious. For more on how cults create bad cinema, read K. Gordon Neufeld's article about the films Battlefield Earth and Inchon. . . Despite an impressive limited-release opening weekend, the box office for Atlas Shrugged: Part I has since tanked. . .I previously pointed out in the case of Newt Gingrich that it was bad enough that he was using his GOP bigwig status to carry on with young women, but it was much worse that Gingrich let himself go. Well, ditto for Rand who apparently was a notorious skeezer. Here’s what Jonathan Chait wrote about Rand:

Sex and romance loomed unusually large in Rand's worldview. Objectivism taught that intellectual parity is the sole legitimate basis for romantic or sexual attraction. Coincidentally enough, this doctrine cleared the way for Rand--a woman possessed of looks that could be charitably described as unusual, along with abysmal personal hygiene and grooming habits--to seduce young men in her orbit. Rand not only persuaded Branden, who was twenty-five years her junior, to undertake a long-term sexual relationship with her, she also persuaded both her husband and Branden's wife to consent to this arrangement. (They had no rational basis on which to object, she argued.) But she prudently instructed them to keep the affair secret from the other members of the Objectivist inner circle.

UPDATE: Miami U. named one of the top preppy colleges in the U.S.
UPDATE II: Check my post on Paul Ryan's "Rand-esque" birthday cake.
UPDATE III:  Check out this video that deals with Ayn Rand:

How Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard Came Up With Their Big Ideas -- powered by Cracked.com
UPDATE IV:  Ryan is the third Miami University graduate on a major party ticket.  Benjamin Harrison is the first.  In his unsuccessful reelection bid in 1892, Harrison chose another Miami U. grad, Whitelaw Reid as his running mate.
UPDATE V:  A succinct overview of Miami of Ohio from the comments section of Joan Walsh's article, "Paul Ryan, Randian Poseur":

Miami University is on the short list of colleges acceptable to well-off families whose kids can't get into an Ivy (preferably Dartmouth). DePauw, SMU, USC are in the same category. Good, solid schools with strong programs, but places where one doesn't need to be an academic star to be comfortable and one can mix with lots of other acceptably well-off young people. One is less likely to be bothered by messy, radical thinking, especially of the left wing sort.

UPDATE VI: Tom Tomorrow lampoons Ryan's relationship with Rand and his attempt to dump Rand for St. Thomas Aquinas.

UPDATE VII: Great Drew Friedman illustration of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand for a great New York Observer article:

Posted 12:02 PM by Scoobie Davis

Will Joseph Farah Welsh on his Bet?
Now that President Obama's released his long-form birth cerificate, WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah owes Kapi‘olani Medical Center 15 grand. This is based on Farah's statement that WorldNetDaily "will send a check in the amount of $15,000 to whatever birth hospital is listed on his long-form birth certificate." Will Farah honor his promise? I'm guessing not; as I pointed out, Farah has a convenient memory about claims he has made in the past.

UPDATE: Farah's WorldNetDaily has an article, "White House releases Obama 'birth certificate'" These people remind me of Leon Festinger's book When Prophesy Fails.

Posted 11:41 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Sean Hannity Cropping quotes in order to leave out crucial information? Who would have guessed. Click here and here for Jon Stewart hilariously addressing two previous examples of Hannity's cropping.

4/26 UPDATE: Anderson Cooper responds to Hannity.

Posted 10:23 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Political Economy of the Birthers or Why is the Right Paranoid?
Drudge is promoting Jerome Corsi's forthcoming book Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President with a lot of usual Drudge hype: "It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher. "Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!" The book is published by WND Books, the publishing house for Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily. Farah is a fundamentalist publisher and former ghostwriter for Rush Limbaugh who was a major player in the Clinton Body Count paranoia (though he tried to avoid the issue when I confront him in a Washington Post online forum).

Of course, all this Birther hype is nonsense and Richard Hofstadter's theories explain why people believe this kind of absurd stuff. However, Hofstadter's theories don't explain why about half the GOP base believes batshit stuff like this as well as easily discredited things such as the belief that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama or that Obama is a Muslim.

I think this can be explained in cultural and economic terms. Both Democrats and Republicans appeal to people whose economic interests do not correspond with each party's legislative agenda--I'm speaking of rich people who vote Democratic and poor and working class people who vote Republican. Democrats appeal to rich peoples' better angels and the rich people who vote Democratic realize that it is ultimately in their overall best interest to have a strong middle class in this country.

On the other hand, Republicans appeal to the reptilian brains of poor, uneducated, and working class people. Also, in the past thirty years, the GOP has sought religious fundamentalists (as I pointed out, it was no big surprise that many of the people responsible for the Vince Foster conspiracy theories in the 1990's were involved in the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's). Most Republican operatives know that the Birther issue is bullshit, the way that the Clinton Body Count was bullshit; however, these conspiracy theories keep the GOP base psyched up during low-turnout midterm elections because these people are convinced that not only are Democratic presidents the wrong man for the office, but they are illegitimate.

However, there is one big difference between the anti-Clinton conspiracy theories of the 1990's and the anti-Obama paranoia. In the 1990's, the GOP had a good situation: they were able to narrowcast their paranoid message through the Rush Limbaugh show and Jerry Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour. It also helped that the Clinton administration's response to right-wing ratfucking was inept and feckless (e.g., here and here). However, the case is different now. With the advent of groups like Media Matters for America, the hard right can't narrowcast their paranoid message anymore. With issues such as Birtherism, the GOP is paying a price with independents who rightfully view the GOP base as increasingly nutty.

Addendum: I've corresponded with Corsi; the one thing I got from our correspondence is that Corsi loves to dish it out but he can't take it.

UPDATE: The fair and balanced Foxs News is promoting Corsi's book.

Posted 10:58 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must View
ThinkProgress on Ayn Rand:

Posted 8:46 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Paul Krugman on civility

Posted 9:08 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Robert Parry on a lost opoortunity.

Posted 8:21 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must View
Rep. Paul Broun calls FDR a Stalinist. The Georgia Republican had previously referred to the American Civil War as "the Great War of Yankee Aggression."

Posted 10:32 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Wow! That's fair and balanced.

UPDATE: Wow! That's really sane. I've previously written about John Hagee here, here, here, here, and here.

Posted 8:46 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
David Von Drehle's cover story in Time on Civil War revisionism.

Posted 11:37 AM by Scoobie Davis

Person of the Year: High Grant
I never cared for Hugh Grant's movies (except for Four Weddings and a Funeral), but sticking it to Murdoch is great.

Posted 10:09 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Evan McMorris-Santoro on John Fund

Posted 9:16 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Alex Pareene's arrticle noting thatthe late Jerry Falwell's diploma mill, Liberty University receives more in federal aid than NPR. As I noted, Radar magazine listed Liberty U. as one of America's worst institutions of higher education.

Posted 8:47 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must Read
Paul Krugman asks, "Where do they find these people?"

Posted 9:31 AM by Scoobie Davis

Must View
Jon Stewart on Bill Sammon

Posted 9:18 AM by Scoobie Davis

Happy April Fools' Day
Remember: A prank a day keeps the dog-leash away!