Gee where have we seen this before? Chris Mooney issues a press release on his upcoming publication, then he wonders why people aren’t accepting it because the real publication isn’t done yet and all we have is a cover and some fluff.
It’s BEST practice.
Apparently, given his defense, it was not the reaction he was looking for.
Here’s his defense over at the paid PR shill website DeSmog blog.
On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I provided a brief description, as well as layering on plenty of nuance, like a good liberal, to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.
So much for that!
Beginning with Roger Pielke, Jr. (not technically a conservative, but, well…), and then spreading to climate “skeptic” blogs like Watts Up With That and Marc Morano’s Climate Depot, conservatives are claiming that the book is a form of “new eugenics” and that it describes them as “genetically/mentally/psychologically inferior,” and so on.
All of this is completely without foundation, and in fact, contradicted by my own book announcement, which discusses the many strengths (as well as weaknesses) of the conservative psychology, and describes the left-right difference as a kind of necessary yin and yang.
And none of the people saying these things (including over 100 commenters at Watts’ site) have read the book because it isn’t out yet, and won’t be for 6 months. In fact, it is still being edited.
So, pre-release, “with nuance “…to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.“? Heh. Even worse than Muller’s PR mess.
I loved the comment from Hank there:
Hank_ – Thu, 2011-11-10 11:20Maybe you should consider delaying the release even longer, or maybe change the title? Doesn’t look like the reception is what you expected.
Sorry, not going to read this until it is cleared on Amazon in a $0.25c sale.
Mooney is so smug I can barely stand it. But maybe he’s on to something–he’s trying to be a leftist Ann Coulter. The Coulter/Mooney formulation is simple, direct, and lucrative. You can sell a lot of books by providing a reasoned but deliciously hyperbolic rant about why the other half are idiots and/or crooks.
He is hoping the debate will go viral so when and if his book comes out, he well sell more books. The pages could be filled with random numbers and there will still be those that will buy to see what the debate is about.
As previously noted, Mooney uses the words “Republican” and “conservative” interchangeably. It appears he has written/is writing a “science” book that does not have precise definitions for key terms. I also note that the title is singular while the subtitle is plural, although to be fair to Mooney, he says he hasn’t actually finished writing the title yet. He’s just not waiting to finish his work before announcing it.
The book subtitle “The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science,” assuming he doesn’t now change the title, should be the first clue that the book is based on bogus scientific speculation. There is no science that quantifies belief – neuroimaging science or any other science for that matter.
Like so many other misguided champions of liberal ideology, Mooney attempts to use the authority of science to prop up and lend credibility to an otherwise worthless, unfounded, and unsupportable conjecture.
So if he were to consider changing the title, may I recommend “The Republican Brain – The Pseudoscience on Why They don’t Believe in Pseudoscience.”
Damage control already? Mr Mooney, don’t quit your day job.
Why pick the middle of the road? Go full genius or full retard. That’s where the money is.
Your current tact won’t cover the publication costs, career over.
The problem with liberals is they are incapable of thinking they might be wrong. So they have to portray all those who disagree with them as some how brain damaged. The truth is their inability to see all possibilities shows who the real brain damaged people are.
To a certain extent, Republican and Conservative are as synonymous as Democrat and Liberal.
Perhaps Chris Mooney just finished reading Michael Savage’s book “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and decided that a rebuttal book was needed
So much is revealed about Mooney, you have to wonder if he even realizes what he has done. How does one believe in science Mr. Mooney? What constitutes faith in science – belief in the consensus? This is why English majors shouldn’t try to write about science. To him, science is just another cultural phenomenon. I don’t have anything personal against English majors; my mother is one and I love her very much. But she admits that she doesn’t think scientifically (the look on her face when I explained to her that all 3D movies were actually 4D still makes me chuckle). Mooney needs to come to the same realization.
“layering on plenty of nuance, like a good liberal”? Well in all his research he obviously didn’t LEARN anything about conservatives. If he had, he’d know that liberal nuance is exactly what sets off the alarm bells in conservatives’ heads. Why not try just telling the truth?
[yawn]
This old “conservatives are mentally ill” stuff again?
John J. Ray at Dissecting Leftism has been debunking this crap for a long, long time.
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/
This has to reflect on the AGU. Any feedback from that organization on one of its board members?
greg holmes says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:49 am
I seriously doubt it will ever get that high. You might find it in some library’s garbage can someday.
As we get older and become more conscious of the limited time we have on this planet. we find it increasingly annoying to start reading a lengthy piece, only to discover sometime later that it was a complete waste of time.
My thanks to Mooney for making it clear up front that I can skip this book.
I would look at the left/right divide in a slightly different way – most humans have a need for faith. In your typical right-wing christian conservative circles, that’s the standard bible thumping you hear, replete with denial of evolution, and other rather unscientific beliefs. Having satisfied their faith need, they’re actually more capable of applying skepticism to areas outside of their faith (say, climate change).
In your typical left-wing secular liberal circles, while they deny having any sort of faith, the whole Church of Global Warming and radical environmentalism has actually served as a substitute for ancient books and people hung up on crosses to die. While they cannot *conceive* that they’ve fallen victim to faith based reasoning, from any objective outside view, it’s obvious that they have.
So in truth, there are blind spots on both sides, but the root cause is the same – a need for faith. Now, there are certainly some folk who escape that need for faith, and are able to navigate this world without believing in the Goracle or Jeebus, but I’d argue that’s your tiny minority.
Since there are two kinds of brains , left and right, accorning to Mooney, and 80% of the population is AGW skeptical, is it not the left brain that is likely genetically defective?
Here’s a vaguely relevant quote:
Tamara says 4 dimensions? My first thought height, width, depth and time, then a brain fart trying to figure out which other? Dah… 1, Dah…. 2, Dah…. 3, Oh now I get it. And I thought I would be OK today if I drank a multi hour energy drink. Darn debates, I hate things that keep me awake thinking!
Maybe I should mute Rick Parry next time, His problem might be catching.
Another small-time Gore money grubber
Are they selling those extra-wide brushes at Walmart again?
Fabulous stuff from the same person who thinks that General Pinochet was a hero of freedom and that Hitler was left-wing. No really.
“pat says:
November 10, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Since there are two kinds of brains , left and right, accorning to Mooney, and 80% of the population is AGW skeptical, is it not the left brain that is likely genetically defective?”
Nope, the Elite are few and the diseased masses need to be weeded.
I know a lovely old woman whom lives ascoss the street from me. I love her to death and she is very smart. We were discussing recycling, as a new mandatory recycling program is being implemented in California. I argued to her that some people don’t want to recycle. Her face went cold and she said “They should be made to”. Her whole demeanor had changed and she was suddenly angry.
There you have it, she is ready to start up the reeducation camps and impose her will over everyone else over a few aluminum cans. She has a heart of gold and she is a great neighbor but there is steel inside the liberal mind and it doesn’t bend. The jump from democracy to totalitarianism is a small one, all it requires is one side of the arguement getting their way for a little bit too long.
Sierra Club at the Metropolitan Club, pointer from James Delingpole.
The article, written by a retired physicist, shows the conscious propagation of pseudo-science by environmental advocates, notably the zero threshold principle. The NGO of record is the Sierra Club, but it may as well be the WWF, Green Peace, or the NRDC. Different actors, same script.
The point for this thread, of course, is that these NGOs with Mr. Mooney’s active collusion, are waging a left-wing war against science that has been far more corrosive, far more pernicious, much more widespread, and enormously more successful, than anything ever achieved by organized right-wing know-nothings.
But Mr. Mooney doesn’t see that, because from his heights it is apparently obvious that science consists exactly of what is said by the authorities with whom he agrees; nothing more. How can it be otherwise? After all, he’s sincere and certain, all the right-thinking scientists agree with him and that proves that.* So, everything is readily ordered in his world. The demons and the angels are easily identified, and the divine light shines on his works.
*This mind-loop might be called ‘a posteriori a prioriism,’ in which one latterly grants authority to those expressing the opinions that reinforce one’s prior prejudice; permitting the lovely self-delusion of migrating the earlier conviction into the later authority. This is the sine qua non of religious radicalism, in which extreme preachers attract the extremely prejudiced; each reinforcing the other. The process is necessarily mindless.
Let’s look at the other side.
Sometimes the left seems incomprehensible. Why are they like that?
Eventually I figured out that socialism is an evolved form of parasitism. Why is the human species so smart? We didn’t need to be able to understand Quantum Theory and Relativity to be able to hunt antelope on the plains of Africa. So why did we evolve as we did?
When we first evolved the ability to speak, some members of the species would have soon evolved the ability to use speech to manipulate others to gain advantage. For example, manipulation would get them the safest place in the hunt and the biggest share of the meat. Then others would have to get smarter to understand the manipulation. Then some would have got smarter to manipulate better, and round and round till you get where we are now.
The left say they know what’s best for us, but in truth they are the manipulators using their clever words to gain advantage as parasites. It’s not a co-incidence that after all the fine words and social changes the left get more free money and the contributors have to work harder. The welder is good at welding, and the public servant in is good at talking and manipulating. The welder produces, the public servant consumes.
The parasite class doesn’t produce, and yet they made our species as smart as it is.
True, I have not read his book. I have also not read the last few hundred “ you have already won” announcements received in the mail.
Does Mr. Mooney really think he’s more credible than Ed Mahon?
I’d say it was more to do with disbelief that there’s going to be an apocalypse without Jesus returning.
Is it 2-for-1 on wide brushes at Walmart? There are plenty of religious liberals and plenty of secular conservatives as well.
Skepticism is neither left nor right wing. But it is inconvenient in the context of group dynamics and groupthink. Partisans are not skeptics – they are the opposite of skeptics in many ways.
It depends on what you mean by faith. If faith is the rational expectation that past experiences can be a reasonably accurate guide to current phenomena and those phenomena can be tested then I have plenty of faith.
But faith in the religious sense demands prior belief before tenets of dogma can be accepted and that past experience is no guide to the present and there is no way to test whether the dogma is true or false.
That makes me a heretic. Its never pleasant to be so.
Pat Frank:
Quite so. Mooney has severe Anncoulteritis with its most clear symptom a complete lack of self-awareness that one could ever be wrong.
Unfortunately such people make large amounts of money and headlines even in our economies.
The biggest reason that I am not rich is probably that I cannot extend myself to unqualified statements of pure speculation without feeling a complete ass. For some people, its really not a problem.
Oh, it’s not out yet? Cool, then I hereby announce that I deny the existence of Chris Mooney’s Republican Brain.
“which will be due out next spring.” What’s he waiting for? The end of the primary season?
Why does Mooney keep posting at a shill site?
The Truth about DeSmogBlog
“DeSmogBlog is a smear site founded by a scientifically unqualified public relations man, James Hoggan and funded by a convicted money launderer, John Lefebvre. The irony here is their favorite tactic is to attempt to smear those they disagree with as funded by “dirty money”. Since it’s creation in 2006 the site has done nothing but post poorly researched propaganda with a clear intent to smear respected scientists, policy analysts or groups who dares oppose an alarmist position on global warming. Their articles frequently reference unreliable sources such as Wikipedia and Sourcewatch since they are unable to find any fact based criticisms of those they criticize in respected news sources.”
Why are they censoring comments? Are they afraid of debate?
Wings, flies.
Some dis-assembly required.
I’ve converted to solid fuel heating just to piss off my greenie neighbours, i look forward to using the bulk bin rejects of 10 cents a copy to fuel that fire
We apparently do not even have the cover anymore. The link now 404s at his site.
This bloke churns out such puerile drivel. Look here chaps, I’m a convinced sceptic, convinced by the evidence, both on religion and the agw cult, suspicious of politicians, bankers, snake oil salesmen, you name it. But I’m neither American, nor Republican, nor a creationist and in fact my political background is as an old UK Labourite (before the grinning sociopath and his thieving, troughing, lying mates took the party over). Where in hell do I sit in all this? How will this Mooney characterise such as me? Mooney …. now there’s a name to conjure with when thinking of gullible believers willing to give their all to their divine leader.
Hey Eric & John A:
Ann Coulter is the ‘skeptic’ in politics
making reasoned and objective political argument
against the very-same Demo-Lib-Commie loonie-bin of “idiots and/or crooks”
that concocted AGW out of pure lies.
I bet you believe her anti-AGW articles were ‘deliciously hyperbolic rants’ too.
The sheer magnitude
of the daily outrages leftism inflicts upon humanity,
comprise acts of insane statism that are so horribly deleterious
that accurate description and analysis
are necessarily as ‘hyperbolic’
as a scientific description of the Black Plague.
Disagree with Coulter all your want,
but putting her alongside this tendentious, ultra-prejudiced hack lightweight
manifests the same utterly corrupt moral-equivalence that equated USA with USSR.
Counter book:
http://www.lowellgreen.com/
Pat Frank says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:43 pm
“The point for this thread, of course, is that these NGOs with Mr. Mooney’s active collusion, are waging a left-wing war against science that has been far more corrosive, far more pernicious, much more widespread, and enormously more successful, than anything ever achieved by organized right-wing know-nothings.”
The ruling ideology can tolerate neither dissent nor counter example. Genuine physical science is a counter example to all versions of Marxist ideology. Genuine physical scientists might or might not choose to dissent.
He’s had TWO bites at the cherry already, enough. Ignore him.
Yes, really. Hitler’s policies were leftist and socialist from the very start to the very tragic end and were all carried out on the premise of creating a new, egalitarian socialist state. Sorry you have to learn that now, but it’s true – he was praised by progressives in his day, who even thought his ideas on eugenics were rather nifty and worth emulating. The reason he’s decried as right-wing now is because he couched his socialism in a nationalist cloak but it was socialism nonetheless.
As for the tragic end I mentioned, he was merely following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels.
(And yes, it is written by Ray, no need to point that out and no need to claim that’s a reason not to read it either. Who better to defend the position than the man who promoted it?)
“The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science (or Many Other Inconvenient Truths)”
Gee, how many layers of nuance would it take to wind up interpreting that title as anything but calling Republicans stupid people who are incapable of understanding science? Are layers of nuance and layers of total b*llsh*t the same thing?
I’m betting Chris Mooney is reading this thread. An ego that size just can’t stand knowing he’s being talked about and not knowing what is being said. Even worse, he’s so wrapped up in his own world view, that he’ll read every negative comment about him as proof in his own mind that he’s right, those right wingers are just too dumb to understand what he’s explaining.
Well Chris my boy, I’ve got a couple of pearls of wisdom for you. There’s a very old saying that if, at the age of 20, a man is not a liberal, he has no heart. If, at the age of 40, he is still a liberal, he has no brain.
Here’s the corollary of that Chris. It isn’t possible for a liberal to write a book about how conservatives think. Do you know why? There is actually a name for liberals who come to understand how conservatives think. They’re referred to as “ex-liberals”.
….LOL
A minority writes a book about how the majority thinks….
…….and justifies it by trying to establish why they don’t believe in science
For the same reason we get second opinions from doctors, shop insurance rates, and no longer believe the media…..you dolt
John A says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Fabulous stuff from the same person who thinks that General Pinochet was a hero of freedom and that Hitler was left-wing. No really.
I suggest you try reading some of the NAZI Economic and Industrial Policy documents. Very Corporatist, not at all unlike Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China!
Note to self:
Politics is an arena that should not be entered into lightly, the stakes are so high that one never knows who is friend or foe.
Now, about this Chris Mooney………..(note to self).
Vaporware.
David Jones says:
I suggest you try reading some of the NAZI Economic and Industrial Policy documents. Very Corporatist, not at all unlike Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China!
====
Hell, if you look at the Nazi 25 point plan and remove the racial German-specific stuff (relating to possession of the Rhineland, etc), it basically reads like the NDP’s last election platform.
A Mooney bird is an awkward albatross.
I made the monetary mistake a while back of purchasing the Chris Mooney / Sherill Kirchenbaum book “Unscientific America.”
I did not have the stomach to get through many chapters…as there were so many logical tricks twists turns and fallacies that I had to put it down after each section and write a critique.
I emailed both of them that I was reading their book, and told them that I would be sending chapter-by-chapter critiques, which I did…for a while.
Neither one of them had the courage to respond, even once.
Chris Mooney is a pompous, whiny, and most untalented “science” writer who does not know how to write the truth if his life depended on it.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I provided a brief description,….”
Here is an excerpt from said brief description:
“From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won’t Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?”
==========
In a nutshell, it comes out like this.
Considering the “economy, American history, foreign policy and much more” you mention, I don’t trust anybody anymore.
The people I trust least of all, are those that say they have easy answers.
John A here is a complete dissection of “national socialists” aka fascists you might want to check out the prior post on this sight too.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/nationalist-socialists/
O/T, but in the same liberal genre.
No pressure, but did Michael Mann ever walk the Second Mile when teaching school? As we now know, there were a few miles of opportunity if desired.
That same school not that long ago commissioned two reviews that cleared Mann of allegations of ethical misconduct arising out of other things he did.
cromagnum,
Good point. Check this out:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/10/penn-state-president-fired
Bryan A says:
November 10, 2011 at 12:23 pm
To a certain extent, Republican and Conservative are as synonymous as Democrat and Liberal.
Perhaps Chris Mooney just finished reading Michael Savage’s book “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and decided that a rebuttal book was needed.
Thus proving Savage’s point. 🙂
I hope Mooney has a chapter in his book about how Old Conservative White Men are supermen.
Because the non-OCWM people claim to have the science, they claim to have the consensus; they have the money and the media; they have the UN, the EU, the IMF, the WB, and yet they are still being beaten hollow in the court of public opinion by a bunch of old fools who lounge around in bathrobes doing jigsaw puzzles.
Watch us race to the nearest phone booth to cram on our toupees and put in our teeth, as we transform into That Vicious Well-Organised Denialist Machine
ShrNfr says:
November 10, 2011 at 3:00 pm
No, that’s an error at the top of this post. I assume you’re referring to clicking on the parody cover Anthony created. That goes to the (wrong) link
http://www.desmogblog.com/republican-brain-science-why-they-don-t-believe-science-or-many-other-inconvenient-truthsjpg
It shouldn’t have the “jpg” on the end (“.jpg” is wrong too), so it should just be
http://www.desmogblog.com/republican-brain-science-why-they-don-t-believe-science-or-many-other-inconvenient-truths
Mods, I don’t have the power to to fix it or else I would.
reply: fixed
Anthony,
It appears that Hank’s comment that you note (at the end of the post) HAS BEEN DELETED ! ! ! (I decided to take quick look at the Mooney article and the comments, though I almost lost my dinner reading the crap by Mooney . . . ).
But there is no comment from Hank there. I thought about posting a comment asking about it, but you have to register to do so. I WAS NOT going to do that.
WHAT A JOKE Mooney is . . .
I’m a life-long conservative, life-long member of the Republican party, I support my candidates and the party. Also a graduate of engineering and business schools. Life-long engineer, researcher, and technology entrepreneur. I own a technology company. Teach engineering and science. Practically every one I know in my profession (and I know plenty of people) are either Republican or conservatives whether members of the Democratic, Republican or avowed Independents.
What possible data does this English Major know-nothing have to prove that being conservative equates to being ignorant or dismissive of science? Absolutely nothing in my life experience has shown me that someone’s political affiliation, religious beliefs, or race or creed, had anything whatsoever to do with their proclivity for science.
Shame on Mooney.
Right.
If this academic president can suffer from that kind of cognitive-dissonance and groupthink disorder to apparently put out of his brain that perhaps one of their own colleagues might have taken indecent liberties with children…then what is to stop him from looking the other way in a recent university whitewash of another colleague, an arrogant scientist who committed blatant fraud??
But you know…it is rampant. I mean….look at this current U.S. Administration looking the other way when their Department of Energy [excuse me but since when should THEY be a bank??] guarantees billions of dollars of robbed taxpayer money into the hands of the greedy-greenies when foreknowledge already existed that these “companies” would go bankrupt???
I am not so sure we are evolving as a species. Actually….some of our species ARE. So there is hope…
But these IDIOT bureaucrats, academe-ocrats, corporo-crats, and bureaucra-scientists…have GOT TO GO.
Let’s throw in the international bank-ocrats, and the bloody Federal Excrete, too for good measure.
All of them…the GROUPTHINK-O-CRATS. They are ruling the world. Second-handers all, they have no right or no place to exert their idiocy on us.
Time to light the torches. Okay….rant off.
Cheers.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
If you publish a book explaining a supposed fact – such as that conservatives are stupid or mean or anti-science – then people who see that book and read it will infer that the supposed fact must have been established already as a fact. After all, no one would be stupid or mendacious enough to provide a lengthy explanation for a fact without having established it as a fact before hand, would he?
It’s hoodwinkery.
The cover Mooney has chosen proves beyond a doubt he is not smarter than the average person.
It proves that he is, in fact, an idiot.
Any intelligent person can see that. No intelligent person would use such an offensive cover.
I am usually not so blunt but I thought this would make the point more clear.
The Guardian has put up a new piece. Apparently based on a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA), it warns we must change our fossil fuel-based infrastructure now, since any fossil fuel-burning power plants, inefficient buildings, etc that are built now will “lock in” elevated carbon emissions for decades.
It regurgitates chunks from the IPCC that are discredited, highlights holding the global warming to below the pulled-from-their-freckle 2°C rise where many catastrophic things will be triggered, which involves keeping the atmospheric CO2 concentrations below 450ppm. Sample:
Has graphs, which always makes Climate Science™ more authoritative and even more truer. And there’s also the required statement from a Greenpeace “climate expert.”
They prop up this stuff, we tear it down, they throw it up again without admitting there was ever anything wrong with it at all and wait for new converts to join them. It’s like going to the temple of a primitive village and knocking over their heathen idol, and as soon as you leave they put it back upright and resume worshiping. Frequently with a quick human sacrifice so their village god won’t punish them for being disturbed.
We’re smart enough not to fall for this crud, they accept it unquestioningly, and Mooney thinks we are the ones with a problem?
“Say, hon, it says here there’s a new book claiming political conservatives are stupid.”
“Another one? (Yawn) Pass the ketchup.”
This child, Chris Mooney, should immediately order his book recalled because of the typographic error in the subtitle …
… as in The Day After Tomorrow. Apparently it has never crossed his immature mind that the core problem for his cabal is the utter foolishness of their pseudo-scientific religious cult.
We have seen this before. Erich Von Daniken and other similar authors pushed pseudo-science into the headlines and into the mainstream also by wrapping little morsels of Science with many layers of alarmist propaganda. Those authors of the late 1960’s into the 1970’s, just like today, also roped in a lot of shallow thinkers, people that are tantalized by teasing bits of info but whom cannot complete a logical thought progression and are ultimately unable to admit they have been had.
Mooney would have been quite at home scribbling for Omni Magazine, and they would have been happy to have him.
I prefer Andrex. It’s cheaper, softer and more absorbent.
So Mr. Mooney, you have a degree in English and teach expressive writing to scientists. Their knowledge does not rub off so your book can be seen as it is– a political examination of a party to which you do not belong NOT a scientific treatise.
Hitler was left wing. He was a socialist. The myth that he was right wing came from Stalin. The falling out the 2 had was that Stalin believed in International Socialism, while Hitler was more into National Socialism. However, the operative word for both is socialism.
Somewhat OT, I was browsing through Amazon and I spotted a book called ‘Eaarth’ by Weepy Bill. I was amused to note that ‘customers who bought this also bought The Encyclopedia of Natural Magic’.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
Evidently Amazon is on the act.
amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-They-Believe/dp/1118094514/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321030192&sr=1-1
Dig it.
First you read this:
then you read this:
Looks like we caught Amazon in a bold faced lie which is a bigger story than Mooney’s book.
Oh never mind about the Amazon deal. Pre-ordering is the same as buying. Mibad.
Bill Illis says:
November 10, 2011 at 8:51 pm
“Any intelligent person can see that. No intelligent person would use such an offensive cover.”
I dunno about that. It doesn’t hurt Ann Coulter’s book sales.
But I’d say to Chris “Sir, you are no Ann Coulter”.
Indifference doesn’t sell books. Love and hate both will. Howard Stern, for example, instinctively knew this. When Stern was working for KABC in NYC and management was dismayed at his offensiveness but weren’t blind to the radio show’s dominant rating they polled listeners and asked “Why do you listen to the Howard Stern show?” Of those that liked Stern the answer was “I can’t wait to hear what outrageous thing he’s going to say next”. Of the those that disliked Stern the answer was “I can’t wait to hear what outrageous thing he’s going to say next”.
So the people who follow Mooney are those who love him and those who hate him. No one else has ever heard of him and probably never will. Chris is an acquired [dis]taste.
Rick Bradford says:
November 10, 2011 at 6:55 pm
“yet they are still being beaten hollow in the court of public opinion by a bunch of old fools who lounge around in bathrobes doing jigsaw puzzles”
Everyone wishes they could afford to lounge around in bathrobes doing jigsaw puzzles. The truth is most people aren’t clever enough to figure out how to acquire that level of freedom from other concerns.
I’ve heard Ann interviewed many times. She’s very bright, and I’m confident quite willing to admit (with a smile) that she could be wrong. She’s a commentator, and a very funny one, too. If you’re going to write humorous political commentary, you need to stick to your guns.
/Mr Lynn
“…and describes the left-right difference as a kind of necessary yin and yang.”
Oh, dude!
>>
John A says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Fabulous stuff from the same person who thinks that General Pinochet was a hero of freedom and that Hitler was left-wing. No really.
<<
There’s an old axiom: in discussions and debates–the one who mentions Hitler first loses. Since you started it, I quote from the inside book cover of Jonah Goldberg’s book “Liberal Fascism:”
“‘Liberal Fascism’ offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler’s National Socialism and Mussolini’s Fascism.
“Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term ‘National Socialism’). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities–where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.”
I don’t find much there that is right wing or conservative. Those are mainly liberal and left wing policies.
Jim
Hitler was a Leftist.
Maybe that cover would be appropriate for the “Open Mind” website?
I must propagate this! Sorry!
November 9, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Perhaps there is another parallel. Mr Mooney doesn’t realise it, his claims are something like Diedrik Stapel’s research! 😉
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diederik_Stapel
via Luboš
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/11/diederik-stapel-liberalism-codified-as.html
Wow, Okay so I am a Conservative. This man is quite offensive. I do not ‘believe’ in Global Warming, in other words catastrophe to follow an increase in Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere. I do not ‘doubt’ that the world is warming, nor that Carbon Dioxide is a contributing factor to it. I do not believe in ‘Death Panels’ in the Health Care bill, however I realize that a Government has NO contractual obligation enforceable by the law whereas that is always a viable option with private health insurance policies and that eventually when money gets tight the Government, in a single payer system, of necessity must tax more or cut services… What amazes me is that people like Mooney take a code word and make it seem like that is what Republicans are talking about explicitly… If a doctor says someone is “Circling the Drain” he does not mean they are having fun in the bath tub. When Republicans/Conservatives or Democrat/Conservative say things like Deregulate, they do not mean get rid of all rules, rather they mean chuck out the rules that are simply bureaucratic nightmares and make it easier to leverage competition into the business world or streamline innovation/production. But enough about trying to get into politics here. I am a Conservative and proud of the ideology that I follow. From the short blurb I read he does not even understand what Conservatives even believe.
I see that the American Congress is also not waiting for the peer review of the BEST Report to use its results for a Congressional Cliimate Briefing to “…Push The End of Climate-Change Skepticism”. http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/pr@id=0162.html
Can you imagine how a paper supporting an opposing or alternative view would be treated? In fact, we know, because those sorts of papers can’t even get accepted for the peer review process, let alone leapfrog over the results.
Ishtar;
It’s the minority party in the House that’s staging this nonsense. Trying to command the tide to recede. The gurgling you hear …