Walter Williams: Irksome Things

"All the evidence that I see is that academics and intellectuals have messed up the world."
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There are a great many things, both large and small, that irk Walter E. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He discusses a few of them in his syndicated newspaper column:

One of them is our tendency to evaluate a presidential candidate based on his intelligence or academic credentials. When Obama threw his hat in the ring, people thought he was articulate and smart and hailed his intellectual credentials. Just recently, when Newt Gingrich announced his candidacy, people hailed his intellectual credentials and smartness as well.

By contrast, the intellectual elite and mainstream media people see Sarah Palin as stupid, a loose cannon and not to be trusted with our nuclear arsenal. There was another presidential candidate who was also held to be stupid and not to be trusted with our nuclear arsenal who ultimately became president — Ronald Reagan. I don't put much stock into whether a political leader is smart or not because, as George Orwell explained, "Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."

All the evidence that I see is that academics and intellectuals have messed up the world. I challenge anyone to show me a major calamity that was engineered by a stupid, inarticulate person, but those caused by intelligent, articulate persons are too numerous to count, from the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao to Woodrow Wilson, FDR and Obama.

My vision of a good presidential candidate is a person with ordinary intelligence but great respect and love for our Constitution. Maybe Palin's and Reagan's respect and love for our Constitution qualified them as dumb in the eyes of the mainstream media, intellectuals and academics.

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We can emphasize with Professor Williams. We have our pet peeves as well. Chief among them are those newspaper editors who endorsed Barack Obama for president and now complain that the man they declined to properly vet "stinks up the joint," without admitting how wrong they were to endorse him in the first place. We find it even more irksome when they have bashed Sarah Palin for more than three years and now complain about her taking her time deciding whether to jump into the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

- JP

KC Star Caught Pushing Griffin's "Splitsville" Whopper

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McClatchy Watch catches The Kansas City Star promoting Jesse Griffin's discredited Big Lies:

"Reporter Lisa Gutierrez, who authored this piece, writes for 'Star Gazing' which is some kind of celebrity gossip section in the Star. But Gutierrez is a journalist (award-winning?!) and has a professional obligation to not to print smears like this."

This wouldn't be the first time that a McClatchy newspaper helped to elevate a made-up smear of Sarah Palin from the nutroots left to the msm:

ADN editor Pat Dougherty published an email exchange between him and the governor on his blog after the "There you go again" release was issued. In the exchange, he explains “I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the ‘conspiracy theory that would not die’ and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth once and for all.” Dougherty calls the rumor "nutty nonsense," and says that he wanted his reporter, Lisa Demer, to "report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all."

"That’s a disingenuous response," Palin tells the Press. "I've said from day one, no, you guys are off-base in chasing this lie. Of course Trig's my son. My doctor's said the same thing. My medical summary that was released was the same information. We stated the truth, and Pat knows that."

McClatchy newspapers smell of stink even before the fish are wrapped.

- JP

Stacy McCain's focus turns to Anchorage fish wrapper

Robert Stacy McCain has a new area of investigative interest:

"I have temporarily lost interest in Griffin and have now taken a sudden and keen interest in Julia O'Malley and her editors at the Anchorage Daily News."

There's a lot of low-hanging rotten fruit on that tree, Stacy. Just go to any pro-Palin blog, search for ADN or Anchorage Daily News and hold your nose. It's a fish wrapper which really stinks, and the stench doesn't come from the fish. 

We also highly recommend that you perform the same search at the excellent McClatchy Watch blog.

Good hunting, sir!

- JP

Quote of the Day (June 13, 2009)

Today's QOTD is taken from an ADN article headlined "Trip Outside shows Palin's star power still blazes." Don't let that title deceive you. It's McClatchy's ADN, remember, and the paper is still as pro-Obama and anti-Palin as ever.

As per standard government-run media practice, the article quotes a number of "experts" -- in this case, GOP consultants -- selected so that most of them will have a little positive and a lot negative to say about Gov. Palin. Our QOTD comes from the only one who was 100% positive. Republican consultant Greg Mueller:

"Katie Couric doesn't have a lot of fans in Des Moines, Iowa, and Manchester, New Hampshire. Sarah Palin does."

- JP

Sarah was right: Obama did close GM dealership

By special guest blogger Eric Dondero

On May 20, the Anchorage Daily News ran a story with the headline: "Is Obama closing the Soldotna dealership?"

Staff writer Sean Cockerman in Anchorage wrote the following:

Gov. Sarah Palin's new statement criticizing Barack Obama blames the president for the closure of a Soldotna car dealership.

But the dealership tells me it's not closing.

Here's the relevant part of the statement Palin put out through SarahPAC.

"Today, we learned that Obama's decisions continue to impact Alaskans; while we as taxpayers now own General Motors, Obama closes another dealership - this time in Soldotna as more of Alaskans' hard-earned money and jobs are lost to big government."

I interviewed the Hutchings brothers, and got a different story from what the Anchorage Daily News was asserting. In fact, both Shea and Shawn Hutchings, expressed their dissatisfaction with how the ADN spun their comments. Shawn Hutchings mentioned how he had to go back and forth through email with the reporter to ensure he got the story right. Finally, the reporter relented and published this statement from Hutchings as an Update on the news blog:

The bottom line is this: Governor Palin is correct: Soldotna lost a new car dealership as part of the federal intervention. 44 local jobs were terminated. Over a million dollars in annual payroll was lost. The net effect to Soldotna is substantial. Obama's actions have directly impacted Alaska and Soldotna. The Governor is correct.

Contrary to what the newspaper version originally published, the Hutchings brothers both confirmed that the bulk of the dealership is indeed closing down. As one brother described it; the "lifeblood," of the dealership will be closed. Both brothers have their suspicions that indeed politics may have played a role in their ultimate closure, in the "boardrooms of Detroit."

Interview with Shea Hutchings, Soldotna City Councilman & Hutchings GM Dealership Asst. General Manager

ERIC: First, do you think that the Anchorage Daily News misrepresented what happened at your dealership?

SHEA: Yes.

ERIC: And why do you think that they may have done that?

SHEA: Tough to say... With the Anchorage Daily News they take such a liberal point of view. They went out of their way to connect this to Governor Palin.

ERIC: So, you're closing the dealership?

SHEA: We're closing the lifeblood of the dealership. Yes, we are closing. They misreported the story... not an accurate portrayal of what is happening.

ERIC: You serve as a City Councilman there in Soldotna, and I'm sure you run as non-partisan, but officially do you consider yourself to be a Republican?

SHEA: I am a registered Republican. I've never voted for a Democrat in my life. I am a Karl Rove neoconservative Republican, not a Sarah Palin grass roots Republican. I'm more of a Christian Conservative Mike Huckabee sort, more so than a libertarian Republican.

I can tell you right now that the Hutchings have donated thousands of dollars to GOP candidates... That certainly could have played a role in the boardroom decisions in Detroit. We hosted a fundraiser for Ted Stevens. There are definitely a lot of Republican connections to this family.

Shawn Hutchings, General Manager, GM Dealership, Soldotna

ERIC: Do you believe that politics may have played a role in the decisions to close down your dealership?

SHAWN: I can't imagine why they're targeting dealerships. There's no question there might have been. In fact, our franchise is gone... 44 employees laid off.

ERIC: And the article in the Anchorage Daily News?

SHAWN: They put their spin on it...

ERIC: Any thoughts on why Obama and the folks in Washington might be doing this?

SHAWN: Dealerships do not cost the manufacturer money, so why would the administration make it a qualification to get loans from the government? Why is the government involved in dictating who will and who will not be in business. Shouldn't the free market be governing society?

Eric Dondero is founder of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a former Libertarian Party national committeeman and a co-founder of the historic website Draft Sarah Palin for VP. He blogs at Libertarian Republican.

- JP

Twitter: Sarah Palin beats ADN by 50 to 1

McClatchy Watch did a comparison of Twitter followers and found that Gov. Sarah Palin had 21,700 (It's now well over 22,000), while the Anchorage Daily News could lay claim to only a little over 407:

"This comparison must give Sarah Palin some satisfaction, given the way she has been treated by the ADN."

MW adds that the governor has only been on Twitter a few weeks. The earliest ADN tweet I could find on the liberal newspaper's Twitter page was from August 12, 2008.

Sarah Palin wins. Hands down.

- JP