“Best Speech Ever.” “Excellent Speech.” “Clear, confident, substantive.”
“[N]othing new…inaccurate.”
“Ho hum.” “[A]bout as enjoyable as a root canal.”
We’ll let you guess which of those set of quotes comes from liberal bloggers, and which from conservatives. Shouldn’t be too hard.
There’s a lot of analysis of the president’s big night in the ‘sphere — good, bad, simplistic, nuanced — but it’s all pretty easy to find if you’re interested. (Memeorandum is a good place to start.) So, if you don’t mind, we’re gonna hang elsewhere.
Left in SF took a photo of a bumper sticker on an SUV in San Francisco. Here’s what it says:
LIBERAL HUNTING PERMIT. No Bag Limit — Tagging Not Required. May be used while under the influence of alcohol. May be used to Hunt Liberals at Gay Pride Parades, Democrat Conventions, Union Rallys, Handgun Control Meetings, News Media Association, Lesbian Luncheons and Hollywood Functions.
David Neiwert’s writes that “[t]he people sporting such stickers, no doubt, will contend that it’s just a joke — as though such a fig leaf could disguise the violent attitudes and beliefs required to find it humorous. Next they’ll argue that stickers saying ‘Hitler Needed to Finish the Job’ are just meant to be funny.” He adds that “[t]here are historical antecedents to this particular motif from right-wing hatemongers as well. The Klan and Aryan Nations, for instance, used to commonly circulate similar ‘nigger hunting license’ as ‘jokes’ (some dating back to the lynching era).” Neiwert also posts a photo of a poster he says was available in Seattle in 1944 that reads “JAP HUNTING LICENSES Sold Here FREE!”
Dan Gillmor is unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision that, as Gillmor puts it, “Grokster and other file-sharing companies can be sued if their products are designed for copyright infringement and don’t have safeguards to protect copyrighted material.” He writes that “[t]he Supreme Court has given the entertainment cartel and emerging broadband duopoly just what they wanted. You, and innovation, lost.”
But Alex Krupp disagrees. “I think the Grokster ruling is a stunning victory for innovation, customer rights, and free speech,” he writes. Krupp quibbles with Gillmor’s summation of the decision, and it gets complicated — too much so, in fact, to adequately summarize here. But check it out if you’re so inclined.
Blog quote of the day, from Christine Hurt: “I can get pretty worked up being a Lisa Simpson in the Bart Simpson world of the SEC, pointing and screaming that the Emperor has no clothes.”
Finally, Robert Clayton Dean of the Samizdata blog (“A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective”) compliments Peggy Noonan. Well, sort of. “Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter and current Wall Street Journal columnist, often serves in my mind of an example of how even East Coast conservatives share a mindset that is parochial, elitist, insular, and irredeemably statist. However, in today’s column she steps back from the Bos-Wash bubble to marvel at the bloviating egomaniacs that populate Washington.” Among them, says Dean, is “the fair-haired boy of the elites, Barack Obama. Barack is widely heralded because he is young, a Democrat, reasonably articulate, and, of course, because he is black. He has also revealed himself to be a first-rate egomaniac. Although in the Senate he doesn’t even make the A team for self-importance, what with such colossi as Robert Byrd and John McCain to contend with, he is certainly putting himself forward as a bloviator to be reckoned with.”
—Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.