The Biggest Conspiracy Theory of My Lifetime? Saddam has WMDs

The New York Times is bemoaning "conspiracy theories" generated by the Internet Age. It is true that technology makes it easy and cheap to spread the fraudulent and the half-baked. Trouble is, the NYT and other establishment media spreads steady misinformation too, and even uses the Internet to do it (Tom Friedman has a Twitter account, need I say more?).

The Iraq Invasion was built on conspiracy theories promulgated by esteemed outlets like the NYT (plus WaPo, WSJ, the Economist, etc.). Did the NYT's Tom Friedman, Bill Keller, and David Brooks or WaPo's Richard Cohen, or any of the other conspiracy spreaders get fired once everything they said was proven untrue? No. Other than the NYT's Judith Miller, no one took a fall. 

Joe Scarborough was on MSNBC then, is still there now, and is probably a bigger celebrity today than he was when he was spreading conspiracies about Iraq's weapons program. The list of misinformers is long enough to fill six Wikipedias. I think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert owe much of their success to the spectacular failure of the "respectable" media with respect to Iraq.

The legacy media loved social media and the Internet in '08 when it helped their candidate win. The very idea that Obama was an "outsider" organically foisted to prominence via grassroots Internet support is itself misinformation spread by outlets like the Times. 

The mostly imaginary "Arab Spring," with its goofy narrative of a grassroots, democratic Mideast revolution largely ignited by social media - was another Internet-focused conspiracy theory spread by the establishment press. I am not aware of any establishment hacks getting the boot for promoting that turkey-on-wheels.

Amazingly (but unsurprisingly), the traditional press was too clueless to recognize that the same tools they claimed were behind their preferred brand of popular movement could also be used to abet popular movements anathema to them. Such anopia might help explain why so many of them have been unprofitable for years.



On Twitter: @greatmikepayne

Romney should have used some of his money to buy a calculator

Today I read a line in the New York Times saying that Obama's easy win is the result of the "McGovern coalition coming of age." I would say the victory is the result of trends predating 1972.

Forty+ years of turning public schools into factories for manufacturing politically correct robots has worked. Doctrinaire egalitarianism now starts in kindergarten, not college. College is merely the honeymoon after thirteen years of egalitarian courtship. Today even cultural conservatives unthinkingly use the language their opponents have prescribed for them.

Why haven't conservatives won a lasting battle in thirty+ years? Under Bush II, when supposed conservatives had all three government branches, the government expanded dramatically. The clock was hardly “turned back.” Why?

Because the war of ideas was lost a very long time ago, through the children. The very premise of even nominal conservative government could only be upheld so long as there were enough Americans with a less jaundiced view of pre-sixties America to keep voting to preserve what was left of it. They are now dead or outnumbered.

Home schoolers comprise a very small sliver of the population, and they are viewed with some suspicion (even by some conservatives). The vast majority attend public schools, where the war of ideas is long over. Yet conservatives continue to pat themselves on the back each time some minuscule home school "victory" happens somewhere. And they complain about liberals being unable to do math...

The conservative platform as it now exists can't be effectively transmitted to children. Vague lines like "class warfare" and "We're on the road to socialism!!!" aren't ideas, and certainly have no resonance with kids. Liberal principles are easily converted into talking points that can be repeated and spread. Example: Climate change and its implications is an idea. Saying it doesn't exist isn't. A kid can't really make an "I don't believe in climate change" macaroni and paste mosaic for his parents' refrigerator (and if he did his teacher would flunk him).

As for entrepreneurship being "the American dream," most humans don't have the constitution to be entrepreneurs. Most people hate their boss (they see themselves as the little guy oppressed by their boss), so pinning your fortunes on a campaign that emphasizes bosses as "the backbone of America" is numerical folly. Saying "entrepreneurs built this country" makes many younger people automatically think wicked robber barons. Saying "rugged individuals built this country" makes many younger people automatically think murderous pioneers (famed "pioneer" state Colorado went to Obama). Thus, building your platform around these memes is a horrible strategy. America is a mob rule republic. Numbers matter.

Nearly all of the money and cultural influence now resides in NY, MA, DC, and CA. The most conspicuous liberals are elected there; Pelosi, Schumer, etc. These politicians roughly reflect the opinions of those who set the national agenda. This doesn't look likely to change.

The war of ideas is lost for conservatives, and with it the numerical battle. John Galt ain't gonna show up to save anybody.

How to judge a comedy book by its cover

I just finished John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. After hearing about this must read comic novel for years, I finally broke down and read it. It was okay. There are some laughs in the last 50 pages, which is a little light for a 400-page comic novel. So contrary to what I had heard and read, it was not the funniest thing of all time (I wonder if the dramatic story of its publication helped inflate its reputation).

But I can be forgiven for thinking it is the greatest comic novel ever. Just listen to some of the critical accolades printed on the cover:

Washington Post: “A corker, an epic comedy, a rumbling, roaring avalanche of a book.”

New York Times: “nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”

New York: “An astonishingly original and assured comic spree.”

Here’s how you know the book is not that funny; when every single glowing review is written in the least funny way possible. People who know funny never say things like “grand comic fugue” or “assured comic spree.”

Imagine you heard someone talk like this in real life:

“Hey, you know who you should invite to the party? Dave. Yeah, Dave. Why? Because he is a grand comic fugue.”

or

“Look, I know the divorce was tough, but you gotta get back out there. I’ll introduce you to my neighbor Alice. She’s an assured comic spree.”

Any guy in his right mind would hitch a ride on the space shuttle to avoid a date with a woman sold him to him as an assured comic spree. And no one who knows funny would ever say “grand comic fugue.” Or corker. You know when you say corker? When you’re making fun of someone who doesn’t know how to describe comedy.

Now contrast those pretentious accolades with the original New York Times review of This Is Spinal Tap; the greatest comedy of all time:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9903E4D91439F931A35750C0A962948260

Not a single moronic line about it being a corker, an important film that elevates our national wit, or a cherry-topped comic dessert for those with a comedic sweet tooth. Probably because Spinal Tap is actually funny.

Not only are lines like "assured comic spree" obnoxious; they don’t actually describe anything. AT ALL. An assured comic spree gives no useful indication of the book’s tone or approach. It’s like calling a metal album loud. Yeah thanks, Professor. I’ll be sure to read your book on post-colonial tinnitus to help me figure out that Black Sabbath isn’t whispery.

Critics are frequently useless, and are nearly always useless when it comes to writing about funny. And unfortunately, comedians and comedy writers are always the least listened to when it comes to the topic of comedy. For some reason Katie Couric is allowed to tell Jerry Seinfeld what comedy means in the aftermath of 9/11. After all, what does Seinfeld know about anything? He’s just a comedian.