The Murdoch Moron for the week is Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal and his essay, “These Five Are the Best We Can Do?”
(To bypass Murdoch’s paywall, paste the title of the article in Google and click on the Wall Street Journal link than comes up.)
No one has really complained about the quality of the Democratic candidates this year while there has been unprecedented wailing and gnashing of teeth by just about everyone with sympathies for the GOP. The GOP standard-bearers (Rubio, yet another Bush, Christie, Graham, Jindal) were all pathetic lightweights, but they could be expected to tow the GOP line. What the Republican base preferred (what they were trained to prefer) was the radical extremists of Trump, Fiorina, Carson, Cruz, and the mindless xenophobic bigotry they espoused. But apparently the Murdoch rule is that you can’t make negative comments about Republicans without also pulling the “both sides do it” trope to speak negatively about Democrats too.
Is there something in our system of electing candidates that makes inevitable the rise of the mediocre and even the exaltation of the vulgar?
The “vulgar” is the sole domain of the GOP. No one is accusing the Democrats of vulgarity, not even Epstein, though he necessarily associates the Democrats through his lame assertion, but fails to show and Democratic vulgarities when he lists his examples.
Difficult to find anyone who talks about the presidential primaries with any enthusiasm. Even yellow-dog Democrats and academic feminists can’t get much worked up for Hillary Clinton. The young are apparently taken with the socialist fantast Bernie Sanders—but then, being young, they don’t realize he is nothing more than a digitally remastered 1930s replay.
This is a laughably stupid statement that betrays the politically cloistered life of Epstein. First, no one is denying the enthusiastic (though brain-dead) zealotry of Trump supporters. There is also plenty of enthusiasm for Hillary as well, even though it has not taken the radical and violent path of the GOP front runner. The only insult he has for Bernie is a vacuous dismissal of the candidate and his supporters - supports that Epstein notes are, in fact, enthusiastic. Epstein tellingly fails to note any specific policy issues he has with Sanders, which is what you’d expect from a political tribalist.
I’m sure it’s difficult for Epstein to find anyone enthusiastic about Hillary or Bernie in the halls of Murdoch’s wing-nut welfare tool, The Weekly Standard.
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative[2][3][4][5][6] opinion magazine[7] published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title on September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of neoconservatism" and as "the neo-con bible".[8][9] [10]
Since it was founded in 1995, The Weekly Standard has never been profitable, and has remained in business through subsidies from conservative benefactors such as former owner Rupert Murdoch.[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard
Epstein berates Bernie Sanders for his politics, but is happy to cash his subsidized, socialist-style wing-nut welfare paychecks from The Weekly Standard. A disingenuous tool of a tool.
Epstein’s choice? Mitch “college-censor” Daniels! Even ignoring the authoritarian bent of Constitutionally challenged Daniels, who in the world could ever get enthusiastic about Mitch Daniels?
Clearly, Epstein is with the rest of the GOP establishment in retching over Donald Trump’s rise to being the most likely Republican nominee.
Mr. Trump’s vulgarity is nonpareil—and by his vulgarity I don’t mean his profanity merely, but the vulgar quality of his speech, his thought, his very sentiments.
Epstein places Cruz as a close second to Trump’s vulgarity.
Who does Epstein blame for this rise in Republican vulgar and extremism? The Internet.
The advent of the Internet made this all the worse. The Internet is without an ethical standard. On it anyone can say anything—and usually does. Donald Trump has added to the demeaning quality of the proceedings by using the Internet—those endless insulting tweets—and attracting press and television with his steady stream of attacks on the personal lives of his opponents.
The Internet is to blame. Brilliant! With the right-wing zombie-lie of Al Gore taking credit for creating the Internet, Epstein is one step away from blaming Al Gore for causing the rise of Trump in the GOP. Never mind the role he and his benefactors have played in conditioning the Republican base to believe that every policy difference with the Democrats was a battle with the devil himself for America’s soul and encouraged the mindless vitriol and zealotry of Teabaggers, anti-Democratic TV and Radio hosts, as well as Murdoch’s Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal. And this, from a person who has made their living as a writer for decades.
Epstein is proving himself long in the tooth and short on the truth.
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