November 21, 2011

When did articles all start to begin "When did...?"?

"When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?"

"When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?"

22 comments:

traditionalguy said...

They all want to become historians, but they cannot get any materials to use except the false narratives they wrote themselves.

That is a tall order to bring any understanding out of half truths mixed with brilliant lies.

So maybe that Free Speech custom is the problem.

George M. Spencer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DADvocate said...

When did they begin thinking they could start with a lie and reach a truthful conclusion. To paraphrase traditional guy, who hits it on the head right off the start. Avoiding the truth is essential.

Carol_Herman said...

When people stopped reading them.

Henry said...

When did anyone care about David Frum or the New Republic?

* * *

Like the ubiquitous "list" article ("Seven Ways To Get Noticed by Nitwits"), the "rhetoric question" title tells us more about Google analytics than writing ability.

Don't click through!

Carol_Herman said...

Vaudeville also died. What remains, however, is the manager with a hook.

The idea of the hook gave the manager control of acts that weren't pleasing to the audience.

By the way, outside, poor vendors sold rotten fruit. Women didn't go see vaudeville. It was something that attracted men. Who stood. (There were no seats.) And, who spit.

The rotten fruit would be thrown onto the stage. This led a theater owner to toss the male audience out. Clean up his theater. To cover the walls with gilt. And, he put in velvet chairs.

When the women came to join the men to watch vaudeville ... The manager with the hook removed the actors who wouldn't go away, off-stage.

Too bad the GOP primary attendees ... don't demand a manager with a hook ... at the debates.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

Daniel Moynihan's "Iron Law of Emulation": Groups in opposition to one another over time begin to resemble one another.

Really, what's the difference between Olbermann and Limbaugh? Or Fox and MSNBC?

Or a thousand and one other examples.

Sorry, but the left and right are just getting absurd with their demands on orthodoxy. Anyone who strays from the party line is a heretic.

We can debate whether one side is worse than the other. But we can't debate that both do it.

Well, you can but not with me.

bagoh20 said...

You know I love you Carol, but if there was a man with a hook around here, you'd have whiplash.

ricpic said...

When did the spider catch the fly
And take him in her web,
And then methodically sucked him dry
And called it women's lib?

edutcher said...

I have a feeling when each side, but mostly the Lefties, wanted to make it appear their truths were immutable.

ricpic said...

When did the spider catch the fly
And take him in her web,
Then methodically sucked him dry
And called it women's lib?

Paddy O said...

If an alien archeologist visits earth, and discovers an archive of such articles, it would think we had finally run out of original article setups.

Chuck66 said...

When a political commentator wants you to think that he/she actually was on the same side as you years ago, and then your side changed.

Chip S. said...

"When did articles all start to begin 'When did...?'?"

When did Slate start up?

Mark O said...

When did journalism become propoganda?

Chip S. said...

When did David Frum start being such a limp dick?

gadfly said...

According to the JProf, "Use present tense verbs for headlines that refer to past or present events."

Obviously, Althouse and the other writers failed Journalism 101.

Eric said...

It's been a long time since Republicans, either establishment or movement conservatives, took Frum seriously. He's not a believer in anything particular. He's not even a partisan.

He's a political operative who sees politics as a big chess game, the public as a collection of dupes to be manipulated based on demographics and focus group results, and like all other operatives he considers a plum Washington job to be the ultimate political victory.

Well of course any actual principles a party has would get in his way. If the focus groups say you could pick up 0.5% among black lesbian grandmothers in New Hampshire if only you'd ditch that abortion plank why wouldn't you?

I won't take criticism of the GOP from a guy like that.

jimspice said...

A similar trend in local TV news drives me nuts. "Are murderous cannibals prowling our streets? More at 10!" More often than not, the answer to such questions turns out to be "NO!"

ndspinelli said...

What Daniel Patrick Moynihan and SMGalbraith said.

ndspinelli said...

jimspice, That's a true tv news teaser in Little Rock.

Cedarford said...

America is in decline.

Naturally the discussion turns to diagnostics. When the diseases undermining US society and competiveness started.

When did we agree to outsource good industries and good jobs to China?
When did Republicans agree that no matter what, wars of nation-building and so on, taxes would never be raised?
When did the decision happen to open up America to tens of millions of illegals?
When did supply side economics fail?
Who laid down the changes that led to our fiscal system collapsing? When?
What is the history of how our healthcare and school systems costing 40% more per capita than our competitors?
When did government employee unions take over to the extent that government revenues are for their benefit over the people?