Althouse: "Ever wished you could hear the Wonkbloggers just…talking?"

February 26, 2013

"Ever wished you could hear the Wonkbloggers just…talking?"

Mmmm.

No.

I wish I could unhear you just... talking?

Quit talking like that!

What the hell is going on in our culture?

43 comments:

chickelit said...: "My Dinner With Ezra"; 2/26/13, 7:32 PM
edutcher said...: Sorry about that.

Wrong post.

As for this, after all the buildup, if this thing doesn't bring on the Apocalypse, then the people most hurt will be all the Journolists like Ezra.; 2/26/13, 7:36 PM
David said...: Thanks for the warning. I did not listen.; 2/26/13, 7:56 PM
Chip S. said...: Apparently R&D funding of basic research accounts for the overwhelming share of discretionary federal spending, b/c according to these guys it's going to bear the brunt of the sequester cuts.

Or else that's the policy wonk's version of the Washington Monument gambit.; 2/26/13, 7:59 PM
Original Mike said...: "What the hell is going on in our culture?"

Get off my lawn!; 2/26/13, 8:02 PM
Mark said...: The smarm, the smarm...; 2/26/13, 8:04 PM
JohnJ said...: “What the hell is going on in our culture?”

You mean other than the ascendancy of hipster political culture?; 2/26/13, 8:08 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Am i ready for, um, video? Maybe like, audio? If I wear a tie and a jacket will that make me like David Broder?; 2/26/13, 8:14 PM
Paco Wové said...: "R&D funding of basic research accounts for the overwhelming share of discretionary federal spending"

Around these parts, it appears to be Meals on Wheels for the elderly disabled (according to NPR).; 2/26/13, 8:19 PM
Chip S. said...: Didn't watch it, didja Bob?

Even w/ their laughable obsession w/ R&D spending, these guys were far easier to listen to than Old Pros David Brooks & E.J. Dionne on NPR.; 2/26/13, 8:20 PM
chickelit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/26/13, 8:20 PM
chickelit said...: I love how he jokes around about Yellowstone going bust. I'd like to see that prick's DC bubble pricked.; 2/26/13, 8:21 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Chip, not much. Talent counts in video. These two do not have it.; 2/26/13, 8:26 PM
Original Mike said...: I can't watch it. I have a new computer and it doesn't run. I'll have to figure out why. What a drag.

I hate new computers.; 2/26/13, 8:27 PM
Chip S. said...: I think that was the low point, chickelit. But it seemed like the longer they talked, the more they kept stumbling upon useful info. It was like they had to spend 5 minutes or so hitting the talking points, and then started discussing some relevant stuff.; 2/26/13, 8:28 PM
Titus said...: They are really asexual.; 2/26/13, 8:28 PM
Icepick said...: What the hell is going on in our culture?

Our old culture was racist and sexist and didn't appreciate ass-fucking, so it has been replaced by something that celebrates estrogen and vibrancy and ass-fucking and ... Ezra Klein's vocal emanations and penumbras?; 2/26/13, 8:31 PM
Wince said...: They just want to be able to brandish 30-round ammunition clips in DC too.

Is that so wrong?; 2/26/13, 8:32 PM
Titus said...: Klein has never cum out, has he?

It would definitely be expected but I don't believe he has revealed that he is a fudgie. And DC does have the largest concentration of mos you know. North Dakota and Iran have like hardly any mos.

tits.; 2/26/13, 8:41 PM
Icepick said...: Klein has never cum out, has he?

I don't know, he doesn't seem English.... I'd guess that he's just neuter.; 2/26/13, 8:47 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: What's happening to this culture is that there is a tiny pool of people who pay any attention whatsoever to people like Ezra Klein nattering on about whatever, and then there's the rest of us.

Those two tools are utterly, entirely, completely irrelevant to my community. Tonight I was at softball tryouts for my daughters. Those families, comprised of nurse mothers and oil refinery worker dads who take their kids to softball practice on Tuesday nights and church on Sundays and make sure the homework gets done and drink beers while watching the Spurs play, have never heard of Ezra Klein, and couldn't care less what he has to say about anything.

Do any of the rest of you have peers who would ever listen to the Wonkbloggers just talking, or even be aware of the existence of the Wonkbloggers?; 2/26/13, 8:53 PM
Tim said...: Obama's "Sequestration" is the Democrat's version of the Mayan Calendar Crisis of 2012, but without the benefit of facts, reason, maturity or even charm.; 2/26/13, 8:53 PM
Tim said...: "Those two tools are utterly, entirely, completely irrelevant to my community."

Sorry Erika, no offense intended, but insulting tools by comparing them to these two twits is unnecessary.

Tools have a purpose, after all.; 2/26/13, 8:55 PM
Titus said...: Erika, they only matter in DC and perhaps people that follow political commentators. Which equates to 1% of this country.

The rest of the country does the softball, baseball, volleyball, church, family and friend shit, paying bills, and going to work.

And checking out tits, natch. But who doesn't want to see a nice pair of tits walk by.; 2/26/13, 9:12 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Yeah, I know. Excuse my howl of irritation at the degree of pomposity and self-importance of those Beltway asshats. It's not enough that we can see how irrelevant they are. I want them to see how irrelevant they are too.; 2/26/13, 9:19 PM
edutcher said...: Original Mike said...

I can't watch it. I have a new computer and it doesn't run. I'll have to figure out why. What a drag.

Using a new browser with it?; 2/26/13, 9:20 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I googled "Quit talking like that!" and Freud nor Shakespeare are no where in sight.

So... I'm going to assume that That quote is Althouse just... talking.; 2/26/13, 9:26 PM
bgates said...: This reminds me - when's the next bloggingheads?; 2/26/13, 9:44 PM
Original Mike said...: "Using a new browser with it?"

No, but I think I'll try a different browser tomorrow morning. That would be an easy fix, if it works.; 2/26/13, 10:01 PM
edutcher said...: You might have a Javascript issue.

Check your settings and see if it's turned off.; 2/26/13, 10:03 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: What the hell is going on in our culture?

I'm going to theorise that maybe these guys realise they are spinning and are a little uncomfortable because they were supposed to be smarter than the guys that went into sales... and yet, here they are selling.

That's my theory.; 2/26/13, 10:04 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: These two realise that Obama, their #1 salesman, may have oversold this sequester bs a little bit too aggressively.

So they are dialing it back... they are volunteering preemptive damage control.

This is a video you could show, say to a Hillary 2016 transition team, showing off your skill at deflecting opposition hacles against the president.

They are sharpening their pencils.; 2/26/13, 10:15 PM
Original Mike said...: "You might have a Javascript issue.

Check your settings and see if it's turned off."

It's on, and other Java-based stuff works, but presumably it's some kind of Java problem. Java has been trying to update, but when I tell it "yes" the update fails, for some reason.

The answer will be appear in the fullness of time, but the central point remains. I hate computers. I like what you can do with them, when they work, but they are a royal pain in the ass.; 2/26/13, 10:16 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That should be hackles with a c and a k.; 2/26/13, 10:17 PM
David R. Graham said...: "What the hell is going on in our culture?"

It's not yours.

See Richard Pipes, *Russia Under The Old Regime.*; 2/26/13, 10:21 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Its like Obama was selling land that was contaminated... so they are now going back and saying you know... everybody knew the land was contaminated.

So, once the sale went through, everybody knows they have to go back and restore the land... so what if they have to forge some language here and take some shortcuts there... we are all in this together.

Sometimes, you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette... and as you know, if you being in the kitchen, it ain't pretty.; 2/26/13, 10:34 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Look at it this way...

Obama was actually... courageously willing to do anything... including using the political nuclear option of last resort... to lie, in order to save the country... and worry about the consequences later... to expose himself... leaving himself vulnerable to the republicans weaponized automatic cuts that would leave the nation homeless and defenceless.

We should be thanking him... if only we knew what was good for us.; 2/26/13, 10:48 PM
mccullough said...: Wankers; 2/26/13, 10:49 PM
Penny said...: Beware of the Athouse "Salon" when knees are jerking.

Wouldn't want to start calling it "The Joint".; 2/26/13, 11:58 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This is just a beautiful song.

Casual Conversations; 2/27/13, 12:17 AM
Bob Boyd said...: mccullough said...

"Wankers"

wankbloggers; 2/27/13, 7:22 AM
AlanKH said...: I want to see Wonkbloggers with their mouths duct-taped.

Hey, someone could make a lot of money developing a TV app that simulates that effect.; 2/27/13, 12:31 PM
John Dietl said...: I have noticed this as well. Here's a quote from a 2008 Victor Davis Hanson column describing the same thing:

6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson112608PF.html; 2/27/13, 8:50 PM