Althouse: "The tens of thousands of people who both read my columns and listened to my radio shows through two decades in the media know this has been a carefully orchestrated attack..."

November 24, 2014

"The tens of thousands of people who both read my columns and listened to my radio shows through two decades in the media know this has been a carefully orchestrated attack..."

"... to remove a conservative Republican from a major leadership role in State government. The deliberate character assassination and the politics of personal destruction have totally distorted my views and record."

Said Lee Hansen, who'd said a lot, in print and on the radio over the past 2 decades. You can see "the tip of the iceberg" here.

12 comments:

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: The age of internet laziness is over. People are dragging other media online. Before, what was written in books, newspapers or said over the radio was relatively safe from controversy.

Not anymore.; 11/24/14, 7:04 AM
Anonymous said...: Articles summary: "Shock-horror: guy thinks things about stuff that isn't in line with what I and my en-bubbled peers think about stuff. (AKA "controversial".) Plus, I can't process language above a 2nd-grade level."

I could almost feel some respect for honestly dishonest reporters who wrote headlines and stories like "Report: Powerful Nevada GOPer Wrote Column About 'Simple Minded Darkies'", in Machiavellian service to their ends. But I'm coming 'round to the view that these things should be taken at face value - these "journalists" really are the stupid propaganda-bots they present themselves as. "Wow. Just wow" is their cognitive limit.; 11/24/14, 8:06 AM
chillblaine said...: How dare he stand up for the rights of the unborn.; 11/24/14, 8:12 AM
MadisonMan said...: Am I supposed to feel sorry for an incumbent? Because I don't.

If he was committed to what he wrote, he'd engage in debate. But he's folding up like a cheap card table and scurrying away.

Conclusion: He writes what he writes to shock, and that's more important to him than actually believing what he says.; 11/24/14, 8:22 AM
Ann Althouse said...: You can write columns and do radio like that, with vivid language and shock and sarcasm, and it may be defensible, but it just doesn't set you up for a position of leadership.

There are sacrifices and risks involved in strong speech. Others don't want your speech sticking to them. That's why most people are polite and decline to talk about most things.

There's a price to be paid for free speech.; 11/24/14, 8:27 AM
Anonymous said...: You can write columns and do radio like that, with vivid language and shock and sarcasm, and it may be defensible, but it just doesn't set you up for a position of leadership.

There are sacrifices and risks involved in strong speech. Others don't want your speech sticking to them. That's why most people are polite and decline to talk about most things.

I agree that the "vivid language" native to talk-radio and column-niating isn't appropriate in a position of political leadership. But it isn't the "vivid" language like "simple-minded darkies" that's bothering the wow-just-wowers. It's that they don't want the topics they're wow-just-wowing about - impoortant topics - talked about at all outside of strict agreement with party dogma, and they'll whip up a two-minute hate against anyone who does, regardless of how he talks about them. Most of the examples of "shocking" speech by Hansen aren't couched in "vivid" language at all. They're just opinions that hysterical jacobins want driven out of the public square.

It's odd that you talk about "leadership" in the context of being "polite and declin[ing] to talk about most things". The passivity and submissiveness expected here is the antithesis of leadership. (Or, you are implying that the issues raised by Hansen are unimportant or that an agreement has been reached on them by all decent people, which is absurd.) There is a proper standard of public civility, but it is different from the standards of private civility (wherein "just zip it" is appropriate advice). Imposing the latter on the former corrupts the former absolutely.; 11/24/14, 9:30 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: "That's why most people are polite and decline to talk about most things."

Isn't that like shutting up? Which you, professor, will never, never do, if in fact you can?; 11/24/14, 10:00 AM
geokstr said...: "...There's a price to be paid for free speech."

That's quite a one-way street though, Professor.

The level of blatant, outright lying, hypocrisy, smearing, misquoting, making up "quotes", editing quotes 180 degrees from their obvious intent, twisting, spinning, and dissembling have been raised to an art form by the left in the last 50 years.

For one of a million examples, look at the recent flap over Obama's EO on immigration. Many dozens of actual, in context, on point quotes have been found that show the self-proclaimed constitutional expert saying quite unequivocally that he does not have the authority to do what he just did. Yet the media back him 100%, and don't even mention his prior statements, let alone call him out on them. Or how about "If you like your (doctor/hospital/health plan)...?"

Free speech does have a price, but nearly always only when you don't parrot liberal orthodoxy, or you stand in the way of someone who does. Then the left's vicious, relentless attack machine goes all-out until you are neutralized, one way or another.

"The (left) is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."; 11/24/14, 10:44 AM
Anonymous said...: This is why Republicans are losing the culture war.

We are right, but constant retreat says you're losing.

Stop retreating.; 11/24/14, 11:38 AM
Jupiter said...: I especially like this gem;

"Hansen seems to define men who abuse boys as homosexual, though the scholarship says that most abuse is committed by heterosexuals. He also seems to consider gays to be deviant by definition."

Earth to Dennis Myers, males who have sex with other males are called "homosexuals". This is from the Greek "homo", meaning "the same". So you see, men who have sex with boys are homosexuals! No "scholarship" is required, beyond reading a dictionary.; 11/24/14, 1:32 PM
Jupiter said...: Ann Althouse said...
"You can write columns and do radio like that, with vivid language and shock and sarcasm, and it may be defensible, but it just doesn't set you up for a position of leadership."

Well, I guess that's a question for his constituents to decide, isn't it?; 11/24/14, 1:34 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Well, I guess that's a question for his constituents' isn't it?"

No. His fellow legislators decide if the want him as Speaker of the Assembly.; 11/24/14, 7:55 PM