Something most right-wing people don’t get is the true nature of the media. They think the media is biased, but otherwise reasonable and accurate. They may promote some stories over others, but the stories are mostly true. In reality, the mass media is just the marketing department for the ruling class. Like a marketing department, they are not afraid to make up stuff when it suits them. A good example is in this article about the  Obama presidency.

The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.

The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.

The disclosure marked a rare instance in which a CIA officer working overseas had his cover — the secrecy meant to protect his actual identity — pierced by his own government. The only other recent case came under significantly different circumstances, when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was exposed as officials of the George W. Bush administration sought to discredit her husband, a former ambassador and fierce critic of the decision to invade Iraq.

There we have it. Nothing in that last paragraph is true, but the person who wrote the piece wants you to think it is true. The editors certainly know it is nonsense, but they don’t care, just as long as it promotes the cause. More important, they found a way to attack someone on the official opposition. They don’t really hate the other side, but they are the foil in the political show. The whole point of which is to keep people from noticing who really runs the country and for what purpose.

Yesterday, the Boston talk radio host Howie Carr was reading this old column. It is from 1995, the year after the GOP swept the midterms. Jim Webb was considered a star for the new Democratic party in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Even though he worked for Reagan, he was a Democrat and allegedly one of the new breed of Democrat, the post-liberal Democrat. He supported Bob Kerry in 1992 and opposed both Bush and Kerry in the 2004 election. Anyway, it is interesting to read what Democrats were saying two decades ago.

Those who debate the impact of affirmative action and other social programs are fond of making distinctions among white Americans along professional and geographic lines while avoiding the tinderbox of ethnic distinctions among whites. But differences among white ethnic groups are huge, fed by cultural tradition, the time and geography of migrations to the country, and not insignificantly the tendency of white Americans to discriminate against other whites in favor of their own class and culture. In 1974, when affirmative action was in its infancy, the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center published a landmark study, dividing American whites into 17 ethnic and religious backgrounds and scoring them by educational attainment and family income. Contrary to prevailing mythology, the vaunted White Anglo-Saxon Protestants were even then not at the top.

A Greater Variation

The highest WASP group – the Episcopalians – ranked only sixth, behind American Jews, then Irish, Italian, German and Polish Catholics. WASPS – principally the descendants of those who had settled the Midwest and the South – constituted the bottom eight groups, and 10 of the bottom twelve. Educational attainment and income levels did not vary geographically, as for instance among white Baptists (who scored the lowest overall) living in Arkansas or California, a further indication that these differences are culturally rather than geographically based.

Imagine any Democrat using these words in a sentence.

Family income among white cultures in the NORC study varied by almost $5,000 dollars, from the Jewish high of $13,340 to the Baptist low of $8,693. By comparison, in the 1970 census the variance in family income between whites taken as a whole and blacks was only $3,600. In addition, white Baptists averaged only 10.7 years of education, which was almost four years less than American Jews and at the same level of black Americans in 1970. This means that, even prior to the major affirmative action programs, there was a greater variation within “white America” than there was between “white America” and black America, and the whites at the bottom were in approximately the same situation as blacks.

Anyone, regardless of party, who says anything like the above will be forced to leave the country.

These same less-advantaged white cultures by and large did the most to lay out the infrastructure of this country, quite often suffering educational and professional regression as they tamed the wilderness, built the towns, roads and schools, and initiated a democratic way of life that later white cultures were able to take advantage of without paying the price of pioneering. Today they have the least, socio-economically, to show for these contributions. And if one would care to check a map, they are from the areas now evincing the greatest resistance to government practices.

It would be folly to assume that affirmative action has done anything but exacerbate these disparities. The increased stratification and economic polarization in American life since 1974 is well-documented. In the technological age, with the shrinking of the industrial base, the decrease in quality of public education, and the tendency of those who “have” to protect their own and to utilize greater assets to prepare them for the future, the divergence in both expectation and reward among our citizens has grown rather than disappeared. The middle class has shrunk from 65% of the population in 1970 to less than 50% today. Its share of aggregate household income declined by 5% from 1968 to 1993, while the top five million households increased their incomes by up to 10% a year. A similar rift has occurred in the black culture, with dramatic declines at the bottom and significant gains among the top 5%.

Because America’s current elites are somewhat heterogeneous and in part the product of an academically based meritocracy, they have increasingly deluded themselves regarding both the depth of this schism and the validity of their own advantages. The prevailing attitude has been to ridicule whites who have the audacity to complain about their reduced status, and to sneer at every aspect of the “redneck” way of life. In addition to rationalizing policies that hold the working class male back from advancement in the name of an amorphous past wrong from which he himself did not benefit, the elites take great sport in debasing the man they love to call “Joe Six-Pack.”

This sounds like a speech from a different country. No public person talks or writes like this, even the so-called extreme right-wing conservatives.

And what does “Joe Six Pack” make of this?

He sees a president and a slew of other key luminaries who excused themselves from the dirty work of society when they were younger, feeling not remorse but “vindication” for having left him or perhaps his father to fight a war while they went on to graduate school and solidifies careers.

He sees a governmental system that seems bent on belittling the basis of his existence, and has established a set of laws and regulations that often keep him from competing. His ever-more-isolated leaders have mandated an “equal opportunity” bureaucracy in the military, government and even industry that closely resembles the Soviet “political cadre” structure, whose sole function is to report “political incorrectness” and to encourage the promotion of literally everyone but him and his kind.

He sees the meaning of words like “fairness” cynically inverted in the name of “diversity,” while groups who claim to have been disadvantaged by old practices, and even those who have only recently arrived in the country, are immediately moved ahead of him for no reason other than his race. In one of the bitterest ironies, he is required to pay tax dollars to finance the special training for recent immigrants even as he himself is held back from fair competition and the “equal opportunity” bureaucracies keep him from receiving similar training, gaining employment or securing a promotion.

He sees cultural rites buttressed by centuries of tradition – particularly the right to use firearms and pass that skill to future generations – attacked because many who make the laws do not understand the difference between his way of life and that of criminals who are blowing people away on the streets of urban America.

He watched the Democratic Party, once a champion of the worker-producer, abandon him in favor of special interests who define their advancement mostly through the extent of his own demise. To him “diversity” is a code word used to exclude him – but seldom better-situated whites no matter the extent of his qualifications and no matter the obstacles he has had to overcome, The Republican Party, to which he swung in the last election, has embraced him on certain social issues, but has yet to support policies that would override the tendency of elites to simply protect their own rather than reverse the travails of affirmative action and the collapse of public education.

Out of the Casualty Radius

Finally, he sees the people who erected and continue to enforce such injustices blatantly wheedling and maneuvering themselves and their children out of the casualty radius of their own policies. A smaller percentage of whites in academia and the professions is acceptable, so long as their children make it. The public school system is self-destructing, but their children go to private schools and receive special preparatory classes to elevate college board scores. International peacekeeping is a lofty goal, so long as their children are not on the firing line. Continuous scrutiny is given to minority percentages in employment, but little or none is applied to how or why one white applicant was chosen over another.

The Left likes to say the Right has gone way right while they have tried to move to the center. Putting aside the lunacy of a linear political landscape, this is 180 degrees out of phase with reality. In just two decades the political class has gone from where Jim Webb was roughly between both parties to a point where Jim Webb is a wacko. Imagine where we will be in two more decades. Nancy Pelosi will be a right winger and people will fondly recall the conservatism of Ted Kennedy.

I have no love for Karl Rove, but you have to respect his political skills. He got George Bush elected twice and that was not small feat. Bush was one of the worst politicians we’ve seen in decades. By that I mean he lacks the sociopathic charm we prefer in our modern politicians. That and he struggled to string a sentence together. Americans like smooth talking fabulists, who lie on spec. Getting Bush into the White House took extraordinary skills by his team.

That’s why it was fun watching Rove launch of a missile at the old battleship called Hillary Clinton. Politics is a dirty business and Rove is a pro. He knows it is a good time to put that thought out there. Clinton is only getting older and every time she stumbles or looks dazed in public, the brain damage issue will come to mind. Long after people forget about this, they will remember that Clinton has brain damage.

Anyway, just for fun I thought I would look into who else will be running on the Democrat side. Once the fall election is over, the battle to line up donors, fixers and strategists will be on for both parties. A weak Clinton should draw in some challengers with nothing to lose from making a run at her. Plus, the crazy wing has never loved Clinton. That’s why they backed Obama in 2008. It was mostly out of spite. They will be looking for another horse to ride in 2016.

Crazy Joe Biden: It has long been assumed that Crazy Joe will stagger off the stage in 2016 and that will be the end of his time in politics. He’s no spring chicken and has a habit of saying insane things in public. He is also well regarded among the party establishment. He could challenge Clinton as the establishment candidate. His loyal service to Obama has also won him a lot of friends among blacks. Vice Presidents have enormous advantages when running in a primary. Odds: 2-to-1

Fake Indian: Every liberal woman I know loves Fake Indian. She is a darling of the Left, many of whom think Obama let them down. She is a throwback to the 1960’s Left in that she yaps a lot of about the poor and disadvantaged. She is not young, but she is younger than Clinton and Biden. The other thing she has going for her is she can pitch herself as an outsider and a reformer. There’s enough distance between her and the Obama administration to plausibly call her an “insurgent” candidate. Odds: 5-to-1

Knuckles O’Malley: Martin O’Malley is a long way from his days of threatening to punch Baltimore radio hosts. He is the quintessential meritocratic climber. He’s also running the Democratic Governors Association, which means he gets to run around the country raising money and collecting favors. Like Bill Clinton, he comes from a terminally corrupt state and that means he has baggage. He may have knocked up a local news bunny at some point. But, he also has a disarming presentation on the stump and he is a liberal. Odd: 20-to-1

Brian “Nuts” Schweitzer: The nut-roots types loved this guy and they wanted him to take a shot at the open senate seat in Montana. The crazies have this image in their head of the perfect candidate. He is a combination Huey Long and FDR. They are convinced a populist appeal will bring working class white males out to vote. They are right, but that has no place in the party now. Odds: 50-to-1

Mini-me: Duval Patrick is term limited out and will have nothing to so running for president is a good way to fill the time. It is also a good way to audition for jobs. He is also deeply connected to the Axelrod operation in Chicago and that means he will be able to tap into the Obama money machine. As the only black guy in the field, he will get a lot of support from his people in the primaries. Odds: 50-to-1

Andrew Cuomo: His old man never ran, probably because he was so mobbed up, it would have got him killed. Andrew Cuomo does not have the problem. He’s another guy who could cut into Clinton’s support with establishment democrats. He probably does not run if Clinton runs. Plus he knows this is most likely a GOP election to lose. He may be better of waiting until 2020. Odds: 100-to-1

Bottom Line: Clinton runs and wins the nomination.

This post over at Marginal Revolution is getting a lot of attention. Steve Sailer is filling the comments thread, which always brings out a lot of responses. The discussion about Obama is following the usual path. Even his supporters struggle to accept that he is a bright guy. That’s always been a strange thing about Obama-mania. The concept of the “first black president” overwhelmed any discussion of the man. His biggest fans know little about him. other than his skin.

There’s something else which will make Obama an inscrutable curiosity for generations to come. The man lacks the usual traits we associate with leadership. There’s no evidence of physical courage. He is an awkward klutz, who is timid and aloof. All of our post-war presidents have been manly, for lack of a better word. He also lacks the risk taking trait. Again, even his biggest fans describe him as excessively cautious. He is also indecisive. This is something his fans loath about him.

That may be why his critics say he is average. He’s smart enough to know he is not smart enough so he waits until the smart people decide. Then he jumps on their idea as if it is his own. That’s a possibility, but being a genius has never been a desirable quality in leaders. Obama is at least as smart as Bush or Clinton, which is to say smart enough. The decisiveness of Bush and Clinton was more than enough to overcome whatever intellectual challenges they faced.

Obama is our first alien president. Everyone in the ruling class is alien to normal Americans, but Obama is alien to the aliens. By the time a candidate is nominated, we know everything there is to know about him from birth to that moment. With Obama, we’re still not sure about large swaths of his life, including where he was born. He never tells stories about his youth or about when he was starting out in life. No one shows up on TV talking about their friendship with Obama.

It’s as if he exists conceptually, but not tangibly. That really is the way to imagine Obama as a president. he is an avatar, a creation projected on the screens of our common culture. When his time is up, the projector will be turned off and he will go away and be forgotten. That’s because he was never a person, but instead a guy who ticked the boxes for a campaign operation. Nice guy who took direction well and never tried to improvise. He read his script as written.

Suicide gets a bad rap in the modern world, but it used to be considered an honorable solution to life’s problems. That’s never the way it works these days. We have Muslim lunatics trying to blow up the world and liberal fanatics trying to destroy Western civilization. Closer to home, we have the Republican Party, which is supposed to represent sensible white people, doing everything it can to harm and alienate the people they claim to represent. Here’s their latest.

The deadline to pass immigration legislation is this August, said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who is part of the effort to develop an immigration bill that could pass the House.

“The legislative process in essence, frankly, has to work on deadlines. There’s a deadline. And the deadline is that if we don’t get it done by August it doesn’t happen,” Diaz-Balart told CQ Roll Call at the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute’s awards gala Thursday.

“If Congress doesn’t act by the August break, the president is going to do something. And once that happens, two things happen,” said Diaz-Balart. “No. 1 is that the possibility of any further negotiations — of any — disintegrate.”

This is a classic gambit. Martin Luther King played this card repeatedly. His Letter from a Birmingham Jail is a legendary example. He offered a choice to white America. They could either deal with him and his demands or they could deal with an army of rioters in the streets. His calculation, a correct one, was that middle-class white people did not want to see the cops shooting black people on television.

Diaz-Balart is doing the same here. Either pass his amnesty scheme or something worse will happen in the fall. What could be worse than flooding the country with illiterate Mexican peasants is Obama flooding the country with illiterate Mexican peasants. Of course, if Obama does it it will be worse because reasons. This is obviously aimed at the Fox News types. Then we have Rand Paul making crazy sounds about voting.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky broke Friday with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud at the polls, saying that the focus on such measures alienates and insults African-Americans and hurts the party.

“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Mr. Paul said in an interview. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”

Mr. Paul becomes the most prominent member of his party — and among the very few — to distance himself from the voting restrictions and the campaign for their passage in states under Republican control, including North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, that can determine presidential elections. Civil rights groups call the laws a transparent effort to depress black turnout.

This, of course, is completely insane. Everyone with an IQ above room temperature knows liberal democrat groups work hard to pollute the ballot in America. The one chance to clean this stuff up is requiring a valid ID. In states like North Carolina, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, well orchestrated vote fraud can swing an election. Al Franken is in the Senate because of vote fraud.

Then we come to the final bit of insanity from the weekend. Republicans now want to lesson the penalties on illegal immigrants.

Republican Rep. Raul Labrador on Thursday offered a potential immigration deal to the White House, saying the GOP would agree to loosen penalties on illegal immigrants if President Obama would agree to increase visas for foreigners who work in high-tech fields.

Mr. Labrador suggested dropping the penalty period that bars illegal immigrants from reapplying to enter the U.S. legally after being deported, a period that now lasts for between three and 10 years, depending on how long they had first remained in the country illegally.

“I think most Republicans agree that the 3- and 10-year bars have to go away because right now the people that are here illegally, they have to go home to become legal, but then they have to remain home for ten years,” the Idaho Republican said. “We remove those bars from them, you could fix the status of about 25 percent of the people that are here illegally right now if they return to their home country and then they come back legally.”

Under current law, those that leave the U.S. after living here illegally for six months or more cannot return for three years. Those who lived here illegally for at least a year cannot return for ten years. That has served as an incentive for many illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. rather than return home and face years long bans.

Mr. Labrador, who dropped out of a bipartisan group last year that tried to strike a broad immigration deal, made the overture at a forum of House conservatives hosted by the Heritage Foundation.

He said in return for dropping the bars, Democrats should agree to boost legal immigration by granting green cards to foreigners who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees in the fields of science, engineering, math or technology.

Think about this for a second. This guy wants to cut the legs out form under working class Americans by bringing in foreigners to take their jobs. Then he doubles downand says he wants to gut the market for tech workers, letting proven criminals Apple, Google and eBay slash the pay of their workers by hiring foreigners on visas. It’s as if he really hates the people he claims to represent.

Raul Labrador hates America. Specifically, he hates Americans. Even more precisely, he hates the people who are inclined to vote for him and his fellow Republicans. He has to know that there is zero chance this scheme helps his party. Every bit of data we have shows that immigration hurts Republicans. Pushing these polices guarantees the defeat of his party. What strange virus has gripped the minds of these men leading them to advocate suicidal policies?

The best course is to stand aside and let the suicidal get on with it. Basically, we have one party with two faces. This fools people into thinking they have a choice at the ballot box. if one of those faces dies, then people have to find another option. It does not mean things will change, but it offers an opening. Let the GOP pass amnesty so they can obliterated at the ballot box. The shame of 2008 was that it was not a bigger win for the Democrats.

The modern mass media is just the marketing department for the managerial elite and the billionaires who control the country. The notion that they speak truth to power is ridiculous. They speak power to the rest of us. That’s their job. This story in the New York Times is a great example/ In a different age, it would be described as Stalin-esque pamphleteering. Today it is an example of their style guide.

The Republican National Committee moved Friday to seize control of the presidential primary debates in 2016, another step in a coordinated effort by the party establishment to reshape the nominating process.

Committee members overwhelmingly passed a measure that would penalize any presidential candidate who participated in a debate not sanctioned by the national party, by limiting their participation in subsequent committee-sanctioned forums.

The move represents the party’s effort to reduce the number of debates and assert control over how they are staged.

In making the case for adopting the new rule, party officials repeatedly criticized the moderators and format of the 2012 primary debates, appealing to the suspicions that many Republican activists have about the mainstream news media. “The liberal media doesn’t deserve to be in the driver’s seat,” said the committee’s chairman, Reince Priebus, addressing committee members here at their spring meeting.

Such rhetoric makes taking over the debates easier to sell to the committee’s more conservative members. But what party leaders are principally concerned about is reducing the number of debates to avoid a repeat of the 2012 campaign when a series of insurgent candidates used the forums — 20 in all — to draw attention to their candidacies. Some party leaders say they believe that the number of debates pushed Mitt Romney to the right in a way that contributed to his loss to President Obama.

Look at all the scary words. They are claiming what is a minor change in the debate schedule as some dark, is malign conspiracy to blot out all that is holy and good. What makes it even more hilarious is the GOP establishment is clearly taking the advice of the Left and trying to shed their conservative supporters. Yet, the Left still finds it a foreboding sign of a new dark ages. The so-called conservatives never learned that there is never any pleasing their Progressive masters.

The last line about “Some party leaders” saying Romney was too far right is entirely made up, of course. This is what is called in the business “an imaginary source.” They believe they exist, but like elves and wood nymphs, there’s no evidence. They are pushing the crazy narrative that the GOP has gone too far Right, so they make up evidence to support the claim. Mitt Romney works for the same donors as Barak Obama. They are competing for the same favors.