The G Spot

Mickey Kaus can suck it

By Kathy G.

A Gentle Reader asks:

So when's Kathy going to apologize to Mickey Kaus?

Here's what I say to that: Mickey Kaus can kiss my royal Irish ass.

I said that the story about Edwards was dubious and that I didn't believe it, but I never said  that it wasn't or couldn't be true. However, I did argue that Kaus's obsession with it was bizarre and unseemly, which it was and is.

The man was once a respected journalist, and he has a sweet gig at a serious web magazine where he can write about anything his heart desires, and this is what he bloviates over? When we've got a war our president started on the basis of lies; an administration that tortures people and illegally spies on and imprisons them; an economy that's tanking; and a presidential election? And that's just for starters!

Furthermore, unless he was hiding documentary evidence that he never made public, Kaus had no idea whether the story was made up or not. Up until the Enquirer reporters staked out Edwards in that hotel room, their stories on this had been vague and thinly sourced. There were no witnesses that went public; no compromising letters, emails, photos, or taped phone calls. In short, there wasn't any more reason to believe this tawdry tale than to believe similar recent tabloid headlines that shrieked that John McCain had an affair with Connie Stevens, or that George Bush is having an affair with Condi Rice.

The worst thing about Kaus's obsession, though, is that even after John Edwards dropped out the presidential race, he wouldn't let it die. The man's public career was to all intents and purposes over, and yet Kaus kept on with it. For what reason? I maintained then, and I maintain now, that given that Edwards was no longer a candidate for office, his sex life was nobody's business but his own and his wife's. There was no compelling public interest in reporting this story. At all.

The only thing it could do was to hurt and publicly humiliate Elizabeth Edwards and her two young children -- and I think you'll agree that that family has enough on its plate as it is. The only people clamoring for this to go public were heartless, vicious assholes like Kaus.

Kaus can suck my left one. He'll get no apology from me.

What do you call a black man who's running for president?

By Kathy G.

I see that Mickey Kaus has the ginormous clanking brass balls to argue that Barack Obama was being "condescending" when he recently lectured African-Americans about the importance of staying in school.

Sorry, but my head is spinning faster than a dreidel at a kosher casino. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any other pundit who is more obsessed than Mickey Kaus is with the question of just how African-Americans should live their lives, or more persuaded that he himself knows exactly what the answer to that question should be. In fact, he write an entire book devoted largely to just this subject.

Indeed, throughout this election, Kaus has been engaging in a non-stop whinathon begging for Obama to stage a "Sister Souljah" moment in which he, Barack, very publicly and pointedly upbraids African-Americans -- see here, here, here, and here, for example. You see, when a privileged and powerful person -- preferably, a Democrat -- thunders from on high about the alleged moral deficiency of African-Americans, especially poorer and less well-educated African-Americans, it gives Mickey one of the those thrills up his leg he enjoys so much.

So, okay, Obama makes the kind of moralistic pronouncement Mickey has been calling for, and how does he react? He criticizes Obama for being "condescending." He might as well have just said "uppity" and gotten it over with. Face, Barack, you just can't win with these wankers!

Barack Obama and the white wimmin

By Kathy G.

Christ on a cracker, they're back to this shit again! Call it the Mandingo strategy, I suppose.

It's not exactly shocking that Karl Rove is Going There. And hey, it's worked before.

But Mickey Kaus? While I bow to no one in my contempt for the old goat-blower, even I am a little surprised that he, too, is gleefully peddling this crap. (No direct link available for this, but click here and search for "johannsson" and you'll see what I mean). Once again -- nice job, Slate!

Wake me in November, please.

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

By Kathy G.

Where have you gone, Dave Chappelle?

I ask this urgent question not only because I terribly miss his late, lamented Comedy Central show, which had some of the most gut-bustingly funny moments I have ever seen on television. I'm also asking him because we specifically need him now, at this particular moment in our history.

I count the general election campaign as having begun on June 3, the night of the final primary. That was only two weeks ago, yet already this campaign has jumped the shark, bigtime. I can't decide when the exact moment was. Was it the "terrorist fist bump" ? The Barack Obama monkey doll ? The Michelle Obama "baby mama" chyron on Fox? Mickey Kaus's asstastic musings on whether the election of Barack Obama would be "the end of bling"?  Or maybe, just maybe, it was this:

I can't decide. But the point is, if this is what the first two weeks were like, how the hell are we going to hold on until November?

That, Dave Chappelle, is why we so desperately need you. I did some searching around the web, but you seem to be MIA -- no movies or tv shows in the works, and not even (so far as I could determine) any tour dates, either.

But Dave, we have never needed you more. And dude, you just know the material writes itself. I mean, terrorist fist jab? Baby mama? The end of bling? With fodder like that, you can't go wrong! It's comedy gold, my friend, and you know it.

Come back to television, Dave. The only way we sane Americans will be to survive the batshit crazy racist bullshit coming down will be if we can laugh at it. And I know of no living person in America who has been more brilliantly, groundbreakingly hilarious about race than you.

Your country needs you, Dave. Your return to television would be the highest form of patriotism. Come back, before the entire goddamn country loses its shit.

For card check; against Mickey Kaus

By Kathy G.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I've been feeling a tad under the weather and somewhat depressed. Probably a bit of blogger burn out as well, to tell you the truth.

But I just finished reading yet another stupefyingly lame and ignorant union-bashing post by Mickey Kaus, and that definitely got my juices flowing. Yes, Ann Coulter's arm candy is at it again, making the same smug, ill-informed arguments he always makes on this topic. And actually, they're not even really arguments -- to describe those verbal burps of his as an "argument" bestows on them a dignity they in no way deserve. They're more like half-assed gestures toward an argument, really. Mickey don't do much intellectual heavy lifting these days, and that's putting it mildly.

When it comes to unions, Kaus's style of "argument" is as follows: he'll seize upon some random news story concerning (almost always) either the schools or the auto industry. If test scores are down or Ford or GM is doing poorly, it's always, always the union's fault -- and that's true whether or not the union was even mentioned in the story. He almost never considers alternative explanations or complicating factors. And he certainly never bothers to get off his lazy ass and look at what the social science research says about the subject.

Case in point: today's post, in which he trashes card check and bashes unions because the UAW is resisting a change in Ford's manufacturing system that apparently would improve efficiency.

And that's it. That's his entire argument. All right, he does throw in some bullshit about how card check destroys the sacredness of the secret ballot. And he extends his anti-union "argument" somewhat by implying that unions are inefficient in general and that "the Wagner Act is not designed for an era of continuous change and improvement."

The Wagner Act took effect in 1935. Is Kaus seriously trying to argue that there was no "change and improvement" -- no technological innovation or efficiency improvements, is what he means, I guess -- between, say, '35 and '45? Or '35 and '55? Or '35 and whatever year it was that we suddenly stopped needing unions?

Note to Jacob Weisberg

By Kathy G.

Dear Jacob Weisberg,

I'm really curious about something: did Ann Coulter's arm candy, Mickey Kaus ever save your life? Lend you a kidney, maybe? Or perhaps he is the sole possessor of certain letters and photos involving matters that, shall we say, might be considered sensitive?

Because unless you owe him something, bigtime, I can't for the life of me explain why you allow him to take up space on your bandwidth or keep him on your payroll.

Case in point: yesterday, Mickey was flogging the sleazy "John Edwards love child" tabloid rumor. Again. As he had done just two days before. As he has done at least 30 times since October.

You might want to take Mickey aside and gently explain to him that John Edwards has been out of the race for almost three months now. And while you're at it, you might also want to let him know that tabloids aren't necessarily your most credible news source. Because they would never just make shit up, right? Or publish trumped up stories planted by someone's political enemies? 'Cause that would be unheard of, as we know.

Of course, maybe you think that Slate's reputation is well-served if it becomes famous for laundering tabloid stories for mainstream consumption. But if that's the case, Slate is, sadly, falling down on the job. Why, just last week, one of the supermarket tabloids had a front page story on George W. Bush's secret love child. And this week, we are treated to tabloid headlines about two candidates who are actually still in the race: Barack Obama (who's "cheating") and Hillary Clinton (having a "gay affair", doncha know). Where was Slate on these breaking stories, I ask you? Enquiring minds want to know!

And hey, as long as we're talking love children, we might as well dig up that old chestnut about Bill Clinton's alleged African-American love child. Good times!

But if wall-to-wall sleaze isn't really what Slate is going for, well . . . let's just say Mickey's little hobby leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. As to what other contributions his blog is making -- well, you tell me. 'Cause really, I would loooove to hear it.

Dahlia Lithwick, I feel your pain.

Sincerely,
Kathy G.

Mickey Kaus's creepy obsession

By Kathy G.

Ann Coulter's arm candy, Mickey Kaus, is at it again.

Kaus is pathetically trying to pimp the "John Edwards love child" story One. Mo'. Time.

For those of you sensible enough to avoid reading Mickey Kaus (and I'm guessing that's most of you), the John Edwards mistress/love child tabloid story has been Kaus's number one obsession this primary season. He's mentioned it at least 29 times since October, as you can see here. And this for a blogger who doesn't bother to post more than a couple of times a week. It's an even more powerful obsession for him than the perfidy of teachers' unions or the world-historic evil of Ezra "command and control" Klein.

Mickey can't understand why the mainstream media ignored the story. How about, oh, I don't know -- that the story is bogus?  Anyone remember the "Kerry had an affair with an intern" bullshit that surfaced briefly in the tabloids and on Drudge during the 2004 primary? The story died because it lacked substance, and it seems likely that that's why the Edwards story died as well.

And besides that -- has Mickey noticed that Edwards is no longer in the race?

Mickey's latest excuse for dredging up this sleazy story is Elizabeth Edwards' op-ed taking the media to task for its mind-bogglingly vacuous and altogether craptastic coverage of the primary campaign. Mickey whines that it's unfair for Elizabeth to criticize the media because the press "cut her and her husband a huge break" on the love child story

A few responses to that:

1. So far as anyone other than the parties involved is concerned, there is no good evidence that the rumor is even true (unless Mickey has his own private stash of letters, photos, and taped phone conversations, which, given his level of obsession with this, wouldn't surprise me.)

2. Even if it is true, it's unlikely Elizabeth knows about it.

3. Even supposing that: a) it's true and b) Elizabeth does indeed know about it -- what is the point? Is Elizabeth responsible for her husband's allegedly wandering genitals? If she's a cheated on spouse, does that mean she has no right to criticize the media about anything?

I suppose Bill Clinton has no right to take the media to task, either -- because as we all know, there is a vast media conspiracy devoted to covering up the well-known stories of Hillary Clinton's voracious lesbian appetites.

Of course, Mickey never bothers to actually address Elizabeth's argument. Because this is something he almost never does. There's no evidence of intellectual heavy lifting on his blog, ever, about anything. He constantly makes smug assumptions that he assumes his readers must share, almost never offering up any supporting details. For instance, whenever he writes about unions, he decries union "work rules" that  allegedly hamper productivity. But he seems unaware that the best research shows that unionized firms on average are not any less productive than their nonunionized counterparts, not less.

Obviously, the reason why Kaus never addresses Edwards' argument is that he himself is a prime example of the vapid, pea-brained media coverage she deplores. Kaus's recent fixation with just how much of an arrogant snob Barack Obama is, is exhibit A of this tendency. 

Kaus's nasty smears concerning the love child story are especially rich given that just last week, he blasted Joe Conason for Joe's "sleazy" 1992 reporting on George H.W. Bush's alleged extramarital adventures. And Kaus has the balls to bitch about Elizabeth's "chutzpah?"

The lack of self-knowledge constantly on display by so many media types never ceases to amaze me.

Overall, I'd have to say -- good job, Mickey! Obviously, it's much more important that you to try to smear, discredit and humiliate Elizabeth than ever have to address the serious, troubling, and entirely sensible argument she makes.

I'm an inveterate matchmaker, and a brilliant idea just occurred to me: how about pairing up perennial  bachelor Mickey Kaus with perennial bachelorette Maureen Dowd? Their dinner conversations would be scintillating, I'm sure. Maureen and Mickey can take turns -- first she can talk about Bill Clinton's cock and then he can talk about John Edwards' cock.  They  can break it up occasionally by talking about how Hillary Clinton is a ball-busting bitch and Barack Obama is an effete latte-sipping snob.

It sounds like a match made in heaven to me!

Inequality: how'd that happen?!

In a recent post, Mickey Kaus attacks Barack Obama for blaming the middle-class squeeze on, in Obama's words, "a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests." But Kaus attributes inequality to something entirely different. Sayeth Mickey:

I would tend to blame ... increasing returns to skill produced by trade and technological change! They are hard to personify and demonize--they're just problematic trends we all need to confront.

That is a deeply problematic statement. Yes, a decade or so ago most economists probably would have attributed ever-growing levels of inequality to increasing returns to skill produced by trade and technology. But Mickey, the World's Most Annoying Democratic Concern Troll™, obviously hasn't been paying much attention lately, which is not surprising.

Kaus, whose brain seemed to stop functioning sometime during the Reagan era, is not exactly doing a lot of intellectual heavy lifting these days. Because if he were, he'd know that more and more economists and policy types are coming around to the view that something other than "increasing returns to skill" is going on here. The short answer to why our society is experiencing near-record levels of economic inequality? It's the politics, stupid.

It's not that the "increasing returns to skill" hypothesis is wrong, exactly. But it's woefully incomplete. The increasing returns to skill hypothesis posits that technological change, trade, and the outsourcing of low-skill labor has led to an increase in demand for skilled workers relative to unskilled workers. And since the supply of low-skill workers is large relative to demand, their wages have declined, while at the same time, wages of college-educated workers have increased (at least relative to non-college educated workers), because demand is outpacing supply.