The Overpaid Army

I suppose it's self-evident that the Supreme Court Senate nominating process is an excellent illustration of Bourdieu's notion of "censorship," that is, of how rare it is to ever see anyone ever say anything other than what they are authorized to say according to the prevailing politics of the field in which they are playing. Like, duh. Or are we supposed to believe that anyone really gives a shit about the "wise Latina" crap? Sotomayor is a very moderate, if slightly "liberal" judge, and everyone knows it, but we must have the theater! Just like we did with Alito and Roberts.

The difference with Alito and Roberts, though, is that there was a concerted wingnut attempt to pretend they were moderates, though they're pretty far right. With Sotomayor, there is a concerted wingnut attempt to pretend she's radical, though she's not all too far to the left. That both sets of attempts equal in intensity what they exhibit in ludicrousness tells us a lot about our polity, which is, namely, that it's stupid, because I have to say, the media and the administration show lots of buy-in for the wingnut frame. Just saying. 

On another issue, just to make clear, yeah, Jonah Goldberg really does believe he isn't a joke. For instance:

I can’t begin to tell you how edifying it is to hear stories, almost on a daily basis, about how the book is being included in college courses. I’ve spoken to university seminars on it. College kids are constantly writing me for papers they’re doing, and civics teachers are incorporating stuff from the book. That feels so much more concrete to me than bestseller lists and blog spats.

He doesn't even know he's a mark. Impressive, really.