Wednesday November 02, 2011

COFFEE BREAK OVER, EVERYBODY BACK ON YOUR HEADS. A few weeks back we looked in on The Anchoress and Rod Dreher, two rightwing God-botherers who nonetheless seemed to have been slightly intoxicated by a whiff of American Autumn -- The Anchoress declaring "those who support capitalism and free markets have a responsibility to demand that manufacturers and suppliers do the right thing," like Jesse Jackson or something, and Dreher siding with Occupy Wall Street against Rand Paul.

Could it last? Are they distributing hand warmers at the encampments, or at least boycotting grapes for old times' sake? Let's see what they're up to now:

The Anchoress:

A lot of people on Twitter are swooning over [Herman Cain singing at the National Press Club]. Some are declaring that “Cain just won the election!”

Which is silly nonsense. He hasn’t even won the nomination, yet.

Having said that, though, Cain has just struck a note that will resonate for many in the country, particularly African Americans in the churches. Don’t minimize the effect his lovely basso profundo will have on people who are looking for something a little human, a little authentic and a little consoling. Do not underestimate the impact this stirring little ditty will have on some.

Fifty years from now, there'll be a giant statue in Washington of Cain emerging from a rock with "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" chiseled on the side.

Later The Anchoress takes on liberal media bias. You'll find it in the most surprising places!

Former First Lady Laura Bush, and former first daughters Jenna and Barbara have been included in Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year issue.

That’s nice. Surprising. I can’t help wondering, though, why the magazine known for its photos has chosen such a cramped, graceless and uncomfortable-looking one to illustrate their story.

I mean, these are all-three beautiful, poised women. Glamour has them looking like they need to find a loo. Ah, well, what else would we expect, I guess? The other “Women of the Year” fare much better — their pictures are uniformly excellent, spacious, graceful and complimentary — but I guess Glamour couldn’t bring themselves to praise these three women without punishing them, as well, so they served up this unflattering pic.

Wait for it...

Small potatoes? Sure. But still, how petty.

In The Anchoress' world, self-awareness is a mortal sin. Now on to Dreher, who unsurprisingly has fallen hard for that David Brooks "Blue Inequality-Red Inequality" column with which Charles Pierce mopped the deck earlier. Brother Rod feels the spirit, especially the bit about the poor Red chillen suffering from their special Inequality because they have been prevented from getting married and Christening their babies by something or other:

It’s easy to scapegoat the one percent, in part because they really do deserve a lot more critical attention, but also because nobody loves them. It’s far, far more difficult to talk about the other things, because that involves making hard judgments about moral and cultural values, which, generally speaking, liberals don’t like to do (unless it’s against the white working class), and about facing how economic conditions can work against a building a culture of strong families and moral stability — something that most conservatives would prefer not to face. You could confiscate all the money of the top one percent and distribute among the bottom 99 percent, and that would do little to nothing to address this deeper culture of inequality Brooks identifies.

Well, if you also told them, "Get a marriage certificate and this 100 grand is yours," I think that might move the needle. Also, Dreher tells us that bastard Corzine is a Democrat. Fight the real enemy!

As an add-on, let us briefly treat (not successfully, I'm not a clinical psychologist) Megan McArdle, whose Occupy Wall Street post is more or less David Brooks', but stuffed with extra self-regarding prattle, and with a decent respect for your betters (I'm not being colloquial, she means your betters) standing in for God. Excerpt:

Similarly, in the 1990s, when I worked with a lot of mostly blue-collar and first-generation college grads (with a fair sprinkling of Ivy Leaguers, to be sure)...

Can't you just see them at the Blarney Stone, knocking back boilermakers and talking derivatives?

...I didn't hear nearly so much about the rich and how greedy they were--even though in the late 1990s, income inequality was almost certainly worse than it is right now.

Things were rough in the days of the Clinton boom, I tell ya. We didn't have iPods! But wait for it...

As IT consultants...

One is tempted to flip all the cards and call it a night, but let's upshoot this with a parting Shorter: All the OWS kids are just jealous, not like me, and my friend George Orwell agrees.