Friday, April 03, 2009

Done

My second favorite NFL team is the Philadelphia Eagles. I have two reasons for liking the Eagles. First, the University of Pennsylvania, when it was kind enough to invite me to be a visiting professor there, rescued me from Freddie Mac. Second, while I always liked Donovan McNabb, I came to especially like him when Rush Limbaugh opined on ESPN that McNabb was overrated because he was black. It was the very first thing Rush had to say when commenting on the NFL--not that the man has a race obsession or anything.

I thought about this over the past weekend when an op-ed piece in the LA Times challenged liberals to listen to Rush for a day before making a judgment about him. Many years ago, thinking that it was important to understand the points of view of others, I tried listening to Rush, and could never last more than five minutes, because that is how long it took before I concluded that he was either a racist or a sexist.

But I continue to think that it is important to get out of the cocoon and find out what the rest of the world is thinking. And no, David Brooks doesn't count.

I therefore from time-to-time read The Corner on the National Review's web site; I watch O' Reilly on occasion; I read Mickey Kaus (although I think I like to read him much the way I liked to pick at scabs as a child) and I read the Wall Street Journal editorial page every day.

I just can't do the WSJ editorial page anymore. On the one hand, it accused Eric Holder of politicizing the justice department because the department came to the conclusion that giving residents of the District of Columbia the basic human right of voting for congressional representation to be Constitutional (I know reps are supposed to come from the states, but that is in the original. The 14th amendment has a little item called the equal protection clause). On the other hand, it also accused Eric Holder of being political because his justice department overturned the Bush Administration's prosecution of a Republican Senator. You would think that they might grudgingly admit that occasionally Holder just tries to do the right thing.

2 comments:

  1. I am a conservative and can't bring myself to read the corner. Most of the flagship conservative publications/websites are atrocious. Sadly there are precious few worth reading.

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