Final Debate (Laphamized Whining)
I know the debate hasn’t started yet but no matter, Obama won. Of course McCain won among FoxNews viewers, Drudge and Instapundit readers, uh-counters, Freepers and anyone who actually paid attention to what was said. None of that matters because Obama won big among the coveted can’t-see past their noses middle without whom no one, least of all a Republican candidate in a rabidly anti-Republican election cycle, can ever win. Time to welcome the new overlords, and say hello to the 21st Century’s answer to the Great Depression and the new Warren Court.
You read it here first.
UPDATE: I was wrong on one count: it sounded like McCain committed more false starts than Obama, including an amusing spoonerism. Otherwise, I think the pre-mortem was about right. Meanwhile, we learn that Sarah Palin has a pretty good excuse for not having confronted the guy who yelled “kill him!” at a recent rally: he doesn’t exist. <church-lady>Isn’t that convenient?</church-lady> Of course, no one will care. Like Joe Biden’s made-up version of the Constitution, all that matters is that it sounded good during the debate, not whether it’s true or not.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Sick.
Anwyn´s last blog post..Rachel Watches Chilling and Soul-Crushing Videos So I Don’t Have To
October 16th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Sheesh! No sour grapes here, no sir!
October 16th, 2008 at 12:55 am
What?
Sour grapes are for when I don’t win the HGTV Dream Home drawing. Being upset at the real impact on our lives that the real consequences of the real actions of the real jerks at the helm will produce should Obama be elected and surrounded by a filibuster-proof congressional Democrat majority is not sour grapes; it is rational concern.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Anwyn:
Wasn’t accusing you of sour grapes. Was accusing Xrlq of it. And based on his title, I think he recognized it as such, too.
October 16th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Yes, I could see you were talking about the post. I think it’s ridiculous to write off any negative vibe about McCain losing as “sour grapes” for the reason I outlined above.
October 16th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
So was it equally ridiculous to accuse liberals of sour grapes after 2004?
October 17th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Dude, unless anybody did that here, specifically Xrlq or me, I’d say it’s irrelevant.
October 17th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Sorry, but when you accuse people of liking the other guy because they “can’t see past their noses,” as if they can’t possibly have legitimate reasons for liking him, and gripe about how this is all going to lead to a new Great Depression (despite the fact that most of the likely-to-lead-to-depression moves are being made by your team right now), that’s sour grapes in my book.
And as for the Warren Court, which conservative justice is likely to retire in the next four or even eight years? Seems to me that the worst case is you replace a liberal with another liberal, and preserve the court’s current makeup. The two oldest currently-sitting justices are liberals Stephens (88) and Ginsburg (75). After that you’ve got Scalia (also 72), who’s going to have to die or be forcibly removed from the bench, and Kennedy (72), who leans conservative. (Of course, with the Warren Court responsible for such godawful rulings as Brown v. Board of Education and Griswold v. Connecticut, I can see why conservatives would have irrational fear of a repeat…)
October 17th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I prefer to confine the use of the phrase “sour grapes” to its original meaning, i.e., a false denial of the desirability of that which one cannot attain. This is different from generalized bitching about being unable to attain it. I consider this post to be an example of the latter, not the former. Yes, I bitched up a storm about McCain having no chance of winning (FWIW I’m a little more cautious in my pessimism now) but I don’t think anything I said can be reasonably construed as saying that the proverbial grapes were sour anyway. As you know (this being one of those issues where we frequently agree), more than a few conservatives have gone to great lengths to convince themselves that an Obama would be better for movement conservatives in the long run. I am not one of those conservatives myself.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Methinks you’ve confused sour grapes with two other popular fruits, i.e., apples and oranges. Even if the reference to voters who can’t see past their noses really were directed toward all Obama supporters, and not to dunderheads like the ones interviewed on Howard Stern (or, for that matter, any voters who haven’t made up their minds by now), it would still have nothing to do with sour grapes. I want them to vote for McCain. They’d still be idiots, but at least they’d be useful idiots.
We can talk about the merits of the Obama depression and the forthcoming Warren Court later. First I’d rather put the sour grapes canard to rest.
October 17th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Point taken on the expression “sour grapes.” Seems your title was indeed more accurate, though I would have said “insufferable” whining. (Of course, I’m sure you consider “Lapham” and “insufferable” to be synonymous…)
October 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I’m more inclined to say the terms are hyponymous, i.e., all things Lapham are insufferable, but not all things insufferable have anything to do with Lapham. In this case, my whining probably was more insufferable than it would have been if the post had not been Laphamized, as I am cautiously pessimistic now, vs. unmitigatedly pessimistic at the time I Laphamized the debate.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Griswold was a truly stupid decision; the best it did was give us the phrase “uncommonly silly,” and that was from the dissent. Brown v. Board of Education was nice in that it abolished the odious separate but equal rule, but seeing as it was unanimous I don’t think we needed Earl Warren to accomplish that. It was also much too long, and much too laden with goofy social “science.” A much shorter “OK, we fucked up with Plessy v. Ferguson, so let’s go back to reading the Fourteenth Amendment rather than explaining it away” would have been a lot better.
The rest will be addressed in a new post.
November 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
[...] Oddly-Spelled Jeff: I know the debate hasn’t started yet but no matter, Obama won. Of course McCain won among FoxNews viewers, Drudge and Instapundit readers, uh-counters, Freepers and anyone who actually paid attention to what was said. None of that matters because Obama won big among the coveted can’t-see past their noses middle without whom no one, least of all a Republican candidate in a rabidly anti-Republican election cycle, can ever win. Time to welcome the new overlords, and say hello to the 21st Century’s answer to the Great Depression and the new Warren Court. [...]