Daily Archives: May 2, 2017

The only people who cant recognize that our nation has a smug liberal problem are smug liberals. Case in point, smug liberal (and television comedienne) Samantha Bee. On Sunday, CNNs Jake Tapper asked Bee to react to a pre-election Ross Douthat column that called out Bee and other late-night comics in part for creating a comedy world of hectoring monologues, full of comedians who are less comics than propagandists liberal explanatory journalists with laugh lines.

Were all familiar with the style. It features the generous use of selective clips from Fox News, copious amounts of mockery, and a quick Wikipedia- and Google-search level of factual understanding. The basic theme is always the same: Look at how corrupt, evil, and stupid our opponents are, look how obviously correct we are, and laugh at my marvelous and clever explanatory talent. Its like sitting through an especially ignorant and heavy-handed Ivy League lecture, complete with the sycophantic crowd lapping up every word.

Bee, the host of TBSs Full Frontal, of course, couldnt see the problem and not only told Tapper that she didnt think there was a smug-liberal problem, she also howlingly added that in her own show, We always err on the side of comedy.

Yep, they sure are hilarious (language warning):

The irony is that at the exact moment when Bee was denying Americas smug-liberal problem, smug liberals were in full meltdown mode over Bret Stephenss first column for New York Times. Stephens is a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, anti-Trump conservative, and a former columnist for the Wall Street Journal. In his essay for the Times, Stephens had the audacity to gasp address the possibility of scientific uncertainty in the climate-change debate.

Lets be clear about what Stephens actually said. Heres his summary of the current state of climate science:

While the modest (0.85 degrees Celsius, or about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warming of the Northern Hemisphere since 1880 is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming, much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities. Thats especially true of the sophisticated but fallible models and simulations by which scientists attempt to peer into the climate future.

Heres the translation: Science teaches us that humans have helped cause global warming, but when we try to forecast the extent of the warming and its effects on our lives, the certainty starts to recede. In addition, the activism has gotten ahead of the science. Indeed, Stephens even quotes the New York Times own environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin, who has observed that he saw a widening gap between what scientists had been learning about global warming and what advocates were claiming as they pushed ever harder to pass climate legislation.

Not only did the hyperbole not fit the science at the time, but Stephens writes censoriously asserting ones moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.

As if on cue, parts of liberal Twitter melted down. Stephens was instantly treated as, yes, an imbecile and a deplorable. Not only did the vast majority of commentators ignore his argument, they treated it as beneath contempt. But can anyone actually doubt that climate predictions are uncertain? Does anyone doubt that climate activists rhetoric has far outstripped not just the scientific consensus but even the bounds of good sense? This 2008 Good Morning America report is just too funny not to repost:

Note that GMAs dystopian future with Manhattan sinking under the waves is set in 2015.

Bizarrely, even the commentary calling for Stephenss head inadvertently make his point. For example, David Roberts writes in Vox that the New York Times should not have hired climate change bullshitter Bret Stephens, but buried in the middle of Robertss harangue is this to be sure paragraph:

Of course we are never certain about anything. Of course scientists have been wrong before. And of course climate science especially when it tries to project damages at smaller temporal and geographic scales, like the next several decades is filled with probabilities and uncertainties.

Umm, yes, and thats exactly why we need to ask hard questions about proposed solutions rather than simply accepting environmentalist propaganda at face value.

Liberal dogma is rapidly becoming a secular religion, a faith that conspicuously omits any requirement that one love his enemies. Christians have long struggled to keep one of Christs most difficult commands, but many leftists dont even try. To many, its not even a virtue. Indeed, the same kind of vitriol is a hallmark of the post-religious Right and is part of the explanation for extreme polarization. Post-Christian countries eschew Christian values, including the very values that can and should prevent even the most ardent activists from becoming arrogant...and intolerant.

Yes, there is a smug-liberal problem in America, one that smart liberals recognize. Stephens is right. You dont win converts with mockery. You can sometimes win grudging compliance, but you mainly make enemies especially when your mockery reveals your own ignorance and inconsistency. But as we know, the smug liberal doesnt care. They want to make enemies. After all, how do they measure their own virtue? When the Right rages, they rejoice. The unbelievers deserve their pain.

David French is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.

Excerpt from:

America's 'Smug-Liberal Problem' - National Review

BRUSSELS/PARIS If Emmanuel Macron wins Sunday's French presidential run-off, Europe's pro-EU liberals will finally have their champion.

For centrists who have been licking their wounds since Britain voted to quit the EU a year ago, the 39-year-old will be the gallant young hero who slew the most dangerous populist dragon of them all, the National Front's Marine Le Pen.

From a Paris dinner party with the young leaders of Belgium and Luxembourg, to a conspicuous Twitter bromance with Italy's ex-premier Matteo Renzi, Macron has already built a circle of likeminded peers, unafraid to promote closer EU integration at a time when voters are being tempted by the hard right and left.The young leaders present themselves as fresh faces, free of 20th-century baggage of left-right class war.

But to fulfill their dream of a reinvigorated Europe, they still need to win over leaders from the old school, above all Germany's Angela Merkel.

One senior German official said Macron's youthful stardust could give France some "Kennedy-esque" optimism. But the official also injected a skeptical note: Berlin was "willing to talk about Europe", he said, "but the discussion has to be about responsibility as well as solidarity."

ERASMUS GENERATION

Macron discussed his plans for Europe at a private dinner party in March at the home of a French TV celebrity, attended by Belgium's 41-year-old Prime Minister Charles Michel and Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, 44.

"It was a moment for sharing our commitments on Europe," Michel told Reuters of the dinner, which was kept secret until word leaked out in April. "In the coming months, we're going to have to relaunch the European project ... and for that we will need partners."

The three men are part of the first generation of European leaders to come of age with the benefits of EU citizenship.

"We are the Erasmus generation," Michel told Reuters, referring to an EU exchange program that lets students attend universities in other countries across the bloc.

As France's youngest-ever president, Macron would step into the shoes vacated by Italy's youngest-ever prime minister, Renzi, who also took office at 39 and who stepped down last year after losing a referendum on constitutional reform.

"Bravo to @matteorenzi," Macron tweeted this week. "Together we will change Europe with all the progressives."

Renzi tweeted back: "Thank you dear Emmanuel. We are with you."

The Paris dinner party, held at Macron's invitation at the home of a TV personality Stephane Bern, a friend of Bettel, showed how the new generation of leaders is comfortable dispensing with the formality of traditional diplomacy.

"Everything's got more informal," one person familiar with the dinner said. "They've all got each other's mobile numbers. They text all the time."

Guy Verhofstadt, the liberal former Belgian prime minister, Brexit negotiator and champion of more federal EU powers, sees in Macron not just an ally who wants to end old habits of state-to-state wrangling in the EU, but an example of how social media and networking is changing policymaking -- and maybe policy too.

"Political action will completely change," Verhofstadt said.

Still, however they may be buoyed by a Macron victory, the young liberals will have a steep hill to climb to achieve a broad consensus for closer EU integration.

The historically unpopular outgoing president, Francois Hollande, failed to achieve similar aims in Europe and stands as a conspicuous example of how difficult it could be for Macron to persuade the French to back him.

All roads to EU change still run through Berlin, where proposals will be met with caution even if Merkel loses re-election this year to her center-left, EU enthusiast challenger Martin Schulz. Germans widely see French deficit spending as a threat to the euro.

Michel, Bettel and liberal Dutch premier Mark Rutte, 50, have jointly proposed an outline for EU reform to be debated after Brexit. It calls for faster integration of some states in a "multispeed Europe", an idea that Germany was long cool to but which Merkel has lately signaled she might consider.

Some senior Benelux officials hope for revival of Franco-German harmony. They see a possible "grand bargain" where former banker Macron can eventually persuade Berlin that France can be trusted not to let deficits balloon if Germany is willing to drop its resistance to backing a share of other states' debt.

A person close to Macron described the dinner on March 5 as a private meeting between like-minded young European reformers: "It was part of his European outreach efforts."

"There is common ground," he said, while stressing Macron would not limit himself to such alliances. "They support Macrons plans to inject new momentum into the European project and he supports the message sent out by the Benelux countries."

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Peter Graff)

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday moved to ease the tension from U.S. air strikes in April against Russian ally Syria, expressing a desire for a Syrian ceasefire and safe zones for the civil war's refugees.

BERLIN German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday canceled a trip to the United States and summoned top military officials to discuss a spate of army scandals after the arrest of an officer suspected of planning a racially motivated attack.

Read the original:

Generation Macron: Young liberal EU leaders rally behind French 'Kennedy' - Reuters