Comments on: Some sense on Spain

By: Chris Lightfoot

Chris Lightfoot — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:41:22 +0000

Harry—from the data I have, I wouldn’t want to reach any very firm conclusions. But given that polls before the bombing indicated a PSOE lead, I no longer think there’s much to explain.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:18:16 +0000

I don’t believe you, Turner. First disown the content of the last al Qaeda tape. On a serious level I’m glad you were joking. I woke up on the wrong (humorless, anal, nit-picky) side of the bed yesterday morning when I made these comments.

By: Matthew Turner

Matthew Turner — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 09:47:36 +0000

Thanks for the link. 1. It’s not meant to be a fair sample, Rajeev. I think Matt’s ‘fair’ comment is addressed at Chris for this post, not me. 2. Rajeev, Matt, the comment, “the views expressed are pretty easy to find, and until ‘decent’ Americans disown them I’ll have to assume they have some relevance” is a joke, at the expense of those on the pro-war side who insist that anti-war folks or ‘decent muslims’ disown every comment their more hysterical allies might say. I don’t for one second think anyone has to apologise for these nutcases, except perhaps their parents.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:27:16 +0000

True about Turner’s “disowning” comment—a bad card no matter who plays it. Still, I think there has been some comment that is rightly described as “foaming at the mouth.” The very column Chris praises criticizes the results of the elections: The group [of those who were angry at Aznar’s handling of the bombing]’s vengeance was terrible for Spain and the war on terror, but its effect was disproportionate. So I still think this site is being fair enough to conservatives. Only you, of course, can make the decision as to whether reading it is worth the pain. :-)

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:12:19 +0000

Yabonn: If America instituted siestas, I do think I would get more pondering done, and make less inchoate comments like mine above. The world would be a better place.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:52:12 +0000

rajeev, “I must say: I’m having trouble “enduring” your posts about “enduring” the right” Try more “siestas”. Good for “pondering” things, have i heard recently.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:29:08 +0000

Turner is hardly the fair man you make him out to be, Matt. When someone called him out on citing the underground, he responded with: “…the views expressed are pretty easy to find, and until ‘decent’ Americans disown them I’ll have to assume they have some relevance” That’s absurd. As an American I shouldn’t have to explicitly disown every lunatic/fascist/racist argument made by my roughly 300 million fellow citizens. Also, when Chris says US commentators have been “foaming at the mouth” he’s referring to those who criticized the outcome of the Spanish elections, most of whom are right-wing or otherwise pro-war. His “foaming” comment simply reinforces the stale notion that most of these individuals are silly bellicose apes. Maybe he didn’t mean it this way; but I’m sure I’m not the only one who read it this way. Put differently, he has not demonstrated to me, in previous posts or this one, that he understands the right or the liberal hawks. Perhaps I just don’t read him regularly enough. Finally, I don’t think I’ll take your advice and only read what pleases me. That would be a bit boring, wouldn’t it?

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 19:35:15 +0000

Well, Chris said that Matthew Turner was giving “some of the worst examples,” Turner himself in comments on his blog that he’s cherry-picking loonies, Chris cites a pro-war commentator, Henry gave especial praise to the pro-war Jacob Levy, and Chris didn’t say that the “foaming at the mouth” was universal on the right—in fact, no word meaning “conservative” appears in his post. So I’d say that he’s being fair to conservatives, and if you don’t like the attacks on some of the worse arguments being put forth by some conservatives no one’s forcing you to read the site.

By: William

William — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:40:19 +0000

Chris! His name isn’t “Andrew Northrup”, it’s “The Editors”.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:37:59 +0000

So who paid TCS for that column?

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:20:28 +0000

Matthew Turner presents the issue as though the North American right’s reaction to Spain was total lunacy, when really he’s just quoting the odd-balls. It’s a reprehensible brand of elitism. In my view, many incisive views of the events in Spain came from the pro-war crowd and they have not received due credit. John Quiggin’s last post paralleled observations made by some on the right two days prior (see my comment there). I appreciate your quoting one reasonable right of center author on the Spain issue. But I must say: I’m having trouble “enduring” your posts about “enduring” the right, when you obviously have not read them very thoroughly if you think it’s so much “foaming at the mouth.”

By: Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:18:26 +0000

I had assumed the “feeback forums” alone were enough to qualify TCS as a loony bin.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:49:35 +0000

“bastion of lunacy” was a reference not to Iain but to TechCentralStation, on which I refer you to the excellent parodies by Andrew Northrup: 1 href=”http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_galileo.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_galileo.html, 2 href=”http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_kitchen.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_kitchen.html, and 3 href=”http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_transnational_progressivism.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.thepoorman.net/tcs_parody/tcs_transnational_progressivism.html . The trouble is that the recent ravings of their columnists (see Lee Harris especially) are beyond parody.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:40:03 +0000

chris lightfoot—thanks your post is a help, as I had also had that thought (which holds, I understand, both in the UK and the US). Do the following two factors together suffice to account for the victory: continued decline in PP polls from before the bombing, and margin of error?

By: Richard Vagge

Richard Vagge — Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:29:52 +0000

Chris, Does the use of the term “bastion of lunacy ” represent the level of cordialness in your past relationship? It may be why you never won him over. Just a thought. Richard