"The media wanted the Newsweek story to be true"

Kinda sums it up.

You're not going to say "shadow media", are you?

Holy crap, did your guest say we're not allowed to "violate the tenets of the Muslim faith" at Gitmo?

Dhimmi.

Ah, I was simulcommenting in the wrong thread. :)

Good point from Anderson about how Bush critics used to rail against our intel network for failing America on 9/11 but now rail against our intel networks saying, "Don't touch the prisoners!"

Serious double standard.

Good point, someone, but they seem to be veering away from that precipice now.

What the hell is going on with the caller?!

Uh... that was weird. I was getting bizarre distortions and doubled-up voices for a bit. Shutting down the media player and restarting seemed to fix it. Sorry.

Hey Ace, where's the outrage about the interrogation stuff?

This isn't fun and games. This is about our butts getting blown up.

I'd hazard a guess that he meant we can't serve them pork disguised as chicken. Or falafels fried in lard.

Thankfully we don't have to explore that right now.

Ace and Karol are doing a much better job this week. Sounds a lot more professional.

Yeah, it's a lot smoother.

First caller was me. Did something screw up on the phone line?

Oh Snap Ace........She cut you off and shut you down. And of course the stumbling for words did not help either. Note to self drink more 5 dollar vodka before going on air.

Joey Ramone was cool and all, but I want to hear about Kid Rock and his un-invitation to the White House.

First break *** Like the guitars.

The show's actually pretty good, but I'm not sure it makes up for the dip in posting the funny.

Great call, Utron.

Utron -

I think it was just my connection. I didn't hear your call because the feed started distorting badly for me.

Utron -

Came through loud and clear to me. Good call.

Okay this is emerging as the clear thread for dscussion. (In the future Ace should designate one.) So I'll move up here from the one below.

Did ace just say a profane word?

I didn't catch it

Uh oh. Ace dropped the BS Bomb. No replay?

See-Dub, you should call and make that point on us actually being pretty socially conservative.

Ha, Ace said "Bullshit"! Awesome!

i thought i heard him say bullsh*t....no f-bombs yet

See, I don't like where this meme is going. Social conservatism and South Park are NOT mutually exclusive.

Jeff puts in a crank call.

Goldstein just fu'd 'em on purpose the flaming bastard!

effing hate liberals

hee!

Dude, mention today's DVD release -- Team America.

The greatest defense of the Bush Doctrine ever.

Can't call today. For various reasons.

Besides, Cedarford says I'm a religious right tool.

America, FUCK YEAH!

Do the song! Do the song!

Karol's never seen Team America?

It was probably someone pretending to be Jeff just to sully his good name. Or a technological conspiracy or RighTalk censorship.

Oh Snap Ace.....She cut you off and shut you down. Of course stumbling for words does not help. Not to self, drink more dime store vodka before going on air.

Other than that I would say stellar performance.

Team America gets the plug! someone is psychic.

"idiosycratic bloggers"

Sully?

um, not really.

WHAT!?!!?

Sully? Insty?

WTF Ace. Are you actually giving props to Excitable Andy? Who the hell are you? I don't know who the fuck you are anymore.

Nice cough, Ace.

(But justified, totally.)

prank call? weak

Waitasec, was that Ace or did I just get confused?

I think Brian Anderson doesn't spend much time actually analyzing blogs and blog content. That or his working definition of conservative is deeply, deeply flawed.

I'm a social conservative and a SP conservative.

SP conservative does not equal libertarian

What? I'm a social conservative. The last thing on my agenda is cable reform. I'm interested in shutting down the worst excesses of obscenity and child porn and I'm not gonna waste time on mildly indecent cable broadcasts.

No, it was the guest who fellated Sully.

But Ace is being too deferential to his guests.

hobgob -

100% agreed. This requires deeper analysis, or it would if we were as self-obsessed as liberals.

Ace is cribbing his own material with that "going the way of the Whigs" comment. Actually, cribbing more of his own material isn't a bad idea.

"Any party looking to take away the boobie cable channel from red-blooded American males is a party looking to go the way of the whigs."

Ha! So true.

More like that, please.

You were confused, as per usual. Perhaps you don't know Ace anymore because it wasn't him.

Ah Megan, your charming stupidity just makes me love you more.

ace is being polite to his guest, megan.

he's not going for that whole "I will badger you into submission" O'Reilly vibe

agree with hobgoblin, i've gotten the same impression reading some of other anderson write ups

Apparently, the word 'bull-shit' is permitted

Thanks for the heads-up, someone.

Bill - eat me. :)

Stop interrupting and grunting agreement.

megan, we don't need to analyze this stuff. But a putative expert on the issue should.

Bwahaha. "that conservatives knew how to read"

Great shot.

Totally right, hob.

Being a social conservative, I must now stop listening to this broadcast because Ace said "Bull S***"! Such filth. I will now riot and kill seventeen people.

Make sure they're people who agree with you in the first place, SD... that always makes it more effective.

Seriously, is there something about the death cult of Islam that makes everyone who believes in it just fuckin' retarded or what?

Karol is blogging and radio-ing. A woman of many talents!

Still, a fine interview FWIW. Let the author speak his piece. Nothing to be gained gutting him like a fish on your second show, ace. Makes it hard to get guests for shows 3 and 4

Apparently, the word 'bull-shit' is permitted

Whew! Thank God. I wanna hear the replay.

Second break*** I'm still lovin' those guitars. Hey Bill, why exactly did you guys pick the vaguely Wagnerian epic for Citizen Journalist? (No snark, just curious)

I'll start with Ace. It will be an honor killing.

Martha Zaller's promo sounds like what I think Right Wing Sparkle sounds like.

Nice job spoofing the "Hoke" post while you're doing the show.

Hobgob -

May be an idea there. They could start discussing the guests' opinions in the final segment - do any current shows use that format? I don't think I've heard it before.

Dr. Seuss glass tower!

Heh.

"God or Allah"

Can we keep a fuckin' distinction between the two, please.

Loved Ace's point about having public propriety, but don't prevent us from purchasing cable if we want Tony Soprano's f-bombs and boobies. Well done!

"I'm prepared to die here as a American in my own country."

Deroy doesn't beat around the bush, does he? I like it.

UN to the top floor! That's awesome.

I'd like to be the first to volunteer to man one of the 50mm gun turrets on top of tower one.

It's well known in mainstream media circles that all social cons go on psychopathic killing sprees if one of their "Left Behind" books falls in a toilet.

Yes, I prank called. And my devious plan worked brilliantly until I broke down and called them right back.

DAMN MY INABILITY TO CARRY THROUGH ON A MASTERFUL HANG-UP PRANK!

You guys need to plug your own blogs...so random listeners can find the rest of your stuff.

Jeff, the thin-skinned schtick is Bill's.

I'd like to be the first to volunteer to man one of the 50mm gun turrets on top of tower one.

This Marine will take the second tower.

"B*st*rds"? That's it. That's your family, Ace. You don't mess with us theocons.

Jeff, do you think Randy Andy is a SP conservative? Or Glenn? Or even yourself?

/curious

I thouht it was a great call, Jeff. Even if your devious plans took a bit to get of the ground ;)

Well done Jeff.

See-dub - I agree, although as hosts, Ace or Karol should probably do the plugging. That way they don't get people calling in only to get some free advertising.

Daniel Pipes! Nice.

Whoa! Daniel Pipes?! Jeez, you guys rock.

Pipes! Awesome!

You guys didn't give your own URL's to send people to your blogs.

Other than that, great show.

Good show. Surprisingly good.

sorry Jeff, I forgot to add that I thought it was a good call too.

Ace, you signed of with "Bye-bye" last week as well. It sounds so darlingly gay. Excellent show both of you. Much smoother. Good guests. Good callers. Will be sure to listen agian next week.

Good show, you two. You're getting smoother and smoother.

Um, is there any way to snag one of those lucrative, earlier timeslots, though? I mean, four o'clock is a little late for me to listen while chugging Value-Rite discount vodka and still sober up before the Wife gets home, ya know?

Missed the last 20 minutes; somebody came by my office and wanted me to do work-related stuff. Fascists. Why did we fight WW2, anyway?

So Daniel Pipes is next week's guest? A&K are pulling in some good names.

Hob --

Sullivan isn't a South Park conservative; he's a liberal elite who holds some conservatives views. He's Tucker Carlson without the bow tie. Or rather, with the bow tie but without the suit.

I think I'm very much a SP conservative. I tend to hector anyone who tries to chill free expression, whatever their party. I think SP conservatives are very much akin to Classical Liberals. And even though I'm against such things as gay marriage (which I'd venture most SP conservatives and libertarians are for -- I am against in on semantic and legal grounds, not on the grounds that same-sex couples shouldn't be given cultural legitimacy).

Glenn is a libertarian who is pretty close to being a SP conservative, I'd say, but I base that only on his positions I'm familiar with.

Kadnine --

We chose the music we did for our show because we thought it sounded mock serious, just as our show's title was a mock-serious title, poking a little light-hearted fun at those bloggers who maybe take themselves a little too seriously.

Need more snappy soundbites.

Also: I thought it was funny that the sound quality of the guests' voices was better than Ace and Karol's.

Are you guys using headset phones or regular phones?

Kadnine --

We chose the music we did for our show because we thought it sounded mock serious, just as our show's title was a mock-serious title, poking a little light-hearted fun at those bloggers who maybe take themselves a little too seriously.

Mystery solved. Thanks, Jeff.

I'm a 'tard. I forgot to convert to central time and missed the whole show.

Jeff,

gotcha. Interestingly, though you once objected to the unmodified "conservative" for yourself. But objecting to GM on "legal and semantic grounds" is truly a principled conservative position. Secular, perhaps, but there's no religion requirement for conservatives, even in Burke's day (though Burke's fondness for the clerical estate and the power of the Roman Catholic Church can certainly be read as such. It's really more a pean to medieval tradition and the primacy of relgion at that point.).

One thing I will disagree with you on is the notion that a truly "classical liberal" is "conservative" in any philosophic sense. That to me is the source of much of the fisc-con/soc-con tension right now. These ideas aren't really compatible. Deference to tradition (i.e. conservatism) sometimes runs afoul of deference to individual liberty (i.e. classical liberalism).

Neither system is perfect in isolation---conservatism tolerates evils like slavery, classical liberalism atomizes the individual and accepts an eventual breakdown of all social norms. The wavering line between the two can be stark in places, but unlike the other systems out there, at least the two are compatable to a degree with each other.

I find it interesting that you'd call yourself "conservative" in any sense. But if you are, hey, welcome aboard.

Hob--agreed about the religion requirement (Hume was a great skeptical conservative) but I think you misread Burke's take on religion. It was really one of the pillars of civilization for him.

I recall we've argued about this before...

Let me put it this way, Hob. A lot of my positions on policy matters dovetail with those held by conservatives -- though perhaps the thinking that led us each there differs in important ideological respects.

Hobgobliln--Doesn't the question of links between classical liberalism (in the 19th-century British sense) and conservatism depend at least partly on one’s definition of conservatism? You’re obviously coming from a Burkean perspective, but I think most American conservatives tend to look back to the Founding Fathers. Obviously, there’s quite a range of views there, but some of them are pretty closely congruent with classical liberalism; most of them, I’d say, come a little closer than Burke.

Not really a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong, of course. Just a question of defining one’s terms.

utron--Burke was pro free market and free trade, and pro ethical foreign policy but still constrained by realism. He was for religious liberty and for American independence.

So I think we've got a lot in common with him.

Burke was also anti-terrorist; in fact he's one of the first to use the word "terrorism" (applied to the French Revolution).

Agreed, See-Dub, we do have a lot in common with Burke. The points where I would see some differences would be Burke's acceptance of social hierarchy (including slavery) and establishment of religion--different from freedom of worship, which he did favor. The Liberals tended to favor a more meritocratic social order and had a more minimalist view of the role of the state than Burke.

Trying to explain American politics to a British audience 100 years ago, H.G. Wells said, "All Americans, from an English perspective, are various species of Liberals."

Jeff, see-dub, utron,

I guess my point is that it does seem to start to matter what our definition of certain words will be. No doubt, utron, that lots of regular red state conservatives don't like the idea of monarchy. To the extent that we could never reestablish a kingdom in the modern age would sort of take that off the table anyway.

But as for the primacy of religion (yeah, this is a well-trod path, see-dub), this speaks to the underlying tension in conservative circles that I was trying to get at with you, Jeff.

No doubt philosophic conservaticves are more comfortable with authority (esp. religious authority) that most "conservatives," yet for phil-cons, organized religion is what's at stake, not just the local non-denom church.

Frank Meyers' fusionism was a grand intellectual experiment that should have gone somewhere. Maybe it someday will. It tied "conservative" values to those of the founding and used the founding as a philosophic touchstone. the difficulty is that the founding is a creation of the Enlightenment, and hence by definition, "liberal." Meyers simply avioded the tension by ignoring the philosophic irreconsilablity. And given teh strong faith and culture of the Founders' generation, moralists would be able to find support for somewhat more restrictive social norms than through an appeal to classical liberalism alone.

Where are you getting Burke's acceptance of slavery? He was quite caustic about it in his speech on Reconciliaiton with the Colonies, and shot down the idea of freeing slaves as a political tool to encourage a slave revolt among the southern colonies. He said it wouldn't work as long as there were still British ships bringing in more slaves to their ports.

Edmund Burke "Slavery is a weed that
grows on every soil."

Hardly supportive of slavery, Burke accepted that it took place to some degree historically. Yet chattel slavery is a different species of thing from the type of slavery that existed from teh dawn of time to about 1700 (essentially slavery by conquest). Chattel slavery, Burke was undeniably against

See-Dubya, my general impression was that Burke favored aristocratic government, with an acknowledgement of rights and responsibilities from lower to higher and vice versa. On slavery, he favored the eventual elimination of the practice, but not at the expense of disrupting longstanding social institutions.

"Acceptance" is probably too strong a word for his position. It would be interesting to know how he felt about serfdom in central and eastern Europe, and how he distinguished the two practices, but I don't know a thing about this issue.

Ace and Karol; great show (again). Good questions, good commentary. Keep it up. I loved it.

I'm listening on my laptop in Australia. Ah, modern technology!

You know...I've been thinking. This is somewhat long and off-topic, but bear with me.

I just finished reading Andrew Sullivan's latest blather and I have to say that maybe it's time to give Sullivan the O-Dub treatment - no links, no attention.

Once upon a time, Sullivan made sense. His writing was good and even if you disagreed with the point he was making, his ability to express himself was worth a read. Over the past year, though, his blog has been all personal invective and overwrought writing, and it just may be time to retire all Andy-bashing. The guy is enough of a self-parody - mockery is just redundant. Sullivan's ideology just doesn't make sense anymore.

His posts about religious conservatives are annoying, but his posts about 'torture' at Gitmo are infuriating. The same guy who obsesses over the need to have gay marriage has harsher words for social conservatives and the president than for the terrorists who once killed gays and lesbians because of what they were. The guys at Gitmo would kill thousands of us if given half a chance, but oh, no...let's not smear blood in their faces or show them women's underwear. Because that might offend their delicate sensibilities.

Give me a f**king break. Time to let this self-important jackass drop from our radar screens.

Holy crap. It seems Professor Reynolds agrees.:

As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he'll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.

Slublog: You're just coming to this realization now?

Sully was linkwhoring from Glenn. It worked. Bah.

Thanks for listening, everyone, and for the praise and constructive criticism.

I thought this show was weaker than the first, even though in some ways we were smoother. I was better prepared, but I was actually more anxious this time. I don't know why.

Exchanges between Karol and I were clunky because she was trying to talk more and we had some trouble deciding who would talk when. In a couple of cases, I missed my chance to ask an interesting follow-up. We'll have to work out a system with our hands like "I want to talk" -- "but does it have to be now? because I have a follow-up?" sort of deal.

The word "bu11shit" I got pre-approved by the engineer.

I asked if I could say "H@nd-job," but they said no. They also said no to "h@nd-love," so I ended up scrapping a joke.

I'm definitely not allowed to say the f-bomb, ever, no exceptions, so don't count on me saying that. If I do say it, it will be bleeped, and then I'll be yelled at.

"Need more snappy soundbites."

I'm still working my way through a written script and natural delivery. The best of all possible worlds would be to have things scripted and yet sound natural, but we're not there yet.

So I have a lot of jokes and snappy soundbites written out, but I chicken out from delivering them, because I *KNOW* I will sound amateurish delivering them. Everytime I get to one of those, I shy off.

I really don't want to sound like a bad open-mike night comedian, which is how I fear I'll sound if I start reading prepared jokes.

At the moment, I'm trying to just do a credible interview show with some funny by-play, at least until I feel more comfortable attempting to be funny.

My engineer warned me -- but I already knew -- that if you're going to TRY to be funny, as in try being funny with prepared material, it had better be killer, or else it comes off badly and just isn't worth it.

I think most of the humor of the show will end up coming from put-downs and teasing between Karol and I... and to be honest, we actually plan out some "banter," but we never got around to it last show.

Actually, several of my "ummmms" came when I was looking at my notes/script. The "ummms" were me mentally striking out a written joke, thinking, "Okay, no, that's not going to play; I don't have the chops to pull that off yet" and then scanning down to the next prompt.

Its probably a mistake to nudge karol into talking more than she would naturally feel the need to.
You be the steady at the wheel.

When she jumps in it will be fresh because she'll be saying something for a good reason.

And people wanting to hear her more is a good thing that will keep them listening.