The New Republican's Cass Sunstein got a tattoo on his ass proclaiming "I am a dumb ass" and has spent the better part of this decade dropping his pants to show the world.
If you thought he couldn't embarrass himself further after his public support for John Roberts as a Supreme Court chieftain, you were wrong. And, to clarify, though he is billed as a "liberal," he's not. His judicial philosophy is not liberal. It is restrictive and the sort of thing that would -- carried out in full -- not only reject Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education, but many other historic decisions that improved the nation.
Via Make Them Accountable, we stumbled upon Cass yet again dropping trou for an article by Ben Van Heuvelen (Salon):
Freedom of choice is not always good for democracy. This observation is at the heart of University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein's book "Republic.com 2.0" (an update of "Republic.com" in 2001), which argues that our country's political discourse is fracturing in the information age. Sure, the Internet has been a boon to democracy in all sorts of ways, Sunstein acknowledges -- but if new technology gives us unprecedented access to information, it also gives us more ways to avoid information we don't like. Conservatives are increasingly seeking only conservative views, liberals are seeking only liberal views, and never the twain shall meet.
What an idiot. What a fool. No wonder he advises the Barack Obama campaign.
Far too old to play like he a tweener, Cass-Ass should know damn well that the 'alarming' situation he is 'observing' is neither alarming nor new. Prior to big media consolidation, cities had multiple papers. If one was too right-wing for you, no prob, you picked up another. But Cass-Ass self-presents as someone so foolish he never knew The New York Post existed before Rupert Murdoch or that it was seen by some as one lefter alternative to The New York Times.
Cass-Ass whines that the left doesn't link to the right. Links do matter. When you link, you're saying something is worth reading. Here we don't link to trash. Cass-Ass is trash but we think the Salon article is worth linking to so you can see what trash he is.
Cass-Ass tells you that people only going to certain outlets is a new thing. He traces it to the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the Gore v. Bush Supreme Court decision. If you feel slimed by those choices offered up, you should. Cass-Ass always slimes anything to the left of center. Which is how he can compare, in his book, NPR -- the most centrist of all outlets and only non-right leaning when you compare it to PBS -- as the equivalent of Fox "News" with right wingers flocking to Fox and left wingers flocking to NPR.
Proof's never an issue with Cass-Ass (which is how he ends up backing his little buddy Bam-Bam Obama) and that's how he can weigh in with this, "And yet a lot of people, at least publicly, seemed to agree with it, such that President Clinton was actually impeached." "A lot of people"? What poll is Cass-Ass referring to? None, because none exists. Impeachment of Clinton was never popular with the people. But it's that sort of fact-free assertion that allows him to draw moral equivalencies where there are none.
It's probably why Salon's article, which should be subtitled The Confessions of St. Cass-Ass, also has the weak-sister Cass-Ass explaining how many hopes he had for Bully Boy when the Supreme Court handed Bully Boy the Oval Office. Or maybe Cass-Ass flaunts ignorance the most with his statements in opposition of the Kyoto Treaty?
Who knows?
It's been a bad decade for the once high-flying-adore Cass-Ass. Once upon a time, he squeezed out a bad opinion on paper, wrapped it up and sent it off to The New Republican where it was promptly printed and he was quickly invited on the intellectual-lite chat & chew circuit. These days, like the magazine he is so identified with, he's finding out it's not that easy.
Neither will life in the United States be under John Roberts as Chief Justice. But Cass-Ass gave us that and used up the last of his allegedly 'left' credentials to assure Americans that Roberts was a really good thing, the Grandma Cookies of the courtroom.
Throughout his sad life, Cass-Ass has always gone for the center. That requires shifting because the right wing has certainly shifted the country to the right. So getting "all sides" is really important to Cass-Ass. Without "all sides," he wouldn't be sure he was standing in the center of the freeway.
We're a left site and before Cass-Ass pens another ill-thought out 'opinion,' he might try grasping the dynamics the country still lives under. Media consolidation means many good things for big business, many bad things for the people. (Cass-Ass is choking but he's also under the impression that the libertarian daily bible, The Chicago Tribune, plays it down the middle.) Along with a right wing echo chamber, you have a mainstream echo chamber which tilts right and regularly silences stories of importance.
This site neither started nor exists to be part of an echo chamber and we doubt we're unique in that approach on the left. At this site, we have regularly called out left organizations and left publications. We've also regularly highlighted the same. We've not played the partisan that Cass-Ass just knows exists out there. He knows it exists the same way he knows "lots of people" must have wanted Bill Clinton impeached. "Lots of people" would describe the majority which did not favor impeaching Clinton over a sexual affair. But to Cass-Ass, it's all equal.
Cass-Ass' ilk is the reason that sites like this exist. He's a namby-pamby currying favor with right wingers (Bill O'Reilly will probably have to blot his crotch with a napink after he reads Cass-Ass' shout-outs in the Salon article). In a mainstream media landscape that offered true diversity, Cass-Ass would speak for the centrists and then the media would find a left voice. Instead, we're offered Cass-Ass as a voice of the left when he is anything but the left.
Whether it's Roberts or any other issue, Cass-Ass is served up to the public, by the media, as "even the left's Cass-Ass thinks . . ." That's why left sites need to note the left. All that do are doing their part to expose an entire world that exists outside the mainstream media -- a world where, yes, leftists know that Roberts will be a bad appointment to the Court, a world where, yes, leftists know that Bully Boy will not be good for the United States.
If Cass-Ass presented himself as a centrist, he really wouldn't be an issue to us. But instead, he presents as a leftist and occupies the space that should actually go to a left and that is our biggest problem with Cass-Ass.
It really hurts the left to have a centrist presented as a lefty and it really insults the left to have such a Dumb Ass centrist 'speaking for' them.
Cass-Ass is alarmed by the polarization. Well he should be and so would you if you're whole bag was about being the center and playing the left. If this polarization continues, why, Cass-Ass might not be the first flipped to card on the Rolodex when it's time to call around for the quote 'from the left.'
Cass-Ass isn't concerned with the country. He's concerned about selling another bad book and about making sure the tiny quota the media creates for the non-right is occupied by him.