Cultural Death

From the Daily Howler:

Taibbi was helping us liberals laugh at the rubes in the other tribe. But just how dumb do you have to be to miss the problem with his “reasoning?” Taibbi was playing an old refrain, in which we laugh at the Tea Party folk for being such blooming hypocrites about the role of government.

and

Is something wrong with New Jersey’s teachers? It isn’t easy to say, of course. But on the NAEP, statewide test scores have risen from 1992 to 2009. As a matter of fact, Garden State scores have risen a lot, and they exceed the national average among all major groups. But don’t expect to hear such twaddle when you watch Williams strut and fret his tailored suits across the stage. In an earlier era, Williams and his gruesome network were devoted to trashing the Clintons, then Gore. Now, the network is trashing the teachers.

Daisy has already slapped Mr. Taibbi around (deservedly so) so I'll forbear except to note that Mr. Somerby's sarcasm does occasionally get up my nose.  And I am sarcastic enough to shrivel lemons when I get going.  The second quote is from his series of essays on why comparing the US to Finland doesn't work very well.