Twitter roundup

From my Twitter feed:
-A gruesome convergence of my interests in political misinformation and early 1990s rap
-Tomorrow's Glenn Beck chalkboard diagram today
-Anecdotal claims versus data on girls and the hookup culture
-Dear New York Times: Any trend that involves Dustin Diamond (aka "Screech") is, by definition, about to stop being a trend
-Howard Kurtz demands a display of staged anger from Obama, then suggests his display of anger was staged
-Headline of the day: "Nudists to lobby Capitol Hill this week"
-Politics everywhere: Snooki decries tanning tax in health care bill, says Obama targeted tanning because of "Jersey Shore"
-Drudge deploying offensive racial tropes: "OBAMA GOES STREET: SEEKING 'ASS TO KICK'"

Comments

[David]

I'm mystified by the last item. It was the President who said he wanted to know "whose ass to kick." Is the complaint that Drudge identified this phrase as "street talk"?

BTW that was a telling comment by the President. Someone who knew how to lead would be looking for solutions, not looking for someone to blame.

[David]

I think Media Matters misunderstood Kurtz. The earlier comment doesn't say Kurtz was looking for staged anger. It says he was looking for anger.

IMHO understood properly Kurtz's comments are consistent. The first one criticizes Obama for seeming not to care much about the leak, based on his lack of emotion. The second comment also criticizes Obama for seeming not to care much about the leak, based on Obama's use of obviously scripted anger.

I agree with Kurtz. I don't think Obama cares about the leak with the intensity, say, that Bush cared about fighting Islamic terrorism. Bush was deeply commited to succeeding in Afghanistan and in Iraq. OTOH I think Obama is OK with the leak as long as it isn't blamed on him or his party.

[David]

Obama's indications that he doesn't care urgently about the leak resulted in federal officials making decisions consistent with that attitude. E.g. U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise

Three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.

The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

Also, the failure of the feds to provide Louisiana with the supplies it needs

"We need more boom, more skimmers, more jack-up barges," Jindal said at an angry news conference in Venice, Louisiana, complaining that Louisiana has received a fraction of the supplies it requested to protect itself from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

[daniel rotter]

"I think Obama is OK with the leak as along as it isn't blamed on him or his party."

I don't understand the assumptions behind this sentence. In what possible context could the oil leak be blamed on Obama or his party? Did Obama and/or DNC hire eco-terrorists to blow up the rig? Seriously, there's no evidence at all that this incident was the result of sabotage, so it's not rational to suggest that Obama would have any reason to fear that the blame for the leak would be placed at the feet of him or the Democratic Party.