Lileks is scared of the Amercan Taliban.  

Somehow one scrawny misguided scuzzball has scared another.

Apparently Mr Lileks has all the answers.   Never mind he probably supported other groups of insurgents, such as the El Salvador death squads, the Contras.  This one poor misguided fella, he's got to hang.  Let's gloss over that he hasn't actually killed anybody, just maybe had the intent to do so.  Not provable before any court of law, but hey, Bush and cronies can make up the law as they go along.  And add signing statements modifying new laws.  

This poor dweeb had weird parents, was confused, got mixed up with a bad crowd, and joined that group of smelly twits called the Taliban.  Poorly educated, poorly trained, wanting to hit the opposition, and maybe, just maybe, some of the targets could have been Americans.  If possible occasional intent to kill was convictable, we'd all be behind bars.    

Never mind we supplied, trained and funded the Taliban.    The onus is on every young fella to not get carried away with nationalism or religion and end up rooting for the "wrong" side.     And if you do, too bad for you, Lileks can rule from the bench, guilty, hang em high.

"Pro-life" Lileks

The sheer imbecility of Mr Lileks is in fine form here.

In this screed, he's all hot and bothered about some random comments by some unknown British legislator.    Mr. Lileks comes out courageously on the side of more babies.    Never mind that his parents had just two, and he has just one.   Personal counterexamples never slow down Mr. Leeks screeds.

In the end all he can muster for arguments are (1) The strawman of a totally depopulated Britain, and (2) We're preventing new Motzarts from being born.. and (3) It's good to have more people in order to put out fires.    Never mind that (1) there is no risk of, and (2) Overpopulation lowers the chances that individuals can fully develop their talents and (3) overpopulation inevitably leads to mass misery, starvation, and wars.  Never mind that every industrialized country has already passed the demographic transition.  Never mind that China is a huge success story, having used strong incentives to limit family size, and incidentally prevented several wars and famines.   Mr. Leeks doesn't let the fate of billions affect his very selective view of the facts.

   

It's infuriating that Mr. Leeks lives on acres of land in a large mansion,  meanwhile he dooms the rest of the world to crowd into hovels.     I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit just writing that.

Style over substance

One marvels at the sheer superficiality of Mr. Leeks.    In this latest screed, he suggests that Obama's press secretary is a poor choice, since he does things like act human and try to tell the truth even when it hurts.   Compared to the previous guys and gals that had all the smoothness and sincerity of the guy in the plaid jacket at Phil's Yard of Used Cars.  You may recall a few less than noble moments during the Bush years:

(1) Ari Fleischer.  A master of obfuscation.  When asked "does Israel have nuclear weapons?" he replied "I don't personally know that."   He's such an enigma that various observers can't figure out-- is he a total dummy, or an accomplished actor, or a sociopath, or what.  For more on Ari, thse folks have a good profile: .  See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/692890/posts.

 Folks may differ, but I think most would rather have the little rough around the edges than someone with Ari's attributes.

(2) Scott McClellan.   This guy came out and admitted in print that the Bush administration directed him to lie about the Plame affair.    And worse, Scott was hardly ever characterized as doing a slick job of it.  So, no morals and not even good at being bad.

(3) Dana Perino.  Women always have to work harder than men.  Same in this job too-- Dana was an accomplished liar, and she didn't even blush when uttering the most ridiculous fabrications.  She bald-faced lied to HElen Thomas about torture.  Too many other examples to mention.  "Ari lies" gets only 35,000 hits, but "Perino lies" tops 53,000.   A dubious accomplishment.

So while Robert Gibbs may not be as smooth as his predecessors, one suspects the majority of Americans would rather have a person that is identifiably human and moral, rather than the preceding gang of accomplished prevaricators and apparent sociopaths.