Gabby Hayes

Point 1: In terms of Obama still seeming like he's running for office, it's called the bully pulpit. In an election, a candidate is trying to convince people to put their confidence in them as leaders. Once in office, a President has the extra task of trying to convince people to support their agenda. Obama's speech was clearly the latter, he is running for the popular support of his agenda item of closing Guantanamo Bay and of ending the torture policies, in the face of a ridiculous attack on these policies as weak and as causing unnecessary insecurity to the American people. It's similarly ridiculous to confuse this with him running for office. Point 2: In terms of Cheney having more gravitas, I can chalk this up to three causes in addition to what Bill said:
1) In general aesthetics, Cheney is older, has a deeper voice, and was able to speak more calmly because the space he was in was smaller and almost certainly included exclusively like-minded people. He did not need to convince his local audience, at least, whereas Obama was specifically chiding people on both sides, and in terms of

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/199...7:42&out=18:04

I took a stab at this last week here.

Point 4: This is quite possibly the silliest argument I've heard Matt make. The entire discussion about public support for torture is entirely pointless at this point because the public's conception of what actually happened is so completely inaccurate, which can be highlighted by the fact that Cheney in his speech continued to characterize Abu Ghraib as the work of a few bad apples. This Yglesias post is probably the definitive summary of the counter-argument to Matt, but the longer this debate goes on, the worse it is for the Republicans because the more likely it is that an independent commission happens to fully investigate this topic. And at that point all the polling and all the traditional associations with the GOP keeping us safe will almost certainly go out the window.

Matt Lewis is a celebrity. Why should he have to look like some other celebrity? (Just because he's a really, really obscure celebrity?)

Conservatives seem to be painfully behind the times on tuning into the zeitgeist. People trust republicans on law-and-order because of Rudy Guliani, many, many long years ago, "cleaning up" new york city? The idea that people trust republicans on national security ignores 8 years of dismal failure, unnecessary war, and failure to quash al qaeda or to catch Bin Laden. The only people who trust Republicans on anything are other Republicans. The polls back this up. But for Matt Lewis, apparently hope springs eternal, and there's some magic that's going to change that back to what it was. That ship has sailed. You still see people on right-wing blogs hauling around that stinky old idea that "this is a center-right country!!" Maybe that was true in the 80s, but again, look at the polls. Conservatives cling to the idea that there's still some preference for the word "conservative" over the word "liberal" in some polling, and gloss over the fact that pluralities consistently go to the liberal side of issues.

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/199...7:42&out=18:04

The best part of that moment is that Matt Lewis - bright as ever - clearly misunderstands Bill's joke. Matt thinks that Bill is likening Hitler's book to Jonah's, but the joke is clearly that Bill claims to have a copy of Mein Kampf because he is, indeed, a "liberal fascist." Granted, this is a minor misunderstanding, but is rather indicative of why I can't bring myself to watch yet another ML diavlog.

Mr. Lewis: I am a regular viewer of The Week in Blog on Bloggingheadstv. Thank you for representing a conservative perspective on that program. Like many conservative viewers of your show, I am intrigued by your recent use of the term "true conservative" without a definition. Would you kindly state your definition of a "true conservative," and give examples of individuals who satisfy it? Many thanks for your consideration. Sincerely, Robert Richards
Robert C. Richards, Jr., J.D.*, M.S.L.I.S., M.A.
Philadelphia, PA
richards1000@comcast.net
Droit Blog: http://droitblog.wordpress.com
* Member New York bar, retired status.

Quoting R. Richards: Would you kindly state your definition of a "true conservative," and give examples of individuals who satisfy it?

Robert C. Richards, Jr., J.D.*, M.S.L.I.S., M.A.
Philadelphia, PA
richards1000@comcast.net
Droit Blog: http://droitblog.wordpress.com
* Member New York bar, retired status.

I'm pretty sure you're not a True Conservative™, what with that Frenchy name for your blog. ;^)

Both Andrew Sullivan and Matt Lewis operate with the same definition of conservative: someone who agrees with them.

Mr. Lewis just wrote me to say that he will discuss his definition of "true conservative" on the next Week in Blog program, which I assume will appear during the week of May 25. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. We very much look forward to this discussion.

Quoting R. Richards: Mr. Lewis just wrote me to say that he will discuss his definition of "true conservative" on the next Week in Blog program, which I assume will appear during the week of May 25. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. We very much look forward to this discussion.

In the meantime, you might read Tim F.'s answer to your question.

Yes and a GOLD copy of Mein Kampf, no less! Obviously a collector. Too funny.

I think this is the third episode that Matt has said he doesn't know how to pronounce Ross Douthat's name. Fortunately, he can hear it pronounced right here on Bloggingheads. Because honestly, this is starting to sound like that "Democrat Party" nonsense.

I think this is the third episode that Matt has said he doesn't know how to pronounce Ross Douthat's name.

He also struggled with Reihan Salaam, but that's because he's a Democrat.