Even if we accept that the media gives the same substance-free analysis to both parties, this still favours the Republicans.

The stories on how many divorces, past drug use, Romney being a mormon and such are mostly stupid and substance free to us, but to conservatives, these are "bread and butter" issues of character. The fact that Romney and Giuliani are flip flopping on all their previous socially liberal stances is small compared to the fact that they divorced wives or wear special underwear or whatever in the conservative mindset. It's very important to these people that romney be a macho hunter.

If we make reasonable inferences from Altemeyer, these are the "substantive" issues which High RWAs use to pick their candidates. And the Republicans running haven't gotten to the relatively high positions they're in without knowing a bit about pandering to high RWAs to begin with (though I doubt they understand it in those terms). The Democrats are now playing a game they're not used to and that isn't very interesting to their supporters.

It's no different than the Clinton blowjob. Substantively, low-RWAs didn't give a shit about it. It was salacious and fascinating in some respects, but nothing to get all that mad about. High-RWAs lost their minds over it. Who did the media favour? The High-RWAs.

So the long term effect is that the media is covering the "issues" that only matter to a part of the electorate. A part that always votes republican.

With more credit to Altemeyer, I'm not sure you can separate them.

The High-RWA mindset has accepted Dobson et al as their leadership. That Dobson is a double-high along with Cheney and the neo-cons (who are not double-high, just high social dominators) they have a faustian bargain and even though they likely despise each other, they find each other very useful.

How could we break them apart? Gingrich is exposed as the most base kind of hypocrite, impeaching clinton over adultery as he was carrying on his own affair. Yet he holds a meeting with one of the double-high leaders who proclaims his "sincerity" and off to the races, the High-RWAs suddenly don't mind his despicable behavour at odds to their supposedly dearly held beliefs.

Any way we have to expose them as hypocrites never seems to affect them, so long as the Dobson set never seems to mind.

Well, actually I'm a bit wrong: The Mark Foley affair was too much for them to gloss over, but we can't count on lightening strikes of that convenient sort every time.

Seriously: Can you imagine what the right wingers would have done and said had the situation been reversed in 2000 or 2004 and Edwards or Lieberman had the openly gay child? But that fact was no problem, in fact even mentioning it was apparently really dirty politics on John Kerry's part somehow.

(That really bugged me: It was a low down dirty trick to point out the VP candidate of the bigotry party had a gay daughter? It's only a "bad" thing in their hateful eyes so we should just pretend she doesn't exist?)

One of the remarkable things about many conspiracy theories, is when the theory itself just doesn't make sense even within itself.

Never mind the vanishingly small odds of so many people being in on it remaining perfectly silent and whatnot. None of the usual reasons to discount conspiracy theories, but just, the idea that, at a fundamental level the theory just doesn't make sense.

In this case the stupidest part of this is that Russia and China were involved in moving the WMDs to syria for some reason and are "helping" countries like Iran get the bomb.

Never mind that nuclear powers like being in an exclusive club and neither China or Russia has much motive to help Iran or Syria join the club, but if they really wanted that they could just give them a bomb! They're already nuclear powers, why not just ship a nuke to Iran or Syria if that's their aim?

I'm sure someone can post-facto explain away this discrepancy but at a glance, this alone makes the thoeory remarkably stupid.

I had no idea who Halberstam was. I see I missed out on something great.

I don't get it

what's really the point of a columm that exists to point out the comments that other people make about prior columns and to then smear them a little bit too?

I agree with you 100%: You don't get it.

Really, please walk us through how the blackface picture was offensive to blacks. All I've seen is Joe Lieberman expressing his offense on their behalf.

If the picture portrayed Lieberman as a cotton picker in a slave field, would that be offensive to blacks?

Black face routines were a historical reality. Whites did it, to mock blacks. If anything putting Lieberman in blackface is an accusation that he is mocking blacks.

The only way to construe this as being intended as offensive to blacks or mocking of them or critical of them in any way is to misrepresent it or just be obtuse and repeat "blackface! macaca! Imus!" as if the three incidents are equivalent.

Seriously, you did compare this to macaca. If you can't see the difference between calling a person of obvious non-white lineage an obscure African racial slur, and trying to make a point about a candidate's treatment of race through a historical analogy, I don't know what to say.

You even used the phrase "Tin ear" which connotes precisely what I am claiming: It really wasn't meant to be offensive, but some might mistake the meaning and be offended, which makes it unwise and a mistake to publish. However there is a difference between unintended offence and intentional malice.

Imus and Allen were intentionally racist to please their white audiences. The blackface thing is intended as a message to blacks not to vote for Lieberman because he doesn't really support them.