Mollie Hemingway has a pretty convincing call to be wary of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. It’s predicated on the experience of a fellow named Matt Slick, who agreed to be part of a produced piece. He details his experience here.

The producers Slick spoke with misrepresented their intentions to him, but that’s no great sin and it happens at every level from the New York Times and 60 Minutes down to Sally Jesse and your local City Paper. But what’s really eye popping is the editing which was done in post to distort Slick’s words.

After the fact, Slick requested a copy of the full interview (nearly 3 hours), but the show refused. Luckily, Slick was smart enough to record the interview separately. For example:

What they edited and put on TV was this:

• Matt:  “The reverse happens as well [camera angle change] where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up.”

Now notice what happened on the show.  They had me saying, “The reverse happens as well [camera angle change] where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up.”  That is not what I said.  I said “I don’t know about bullying where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up”.

That’s most definitely not something that happens every day. But unless the Daily Show comes out and apologizes to Slick, you have to assume it’s standard operating procedure over there.

Dan McLaughlin has an extensive–and I mean extensive—critique of Ruy Teixeira, particularly concerning his attacks on Sean Trende and What to Expect. I think it’s pretty devastating. But then, I would.

Matt Yglesias weighs in on the efficacy of public defenders without ever having read . . . oh, you know where this is going:

Matthew Yglesias speculates about what would have happened if George Zimmerman had been represented by a public defender. As somebody who knows quite a few public defenders (and — full disclosure — is married to one), I was surprised to see Yglesias describe most public defenders as having “little emotional … investment in winning the case.” It’s been my general observation that many public defenders are extremely passionate, whether about helping their clients, defeating overreaching prosecutors, or both. It’s not a bearable job if you don’t have an emotional investment in it.

That assertion aside, Yglesias’s broader point is to worry that those who are represented by public defenders may have worse outcomes than those with represented counsel because public defenders lack adequate incentives and resources. But some of the research on this is actually quite interesting. Morris Hoffman, Paul Rubin, and Joanna Shepherd wrote a paper arguing that while public defenders’ clients do tend to fare worse than those with private counsel, that may be caused by a selection effect . . .

Knowing stuff is for suckers.

Bonus: He thinks British Imperials never wore shorts.

Update: I’d say that the category is now closed because of this impressive compendium. But I’m sure there will be more.

The following passage appears in a post by Clare Halpine over at NRO:

Much of our culture today is predicated upon our belief that overpopulation is the root cause of the world’s ills. Consider these statements, which have recently graced the pages of learned tomes, the first from a New York Times commentary:

“Our failure to regulate the human population ensures a future of environmental toxicity including genotoxicity, disease, famine, warfare, and massive social upheaval . . .”

And from Jonathan Last’s book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting:

“Children are actually an impediment to economic and social success . . .”

The theory of overpopulation informs our view of life so fundamentally that although no one really knows what genotoxicity is, and children are not typically birthed for reasons of social climbing, we live schizophrenically: rejoicing in birth notifications and baby shower e-vites from our friends, while  feeling guilty for being accessory to what we have been told is the selfish act of reproduction.

Really? I’m not sure if this is a misreading or a mischaracterization of WTE. Or inelegant writing.

Btw, I’m not sure where that quote she ascribes to me is from. It’s not in the book and it’s not in the interview she links to. Entirely possible I’ve said it somewhere, but what the book says (and the formulation I try to use, not always successful) is that we have “a system where economic and social success are largely dependent on not having children.” Which is a very different connotation.

(I used a similar formulation in a 2006 piece: “We have reached a point where children are actually an impediment to economic and social success.”

Or maybe she’s just the first person to come away from What to Expect thinking that I’m selling the dangers of overpopulation.

It’s nice to see that I’m not the only person Ruy Teixeira attacks without reading carefully: Sean Trende’s response to Teixeira’s criticism of his work is low-key and kind of damning.

Galley Friend J.S. sends along this Slashfilm post on Orson Scott Card and Ender’s Game, which walks past outright hostility and up to the line of calling for a boycott of the film. Because Card views gay marriage the way Barrack Obama did the day before yesterday. When Obama was a hateful bigot. Obvs.

But that’s just par. What makes the post worth noting are two things.

(1) It’s another data point on the question of how magnanimous the same-sex marriage movement will be in victory. Here we have Card waving the white flag and abjectly asking that his views on traditional marriage be allowed to be privately held. And even that seems unacceptable.

(2) More importantly, this is a fine example of the victors writing history. In the course of his surrender, Card writes, “Ender’s Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984.”

Slashfilm answers with the following:

First of all, just because marriage wasn’t being debated in the Supreme Court in 1984 doesn’t mean the gay rights movement didn’t exist back then.

Of course, it isn’t the case that gay marriage “wasn’t being debated in the Supreme Court in 1984.” Gay marriage wasn’t being debated anywhere. It wasn’t even being debated in the gay rights movement. The idea of same-sex marriage existing as a legal construct–let alone being a constitutionally-guaranteed right–didn’t emerge until sometime in the late-’80s/early ’90s and only appeared on the very fringes of anyone’s notice in 1993, when a Hawaiian court looked at the issue.

Most Americans didn’t really notice the gay marriage movement until 1996, when DOMA was signed into law by another notorious bigot, Bill Clinton.

It’s not just that the Right People (Clinton, Obama) get a pass on being hatemongers, while Orson Scott Card is History’s Greatest Monster. It’s instructive how we’re now re-writing history to suggest that the gay marriage movement has been with us forever as part of the eternal struggle for truth and justice.

Incidentally, this back-dating is helpful in further vilifying the Wrong People because it allows us to show that they aren’t just morally culpable for having the wrong opinions now, but are inferior for having had the wrong opinions then, too.

Pinko-squish that I am, I’m the last guy in the world to spring to the defense of CEOs, because I think you can make a pretty good argument that CEO compensation is distorted by so many externalities that it represents “true market value” in about the same way that the price of gas in any given locality represents the price of crude. Matt Yglesias isn’t helping though. Here’s a take-down of his recent post on CEO compensation in America vs. Europe. Spoiler alert: There’s a whole body of research on exactly this subject which Yglesias seems to know nothing about:

Kind of reminds me of Cypress Hill.