Spotty! Bad dog . . .

Spotty is feeling rather uninspired, so he has been slumming at the ever-reliable Powerline for material. As usual, it does not disappoint:

I spoke on a "blog" panel yesterday afternoon at the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference program for college students in Washington, D.C. My fellow panelists were LaShawn Barber of LaShawn Barber's Corner and Mark Tapscott of Tapscott's Copy Desk. (Mark has already posted a report: "A fine time on Young America's Foundation panel on blogs.") Alex Mooney of the National Journalism Center moderated the panel and provided lavish introductions.

My strongest impression was of the quality of the ladies and gentlemen attending the program. They were beautiful and handsome, respectively, as well as smart and engaged. Their questions during the program were challenging, and their questions after the program were even more challenging. File under: "Hope for the future."

Ian Schwartz is proprietor of The Political Teen. Ian has posted "Scott Johnson, LaShawn Barber and Mark Tapscott at YAF conference" complete with video images and a video link.

Posted by Scott at 06:30 AM

In other words, it was a giant conservative circle jerk. (Spotty, bad dog! This is a family blog!) Ok, sorry. It was a giant conservative cluster f***. (Hey! You know what happened to James Dobson's dog, don't you? Knock it off!)

Scott's observation discloses something really important about the conservative mindset. It is all about us! Look at how good we are! We are quality persons!

In truth, a lot of them are really emotionally needy people with a continuing need of proving to themselves that they have a leg up on the competition (everybody else). It's sad really. Not to mention delusional. But it has an effect on virtually everything the US does, from foreign policy on down. As Paul Krugman wrote in the NYT a few days ago, Americans tend to believe that we do everything better than anyone else. That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others.

Think about Katherine Kersten. Have you ever read a person more in need of proving, twice a week usually, the existence of a Quality Person's Club and her memebership in it? Perhaps it was emotionally-distant parents or a loveless marriage.