Two Motifs I'm Really Sick Of

First is one that I keep seeing in letters to the editor in our local paper. It goes something like "Hey, you liberals, you all thought that Obama was going to solve all the world's problems right away. Look how wrong you were. You're dumb and I'm smart!"

This is the most ridiculous type of straw-man argument. No one thought that Barack Obama was going to be able to clean up the mess that the Bushies left in a month, or six moths, or a year. Most of us will be happy if the US is back into some sort of recognizable shape at the end of Obama's first term.

The second is the idea that the Supreme Court overturning the Ricci case somehow shows that Judge Sotomayor is incompetent, or outside the mainstream of judicial thought, or something. The decision was 5-4. Five to Four. For the math-impaired, that means that 44 percent of current Supreme Court justices agreed with her. In other words, the 44% of the members of the Supreme Court who are not right-wing ideologues think that she made the right decision. I think generally if Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts disagree with you, you can feel pretty confident that you got it right.