Matt Philbin
Latest from Matt Philbin
Ross Perot thought he was Batman. Donald Trump and Tom Steyer do too, according to Sam Thielman, writing on NBC’s “Think” website. I don’t know. Perot (RIP) was a kind of a weird little guy, and Trump’s issues will keep psychologists (real ones, not Brian Stelter) working for years. Steyer certainly seems to have a green messiah thing going, but I don’t see much Caped Crusader in him.
The U.S. Women’s Team won the World Cup, so I guess American patriotism isn’t stupid and embarassing anymore. Still, if you’re tempted to start chanting “U.S.A!” check with the New York Times first. While you’re at it, stop by The Atlantic for a tutorial on why Team U.S.A. has lefties sounding like red state jingos. (Talk about embarrassing.)
Either somebody in Nike product development is in deep trouble, or it’s being bullied by its washed-up former QB mascot -- it all depends on whether you believe the company’s explanation for its July Fourth flag flap.
Just when you think the the Washington Post (Motto: “Democracy Gets Somnolent at Sunset”) can’t get more Postie, it publishes a “perspective” piece titled: “Twenty-five years ago, O.J. Simpson showed white Americans just how conditional their comfort with black athletes was.”
How often do conservatives utter the phrase “This will be a fun read!” upon opening the New York Times? Yet it happened. In the June 5 Books section, the Times has an article alerting readers that lefty feminist author “Naomi Wolf’s Career of Blunders Continues in ‘Outrages.’” In it, Times book critic Parul Sehgal -- no conservative curmudgeon she -- offers a bracing dismantling of one of liberalism’s more bafflingly successful writers.
Reason #475,614 Why Nobody Respects the News Media: It’s the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Getting a little choked up about the endless lines of white crosses and the few stooped and wizened survivors being rolled slowly among them? Feeling slightly in awe of men who could scale Pointe du Hoc, drag themselves up the shingle on Omaha or jump from an airplane into a fire-blasted night? Feeling, well, a touch grateful? Yeah, well, get over it.
Dilemma: Your fave TV star is getting married. Though you’ve never met either member of the happy couple, and likely never will, you feel compelled to send them a gift. But they won’t share their wedding registry -- even with you! Do you a) take a chance on a Bullet Blender? b) cut air holes in a refrigerator box and ship yourself to their house, or c) knit them his and hers hand towels of your own hair?
Sir Elton John doesn’t like being a Brit anymore because so many of his countrymen do. He’s upset that the U.K. voted for Brexit and, according to The Guardian, he told an audience in Verona, Italy that “I’m ashamed of my country for what it has done.”
There was a time a few years ago, after Mike Wise left the paper, that I feared The Washington Post Sports section would suffer from a want of condescending gasbags. At an organ like the Post (motto: Democracy Gets Dopey Around Dusk) a writer’s pomposity is nearly as important as his ability to regurgitate the party line.
“Whatever you do, don’t mention the culture war!” John Cleese is a funny guy. And, though he’s historically been a man of the left, he’s a rather sensible guy, too. That has put the Monty Python alum at odds with current lefty pieties.
Yes there is crying in baseball. In fact, media are melting down because, during Monday's Memorial Day observance, a Fresno minor league team insulted socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Dem-NY). And for once, AOC and her media enthusiasts are right to cry, just not for the reasons they think.
An Atlantic article by Staff Writer Emma Green titled, “The Impossible Future of Christians in the Middle East,” is something of a small miracle. Where most liberal outlets are reluctant to mention, let alone explore, the plight of Christians in Muslim-majority nations, Green lays out what’s at stake: “The precarious state of Christianity in Iraq is tragic on its own terms. The world may soon witness the permanent displacement of an ancient religion, and an ancient people.”
Oh, Alabama. Tsk, tsk. You already provoked the attention of Perpetual Outrage, Inc.(™) by trying to make your state safe for the unborn. But your willingness allow parents to raise the kids they do have without the guidance of federally funded gay propaganda is really too much. This disdain for progressive pieties will not stand.
Being a lefty journalist means never having to say you’re sorry. Good thing, too. You’d be so busy wiping egg from your face you’d barely have time to scream about climate change causing pregnant hens to fly. Take media-types’ early, swooning support for Al Jazeera’s attempts to enter the U.S. market. Sure, character witnesses Nicholas Kristof, Brian Stelter and the Boston Globe said, The Beheading Channel is dishonest, anti-Israel and anti-American, but it’s a fresh, intriguing anti-Israel and American bias.
These are the times that try feminists’ souls. Pro-life laws in places like Alabama and Georgia threaten to produce an epidemic of live, healthy births in red states in the not-too-distant future. All good progressives must rally to the abortion uber alles flag. Now is not time to be seen as a summer sister or sunshine patriarchy smasher, not while famous comrades deprive themselves of cheap, non-union production labor or forswear carnal gratification.
It seems there are a bunch of knuckleheads around who refuse one of the many blessings of modern Western Civilization. Anti-vaxxers don’t believe in vaccinating their kids against diseases like measles, so diseases like measles are cropping up -- decades after they’d been more or less eradicated by … vaccines.
“It's already happened,” writes CNN’s John Blake. “People are obsessed over the appearance and racial identity of the new royal baby. That's going to go into overdrive now.” They are? It is? Well Blake certainly is, spinning out a long article speculating about the race and looks of an infant in another country he likely will never meet.
No, it doesn’t take much to trigger a feminist. In the case of Jezebel staff writer Esther Wang, all you have to do is support the wrong Democrat. That was Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin’s mistake.
Now hear this: Huffington Post says it’s okay to enjoy Cinco de Mayo. This is not a drill. Proceed to the store for your Dos Equis and Cuervo and salsa. Repeat: this is not a drill.
To be a Washington Post staffer is to simultaneously believe that a) when teenager shoots up a school, it’s about guns; b) when a jihadi shoots up a church, it’s not about religion; and c) when a Christian shoots up a synagogue it’s ... about religion. (An important corollary: when a jihadi shoots up a church, the scariest part is a possible reaction from right-wing Christians.)