Pig Wrestling Edition (Jay J & AemJeff)

[Jay J]

Well done, Gentlemen!

Thank you Bloggin'. It's weird to watch yourself, I tend to notice every little thing I could have said better/more accurately/more grammatically correct (and what I should have said and didn't say, etc). I would not be shocked if Jeff could relate (not that he didn't do very well, he did, it's just that with myself, such self-treatment is probably inevitable). This experience will only make me more tolerant of the missteps of those who speak in public frequently and get interviewed a lot.

It was also a real pleasure to do this with Jeff. He did what I thought he would, which is challenge my position without caricaturing it.

And you're right, whether it is in the Obama Administration's political interests to engage in the fight is largely a separate issue from whether it is admirable or unseemly to do so. My main issue (but not my only issue) is with Anita Dunn's words, and how even after she gave what was probably an ill-advised speech on Mao, continued to engage in the tit-for-tat with Fox News, rather than backtrack or try to identify with people who might have non-cynical concerns about her use of Mao's example.

Also, by admitting Fox's... "part" in all this, I was hoping to get some distance between whether Fox is deserving and whether the White House ought to engage in the dispute. I mean, I'm sure that there are all sorts of people with all sorts of character flaws out there, but that by itself does not mean that it is admirable for me to point them out, especially when many people already are, and I've got a bigger job to do. Your example of a judge taking bribes seems to be an example of duty; the example of the White House calling out Fox News seems more akin to a respected school-teacher taking part in a schoolyard brawl with an admittedly terrible bully. That the bully is terrible is not enough to justify the teacher's actions.

EDIT: As TwinSwords points out to me, Anita Dunn did not give a speech about Mao, she was giving what seems to be a quasi-motivational speech to high school students, and in the course of giving this speech, she mentioned Mao as an example.