We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide.

If you could be given golf lessons by either Tiger Woods or the local
club pro, guitar lessons by Eric Clapton or the guitarist for the garage
band playing downtown, cooking lessons by Emeril Lagasse or by the
night cook at the local diner, which choice would you make in every
case?

Tiger may be hot shit, but the club pro is...a pro. You wanna take pasture pool lessons, you need the basics first, and the club pro is plenty good for that. Probably better.
If they're playing downtown, must be a pretty damn good garage band*. Sounds like the Beat farmers, in fact, and lessons from Jerry Raney and Rolle Love would probably do you more good.
The cook at the diner. First thing I wanna learn is how to break an egg with one hand.

* Unless he means downtown East Chicago, in which case WTF...

Halloween_Jack • 9 years ago

It's almost as if Hugh doesn't really want to learn golf, guitar or cooking, but just wants the bragging rights.

AGoodQuestion • 9 years ago

Love his suggestion to Kinsley those years ago about "reinvigorating" the LA Times editorial page by hiring Jim Fucking Lileks and Mickey Fucking Kaus. Next project would be reinvigorating a failing pizzeria by using only microwave ovens and using the sauce you strain from cans of Spaghetti-os.

Disboose • 9 years ago

FFS, Hewitt wrote a book called "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It" in 2004. You couldn't find a better example of an up-is-down always-wrong-but-occasionally-uses-$4-words-on-his-blog-so-he-must-be-moderate huckster this side of Instapundit.

mds • 9 years ago

"If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Volume MDCVII of It's Always Projection in Conservativeland."

brad nailer • 9 years ago

Really? It's a given that I'd rather take lessons from Tiger Woods than my local golf pro? Like Woods would be a better teacher than a scratch golfer who gets paid to teach people how to play golf? Yeah, Hugh, I know what you were trying to say. Now get back to your fucking laptop and say it right.

Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard • 9 years ago

Hewitt deserves a prize for not shitting on the rug. This is what we call the Republican meritocracy.

AlanInSF • 9 years ago

"If you could be given golf lessons by either Tiger Woods or the local club pro, guitar lessons by Eric Clapton or the guitarist for the garage band playing downtown..." Depends on whether you wanted to learn your craft or hang out with hypocritical philanderers and ungrateful racists.

J Neo Marvin • 9 years ago

What's Eric Clapton going to teach anyone? "Go listen to some BB King records and practice"?

Halloween_Jack • 9 years ago

"Do heroin and marry your friend's ex-wife. Worked for me!"

J Neo Marvin • 9 years ago

Start up a band with a brilliant singer/songwriter/bassist and a crazy drummer who hate each other and make a bunch of brilliant records and luck out because late 60s hippie aesthetics dictate that your extended blues solos were the most important aspect of the band, then coast through the rest of your career while your two ex-bandmates languish in obscurity. Worked great for me, might not work for you.

AGoodQuestion • 9 years ago

Once you've got the band rolling, I guess it has a 1-in-3 chance of working for you.

Provider_UNE • 9 years ago

Twice over stil got nothing but slack in my jaw...

...

MBouffant • 9 years ago

Hewitt in the discourse-elevating Washington TimesExaminer:

Any Republicans who vote against higher defense spending should be fired
BY HUGH HEWITT | MARCH 22, 2015 | 5:00 PM
Let's talk a bit about which House Republican incumbents are going to draw primary opponents in 2016. Make a note: Those GOP representatives who vote against upping Pentagon spending this week are at the top of a list that deserve to face off against an Iraq or Afghan war vet when votes are cast in primaries next spring or summer. Reckless endangerment of American national security via showboating votes against Pentagon funding should earn a GOP representative a quick ticket to enforced retirement.

With a world on fire and threats to the homeland as well as allies growing daily, posturing over Pentagon spending should become a toxic indulgence for incumbents.

"There is overwhelming support in our conference for providing additional resources to protect our national security," House Speaker John Boehner declared at his weekly press conference last week, and with that the gauntlet was thrown down.

War pigs indeed.

Haystack • 9 years ago

With a world on fire and threats to the homeland as well as allies
growing daily, posturing over Pentagon spending should become a toxic indulgence for incumbents.

That's some ass-nificent prose ya got there, Hugh!

This guy gets paid to write?

MBouffant • 9 years ago

Per word.

GeniusLemur • 9 years ago

from the old Young Obama Supporter bit mentioned: "he lacks even the barest minimum of life experiences needed for the job."
And Hewitt was vehemently opposed to W. for the same reason, right? Right?

Aimai • 9 years ago

Even at this snark distance you really have to wonder what a pathetic view of "life experiences" Hewitt had, back then, to think that Obama whose life was chock full of pretty fucking meaningful life experiences somehow was lacking in that capacity. Maybe I'm biased because I'm an anthropologist and Obama's mother was an anthropologist but Obama's life was really full of some pretty important "life experiences" and his book Dreams From My Father was actually a fucking fantastic and insightful exploration of those experiences showing that he had not just lived them, but experienced them. If anything--not that Hewitt et al would admit it--everything that Bush ever said about his own life shows that the meaning and nature of it was as undigested in him as a piece of corn in a piece of poop. Bush had had a pretty interesting life as the grandson of a senator and the son of a president but it didn't leave a mark on his consciousness.

Halloween_Jack • 9 years ago

It's remarkable how little impact Decision Points, W's memoirs, seems to have had; the structure and reviews of the book seem to confirm that it was oriented towards rationalizing the decisions that he made while he was in office, and didn't involve much reflection. Compare that with Bill Clinton's My Life, which was a huge best-seller, plausibly written by Clinton himself, criticized mostly for its length (over a thousand pages), and got Bubba his second Grammy for narrating the audiobook version.

Derelict • 9 years ago

Bush had had a pretty interesting life as the grandson of a senator and the son of a president but it didn't leave a mark on his consciousness.

This is consistent with conservatives in general. Self-awareness and introspection are not part of their intellectual/emotional makeup. This extends to their complete lack of empathy and inability to imagine themselves in another's place.

GeniusLemur • 9 years ago

"Hewitt is definitely a Republican, but he is no mere mouthpiece"
He's a mouthpiece with an "I'm trying to elevate discourse" sticky note slapped on the wad of right-wing toxic waste in his mouth masquerading as a tongue.

tigrismus • 9 years ago

If you could be given golf lessons by either Tiger Woods or the local
club pro, guitar lessons by Eric Clapton or the guitarist for the garage
band playing downtown, cooking lessons by Emeril Lagasse or by the
night cook at the local diner, which choice would you make in every
case?

Let me just guess, four years later actual presidentin' experience was far less important than Hewitt's oversize mancrush.

Let's Go, Augie • 9 years ago

If I could be represented in court by either a pro per vexatious litigant who types in all caps and bathes infrequently or "constitutional law scholar" Huge Hewitt, I'd go for the former.

Guest • 9 years ago
mgmonklewis • 9 years ago

Not to mention, who's to say that those experts in their fields know jack squat about teaching? Just being good at something doesn't mean you're worth a crap at teaching it to someone. (And for all we know, that lowly, sneered-at fry cook makes the best goddamn grilled cheese sammich in the world, and could teach you how to do it.)

M. Krebs • 9 years ago

The entire premise is just stupid. For one thing none of those guys is ever going to spend any time giving pointers to Random Individual, and, even if they did, there would be almost no value in it. Hey, check out this awesome pentatonic scale Eric Clapton taught me! Or, hey, if you combine garlic power, onion power, ground cayenne pepper, and coriander and rub that shit on a pork chop, it's fucking amazing! Emeril taught me that! Christ, these people.

J Neo Marvin • 9 years ago

It all ties in with the conservative mentality. These big names are The Authorities You Must Worship. An obscure skilled person who works for a living has nothing of value to offer.

Guest • 9 years ago
J Neo Marvin • 9 years ago

This has been What Is Dennis Whining About Now?

Guest • 9 years ago
J Neo Marvin • 9 years ago

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

While out the other side of their mouths comes shit like "Expert, riiiight. You know what an expert is, dontcha? Well, X is the unknown quantity, and a spurt is a drip under pressure! hahahaha!" Back in the day I listened to a lot of wingnut talk radio, and I must have heard that once a week.

AGoodQuestion • 9 years ago
An obscure skilled person who works for a living has nothing of value to offer.


... and can be downsized without guilt or further consideration.

Buddy McCue • 9 years ago

In my opinion, Paul McCartney is a good example of what you're saying.

He's a great bass player; there's no doubt about that, but after watching some of his lessons on video, I have to say that's he's not very good at teaching.

KatWillow • 9 years ago

Sometimes people who are really good at something are just plain talented. And that can't be taught.

M. Krebs • 9 years ago

It's like the math professor who won't teach undergrads, saying "I simply cannot teach the obvious."

M. Krebs • 9 years ago

Just being good at something doesn't mean you're worth a crap at teaching it to someone...

Or that you give enough of a fuck to try.

reflectionephemeral • 9 years ago

"He is empirically nuts," Andrew Sullivan concluded, on Hewitt's over-the-top Harriet Miers hackery: http://sullivanarchives.the...

Mark Halperin begged for Hewitt to say he's not liberal; no dice: http://glenngreenwald.blogs...

Jay B. • 9 years ago

I don't have any idea how it will be answered by the 10 or so potentially serious candidates who may be on that stage, but the difficulty of predicting the best answer can be found — where else? — in two movies about war.

"Potentially serious?" I knew Republicans were like Shingles.

Two movies about war? I'm not reading it, but I'm guessing Revenge of the Nerds and Lord of the Flies.

Emily • 9 years ago

Considering that most celebrity "chefs" spend more time in a make-up chair and meetings with their publicists than they do actually cooking, I'd pick the guy who cooks eight hours a day over anyone famous on TV. Anyone who equates fame with talent is a moron.

AGoodQuestion • 9 years ago

Look at it this way. Hewitt's fame among at least a goodly portion of Americans is the best evidence he has of his own talent. Of course reading anything he's written is a clear refutation of that case, but he's not about to admit that, even to himself.

ColBatGuano • 9 years ago

Same goes for golf lessons. The local pro makes his money teaching people to golf. Tiger Woods does not.

Aimai • 9 years ago

Technically didn't his father teach Tiger to play?

LittlePig • 9 years ago

little teeny club, little tiny cattle prod - it was so cute!

Aimai • 9 years ago

Bam!

Bitter Scribe • 9 years ago

I assume we can expect his "Letter to a Young Cruz Supporter" any day now.

Let's Go, Augie • 9 years ago

Huge's role as a primary debate moderator has delayed publication of his book-length endorsement of Ted Cruz, rumored to be titled A Moron in the White House.

Aimai • 9 years ago

Shorter "Goodnight Moron."

Guest • 9 years ago

Hewitt is as a big a hack as they come but he's also a careful hack. As much as he trash talks the MSM he wants to play in the big leagues as much as any of them. He's smart enough to know that you never go full winger. On air at least. His blog, however, is a regular repository of the crazy. His most recent contribution to elevating our discourse was giving the key's to his blog to a partner at his law firm, John Schroeder, who recently wrote:


"Obama’s aversion to the use of the military is an infringement on religious expression as well. Jesus said, (John 15:13) “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ” Our military men and women have volunteered to lay down their lives for our nation and those that our nation chooses to defend – it is an act of love. And for many that act is made out of Christian devotion. Amongst the military people I know their families understand this as well, and their sacrifices are also a part of their religious devotion.

Now , of course, decisions about when and how to use the military are complex and not to be made lightly. That’s not the point. Obama seems to never ever want to put the life of a soldier at risk. Even when he decides to use force, drones and long range bombing predominate – the least risky methods of military action we have at our disposal. On some level, Obama’s policies regarding the use of the military force robs our military men and women of practicing their devotion to God in the way that they see fit."

http://www.hughhewitt.com/w...

Obama's pacifism is preventing our good christian soldiers from dying for Jesus like he commanded. Feel the elevation!

Might wanna come down to a lower elevation where his brain can get some oxygen...