Workin’ for the Weekend #8: The French Hello, Megyn Kelly's Baggage, and Kennedy’s Butt-Message
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Workin’ for the Weekend #8: The French Hello, Megyn Kelly's Baggage, and Kennedy’s Butt-Message
Kiss *this*, SPLC & AOC!
“It’s always an honor,” David French tweeted in the wee hours last night, “to be on one of my favorite podcasts.” And what can we say? He’s not wrong! (We keed, we keed.)
With his appearance on #365, Frenchie achieves the Fifdom hat trick, having previously graced our presence on #191 and #325. Some of his recent work elaborating on the themes we talked about: “America’s Violent Heart,” “There Is No Right Person to Hate,” “The Subtle Ways Even Peaceful Partisans Enable Political Violence,” “Roe Is Reversed, and the Right Isn’t Ready,” and “The Case for Prosecuting Trump Just Got Much Stronger,” and “The Dangerous Lesson of Book Bans in Public School Libraries.”
Oh, and remember that extended jag about the abyss and Jordan Peterson? This one’s hot of the (French) presses: “Jordan Peterson Is Terribly Wrong About Russia, and the West.” Here’s the Twitter thread of those two-camera Peterson videos we were discussing. Pick your favorite; here’s mine:
Those of you who think we’re being unfair to our dour Canadian friend may want to read (and get past the dual-purpose headline of) my 2018 essay, “Jordan Peterson Is Not the Second Coming,” which is a good-faith effort to analyze the man’s ideas, his phenomenon, and…his future.
* We also criticized on the epi a recent jeremiad by the Southern Poverty Law Center, headlined “Andrew Yang To Speak Alongside Far-right Figures at 'FreedomFest,'” calling it an exercise in dot-connecting, attempted peer-pressure, and political mischaracterization of various people. Those of you with long memories who haven’t been paying close attention to the SPLC the past decade or two may be saying, “Huh? I thought those were the guys who did good work back in the day going after the Klan!” To which I’d recommend just doing a Reason search on “SPLC” and “Jesse Walker.” (Andrew Yang talked with Kmele on #134.)
* Speaking of FreedomFest (no, not the Matt & Grover Norquist on stage cavorting in tights while Steve Forbes talks about sound money in a wizard costume, photos of which are secured in Fort Knox), that pic above is obviously of America’s libertarian girlfriend herself, our dear pal Kennedy (#37), putting the FU into FF:
* Oh yeah, on Tuesday we did the full two hours of The Megyn Kelly Show, only 90 minutes of which was her opening travel-hell monologue. (We keed, we keed.) Though you paying subscribers already know too well, here’s what we look like podcasting in the flesh:
* Safely behind the camera-wall is Moynihan’s appearance this week on The Re-education with Eli Lake, the great new podcast product from one of our most beloved bloodthirsty neocon guests (#52, #65, #141, #174, SD51, #326). The two examine “why so many creative geniuses have embraced some truly vulgar and horrific political causes and movements,” among other topics. You know what to do!
Workin’ for the Weekend #8: The French Hello, Megyn Kelly's Baggage, and Kennedy’s Butt-Message
Jordan Peterson is known most for the stuff he is worst at. His social and political commentary is average at best, and he is much better in conversation than on stage by himself or in a silly produced lecture like the one linked.
He is a phenomenal interviewer. One of my favorites (https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/s4e49/) is of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was wrongly detained in Guantanamo for a decade following 9/11. Peterson asks a few good questions and occupies at most 5-10% of the time. He is also really good when talking about psychology, specifically developmental psychology.
Basically, Jordan Peterson excels at the stuff that he does most of the time, which doesn't get covered. I agree with you all that the stuff of his that you criticize is crap, and I fault him for putting that crap front and center -- though he does know how to make a dollar.
No one beats you guys on politics, social commentary, and history -- least of all Jordan Peterson. But, I'll keep him in my mix because of how much I like his interviewing style and how much I learn when he stays within his area of training and expertise. I have never had much use for his splashy forays into the culture wars -- and it is at least partly on him that these efforts are the ones for which he is most well known.
Biden’s agenda just went from “save the world” to “live until the last day of my second term.” In a related story, Biden will issue an executive order making “brain dead” no longer a medically valid term.