Notes on the Way

So long, Shep, hello Kari, Elon must be stopped, spin follies, Asians need not apply

---

Shepard Sacked: Shepard Smith became my least-favorite Fox News journalist thanks to his incompetent coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I well remember the disgust that overcame me when his doom-laden reportage on the dystopian hell that was the New Orleans Superdome turned out to be b.s. This made the superciliousness that was organic to his style intolerable to me, and when he bolted from FNC in 2019 over a nasty spat with the opinion side of the network, I wasn’t sorry to see him go. Smith landed at CNBC—with a dull thump, as it turned out. After hosting The News with Shepard Smith for a couple of years with ratings ranging from mediocre to dismal, he’s been cut loose. As Chris Wallace—CNN+ roadkill—could have told him, life after FNC tends to be something of a downer…

Kari Rising: When she first snagged the Arizona GOP gubernatorial nomination, Kari Lake was dismissed as an election-denying MAGA loser with a bad haircut who didn’t have a prayer. But boy oh boy, has she proved the critics wrong! Lake, a former news anchor, is not only a familiar face in the Grand Canyon State but a politician who profits from the skill set of her former job. For poise, presence and the ability to field questions from a hostile press, she’s this election cycle’s standout candidate. And in all probability, she’ll be elected governor of Arizona on November 8. Pretty good for a woman whom Meghan McCain reviled as a hag, a sideshow freak, and a lunatic…

Funny Thing, That: When companies controlled by billionaires toe the progressive line—promote gender ideology, for instance—progressives have no worries. Move along, nothing to see here, no threat to “our democracy,” folks! Then Elon Musk buys Twitter and it’s DEFCON ONE—free speech and democracy in danger! Yes, I know, the idea that progressives are actually concerned about threats to free speech is kind of hilarious. In any case, the Biden Administration’s most urgent mission is now to “reign in Elon Musk”—this according to Luke Goldstein, writing in Washington Monthly. You know, Luke, your time might be more profitably spent inquiring into the links between Facebook and the Department of Homeland Security…if, that is, you really do care about threats to free speech…

You Spin, You Win: While President Biden is still insisting that the Democrats will prevail in the midterm elections, his minions and apologists are in spin cycle mode, preparing for a loss. Except that it won’t be a loss, not really, because other presidents were hit with much bigger midterm losses. But National Review’s Jim Geraghty showers that notion with cold water, noting that “because Biden began his presidency with a much smaller majority than his predecessors, even modest losses could leave Democrats with fewer seats than the 193 they had in 2011.” And why did Biden begin his presidency with such a small House majority? Because in 2020 he trailed no coattails; the GOP actually picked up House seats. Sorry, Joe…

Affirmative Reaction: If this week’s oral arguments are anything to go by, the Supreme Court is likely to strike down affirmative action once and for all. Questioned by Justice Alito, Justice Thomas and others, the defenders of affirmative action bumped up against their fundamental problem: They can’t be honest about the thing they’re defending. Supposedly, the need for diversity mandates discrimination against Asian-Americans in higher education—except that it’s not really discrimination. Yeah, sure. Much the same argument was used to discriminate against Jews in higher education back in the day, even if the word “diversity” was not yet in the fashion. And the quota system for Jews at elite universities like Harvard (a party to the current case) is rightly judged to have been a blot on those institutions of higher learning. Given that background and their inability to define the concept of diversity, the defenders of AA found it kind of hard to explain to the Court why a quota system for Asians is so necessary, so virtuous, so anything but racial discrimination…