WHAT WE DO INSTEAD OF CLASS WARFARE
Virginia Heffernan, who writes about online culture for The New York Times Magazine, thinks we have an unhealthy interest in shaming female celebities -- Lindsay Lohan, Michaele Salahi -- who really aren't doing anyone any harm except themselves:
...In all the analysis, no one seems to zero in on what Michaele Salahi plainly is: a pretty lady who wants to dress up and have fun at fancy parties. Even after the story of her party-crashing broke, Salahi still wanted to talk to Bravo's camera chiefly about her dress and what an impressive figure she had cut in it.
Maybe that's not very noble. But in itself it's not against the law. For that matter, alcoholism is not against the law, and neither is sleeping around or lying about how many drinks you've had or even seeming very, very skanky. For those who maturely skipped the party phase of life, gaming the guest list ... is part and parcel of the night-life spirit -- and also not in itself a jailable offense.
Right after 9/11, Muslim regimes were depicted as tyrannical in part because they demonized Western fun-loving culture in the name of a misogynistic ideology. Slowly but surely we've been doing the same thing with our most visible good-time girls, making villains of women who are dangerous almost exclusively to themselves. We point cameras into their darkened cars and literally up their skirts to find cellulite or evidence of immodesty that wouldn't exist without the cameras.... If these women are bad examples to our daughters, we who take a hang-'em-high attitude to party girls have officially become bad examples to their parents.
Do we really fixate on women? I'm not sure (Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix come to mind), but I can see that the men who get this treatment may be the exceptions.
But to me the point seems to be that we do this to celebrities. I think we do this because -- beyond the fact that we really do find some of this behavior unacceptable -- we don't have the success and money these people have, and we don't have the success and money a lot of people have, many of whom really do have power over our lives and abuse it, but we're just not in the habit of going after those people, because we don't really recognize this society's class lines. So we take our class anger out on celebrities.
People do this across the political spectrum. In addition, right-wingers take their class anger out on politicians they've been told are "elitist," and on liberals in general, whom they've also been told are elitist (see, e.g., this elitist-bashing Washington Post op-ed by elitist Charles Murray).
You'll notice that it's especially easy to get right-wingers to bash liberal blacks (Barack Obama) and women (Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton until recently) for elitism. Non-whites, women, gays -- bashing them is always more fun than bashing white men, isn't it? And maybe the apolitical version is what Heffernan is talking about. But it's all a diversion from the real class anger we're absolutely entitled to, but which is never, ever encouraged, so we never, ever express it.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
KEEPING THE ENEMY INVISIBLE
Here's Peter Baker of The New York Times, giving us the conventional wisdom that President Obama might benefit from big losses in the midterms:
The reality of presidential politics is that it helps to have an enemy. With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, they shoulder responsibility for the country's troubles. No amount of venting about George W. Bush or the filibuster rule has convinced the public otherwise. But if Republicans capture Congress, Mr. Obama will finally have a foil heading toward his own re-election battle in 2012.
"No amount of venting": that's an interesting phrase for Baker to use. Yes, on the part of the White House there's been "no amount of venting" (i.e., quite a bit) about Bush, but there's been literally "no amount of venting" -- as in virtually none -- about filibusters. When have you ever heard the president try to explain why big Democratic majorities struggle to get things done? When have you ever heard him try to explain how the process works?
Attacks on the Bush presidency, and warnings that Republican successes in the midterms will bring us Bush 2.0, actually make it harder for the public to understand what's going on. Attacking Bush reinforces the impression that Republicans had power then; warning of a possible upcoming era of neo-Bushism suggests that Republicans could misuse power in the future. All of this makes it hard for voters who aren't politics wonks to grasp the fact that Republicans, using the filibuster and relentless party discipline, have a hell of a lot of power right now, and are abusing it.
Would Obama benefit from having an identifiable enemy? I'm not sure. But it's clear that not only has he failed to focus voters' attention on the enemy he has now, he's actually said things that push the enemy even further into the shadows.
Here's Peter Baker of The New York Times, giving us the conventional wisdom that President Obama might benefit from big losses in the midterms:
The reality of presidential politics is that it helps to have an enemy. With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, they shoulder responsibility for the country's troubles. No amount of venting about George W. Bush or the filibuster rule has convinced the public otherwise. But if Republicans capture Congress, Mr. Obama will finally have a foil heading toward his own re-election battle in 2012.
"No amount of venting": that's an interesting phrase for Baker to use. Yes, on the part of the White House there's been "no amount of venting" (i.e., quite a bit) about Bush, but there's been literally "no amount of venting" -- as in virtually none -- about filibusters. When have you ever heard the president try to explain why big Democratic majorities struggle to get things done? When have you ever heard him try to explain how the process works?
Attacks on the Bush presidency, and warnings that Republican successes in the midterms will bring us Bush 2.0, actually make it harder for the public to understand what's going on. Attacking Bush reinforces the impression that Republicans had power then; warning of a possible upcoming era of neo-Bushism suggests that Republicans could misuse power in the future. All of this makes it hard for voters who aren't politics wonks to grasp the fact that Republicans, using the filibuster and relentless party discipline, have a hell of a lot of power right now, and are abusing it.
Would Obama benefit from having an identifiable enemy? I'm not sure. But it's clear that not only has he failed to focus voters' attention on the enemy he has now, he's actually said things that push the enemy even further into the shadows.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
WHAT?! P.J. O'ROURKE IS STILL ALIVE?
I had no idea either, but the guy who was a snarky right-wing has-been even before Ann Coulter was a snarky right-wing has-been is apparently still consuming oxygen. He has a new book coming out called Don't Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards (stealing a book title from a decades-old bumper sticker, but adding a mild curse -- witty!), and he's just published a Weekly Standard "humor piece" that's basically an American Thinker editorial with slightly more interesting sentence structure:
They Hate Our Guts
And they're drunk on power.
Perhaps you're having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP's crowning glory -- an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O'Donnell announcing that she's not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?)
Har har har! That Hitlery KlintOOOOn -- what a nut-crusher! Seriously, dude, where have you been? It's not 1994 anymore -- your team likes Hillary now. These days that joke is supposed to be about Nancy Pelosi.
... They hate our guts.
They don't just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody's guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.
Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.
Um, if we'll do anything to get people to vote for us, why do we lose so many elections? Maybe we don't make people helpless enough, if that really is how you seize power in this country. Or maybe we just don't hate enough people, or hate people enough. Since you guys have had the White House for 32 of the past 42 years, and the Senate and House for 12 of the past 16, could it be that you guys are the best haters? Are you the ones keeping voters helpless and hopeless? And is that working for you?
Whence all this hate? Is it the usual story of love gone wrong? Do Democrats have a mad infatuation with the political system, an unhealthy obsession with an idealized body politic? Do they dream of capturing and ravishing representational democracy? Are they crazed stalkers of our constitutional republic?
No. It's worse than that. Democrats aren't just dateless dweebs clambering upon the Statue of Liberty carrying a wilted bouquet and trying to cop a feel. Theirs is a different kind of love story.
You know what, Peej? I'd be careful calling Democrats "dweebs" with a Statue of Liberty fixation. Have you seen the recent viral video of Todd Seavey and Helen Rittelmeyer -- the Lisa Loopner and Todd De La Mucca of Wingnuttia -- who had a lovers' spat on C-SPAN 2? Go watch it, Peej, and get back to me about that political dweeb thing.
Power, not politics, is what the Democrats love. Politics is merely a way to power's heart.... And politics comes with that reliable boost for pathetic egos, a weapon: legal monopoly on force. If persuasion fails to win the day, coercion is always an option.
Dude, we can't even get our own senators to vote for our own legislation.
... Democrats hate success. Success could supply the funds for a power elopement. Fire up the Learjet. Flight plan: Grand Cayman. Democrats hate failure too. The true American loser laughs at legal monopoly on force. He’s got his own gun.
Does anyone have any idea what that paragraph means? Is it meant to be some sort of slam poetry?
Democrats hate productivity, lest production be outsourced to someplace their beloved power can't go. And Democrats also hate us none-too-productive drones in our cubicles or behind the counters of our service economy jobs.
"Us," Peej? "Us"? I knew you hadn't been selling very many books lately, but when the hell was the last time you had a real job?
... Democrats hate stay-at-home spouses, no matter what gender or gender preference. Democratic advocacy for feminism, gay marriage, children's rights, and "reproductive choice" is simply a way to invade --power's little realm of domestic private life and bring it under the domination of Democrats.
Democrats hate immigrants. Immigrants can't stay illegal because illegality puts immigrants outside the legal monopoly on force. But immigrants can't become legal either. They'd prosper and vote Republican.
Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.
And Democrats hate the military, of course. Soldiers set a bad example. Here are men and women who possess what, if they chose, could be complete control over power. Yet they treat power with honor and respect....
You know what else we hate? Puppies. Puppies look cute and have enderaing faces and make endearing cute noises and then roll over on their backs and beg for a treat and a belly rub. AND WE HATE THAT BECAUSE IT ALL MAKES PEOPLE FEEL SO GOOD THAT THEY AREN'T ANGRY ENOUGH TO WANT TO HELP US DESTROY CAPITALISM AND CASTRATE ALL STRAIGHT WHITE MEN!
This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
Abuse power? Us? Well, neglect is a form of abuse, I guess. We were entrusted with power, but we sure did neglect it. We were even paying attention to it, so it slipped out its bedroom window and started hanging out with a bad crowd from another party -- you guys, Peej. And now you've got it turning tricks while you take all the money.
Yeah, I guess that is our fault, isn't it?
I had no idea either, but the guy who was a snarky right-wing has-been even before Ann Coulter was a snarky right-wing has-been is apparently still consuming oxygen. He has a new book coming out called Don't Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards (stealing a book title from a decades-old bumper sticker, but adding a mild curse -- witty!), and he's just published a Weekly Standard "humor piece" that's basically an American Thinker editorial with slightly more interesting sentence structure:
They Hate Our Guts
And they're drunk on power.
Perhaps you're having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP's crowning glory -- an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O'Donnell announcing that she's not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?)
Har har har! That Hitlery KlintOOOOn -- what a nut-crusher! Seriously, dude, where have you been? It's not 1994 anymore -- your team likes Hillary now. These days that joke is supposed to be about Nancy Pelosi.
... They hate our guts.
They don't just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody's guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.
Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.
Um, if we'll do anything to get people to vote for us, why do we lose so many elections? Maybe we don't make people helpless enough, if that really is how you seize power in this country. Or maybe we just don't hate enough people, or hate people enough. Since you guys have had the White House for 32 of the past 42 years, and the Senate and House for 12 of the past 16, could it be that you guys are the best haters? Are you the ones keeping voters helpless and hopeless? And is that working for you?
Whence all this hate? Is it the usual story of love gone wrong? Do Democrats have a mad infatuation with the political system, an unhealthy obsession with an idealized body politic? Do they dream of capturing and ravishing representational democracy? Are they crazed stalkers of our constitutional republic?
No. It's worse than that. Democrats aren't just dateless dweebs clambering upon the Statue of Liberty carrying a wilted bouquet and trying to cop a feel. Theirs is a different kind of love story.
You know what, Peej? I'd be careful calling Democrats "dweebs" with a Statue of Liberty fixation. Have you seen the recent viral video of Todd Seavey and Helen Rittelmeyer -- the Lisa Loopner and Todd De La Mucca of Wingnuttia -- who had a lovers' spat on C-SPAN 2? Go watch it, Peej, and get back to me about that political dweeb thing.
Power, not politics, is what the Democrats love. Politics is merely a way to power's heart.... And politics comes with that reliable boost for pathetic egos, a weapon: legal monopoly on force. If persuasion fails to win the day, coercion is always an option.
Dude, we can't even get our own senators to vote for our own legislation.
... Democrats hate success. Success could supply the funds for a power elopement. Fire up the Learjet. Flight plan: Grand Cayman. Democrats hate failure too. The true American loser laughs at legal monopoly on force. He’s got his own gun.
Does anyone have any idea what that paragraph means? Is it meant to be some sort of slam poetry?
Democrats hate productivity, lest production be outsourced to someplace their beloved power can't go. And Democrats also hate us none-too-productive drones in our cubicles or behind the counters of our service economy jobs.
"Us," Peej? "Us"? I knew you hadn't been selling very many books lately, but when the hell was the last time you had a real job?
... Democrats hate stay-at-home spouses, no matter what gender or gender preference. Democratic advocacy for feminism, gay marriage, children's rights, and "reproductive choice" is simply a way to invade --power's little realm of domestic private life and bring it under the domination of Democrats.
Democrats hate immigrants. Immigrants can't stay illegal because illegality puts immigrants outside the legal monopoly on force. But immigrants can't become legal either. They'd prosper and vote Republican.
Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.
And Democrats hate the military, of course. Soldiers set a bad example. Here are men and women who possess what, if they chose, could be complete control over power. Yet they treat power with honor and respect....
You know what else we hate? Puppies. Puppies look cute and have enderaing faces and make endearing cute noises and then roll over on their backs and beg for a treat and a belly rub. AND WE HATE THAT BECAUSE IT ALL MAKES PEOPLE FEEL SO GOOD THAT THEY AREN'T ANGRY ENOUGH TO WANT TO HELP US DESTROY CAPITALISM AND CASTRATE ALL STRAIGHT WHITE MEN!
This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
Abuse power? Us? Well, neglect is a form of abuse, I guess. We were entrusted with power, but we sure did neglect it. We were even paying attention to it, so it slipped out its bedroom window and started hanging out with a bad crowd from another party -- you guys, Peej. And now you've got it turning tricks while you take all the money.
Yeah, I guess that is our fault, isn't it?
MISS HIM YET?
You probably already know the key revelations from the newly dumped WikiLeaks documents on Iraq: reports of exceedingly brutal torture of Iraqis by Iraqis (with Americans looking the other way), as well as information on more civilian deaths than the U.S. ever acknowledged.
What's interesting about the timing of this is that it comes just as George W. Bush and the GOP are gearing up for a mutual victory lap. Republicans are going to win big at the polls on November 2, and then, a week later, Bush's memoir, Decision Points, will be published, and Bush's book tour, which already seems to be in previews, will begin in earnest. Bush's publisher, the Crown division of Random House, has announced that it's printing 1,500,000 copies of the book, so it's apparently expecting Palin-level sales.
Oh, and if it wasn't obvious that the folks who are leading us to our glorious, forward-looking Teabag Year Zero are inextricably bound to the past, along comes an endorsement for a possible Sarah Palin presidential bid by none other than Jeb Bush. That's fitting, isn't it? Two Bushes got us into four wars, and Palin shares not only the younger Bush's simple-mindedness and theocratic worldview but his giddy delight in combat; a stock line in her stump speech is "I raised a combat vet and you can't take that away from me," as if the point of war is personal fulfillment, which is how W always seemed to look at it as well.
Given all this, can we possibly hope that those who are granted interviews with George W. Bush on his book tour will ask him not just about his rosy version of events, and not just about how GOP gains at the polls are an indirect vindication of him, but about how the WikiLeaks documents reveal once again what a disaster his presidency was? Is it possible he'll have to squirm at least a little bit and defend the quagmire he created? Is it possible that a bit of tough questioning will throw the triumphant 2010 Republicans a bit off message as they gear up to finish the job of destroying the Obama presidency?
I'm not optimistic. I'm sure the interviews of Bush will be exceedingly deferential and bound by strict predetermined ground rules. But I suppose we can hope.
You probably already know the key revelations from the newly dumped WikiLeaks documents on Iraq: reports of exceedingly brutal torture of Iraqis by Iraqis (with Americans looking the other way), as well as information on more civilian deaths than the U.S. ever acknowledged.
What's interesting about the timing of this is that it comes just as George W. Bush and the GOP are gearing up for a mutual victory lap. Republicans are going to win big at the polls on November 2, and then, a week later, Bush's memoir, Decision Points, will be published, and Bush's book tour, which already seems to be in previews, will begin in earnest. Bush's publisher, the Crown division of Random House, has announced that it's printing 1,500,000 copies of the book, so it's apparently expecting Palin-level sales.
Oh, and if it wasn't obvious that the folks who are leading us to our glorious, forward-looking Teabag Year Zero are inextricably bound to the past, along comes an endorsement for a possible Sarah Palin presidential bid by none other than Jeb Bush. That's fitting, isn't it? Two Bushes got us into four wars, and Palin shares not only the younger Bush's simple-mindedness and theocratic worldview but his giddy delight in combat; a stock line in her stump speech is "I raised a combat vet and you can't take that away from me," as if the point of war is personal fulfillment, which is how W always seemed to look at it as well.
Given all this, can we possibly hope that those who are granted interviews with George W. Bush on his book tour will ask him not just about his rosy version of events, and not just about how GOP gains at the polls are an indirect vindication of him, but about how the WikiLeaks documents reveal once again what a disaster his presidency was? Is it possible he'll have to squirm at least a little bit and defend the quagmire he created? Is it possible that a bit of tough questioning will throw the triumphant 2010 Republicans a bit off message as they gear up to finish the job of destroying the Obama presidency?
I'm not optimistic. I'm sure the interviews of Bush will be exceedingly deferential and bound by strict predetermined ground rules. But I suppose we can hope.
Friday, October 22, 2010
DON'T TREAD ON GOLDMAN SACHS
I don't expect teabaggers to be upset that large corporations are buying the election -- right-wingers love capitalism; what they hate is government giving money to corporations; secondarily, they get angry at corporations for taking that money. So I think there's only one company name in today's New York Times story on the Chamber of Commerce that might upset 'baggers in any way:
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending....
More recently, the News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber's political efforts this fall....
... tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon....
I'm amused to see Goldman on the list, because of this moment involving the Chamber's best-known celebrity fund-raiser:
The Tea Party's chief theologian is [Glenn] Beck, the cable-TV personality whose rise has mirrored the movement's. Beck's world is full of demons, but the devil that enraged the sold-out crowd in a ballroom at the Atlantic City Hilton on Aug. 5 wasn't Obama or even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Give the money to the people!" Beck shouted to a packed room of around 1,500. "Give us our money back -- not to Goldman Sachs!..."
That passage comes from a Bloomberg BusinessWeek story that ran a couple of weeks ago called "Why Business Doesn't Trust the Tea Party." I think the story oversells the wariness somewhat, but it certainly makes it clear that business and the teabaggers don't all want the same things -- and in a battle like that, who do you think is going to win in the long run?
... [The tea party agenda] may sound like a corporate dream come true -- as long as the corporation in question doesn't have international operations, rely on immigrant labor, see the value of national monetary policy, or find itself in need of a subsidy to boost exports or an emergency loan from the Fed to survive the worst recession in seven decades. Business leaders who favor education reform, immigration reform, or investment in infrastructure can likely say goodbye to those ideas for the short term as well; they won't be possible in the willfully gridlocked world of the coming 112th Congress.
... The Tea Party's brand of political nitroglycerin, in short, is too unstable for businesses that look to government for predictability, moderation, and the creation of a stable economic environment. "A lot of the agenda is being driven by the extremes," says John Castellani, the former head of the Business Roundtable who left in July to take the helm of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). "This kind of extremism makes it much harder to plan from a business perspective." ...
Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ... has kept its distance from many Tea Party candidates. The Chamber ... says it plans to spend at least $75 million in this election cycle. So far, most of the money has gone to Republicans not closely associated with the Tea Party, such as former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina in California and former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman in Ohio. The Chamber has endorsed Rand Paul, the Tea Party-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Kentucky, and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, an early Tea Party favorite who is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida and is distancing himself from his Tea Party roots....
It's a small matter, but I was really surprised to learn that the South Carolina Chamber is endorsing the Democratic opponent of Sarah Palin glass slipper recipient Nikki Haley in the governor's race.
I'm not saying big business's agenda is less right-wing than the tea party's, but it's right-wing in a different way. And the Chamber's ultimately going to prevail, coopting a lot of these folks and shocking the poor, naive, idealistic teabag back-benchers who think really they're going to take part in a small-government, tricorn-hat revolution.
Of course, this isn't really going to create a conservative crack-up -- the fat cats' pet newbies and establishment Republicans are just going to gin up a lot of investigations and witch-hunts and other distractions to keep the rank-and-file mollified. Military adventurism will probably be demanded. You know the drill.
So maybe things aren't going to change all that much -- they're not going to get truly teabaggy, they're just going to get extremely Reaganesque. That's not great, but it'll be familiar.
I don't expect teabaggers to be upset that large corporations are buying the election -- right-wingers love capitalism; what they hate is government giving money to corporations; secondarily, they get angry at corporations for taking that money. So I think there's only one company name in today's New York Times story on the Chamber of Commerce that might upset 'baggers in any way:
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending....
More recently, the News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber's political efforts this fall....
... tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon....
I'm amused to see Goldman on the list, because of this moment involving the Chamber's best-known celebrity fund-raiser:
The Tea Party's chief theologian is [Glenn] Beck, the cable-TV personality whose rise has mirrored the movement's. Beck's world is full of demons, but the devil that enraged the sold-out crowd in a ballroom at the Atlantic City Hilton on Aug. 5 wasn't Obama or even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Give the money to the people!" Beck shouted to a packed room of around 1,500. "Give us our money back -- not to Goldman Sachs!..."
That passage comes from a Bloomberg BusinessWeek story that ran a couple of weeks ago called "Why Business Doesn't Trust the Tea Party." I think the story oversells the wariness somewhat, but it certainly makes it clear that business and the teabaggers don't all want the same things -- and in a battle like that, who do you think is going to win in the long run?
... [The tea party agenda] may sound like a corporate dream come true -- as long as the corporation in question doesn't have international operations, rely on immigrant labor, see the value of national monetary policy, or find itself in need of a subsidy to boost exports or an emergency loan from the Fed to survive the worst recession in seven decades. Business leaders who favor education reform, immigration reform, or investment in infrastructure can likely say goodbye to those ideas for the short term as well; they won't be possible in the willfully gridlocked world of the coming 112th Congress.
... The Tea Party's brand of political nitroglycerin, in short, is too unstable for businesses that look to government for predictability, moderation, and the creation of a stable economic environment. "A lot of the agenda is being driven by the extremes," says John Castellani, the former head of the Business Roundtable who left in July to take the helm of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). "This kind of extremism makes it much harder to plan from a business perspective." ...
Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ... has kept its distance from many Tea Party candidates. The Chamber ... says it plans to spend at least $75 million in this election cycle. So far, most of the money has gone to Republicans not closely associated with the Tea Party, such as former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina in California and former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman in Ohio. The Chamber has endorsed Rand Paul, the Tea Party-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Kentucky, and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, an early Tea Party favorite who is running for the U.S. Senate in Florida and is distancing himself from his Tea Party roots....
It's a small matter, but I was really surprised to learn that the South Carolina Chamber is endorsing the Democratic opponent of Sarah Palin glass slipper recipient Nikki Haley in the governor's race.
I'm not saying big business's agenda is less right-wing than the tea party's, but it's right-wing in a different way. And the Chamber's ultimately going to prevail, coopting a lot of these folks and shocking the poor, naive, idealistic teabag back-benchers who think really they're going to take part in a small-government, tricorn-hat revolution.
Of course, this isn't really going to create a conservative crack-up -- the fat cats' pet newbies and establishment Republicans are just going to gin up a lot of investigations and witch-hunts and other distractions to keep the rank-and-file mollified. Military adventurism will probably be demanded. You know the drill.
So maybe things aren't going to change all that much -- they're not going to get truly teabaggy, they're just going to get extremely Reaganesque. That's not great, but it'll be familiar.
BRODEN: SEDITION ADVOCATE, ABORTION CONSPIRACIST
Via David Niewert, perhaps you've seen this Dallas Morning News story:
Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.
In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." ...
"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said....
Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.
"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "However, it is not the first option." ...
This must be rather embarrassing for the News, which endorsed Broden earlier this month.
But this isn't an isolated bit of fringiness for Broden. As a Dallas Observer blogger noted a few weeks ago:
Broden is an important figure in a national movement among African-American thinkers and writers who see concrete historical linkages between abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood on the one hand, and white racist schemes for the genocidal extermination of black people on the other.
More specifically, these writers ... argue that the American eugenics movement and some early birth control champions like Margaret Sanger were motivated by a desire to exterminate black people and other minorities. They claim further that there were direct historical ties between Sanger's disciples and Adolph Hitler and that the American eugenics movement provided Hitler the theoretical pretext for the Holocaust.
In their view, Sanger, Hitler and Planned Parenthood are peas in a pod --all of them strange fruit produced by white racism.
Whatever Sanger and others may have said or done in the past, these people are arguing that genocidal eugenicism poisons the family planning movement today.
Broden appears in a documentary called Maafa21 -- you can watch a clip here. The film's Facebook page says it
exposes a plan to create "racial purity" that began 150 years ago and is still being carried out right now.
It's about the ties between the Nazis, the American eugenics movement and today's "family planning" cartel.
It's about elitism, secret agendas, treachery and corruption at the highest levels of political and corporate America....
Maafa 21 shows the connection from slavery and eugenics to birth control, abortion and black genocide today....
Maafa21proves with irrefutable documentation that abortion is simply an extension of racism and eugenics targeting blacks for centuries. After watching Maafa21, viewers often comment that it "connects the dots." ...
More:
In a pivotal scene, African-Americans are interviewed on the street and asked to name the No. 1 cause of death in the black community. "Heart disease?" "HIV/AIDS?" "Diabetes?" they guess. "What if I told you," the interviewer says to a young black man, "the real answer is abortion." Clenard Childress, the northeast director of the Life Education and Resource Network, an anti-abortion group, then appears to drive the point home: "The abortion industry, at this point, kills as many African-American people every four days as the Klan killed in a 150 years, and you can truly say that the most dangerous place for an African-American to be is in the womb of an African-American mother."
... Who else is in on the scheme? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "There is definitely a conspiratorial plot being hatched, and has been hatched, by the NAACP to keep from their people the fact that they are co-conspirators in the genocide of their own people," says Levon Yuille, a black pastor in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in Maafa 21. Yuille says the media are in on it, too, which explains why more of the country isn't aware of this plot.
These are Broden's ideological partners. Broden endorses these ideas.
Will it surprise you if I tell you that Broden was endorsed by Sarah Palin last month? Or that he's a frequent Glenn Beck guest?
All this was knowable when the News endorsed Broden, as were these past statements cited in the current News article:
In June 2009, he described the economic crash in the housing, banking and automotive industries as "contrived" and a "set up" by the Obama administration.
... Broden also [made] other remarks last year that chided Americans for not being more outraged over government intrusion, comparing them to Jews "walking into the furnaces" under the Nazi regime in Germany.
"They are our enemies, and we must resist them," he said of government leaders.
Fortunately, Broden is not expected to win in his heavily Democratic district. Oh, and the leading cause of death for blacks? Heart disease.
And gosh, I sure am glad the tea party movement is focused strictly on economic issues and has killed that silly old culture war once and for all, aren't you?
Via David Niewert, perhaps you've seen this Dallas Morning News story:
Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.
In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." ...
"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said....
Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.
"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "However, it is not the first option." ...
This must be rather embarrassing for the News, which endorsed Broden earlier this month.
But this isn't an isolated bit of fringiness for Broden. As a Dallas Observer blogger noted a few weeks ago:
Broden is an important figure in a national movement among African-American thinkers and writers who see concrete historical linkages between abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood on the one hand, and white racist schemes for the genocidal extermination of black people on the other.
More specifically, these writers ... argue that the American eugenics movement and some early birth control champions like Margaret Sanger were motivated by a desire to exterminate black people and other minorities. They claim further that there were direct historical ties between Sanger's disciples and Adolph Hitler and that the American eugenics movement provided Hitler the theoretical pretext for the Holocaust.
In their view, Sanger, Hitler and Planned Parenthood are peas in a pod --all of them strange fruit produced by white racism.
Whatever Sanger and others may have said or done in the past, these people are arguing that genocidal eugenicism poisons the family planning movement today.
Broden appears in a documentary called Maafa21 -- you can watch a clip here. The film's Facebook page says it
exposes a plan to create "racial purity" that began 150 years ago and is still being carried out right now.
It's about the ties between the Nazis, the American eugenics movement and today's "family planning" cartel.
It's about elitism, secret agendas, treachery and corruption at the highest levels of political and corporate America....
Maafa 21 shows the connection from slavery and eugenics to birth control, abortion and black genocide today....
Maafa21proves with irrefutable documentation that abortion is simply an extension of racism and eugenics targeting blacks for centuries. After watching Maafa21, viewers often comment that it "connects the dots." ...
More:
In a pivotal scene, African-Americans are interviewed on the street and asked to name the No. 1 cause of death in the black community. "Heart disease?" "HIV/AIDS?" "Diabetes?" they guess. "What if I told you," the interviewer says to a young black man, "the real answer is abortion." Clenard Childress, the northeast director of the Life Education and Resource Network, an anti-abortion group, then appears to drive the point home: "The abortion industry, at this point, kills as many African-American people every four days as the Klan killed in a 150 years, and you can truly say that the most dangerous place for an African-American to be is in the womb of an African-American mother."
... Who else is in on the scheme? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "There is definitely a conspiratorial plot being hatched, and has been hatched, by the NAACP to keep from their people the fact that they are co-conspirators in the genocide of their own people," says Levon Yuille, a black pastor in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in Maafa 21. Yuille says the media are in on it, too, which explains why more of the country isn't aware of this plot.
These are Broden's ideological partners. Broden endorses these ideas.
Will it surprise you if I tell you that Broden was endorsed by Sarah Palin last month? Or that he's a frequent Glenn Beck guest?
All this was knowable when the News endorsed Broden, as were these past statements cited in the current News article:
In June 2009, he described the economic crash in the housing, banking and automotive industries as "contrived" and a "set up" by the Obama administration.
... Broden also [made] other remarks last year that chided Americans for not being more outraged over government intrusion, comparing them to Jews "walking into the furnaces" under the Nazi regime in Germany.
"They are our enemies, and we must resist them," he said of government leaders.
Fortunately, Broden is not expected to win in his heavily Democratic district. Oh, and the leading cause of death for blacks? Heart disease.
And gosh, I sure am glad the tea party movement is focused strictly on economic issues and has killed that silly old culture war once and for all, aren't you?
THE NOT-EMERGING DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY
This, from Politico, doesn't surprise me at all:
The new political map: Welcome to 2004
After consecutive elections marked by big gains in Republican territory, the Democratic Party of 2011 is poised to shrink back to its form before the GOP's downward spiral: more coastal and urban, and less Southern, Midwestern and rural.
Based on the state of the political map two weeks out from the election, the famed red vs. blue model that followed the 2004 presidential race appears to be returning to shape....
... it's likely that this year's election will mark a return to the familiar political universe that characterized the decade before 2006 when the GOP controlled swaths of politically conservative and moderate parts of the country.
...Of the 69 Democratic-controlled House seats rated as toss-ups or favoring Republicans by the Cook Political Report, 40 are in the South or Midwest....
I've always been skeptical about the theory that Barack Obama's election was the result of an inexorable demographic tsunami that's in the process of wiping Republicans from the face of the earth. We vote state by state, and most of the country consists of non-coastal states full of resentnik whites -- and will continue to do so throughout the lifetime of everyone who reads this.
Fat cats and right-wing strategists, and Rupert Murdoch know that Democrats with some progressive ideas may get elected, but as long as they can be prevented from enacting programs and policies that non-whites and non-right-wing women and gays and young people want, then the notion that voting Democrat is a really worthwhile exercise won't ever fully take hold, especially among traditionally low-turnout groups. But, if you keep stoking the hate and fear -- especially fear of those Democratic groups -- angry whites will always show up at the polls.
That's how you keep the demographic tsunami at bay -- use filibusters and donation pressure to make sure Democrats keep disappointing the base. Voila -- the base stays home, no matter how big it's growing.
Besides, it's not as if "the emerging Democratic majority" is emerging very fast. Remember how Hispanics were going to save the Democrats? Well, as I wrote a few months ago:
... The Future is a country that's 29% Hispanic -- by 2050, according to demographers. Um, 29% is a big uptick, but even that high number is a long way away, and it still means Hispanics will be a minority. It means they'll be in pretty much the position blacks are in in Southern states. How's that working out in terms of consolidating political power?
And if Republicans never, ever yield on immigration, and demagogue heartland Democrats so they never have the guts to fight for immigration reform, then Hispanics will be disheartened and won't vote.
Which is the point.
And which is why I expect the red-blue map to look the same as it did through the Bush years for decades, unless a miracle occurs and someone figures out how to make liberalism appealing to non-coastal straight white males.
This, from Politico, doesn't surprise me at all:
The new political map: Welcome to 2004
After consecutive elections marked by big gains in Republican territory, the Democratic Party of 2011 is poised to shrink back to its form before the GOP's downward spiral: more coastal and urban, and less Southern, Midwestern and rural.
Based on the state of the political map two weeks out from the election, the famed red vs. blue model that followed the 2004 presidential race appears to be returning to shape....
... it's likely that this year's election will mark a return to the familiar political universe that characterized the decade before 2006 when the GOP controlled swaths of politically conservative and moderate parts of the country.
...Of the 69 Democratic-controlled House seats rated as toss-ups or favoring Republicans by the Cook Political Report, 40 are in the South or Midwest....
I've always been skeptical about the theory that Barack Obama's election was the result of an inexorable demographic tsunami that's in the process of wiping Republicans from the face of the earth. We vote state by state, and most of the country consists of non-coastal states full of resentnik whites -- and will continue to do so throughout the lifetime of everyone who reads this.
Fat cats and right-wing strategists, and Rupert Murdoch know that Democrats with some progressive ideas may get elected, but as long as they can be prevented from enacting programs and policies that non-whites and non-right-wing women and gays and young people want, then the notion that voting Democrat is a really worthwhile exercise won't ever fully take hold, especially among traditionally low-turnout groups. But, if you keep stoking the hate and fear -- especially fear of those Democratic groups -- angry whites will always show up at the polls.
That's how you keep the demographic tsunami at bay -- use filibusters and donation pressure to make sure Democrats keep disappointing the base. Voila -- the base stays home, no matter how big it's growing.
Besides, it's not as if "the emerging Democratic majority" is emerging very fast. Remember how Hispanics were going to save the Democrats? Well, as I wrote a few months ago:
... The Future is a country that's 29% Hispanic -- by 2050, according to demographers. Um, 29% is a big uptick, but even that high number is a long way away, and it still means Hispanics will be a minority. It means they'll be in pretty much the position blacks are in in Southern states. How's that working out in terms of consolidating political power?
And if Republicans never, ever yield on immigration, and demagogue heartland Democrats so they never have the guts to fight for immigration reform, then Hispanics will be disheartened and won't vote.
Which is the point.
And which is why I expect the red-blue map to look the same as it did through the Bush years for decades, unless a miracle occurs and someone figures out how to make liberalism appealing to non-coastal straight white males.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
YOUR LIBERAL MEDIA
For the last two days, the allegedly doctrinaire liberal socialist commie pinko New York Times has featured, at the bottom of its front page as well as on its video page (as the lead item), a feature on the making of an anti-Braney Frank ad by right-wing director Ladd Ehlinger Jr., the guy who made the notorious Dale Peterson ad ("We're better than that!").
Here's the gushy, utterly uncritical Times video:
There's also an article, which is similarly uncritical.
Now here's the ad itself:
See, this is the difference between the "liberal media" and the conservative media: for all the blather about how, say, Alan Colmes or Juan Williams brings a liberal perspective to Fox (yes, Roger Ailes actually just called Williams a liberal), Fox is all about relentless advocacy. The Times? Nope -- it sincerely tries to air the other side, even to the extent of producing a four-minute ad for this one-minute ad, fully acknowledging (see the Times video) that the very point of the anti-Frank ad is to raise money from online viewers. Thus, the Times is indirectly fund-raising for Frank's opponent.
As for the ad, I think it isn't funny, but it seems as if it must be funny, so some people may think it's funny. Ehlinger tries to preempt criticism (in the Times video and story) by saying any anti-Frank ad will be called homophobic, but I think the disco-dance motif is somebody's idea of effeminacy (oh, and the dancing body double is a woman), though it's subtler than it could be. Mostly, it's just the politic-ad cliche of animated-opponent-turned-goofy, but with sensory overload.
The soundtrack seems to be trying to emulate "Bale Out," the dance remix of Christian Bale's on-air tantrum during the filming of Terminator: Salvation, but "Bale Out" is smarter; it has a good beat and you can dance to it:
The Barney Frank ad just seems like a slapdash assemblage of soundbites, though I guess it all make sense to wingers who've spent long hours absorbing Fox propaganda about Frank.
I'm so glad The New York Times shared all this with me.
For the last two days, the allegedly doctrinaire liberal socialist commie pinko New York Times has featured, at the bottom of its front page as well as on its video page (as the lead item), a feature on the making of an anti-Braney Frank ad by right-wing director Ladd Ehlinger Jr., the guy who made the notorious Dale Peterson ad ("We're better than that!").
Here's the gushy, utterly uncritical Times video:
There's also an article, which is similarly uncritical.
Now here's the ad itself:
See, this is the difference between the "liberal media" and the conservative media: for all the blather about how, say, Alan Colmes or Juan Williams brings a liberal perspective to Fox (yes, Roger Ailes actually just called Williams a liberal), Fox is all about relentless advocacy. The Times? Nope -- it sincerely tries to air the other side, even to the extent of producing a four-minute ad for this one-minute ad, fully acknowledging (see the Times video) that the very point of the anti-Frank ad is to raise money from online viewers. Thus, the Times is indirectly fund-raising for Frank's opponent.
As for the ad, I think it isn't funny, but it seems as if it must be funny, so some people may think it's funny. Ehlinger tries to preempt criticism (in the Times video and story) by saying any anti-Frank ad will be called homophobic, but I think the disco-dance motif is somebody's idea of effeminacy (oh, and the dancing body double is a woman), though it's subtler than it could be. Mostly, it's just the politic-ad cliche of animated-opponent-turned-goofy, but with sensory overload.
The soundtrack seems to be trying to emulate "Bale Out," the dance remix of Christian Bale's on-air tantrum during the filming of Terminator: Salvation, but "Bale Out" is smarter; it has a good beat and you can dance to it:
The Barney Frank ad just seems like a slapdash assemblage of soundbites, though I guess it all make sense to wingers who've spent long hours absorbing Fox propaganda about Frank.
I'm so glad The New York Times shared all this with me.
ABC NEWS ASKS: BUT AREN'T PEOPLE ENTITLED TO THEIR OWN FACTS?
Whatever you think about NPR's firing of Juan Williams, this ABC News story suggests a defense of Williams that's no defense at all, at least in a society that makes at least some effort to remain reality-based:
Did Juan Williams Say What Most People Are Thinking?
...On an appearance of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," on Monday Williams, 56, said, "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
... Williams' remarks reflect a view so widely held among Americans that his dismissal has raised accusations of overly sensitive political correctness. According to two recent polls, Williams' remarks reflect the opinions of many Americans, leading some observers to suggest that Williams was fired for saying what everyone else is thinking....
So that should be the standard? A news organization must keep a journalist on the payroll who violates the organization's code as long as what he or she says is "what most people are thinking"?
So, if "most people" in America are creationists, or don't believe that humans are having an impact on the climate, then NPR should be forced to retain a science correspondent who doesn't believe in evolution, or who thinks sunspots cause global warming?
As Andrew Sullivan noted this morning:
What percentage of traditionally garbed Muslims -- I assume wearing a covered veil or some other indicator and being of darker skin -- have committed acts of terror? And, of course, the 9/11 mass-murderers were in everyday attire, to blend in. So was the Christmas Day undie-bomber. The Fort Hood murderer was in US military uniform, for Pete's sake.
Whatever you think about NPR's firing of Juan Williams, this ABC News story suggests a defense of Williams that's no defense at all, at least in a society that makes at least some effort to remain reality-based:
Did Juan Williams Say What Most People Are Thinking?
...On an appearance of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," on Monday Williams, 56, said, "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
... Williams' remarks reflect a view so widely held among Americans that his dismissal has raised accusations of overly sensitive political correctness. According to two recent polls, Williams' remarks reflect the opinions of many Americans, leading some observers to suggest that Williams was fired for saying what everyone else is thinking....
So that should be the standard? A news organization must keep a journalist on the payroll who violates the organization's code as long as what he or she says is "what most people are thinking"?
So, if "most people" in America are creationists, or don't believe that humans are having an impact on the climate, then NPR should be forced to retain a science correspondent who doesn't believe in evolution, or who thinks sunspots cause global warming?
As Andrew Sullivan noted this morning:
What percentage of traditionally garbed Muslims -- I assume wearing a covered veil or some other indicator and being of darker skin -- have committed acts of terror? And, of course, the 9/11 mass-murderers were in everyday attire, to blend in. So was the Christmas Day undie-bomber. The Fort Hood murderer was in US military uniform, for Pete's sake.
NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER
In the comments to my earlier Juan Williams post, nepat points us to this:
... Former Arkansas governor and Fox talk show host Mike Huckabee's HuckPAC released a statement blasting NPR for violating Williams' First Amendment rights and called on Congress to defund the public radio organization. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some money to NPR, receives approximately 15 percent of its funds from the federal government.) ...
Sarah Palin, also a Fox News contributor, weighed in on Twitter and also claimed Williams' First Amendment rights had been breached....
I'm going to predict that within the next few days, if not by the end of the day, a large number of Republicans, including many of the most prominent officeholders and candidates, will have made similar demands. I predict that Democrats in tight races are going to be put on the spot and asked whether they're willing to zero out funds for the CPB. I'm betting that established national figures in the Republican Party -- people at the level of DeMint and Boehner and Cantor -- are going to call for defunding CPB.
If I'm right, it will mean that Republicans aren't sitting around fretfully asking, "Um, should we raise this issue? It fires up our base, but don't swing voters like Sesame Street? So isn't the issue a loser for our party nationwide?" I think they're not going to say that. I think they're just going to go for it. Because that's how they roll. And that's why they win.
****
UPDATE FRIDAY: Told ya.
Republican Senator Jim DeMint has confirmed that he will introduce legislation to cut federal funding from NPR after they fired analyst Juan Williams for making insensitive comments about Muslims on Fox....
This is far more likely to pass in the lame-duck session than an extension of the Bush tax cuts that eliminates the tax break for the rich.
AND: Cantor and Boehner too. I got the trifecta!
In the comments to my earlier Juan Williams post, nepat points us to this:
... Former Arkansas governor and Fox talk show host Mike Huckabee's HuckPAC released a statement blasting NPR for violating Williams' First Amendment rights and called on Congress to defund the public radio organization. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some money to NPR, receives approximately 15 percent of its funds from the federal government.) ...
Sarah Palin, also a Fox News contributor, weighed in on Twitter and also claimed Williams' First Amendment rights had been breached....
I'm going to predict that within the next few days, if not by the end of the day, a large number of Republicans, including many of the most prominent officeholders and candidates, will have made similar demands. I predict that Democrats in tight races are going to be put on the spot and asked whether they're willing to zero out funds for the CPB. I'm betting that established national figures in the Republican Party -- people at the level of DeMint and Boehner and Cantor -- are going to call for defunding CPB.
If I'm right, it will mean that Republicans aren't sitting around fretfully asking, "Um, should we raise this issue? It fires up our base, but don't swing voters like Sesame Street? So isn't the issue a loser for our party nationwide?" I think they're not going to say that. I think they're just going to go for it. Because that's how they roll. And that's why they win.
****
UPDATE FRIDAY: Told ya.
Republican Senator Jim DeMint has confirmed that he will introduce legislation to cut federal funding from NPR after they fired analyst Juan Williams for making insensitive comments about Muslims on Fox....
This is far more likely to pass in the lame-duck session than an extension of the Bush tax cuts that eliminates the tax break for the rich.
AND: Cantor and Boehner too. I got the trifecta!
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS STOCKHOLM COMEDY
Even though lately I've felt like one of the "humorless and wrongheaded lefty scolds" he talks about, I absolutely agree with Kevin K's recommendation of this Wonkette piece by Jack Stuef, which takes on Timothy Noah's attack on the upcoming Colbert/Stewart rally in Slate. I'm going to put on my humorless hat for just one second and say that I really, really don't think the rally will be a huge boon for Democrats, nor is it intended to be -- I agree with Stuef that "this 'rally' probably will make as many jokes about bears as jokes about Teabaggers" -- but now I want to remove the hat and say I think it'll be hilarious (though other plans are going to keep me away, alas).
Whatever the rally is like, I find Noah's hand-wringing insufferable:
... You can argue, as my friend and mentor Charles Peters does, that the ridicule in Stewart's and Colbert's satire, like the ridicule in much contemporary popular comedy, carries a screw-those-uneducated-yokels message that you never found in, say, the humor of Will Rogers. Rogers once quipped: "An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
... Stewart-Colbertism scorns extremism of all types, but especially conservative extremism, and most especially conservative extremism driven by ignorance or religious fundamentalism. It is mildly critical of liberalism, but mainly for failing to combat conservative bombast more effectively.... All this works well as humor, but as a sentiment shouted through a bullhorn to thousands stretched between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument, it will translate into, well, judging other people for what they don't know. It will do so no matter how much everyone laughs....
There's still a lot we don't fully understand about the Tea Partiers and the political independents who have lost faith in Obama. But one thing we should all be pretty clear on by now is that they hate, hate, hate anything that smacks of elitism. The spectacle of affluent 18-to-34-year-olds blanketing the Mall to snicker at jokes about wingnut ignoramuses and Bible thumpers will, I fear, have the effect of a red cape waved before a bull.... let Republicans regain the House (and maybe even the Senate) in part because Comedy Central used mockery not merely to burlesque political protest but also, to some inevitable extent, to practice it -- and I think Stewart and Colbert will be sorry they came....
Oh, right -- this rally is going to change the course of the entire election. As it stands now, the Senate is likely to remain in Democratic hands -- but after the rally tens of thousands of swing voters who haven't yet been swayed by endless hours of right-wing rhetoric are suddenly going to storm the polling places to vote for teabaggers because Jon Stewart will have stood on the National Mall and called Steve Doocy a "douche." Right-- that sure is plausible.
Of course, this is the classic argument that hamstrings liberals everywhere, most notably in the White House: if we're really, really nice and deferential to the people who despise us, surely they'll see the light and meet us halfway.... Get it through your head, Tim: these people are going to hate, hate, hate us for our elitism whether we're elitist or not.
The only way Stewart and Colbert could do outreach to these clowns would be to say nothing insulting or belittling or even mildly irreverent about right-wingers and the tea party movement at their rally, and, instead, to lay into liberals and Democrats relentlessly and mercilessly. Think that would lay the groundwork for rapprochement, Tim? No. It would just lay the groundwork for a thousand blog headlines along the lines of "Even the Liberal Jon Stewart Rejects NObama and Socialism."
Yeah, I know -- a couple of days ago I was praising people who tiptoe around climate-change skepticism as they try to sell green-energy ideas.
But those are people trying to implement policy in a right-leaning environment where they have little power to change opinions (and where they've been failed by the higher-profile people who could marshal and disseminate arguments that might change opinions, but have never done so effectively).
Stewart and Colbert are political comedians, fer crissake -- they have a different job. Are they supposed to not do political comedy whenever enough people are yelling loudly enough that their feelings are hurt, constantly, by everything and everyone they don't like?
Stewart and Colbert are going to hit a lot of targets, including you and me. That's their job. Let them get on with their work.
Even though lately I've felt like one of the "humorless and wrongheaded lefty scolds" he talks about, I absolutely agree with Kevin K's recommendation of this Wonkette piece by Jack Stuef, which takes on Timothy Noah's attack on the upcoming Colbert/Stewart rally in Slate. I'm going to put on my humorless hat for just one second and say that I really, really don't think the rally will be a huge boon for Democrats, nor is it intended to be -- I agree with Stuef that "this 'rally' probably will make as many jokes about bears as jokes about Teabaggers" -- but now I want to remove the hat and say I think it'll be hilarious (though other plans are going to keep me away, alas).
Whatever the rally is like, I find Noah's hand-wringing insufferable:
... You can argue, as my friend and mentor Charles Peters does, that the ridicule in Stewart's and Colbert's satire, like the ridicule in much contemporary popular comedy, carries a screw-those-uneducated-yokels message that you never found in, say, the humor of Will Rogers. Rogers once quipped: "An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
... Stewart-Colbertism scorns extremism of all types, but especially conservative extremism, and most especially conservative extremism driven by ignorance or religious fundamentalism. It is mildly critical of liberalism, but mainly for failing to combat conservative bombast more effectively.... All this works well as humor, but as a sentiment shouted through a bullhorn to thousands stretched between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument, it will translate into, well, judging other people for what they don't know. It will do so no matter how much everyone laughs....
There's still a lot we don't fully understand about the Tea Partiers and the political independents who have lost faith in Obama. But one thing we should all be pretty clear on by now is that they hate, hate, hate anything that smacks of elitism. The spectacle of affluent 18-to-34-year-olds blanketing the Mall to snicker at jokes about wingnut ignoramuses and Bible thumpers will, I fear, have the effect of a red cape waved before a bull.... let Republicans regain the House (and maybe even the Senate) in part because Comedy Central used mockery not merely to burlesque political protest but also, to some inevitable extent, to practice it -- and I think Stewart and Colbert will be sorry they came....
Oh, right -- this rally is going to change the course of the entire election. As it stands now, the Senate is likely to remain in Democratic hands -- but after the rally tens of thousands of swing voters who haven't yet been swayed by endless hours of right-wing rhetoric are suddenly going to storm the polling places to vote for teabaggers because Jon Stewart will have stood on the National Mall and called Steve Doocy a "douche." Right-- that sure is plausible.
Of course, this is the classic argument that hamstrings liberals everywhere, most notably in the White House: if we're really, really nice and deferential to the people who despise us, surely they'll see the light and meet us halfway.... Get it through your head, Tim: these people are going to hate, hate, hate us for our elitism whether we're elitist or not.
The only way Stewart and Colbert could do outreach to these clowns would be to say nothing insulting or belittling or even mildly irreverent about right-wingers and the tea party movement at their rally, and, instead, to lay into liberals and Democrats relentlessly and mercilessly. Think that would lay the groundwork for rapprochement, Tim? No. It would just lay the groundwork for a thousand blog headlines along the lines of "Even the Liberal Jon Stewart Rejects NObama and Socialism."
Yeah, I know -- a couple of days ago I was praising people who tiptoe around climate-change skepticism as they try to sell green-energy ideas.
But those are people trying to implement policy in a right-leaning environment where they have little power to change opinions (and where they've been failed by the higher-profile people who could marshal and disseminate arguments that might change opinions, but have never done so effectively).
Stewart and Colbert are political comedians, fer crissake -- they have a different job. Are they supposed to not do political comedy whenever enough people are yelling loudly enough that their feelings are hurt, constantly, by everything and everyone they don't like?
Stewart and Colbert are going to hit a lot of targets, including you and me. That's their job. Let them get on with their work.
ABOUT TIME. FIRE MARA LIASSON NEXT.
NPR has fired Fox's Juan Williams -- and we're about to hear all kinds of whining and sniveling about "liberal fascism" and "chilling effects on free speech" from right-wing blogs and discussion boards that routinely ban liberal commenters, and from Fox itself, which operates as essentially an ideologically pure state-run news outlet for a right-wing counterrevolutionary regime that doesn't quite exist yet:
NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel....
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the "The O'Reilly Factor" on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O'Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a "Muslim dilemma." Mr. O'Reilly said, "The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet."
Mr. Williams said...: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." ...
Should this remark have gotten him fired? I'd say no -- but I say that only because it's not blatantly offensive enough for NPR to avoid the shitstorm of self-righteousness that;'s going to ensue, with talking points dictated by the right and recited word for word by media commentators and editorialists from the center.
I think NPR should have fired him with no proximate cause, just because he's on Fox -- and Mara Liasson, too. As Eric Boehlert wrote last year:
... Fox News [has] seemed to proudly obliterate any barrier between journalism and politics as it morphed into the de facto media engine driving conservative politics, invited fringe conspiracy theorists on air, declared itself the "voice of the opposition," and promoted violent political rhetoric....
Public broadcasting guidelines clearly state that when appearing on outside programs "journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist." And, "They should not participate in shows electronic forums, or blogs that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis."
The NPR ethics code, written "to protect the credibility of NPR's programming by ensuring high standards of honesty, integrity, impartiality and staff conduct," also forbids NPR journalists from participating in appearances that "may appear to endorse the agenda of a group or organization." Is there any independent viewer still watching Fox News today who thinks it does not endorse a political agenda? Its on-air hosts help raise money for GOP PACs, for crying out loud.
Fox is a partisan news organization, root and branch. If NPR has a standard like this (and Boehlert goes on to explain the nuances of how this extends to freelancers and contributors), then no Fox regular should ever appear on NPR. So Liasson has to go, too.
****
Boehlert speculated on a different solution to NPR's Fox problem, but he noted the risks:
...if they forbid Liasson and Williams from regularly appearing on Fox News, NPR would have to deal with the wrath of the right-wing noise machine and right-wing foot soldiers who would no doubt descend (electronically and perhaps even physically) on NPR and raise holy hell. And let's face it, that's not a pleasant scenario to contemplate, especially when the previous Republican administration launched a federal crusade to rid public broadcasting of its alleged liberal bias; a crusade that came with it the implicit threat of funding cuts.
Oh, those funds are gone now -- if not in the next two years, then in 2013, during the Palin or Barbour or Christie presidency.
NPR has fired Fox's Juan Williams -- and we're about to hear all kinds of whining and sniveling about "liberal fascism" and "chilling effects on free speech" from right-wing blogs and discussion boards that routinely ban liberal commenters, and from Fox itself, which operates as essentially an ideologically pure state-run news outlet for a right-wing counterrevolutionary regime that doesn't quite exist yet:
NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel....
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the "The O'Reilly Factor" on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O'Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a "Muslim dilemma." Mr. O'Reilly said, "The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet."
Mr. Williams said...: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." ...
Should this remark have gotten him fired? I'd say no -- but I say that only because it's not blatantly offensive enough for NPR to avoid the shitstorm of self-righteousness that;'s going to ensue, with talking points dictated by the right and recited word for word by media commentators and editorialists from the center.
I think NPR should have fired him with no proximate cause, just because he's on Fox -- and Mara Liasson, too. As Eric Boehlert wrote last year:
... Fox News [has] seemed to proudly obliterate any barrier between journalism and politics as it morphed into the de facto media engine driving conservative politics, invited fringe conspiracy theorists on air, declared itself the "voice of the opposition," and promoted violent political rhetoric....
Public broadcasting guidelines clearly state that when appearing on outside programs "journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist." And, "They should not participate in shows electronic forums, or blogs that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis."
The NPR ethics code, written "to protect the credibility of NPR's programming by ensuring high standards of honesty, integrity, impartiality and staff conduct," also forbids NPR journalists from participating in appearances that "may appear to endorse the agenda of a group or organization." Is there any independent viewer still watching Fox News today who thinks it does not endorse a political agenda? Its on-air hosts help raise money for GOP PACs, for crying out loud.
Fox is a partisan news organization, root and branch. If NPR has a standard like this (and Boehlert goes on to explain the nuances of how this extends to freelancers and contributors), then no Fox regular should ever appear on NPR. So Liasson has to go, too.
****
Boehlert speculated on a different solution to NPR's Fox problem, but he noted the risks:
...if they forbid Liasson and Williams from regularly appearing on Fox News, NPR would have to deal with the wrath of the right-wing noise machine and right-wing foot soldiers who would no doubt descend (electronically and perhaps even physically) on NPR and raise holy hell. And let's face it, that's not a pleasant scenario to contemplate, especially when the previous Republican administration launched a federal crusade to rid public broadcasting of its alleged liberal bias; a crusade that came with it the implicit threat of funding cuts.
Oh, those funds are gone now -- if not in the next two years, then in 2013, during the Palin or Barbour or Christie presidency.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
A PREVIEW OF THE PALIN 2012 CAMPAIGN?
A pattern begins to emerge. Florida:
After Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) attacked his Republican challenger Dan Webster as "Taliban Dan" in a recent campaign ad, Webster is refusing to share the stage with him for a debate....
Kentucky:
Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul plans to hold a news conference Thursday, to address the attack ad being run by his opponent, Jack Conway, which questions his religion. So Paul has questioned whether or not he will appear at the next scheduled debate with Conway, and officials at the campaign tell FOX News no decisions have yet been made....
Arizona:
In Arizona, the time for talk is over. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the tough new immigration law, says she won't debate Democrat Terry Goddard for a second time, despite his desire to do so, Politico reports.
... "No, absolutely not," Brewer said Thursday, when she was asked by Greta Van Susteren on Fox News whether she’d agree....
It's been said that Sarah Palin won't run for president in 2012 because she's not willing to endure all the things a presidential candidate has to go through -- interviews, debates, and so on. Well, we've seen in this election that there's a new right-wing technique for dealing with would-be interviewers: you just don't talk to any media figure who'll give you a hard time. Palin pioneered this. Now all sorts of right-wingers practice it.
A lot of people say Palin won't want to run because she knows she can't survive an endless series of debates. But what if she rewrites the rules and just blows the debates off? Or, to put it another way, what if she finds an excuse to blow them off -- say, umbrage at one of the candidates, or at various reporters on the debate panels, or perhaps at entire news organizations?
Who'd be better at ginning up a grievance -- or multiple grievances -- than Palin? There are few things she does better. I think she could far surpass Rand Paul and Dan Webster -- she could find multiple reasons for blowing off multiple debates. And if her cult remains intact, its members will agree that she really is the aggrieved party in every instance.
So, yeah, I think debates would be hard for Palin. But I also think she might blow them off -- and get away with it.
A pattern begins to emerge. Florida:
After Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) attacked his Republican challenger Dan Webster as "Taliban Dan" in a recent campaign ad, Webster is refusing to share the stage with him for a debate....
Kentucky:
Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Rand Paul plans to hold a news conference Thursday, to address the attack ad being run by his opponent, Jack Conway, which questions his religion. So Paul has questioned whether or not he will appear at the next scheduled debate with Conway, and officials at the campaign tell FOX News no decisions have yet been made....
Arizona:
In Arizona, the time for talk is over. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the tough new immigration law, says she won't debate Democrat Terry Goddard for a second time, despite his desire to do so, Politico reports.
... "No, absolutely not," Brewer said Thursday, when she was asked by Greta Van Susteren on Fox News whether she’d agree....
It's been said that Sarah Palin won't run for president in 2012 because she's not willing to endure all the things a presidential candidate has to go through -- interviews, debates, and so on. Well, we've seen in this election that there's a new right-wing technique for dealing with would-be interviewers: you just don't talk to any media figure who'll give you a hard time. Palin pioneered this. Now all sorts of right-wingers practice it.
A lot of people say Palin won't want to run because she knows she can't survive an endless series of debates. But what if she rewrites the rules and just blows the debates off? Or, to put it another way, what if she finds an excuse to blow them off -- say, umbrage at one of the candidates, or at various reporters on the debate panels, or perhaps at entire news organizations?
Who'd be better at ginning up a grievance -- or multiple grievances -- than Palin? There are few things she does better. I think she could far surpass Rand Paul and Dan Webster -- she could find multiple reasons for blowing off multiple debates. And if her cult remains intact, its members will agree that she really is the aggrieved party in every instance.
So, yeah, I think debates would be hard for Palin. But I also think she might blow them off -- and get away with it.
WINGNUTTERY: THE U.S. ECONOMY'S ONLY GROWTH INDUSTRY?
There are some obvious points to be made about this story -- that the wholesale purchase of our government seems impossible to stop; that teabaggers are delusional if they think their movement's funders give a crap about them -- but I'd like to add this: wouldn't it be nice if a few titans of American industry were actually working this hard and spending this much money to devise, improve and sell actual useful goods and services? Wouldn't that be a niceboost for the economy?
... Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes ... , is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, "develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity."
... The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts -- as the letter says, "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it."
... To give prospective participants a sense of what to expect, Mr. Koch's letter enclosed a brochure from the group's meeting at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, including a list of the roughly 200 participants -- a confab of hedge fund executives, Republican donors, free-market evangelists and prominent members of the New York social circuit.
... The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, "Is America on the Road to Serfdom?"
... Mr. Koch ... notes that previous guests have included Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and Representatives Mike Pence, Tom Price and Paul D. Ryan....
Even though we keep hearing that we're in a bad economy in which everyone is pinching pennies, this pricey gathering isn't the only example of free spending to advance wingnuttery. There's also this:
The George Washington University chapter of the College Republicans seem to be having a bit of trouble rallying volunteers to campaign for Christine O'Donnell:
The College Republicans have traditionally been extremely well funded by wealthy donors. Obvious so much cash is burning a hole in their wallet that they can waste it on a fool's errand like this. But none of the fat-cat donors think this is wasteful?
In what other part of the economy, with the possible exception of R&D at Apple, is there this kind of enthusiastic spending? Why do all of the economy's "animal spirits" seem to be concentrated in right-wing government-hijacking efforts?
Hell, this even extends to the right-wing rank and file. We're told that the teabaggers' anger is economic, but every couple of days we read that another teabag candidate is awash in cash. Sharron Angle raises $14 mil! O'Donnell outraises Coons! Glenn Beck's call for donations to the Chamber of Commerce crashes the Chamber's servers!
I don't know what ordinary wingers are thinking, but I half-wonder whether the big boys' financial behavior suggests that we need to go to a libertarian -- or communist -- government. Obviously, as long as battles over the degree and nature of government spending and taxation can be endlessly refought, some of these guys are going to think there's more money to be made from gaming the political system than from actual business.
There are some obvious points to be made about this story -- that the wholesale purchase of our government seems impossible to stop; that teabaggers are delusional if they think their movement's funders give a crap about them -- but I'd like to add this: wouldn't it be nice if a few titans of American industry were actually working this hard and spending this much money to devise, improve and sell actual useful goods and services? Wouldn't that be a niceboost for the economy?
... Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes ... , is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, "develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity."
... The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts -- as the letter says, "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it."
... To give prospective participants a sense of what to expect, Mr. Koch's letter enclosed a brochure from the group's meeting at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, including a list of the roughly 200 participants -- a confab of hedge fund executives, Republican donors, free-market evangelists and prominent members of the New York social circuit.
... The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, "Is America on the Road to Serfdom?"
... Mr. Koch ... notes that previous guests have included Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and Representatives Mike Pence, Tom Price and Paul D. Ryan....
Even though we keep hearing that we're in a bad economy in which everyone is pinching pennies, this pricey gathering isn't the only example of free spending to advance wingnuttery. There's also this:
The George Washington University chapter of the College Republicans seem to be having a bit of trouble rallying volunteers to campaign for Christine O'Donnell:
We are still DESPERATELY looking for people to sign up for the campaign trip to Delaware this weekend. Please attend! Our candidates in Delaware desperately need help! A gift of 50 dollars, free food, transportation, and lodging at a beautiful hotel in Delaware will be provided to ANYONE who comes on this trip. YOU WILL GET PAID FOR GOING! THIS WILL BE THE EXPERIENCE OF YOUR YEAR HERE AT GW! Additionally, the campaigns will give our College Republicans chapter 2,000 dollars for future programming if we get 30 people to go. Please go!
The College Republicans have traditionally been extremely well funded by wealthy donors. Obvious so much cash is burning a hole in their wallet that they can waste it on a fool's errand like this. But none of the fat-cat donors think this is wasteful?
In what other part of the economy, with the possible exception of R&D at Apple, is there this kind of enthusiastic spending? Why do all of the economy's "animal spirits" seem to be concentrated in right-wing government-hijacking efforts?
Hell, this even extends to the right-wing rank and file. We're told that the teabaggers' anger is economic, but every couple of days we read that another teabag candidate is awash in cash. Sharron Angle raises $14 mil! O'Donnell outraises Coons! Glenn Beck's call for donations to the Chamber of Commerce crashes the Chamber's servers!
I don't know what ordinary wingers are thinking, but I half-wonder whether the big boys' financial behavior suggests that we need to go to a libertarian -- or communist -- government. Obviously, as long as battles over the degree and nature of government spending and taxation can be endlessly refought, some of these guys are going to think there's more money to be made from gaming the political system than from actual business.
THE "ENTREPRENEURIAL" SANCTIMONY OF GINNI THOMAS
I can't find any evidence that the woman has a book deal yet, but I have to assume that this bizarre act on the part of Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, was an attempt to generate a dramatic scene, infused with Christian sanctimony and self-righteousness, that could serve as the basis for a tear-jerking chapter in a memoir/polemic published by a right-wing or Christian-right publisher, one that would help push Mrs. T to the front ranks of right-wing female rabble-rousers (or at least sell a lot of copies and make the Thomases a lot of money):
Nearly 20 years after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas's wife has called Ms. Hill, seeking an apology.
In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband's former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.
"Good morning Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas," it said. "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband."
Ms. Thomas went on: "So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day." ...
This was all done on the Q.T.; Ginni Thomas never publicized the call, though, as the linked story notes, she's now acknowledged, through a publicist, that the call took place. (Um, do other Supreme Court justices' spouses have publicists? I mean, for personal issues?)
Hill insists she has nothing to apologize for.
Yup, this really seems like something you'd do if you were writing a book. You'd never mention it until you were shipping the book to media outlets, so that the revelation of the surprising confrontation could be a hook for the interview by Matt Lauer or Larry King's successor.
If I'm right, this is all of a piece with the rest of Ginni Thomas's recent professional life. According to the blog of Legal Times, in April 2009 Mrs. Thomas "left her job at the conservative Heritage Foundation to direct Washington operations for Hillsdale College, a Michigan college that was opening a D.C. center for constitutional studies." Then, a few months later, according to the Hillsdale Collegian, she announced she had big plans:
Virginia Thomas is switching job titles, lessening her role with the college and leaving more time for more personal entrepreneurial projects, the college announced this month....
Thomas' entrepreneurial plans include creating a Web site to help educate citizens about threats to their liberty, she said....
That "entrepreneurial" Web site, of course, was for Liberty Central, a group she formed, according to The New York Times, "in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors." The group began to get media attention -- The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the L.A. Times -- in March of this year.
But, um, she's still not a star in the wingnut firmament, is she?
So I think she was looking for a memoir hook. And it looks as if Anita Hill messed up her business plan.
I can't find any evidence that the woman has a book deal yet, but I have to assume that this bizarre act on the part of Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, was an attempt to generate a dramatic scene, infused with Christian sanctimony and self-righteousness, that could serve as the basis for a tear-jerking chapter in a memoir/polemic published by a right-wing or Christian-right publisher, one that would help push Mrs. T to the front ranks of right-wing female rabble-rousers (or at least sell a lot of copies and make the Thomases a lot of money):
Nearly 20 years after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas's wife has called Ms. Hill, seeking an apology.
In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband's former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.
"Good morning Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas," it said. "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband."
Ms. Thomas went on: "So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day." ...
This was all done on the Q.T.; Ginni Thomas never publicized the call, though, as the linked story notes, she's now acknowledged, through a publicist, that the call took place. (Um, do other Supreme Court justices' spouses have publicists? I mean, for personal issues?)
Hill insists she has nothing to apologize for.
Yup, this really seems like something you'd do if you were writing a book. You'd never mention it until you were shipping the book to media outlets, so that the revelation of the surprising confrontation could be a hook for the interview by Matt Lauer or Larry King's successor.
If I'm right, this is all of a piece with the rest of Ginni Thomas's recent professional life. According to the blog of Legal Times, in April 2009 Mrs. Thomas "left her job at the conservative Heritage Foundation to direct Washington operations for Hillsdale College, a Michigan college that was opening a D.C. center for constitutional studies." Then, a few months later, according to the Hillsdale Collegian, she announced she had big plans:
Virginia Thomas is switching job titles, lessening her role with the college and leaving more time for more personal entrepreneurial projects, the college announced this month....
Thomas' entrepreneurial plans include creating a Web site to help educate citizens about threats to their liberty, she said....
That "entrepreneurial" Web site, of course, was for Liberty Central, a group she formed, according to The New York Times, "in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors." The group began to get media attention -- The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the L.A. Times -- in March of this year.
But, um, she's still not a star in the wingnut firmament, is she?
So I think she was looking for a memoir hook. And it looks as if Anita Hill messed up her business plan.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
GET A FEW MORE TEABAGGERS ON RECORD
I haven't posted anything about Christine O'Donnell's church-state separation statement because I don't see it as a huge deal -- she's not likely to win, and wingnuts and Christian conservatives actually agree with her (they don't think the establishment-of-religion clause in the First Amendment separates church and state), so she's not going to lose very many voters she has now. (I doubt she'll gain any, either.)
However, it seems to me that other Democrats facing teabag challengers -- not all, but swome -- ought to ask their opponents right now: Your fellow tea party candidate, Christine O'Donnell, had some questions about separation of church and state. What about you? Do you question the notion of separation of church and state? Do you believe it's in the Constitution?
I wouldn't do this in, say, Kentucky or West Virginia -- too much of the electorate surely doesn't believe in the idea. In a state like Illinois or California, your GOP opponent would know enough to acknowledge church-state separation as a constitutional precept.
But in a purple state? Nevada? Colorado? Wisconsin? I think maybe you should go for it. You're going to alienate religious conservatives, but if you're a Democrat, you've already lost them. If you do this, maybe you put some people in an awkward position, because they don't want to alienate the religious frothers and they don't want to alienate the swing voters who are giving them their margin of victory.
So, hell, ask them to make their positions clear. Maybe you'll make them squirm.
I haven't posted anything about Christine O'Donnell's church-state separation statement because I don't see it as a huge deal -- she's not likely to win, and wingnuts and Christian conservatives actually agree with her (they don't think the establishment-of-religion clause in the First Amendment separates church and state), so she's not going to lose very many voters she has now. (I doubt she'll gain any, either.)
However, it seems to me that other Democrats facing teabag challengers -- not all, but swome -- ought to ask their opponents right now: Your fellow tea party candidate, Christine O'Donnell, had some questions about separation of church and state. What about you? Do you question the notion of separation of church and state? Do you believe it's in the Constitution?
I wouldn't do this in, say, Kentucky or West Virginia -- too much of the electorate surely doesn't believe in the idea. In a state like Illinois or California, your GOP opponent would know enough to acknowledge church-state separation as a constitutional precept.
But in a purple state? Nevada? Colorado? Wisconsin? I think maybe you should go for it. You're going to alienate religious conservatives, but if you're a Democrat, you've already lost them. If you do this, maybe you put some people in an awkward position, because they don't want to alienate the religious frothers and they don't want to alienate the swing voters who are giving them their margin of victory.
So, hell, ask them to make their positions clear. Maybe you'll make them squirm.
HUCKABEE: I'M UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE
Right Wing Watch notes that Jack Conway's "Aqua Buddha" ad has given Rand Paul supporter Mike Huckabee the vapors:
The only thing worse than a person attempting to show-off and parade his faith for the purpose of getting a vote is a person who would falsely and viciously attack his political opponent's faith and lie about it....
Really, Mike? You think it's appalling for a candidate to "show-off and parade his faith for the purpose of getting a vote"?
Then I'm sure you also condemn this ad that ran in late 2007, for the 2008 primaries:
Oh gosh, I'm sorry -- that was you, wasn't it?
Never mind.
****
UPDATE: Steve Benen has more.
Right Wing Watch notes that Jack Conway's "Aqua Buddha" ad has given Rand Paul supporter Mike Huckabee the vapors:
The only thing worse than a person attempting to show-off and parade his faith for the purpose of getting a vote is a person who would falsely and viciously attack his political opponent's faith and lie about it....
Really, Mike? You think it's appalling for a candidate to "show-off and parade his faith for the purpose of getting a vote"?
Then I'm sure you also condemn this ad that ran in late 2007, for the 2008 primaries:
Oh gosh, I'm sorry -- that was you, wasn't it?
Never mind.
****
UPDATE: Steve Benen has more.
WEALTHY MEDIA STAR: ALL THOSE COAL STATES LOOK ALIKE TO ME
Multi-millionaire television personality and sometime politician Sarah Palin apparently can't tell all those states full of blue-collar workers apart:
Pennsylvania voters can't afford cap and trade legislation, says Sarah Palin. And that's why they need to send Republican John Raese to the Senate.
Except that John Raese is the Republican nominee in West Virginia.
Welcome to the latest Sarah Palin Twitter #fail....
You can see a screenshot of the original tweet and subsequent corrected tweet here.
Well, we probably shouldn't blame just the multi-millionaire pundit/author/reality star. It's widely known that Palin, like many celebrities, has people to do the scut work of writing her tweets, primarily Rebecca Mansour, founder of the blog Conservatives4Palin. Mansour has been a consultant and was a screenwriter; she lives in Los Angeles, where, I'm told, very little coal is mined.
Multi-millionaire television personality and sometime politician Sarah Palin apparently can't tell all those states full of blue-collar workers apart:
Pennsylvania voters can't afford cap and trade legislation, says Sarah Palin. And that's why they need to send Republican John Raese to the Senate.
Except that John Raese is the Republican nominee in West Virginia.
Welcome to the latest Sarah Palin Twitter #fail....
You can see a screenshot of the original tweet and subsequent corrected tweet here.
Well, we probably shouldn't blame just the multi-millionaire pundit/author/reality star. It's widely known that Palin, like many celebrities, has people to do the scut work of writing her tweets, primarily Rebecca Mansour, founder of the blog Conservatives4Palin. Mansour has been a consultant and was a screenwriter; she lives in Los Angeles, where, I'm told, very little coal is mined.
AT LEAST SHE'S TRYING TO SELL LIBERAL POLICIES TO NON-LIBERALS
(unlike some administrations I could name)
I have very mixed feelings about this story, but at least what Nancy Jackson and her colleagues are doing beats sitting around waiting for everyone in America to suddenly see reason:
SALINA, Kan. -- Residents of this deeply conservative city do not put much stock in scientific predictions of climate change.
"Don't mention global warming," warned Nancy Jackson, chairwoman of the Climate and Energy Project, a small nonprofit group that aims to get people to rein in the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate change. "And don't mention Al Gore. People out here just hate him."
Saving energy, though, is another matter.
Last Halloween, schoolchildren here searched for "vampire" electric loads, or appliances that sap energy even when they seem to be off. Energy-efficient LED lights twinkled on the town's Christmas tree. On Valentine's Day, local restaurants left their dining room lights off and served meals by candlelight.
... Town managers attribute the new resolve mostly to a yearlong competition sponsored by the Climate and Energy Project, which set out to extricate energy issues from the charged arena of climate politics.
... If the heartland is to seriously reduce its dependence on coal and oil, Ms. Jackson and others decided, the issues must be separated. So the project ran an experiment to see if by focusing on thrift, patriotism, spiritual conviction and economic prosperity, it could rally residents of six Kansas towns to take meaningful steps to conserve energy and consider renewable fuels.
... The project's strategy seems to have worked. In the course of the program, which ended last spring, energy use in the towns declined as much as 5 percent relative to other areas....
Obviously, on the one hand, I would like to live in a country where vast number of people didn't reject solid science in favor of corporate and Republican noise machine propaganda. But we don't live in such a country. I'd love for someone to tell me how we can get heartlanders to change their views -- but until that person comes along, I can't reject this:
At the outset [Jackson] commissioned focus groups of independents and Republicans around Wichita and Kansas City to get a sense of where they stood. Many participants suggested that global warming could be explained mostly by natural earth cycles, and a vocal minority even asserted that it was a cynical hoax perpetrated by climate scientists who were greedy for grants.
Yet Ms. Jackson found plenty of openings. Many lamented the nation's dependence on foreign oil. Some articulated an amorphous desire, often based in religious values, to protect the earth. Some even spoke of changes in the natural world -- birds arriving weeks earlier in the spring than they had before -- leading her to wonder whether, deep down, they might suspect that climate change was afoot.
Ms. Jackson settled on a three-pronged strategy. Invoking the notion of thrift, she set out to persuade towns to compete with one another to become more energy-efficient. She worked with civic leaders to embrace green jobs as a way of shoring up or rescuing their communities. And she spoke with local ministers about "creation care," the obligation of Christians to act as stewards of the world that God gave them, even creating a sermon bank with talking points they could download.
And it worked.
My feeling about just about every idea in progressive politics is that you've got to do something like this. You've got to work to get buy-in from the broad public -- in other words, you've got to get the consent of the governed. That means you have to stop assuming that everyone in America had college board scores in the 99th percentile and got a top-tier college education and maybe a graduate degree or two. It means learning to communicate with ordinary citizens, in part by learning what their beliefs and assumptions are, and starting more from where they are than from where you are.
Many of the advances we're most proud of came as the result of coalitions built with people who clung to some very bad ideas. The Constitution was possible only because of compromises wikth slaveowning states. The New Deal coalition included Southern Democrats who fought to preserve Jim Crow.
In order to make the transition away from fossil fuels, yes, I'll be happy to form a coalition with people who believe global climate change is a myth. Maybe, if we could make the transition effort seem like simple Americanism, the transition could actually take place -- and, ultimately, the skeptics might gradually lose their skepticism.
In any case, searching for ways to sell progressive ideas to non-progressives is what the Obama administration never does. It's what the Democratic Party never does. Left organizers don't do enough of it, either. And until we bring some of these heartlanders around, we're going to keep losing, on everything.
(unlike some administrations I could name)
I have very mixed feelings about this story, but at least what Nancy Jackson and her colleagues are doing beats sitting around waiting for everyone in America to suddenly see reason:
SALINA, Kan. -- Residents of this deeply conservative city do not put much stock in scientific predictions of climate change.
"Don't mention global warming," warned Nancy Jackson, chairwoman of the Climate and Energy Project, a small nonprofit group that aims to get people to rein in the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate change. "And don't mention Al Gore. People out here just hate him."
Saving energy, though, is another matter.
Last Halloween, schoolchildren here searched for "vampire" electric loads, or appliances that sap energy even when they seem to be off. Energy-efficient LED lights twinkled on the town's Christmas tree. On Valentine's Day, local restaurants left their dining room lights off and served meals by candlelight.
... Town managers attribute the new resolve mostly to a yearlong competition sponsored by the Climate and Energy Project, which set out to extricate energy issues from the charged arena of climate politics.
... If the heartland is to seriously reduce its dependence on coal and oil, Ms. Jackson and others decided, the issues must be separated. So the project ran an experiment to see if by focusing on thrift, patriotism, spiritual conviction and economic prosperity, it could rally residents of six Kansas towns to take meaningful steps to conserve energy and consider renewable fuels.
... The project's strategy seems to have worked. In the course of the program, which ended last spring, energy use in the towns declined as much as 5 percent relative to other areas....
Obviously, on the one hand, I would like to live in a country where vast number of people didn't reject solid science in favor of corporate and Republican noise machine propaganda. But we don't live in such a country. I'd love for someone to tell me how we can get heartlanders to change their views -- but until that person comes along, I can't reject this:
At the outset [Jackson] commissioned focus groups of independents and Republicans around Wichita and Kansas City to get a sense of where they stood. Many participants suggested that global warming could be explained mostly by natural earth cycles, and a vocal minority even asserted that it was a cynical hoax perpetrated by climate scientists who were greedy for grants.
Yet Ms. Jackson found plenty of openings. Many lamented the nation's dependence on foreign oil. Some articulated an amorphous desire, often based in religious values, to protect the earth. Some even spoke of changes in the natural world -- birds arriving weeks earlier in the spring than they had before -- leading her to wonder whether, deep down, they might suspect that climate change was afoot.
Ms. Jackson settled on a three-pronged strategy. Invoking the notion of thrift, she set out to persuade towns to compete with one another to become more energy-efficient. She worked with civic leaders to embrace green jobs as a way of shoring up or rescuing their communities. And she spoke with local ministers about "creation care," the obligation of Christians to act as stewards of the world that God gave them, even creating a sermon bank with talking points they could download.
And it worked.
My feeling about just about every idea in progressive politics is that you've got to do something like this. You've got to work to get buy-in from the broad public -- in other words, you've got to get the consent of the governed. That means you have to stop assuming that everyone in America had college board scores in the 99th percentile and got a top-tier college education and maybe a graduate degree or two. It means learning to communicate with ordinary citizens, in part by learning what their beliefs and assumptions are, and starting more from where they are than from where you are.
Many of the advances we're most proud of came as the result of coalitions built with people who clung to some very bad ideas. The Constitution was possible only because of compromises wikth slaveowning states. The New Deal coalition included Southern Democrats who fought to preserve Jim Crow.
In order to make the transition away from fossil fuels, yes, I'll be happy to form a coalition with people who believe global climate change is a myth. Maybe, if we could make the transition effort seem like simple Americanism, the transition could actually take place -- and, ultimately, the skeptics might gradually lose their skepticism.
In any case, searching for ways to sell progressive ideas to non-progressives is what the Obama administration never does. It's what the Democratic Party never does. Left organizers don't do enough of it, either. And until we bring some of these heartlanders around, we're going to keep losing, on everything.
STUPID PEOPLE, EASILY SPUN
Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller finds a cable discussion of a favorite right-wing spin point:
MSNBC contributors can't figure out why so many women are part of the Tea Party
Confusion was the word of the day on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning when the panel questioned why so many women have been drawn to the Tea Party movement.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski, The New York Times' Sam Tanenhaus, CBS's Lesley Stahl, columnist Mike Barnicle, and Newsweek's Jon Meacham were initially stumped when Stahl prompted the discussion.
"I wanted to ask all the gurus here, why so many of the Tea Partiers are women. I find that just intriguing and don't quite understand why that has happened," Stahl said.
To which the panel replied: "I have no idea." "Sarah Palin?" "I don't know." "I don't know either."
... Tanenhaus eventually surfaced with an attempted explanation. "You've been talking about the economy, who runs the household economy in America? The classic Greek work for economics means 'home economy.' Who's paying the bills, who's worried about the kids and college loans?" he offered.
Barnicle took a stab at the riddle as well. "It could be women, as we all know, are smarter than men. And they have better instincts than men, and they know -- off of what you just said -- that the government or the household, you have a checkbook, you can't start writing checks for things you can't pay for, the checks bounce. We've been bouncing checks as a government for twenty years." ...
Oh, right -- Carly Fiorina (net worth: at least between $30 and $120 million, and at one time $2.2 billion) and Linda McMahon (net worth: $1.1 billion) are teabaggers because they just got sick of sitting at the kitchen table trying to get the goshdarn checkbook to balance. Oh, and Christine O'Donnell, who hasn't held a real job in years and who sometimes lives off campaign funds, is a teabagger because she's such a careful financial steward.
What's absurd about this is that all these geniuses batted around the question of why women would seek to be tea party candidates without once asking why there are so few female tea party voters. Um, if there's something innately woman-oriented about this movement, why is the female half of the electorate fleeing it?
As I've noted, there's a 34-point gender gap in the New York governor's race, with men favoring Cuomo over Paladino by 1 point and women favoring Cuomo by 35. There's a 25-point gap in Connecticut -- women favor the Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, by 17, while men favor Linda McMahon by 8. (That's a gender-reversed gender gap, of course.) There are similar gender gaps in Senate races in Wisconsin, Washington State, California, and Delaware (and that Delaware one is also gender-reversed, of course).
And, of course, there's a gender gap in approval of the Mama Grizzlies' big mama, Sarah Palin:
... men are split 44 to 45 between those who hold favorable and unfavorable views of her; for women, the split is 35 to 58, according to a National Journal poll.... In a recent survey presenting respondents with a hypothetical matchup between Palin and Obama, Obama beat Palin by 13 points among women, but men preferred Palin by 2 points. In other words, if it were up to men, Palin might very well become president in 2012 (if it were up to white men, she'd be a shoo-in).
No doubt the "babe factor" has something to do with it: Palin's sex appeal is a frequent topic of right-wing male talkers like Rush Limbaugh, and similar voices in Delaware waxed on about Christine O'Donnell being "easy on the eyes"; one even issued an "Alert" for the "Major Babe." The gambit resembles that of Fox News shows with predominantly male audiences that have featured a bevy of attractive right-wing females, boosting the careers of commentators like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.
Um, maybe that's why there are so many women running as teabaggers -- pathetic white guys dig it when they hear women cooing about "reloading" and small government.
Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller finds a cable discussion of a favorite right-wing spin point:
MSNBC contributors can't figure out why so many women are part of the Tea Party
Confusion was the word of the day on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning when the panel questioned why so many women have been drawn to the Tea Party movement.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski, The New York Times' Sam Tanenhaus, CBS's Lesley Stahl, columnist Mike Barnicle, and Newsweek's Jon Meacham were initially stumped when Stahl prompted the discussion.
"I wanted to ask all the gurus here, why so many of the Tea Partiers are women. I find that just intriguing and don't quite understand why that has happened," Stahl said.
To which the panel replied: "I have no idea." "Sarah Palin?" "I don't know." "I don't know either."
... Tanenhaus eventually surfaced with an attempted explanation. "You've been talking about the economy, who runs the household economy in America? The classic Greek work for economics means 'home economy.' Who's paying the bills, who's worried about the kids and college loans?" he offered.
Barnicle took a stab at the riddle as well. "It could be women, as we all know, are smarter than men. And they have better instincts than men, and they know -- off of what you just said -- that the government or the household, you have a checkbook, you can't start writing checks for things you can't pay for, the checks bounce. We've been bouncing checks as a government for twenty years." ...
Oh, right -- Carly Fiorina (net worth: at least between $30 and $120 million, and at one time $2.2 billion) and Linda McMahon (net worth: $1.1 billion) are teabaggers because they just got sick of sitting at the kitchen table trying to get the goshdarn checkbook to balance. Oh, and Christine O'Donnell, who hasn't held a real job in years and who sometimes lives off campaign funds, is a teabagger because she's such a careful financial steward.
What's absurd about this is that all these geniuses batted around the question of why women would seek to be tea party candidates without once asking why there are so few female tea party voters. Um, if there's something innately woman-oriented about this movement, why is the female half of the electorate fleeing it?
As I've noted, there's a 34-point gender gap in the New York governor's race, with men favoring Cuomo over Paladino by 1 point and women favoring Cuomo by 35. There's a 25-point gap in Connecticut -- women favor the Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, by 17, while men favor Linda McMahon by 8. (That's a gender-reversed gender gap, of course.) There are similar gender gaps in Senate races in Wisconsin, Washington State, California, and Delaware (and that Delaware one is also gender-reversed, of course).
And, of course, there's a gender gap in approval of the Mama Grizzlies' big mama, Sarah Palin:
... men are split 44 to 45 between those who hold favorable and unfavorable views of her; for women, the split is 35 to 58, according to a National Journal poll.... In a recent survey presenting respondents with a hypothetical matchup between Palin and Obama, Obama beat Palin by 13 points among women, but men preferred Palin by 2 points. In other words, if it were up to men, Palin might very well become president in 2012 (if it were up to white men, she'd be a shoo-in).
No doubt the "babe factor" has something to do with it: Palin's sex appeal is a frequent topic of right-wing male talkers like Rush Limbaugh, and similar voices in Delaware waxed on about Christine O'Donnell being "easy on the eyes"; one even issued an "Alert" for the "Major Babe." The gambit resembles that of Fox News shows with predominantly male audiences that have featured a bevy of attractive right-wing females, boosting the careers of commentators like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.
Um, maybe that's why there are so many women running as teabaggers -- pathetic white guys dig it when they hear women cooing about "reloading" and small government.
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