This is getting so tired now — lower the discourse, then trot out with a lame apology that doesn’t address the horror of what was said. Faux News contributor Liz Trotta doesn’t even attempt to sound sincere with this bullsh*t mea culpa:
“I am so sorry about what happened yesterday with that lame attempt at humor…I just really fell over myself in making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm or any other candidate for that matter. I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I’ve offended. It’s a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes in saying things we wish we hadn’t said.”
Let’s take a look at what she said that got her into hot water. I don’t see any other candidates mentioned in her assassination joke:
Please.
“and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]”
(UPDATE: See Francis’s take here and here. Also read the post over at A Slanted Truth about why these assassination remarks cut deep.)
How on earth do these sick people at Fox News get away with sh*t like this? Here is Liz Trotta, brought on to comment about Hillary Clinton’s ill-conceived remarks, and Trotta not only blurts out “Osama”, but laughs and “corrects” herself, suggesting it would be a good idea to knock both off. My god.
This is yet another example of filing the edges off of the egregious casual mention of assassination, so that those offended and concerned about such casual talk are eventually the ones perceived with a hangup. It is a caustic and disgusting tactic frequently used by Fox, Limbaugh and the rest. It surfaced a while ago in regards to overt racism in the conservative MSM (see my post Filing the edges off of racism). Watch for more of this crap.
“and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]”
Hat tip, floozy.
Here’s an example of really poor editorial judgment. The Roswell (GA) Beacon, a weekly free paper, featured the image at left on its cover. The article in the edition was actually relevant — about the increasing threats against Barack Obama from white supremacists in the state. (AJC):
“We knew we were on the provocative edge,” Altork said. “But it’s a very fair piece, a smart piece.”Blender Jeremy from Cobb (GA) gets the hat tip for this one.The article was pitched and reported by veteran freelance journalist Alan Sverdlik, who said he was curious how law enforcement agencies were handling the increased number of threats lodged against Obama by white supremacist groups, some of whom are based around north Fulton. Sverdlik said Tuesday he had not seen the cover and had no input in its development.
The Beacon’s publisher said the art “projected the story,” one which he believes serves a valuable public interest: “We’re hoping federal law enforcement takes notice.” So far, however, the content inside has been obscured by the furor over its illustration.
“Their slogan is ‘responsibly provocative,’” wrote Miami teacher Rian Fike. “This is irresponsibly inflammatory.” And poorly timed, though The Beacon can’t be held accountable on that front. The article’s publication coincided with an ill-advised quip by former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee after a loud noise interrupted his speech to the National Rifle Association.
“That was Barack Obama,” Huckabee said. “He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.”
…”That was a bad break for us,” Altork said.
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I’m really starting to wonder whether this level of stupidity and batsh*ttery by the Right — as they watch their political fortunes swirl the bowl because of Bush’s legacy — has completely untethered them from reality. Take a look at this unbelievable nonsense by Bill O’Reilly, who went on a tirade about the fact that Markos Moulitsas (Kos of Daily Kos) has a Newsweek column, and that O’Reilly was embarrassed that Markos ran a clip of the Faux News blowhard going ape on camera during his old Inside Edition days.
What’s even more entertaining is the bile O’Reilly’s fans unleashed into Markos’ mailbox — out comes the violent schooyard faggotry taunts from the intellectual giants. A sampling is below the fold.
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I can’t believe the MSM has spent all this air time on a pastor who isn’t running for president. Oh, OK, yes I can. Since Obama “divorced” Wright in the press conference yesterday, my question is whether the bar for the media will move even higher. His former pastor’s ego was obviously bruised from the (quite frankly, sensitive) rebuke of his past comments that he received from the presidential hopeful in Obama’s A More Perfect Union speech.
Some of what Wright said at the National Press Club was clarifying and on point:
Maybe this dialogue on race, an honest dialogue that does not engage in denial or superficial platitudes, maybe this dialogue on race can move the people of faith in this country from various stages of alienation and marginalization to the exciting possibility of reconciliation.Other parts added nothing positive to the dialogue showed a public unraveling of the id. Wright felt dissed, and took it before the cameras, damaging his own credibility — and he either doesn’t seem to realize it — or care.
I see clips from the NPC appearance and wonder what’s next — Rev. Wright lobbying for additional 15 minutes of exposure to “play the dozens” with Barack Obama? I’m sure the media would be down with that too. And that’s because they never dig deeper to see what’s really beneath the surface.
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Don Wildmon’s screeching again, calling for action against the manufacturer of Pampers, Tide and Crest over the long-awaited kiss of a gay couple on As the World Turns. My how the mighty have fallen if this is the what gets Don worked up.
Procter & Gamble has resumed using explicit, open-mouth homosexual kissing in their soap opera, “As the World Turns.” P&G decided to include this type of content as a commitment to “diversity.” P&G stopped showing such scenes some months ago, but has now decided to again help promote the homosexual agenda which includes homosexual marriage.Here, folks, is the “explicit” kiss — maybe Don has access to some alternate hard core version we don’t know about.Gay activists are hopeful that the P&G effort will desensitize viewers to the homosexual lifestyle and help make the unhealthy and immoral lifestyle more acceptable to society, especially to children and youth.
View a scene from the April 23, 2008 episode by P&G. WARNING - content is repulsive!
“As the World Turns” is owned and controlled completely by P&G. No network made this decision. P&G alone made the decision to support the homosexual agenda.
Hat tip Joe.My.God.
***
While we’re on the AFA, take a look at its reaction to McDonald’s decision to partner with a pro-gay business organization.
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From Jake, it looks like Newsweek is looking for a new low in standards, publishing a concern troll piece by Karl Rove that’s probably best taken as a list of things for Barack Obama not to do in proper concern troll style. It’s sickening the way Rove is treated by the mainstream media—he should be received by decent people as if Jeffrey Dahmer walked into a room, but instead, he’s treated like a prince. All for his “brilliant” ability to be meaner and more soulless than even most Republicans. (At least in terms of political operatives. Surely those who run death squads and mercenary firms are even worse, though it might just be that Rove is incompetent at that kind of evil instead of unwilling.) But I suppose for the mainstream media, he’s a godsend, since he represents this sort of formal permission to replace legitimate analysis with shit-flinging and bullying. The country thanks this patriot for making all of us collectively stupider. In Rove’s America, there’s no more room for talking about issues that matter, and everything is potshots, innuendo, fear-mongering, and the favorite tactic of the right—”where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. (I was interviewed in the Austin-American Statesman, where I talk some about this in light of the Catholic League assault on myself and Melissa McEwan.) Mainstream media’s got to love him for making room for simple-minded bullying to become the prominent form of discourse. Maureen Dowd probably sleeps with a picture of him under her pillow.
This piece is a really shining example of how Rove’s moronic impulses are why he’s loved. Even the dumbest internet denizens would realize that this is very silly concern trolling. Right off the bat, he pushes the “elitist” slur, which sadly is so stupid it will probably take in the media, because black is white and up is down and the people who are fighting for greater justice and equality are more elitist than those who try to lift up the rich and stomp down everyone else.
But the real weak sauce, the demonstration that he’s just throwing shit against the wall to see what will stick, is in the list:
Ah, Birmingham’s in the news again as a result of the airing of 20/20’s experiment on public displays of affection by same-sex couples last Friday. We’re not talking about public sex, mind you, just arms around the shoulder and some nuzzling kind of thing. A male couple was stationed on a park bench at Five-Points with a camera rolling. Wouldn’t you know it — someone called 911 to complain about the PDA. The emergency?
Operator: “Birmingham Police operator 9283″Yes, they sent a patrol car down there, and the officer, after calling his superior (the Birmingham PD was in on the 20/20 experiment) backed down, but told the couple “Just don’t do that in public.”Caller: “We have a couple of men sitting out on the bench that have been kissing and drooling all over each other for the past hour or so. It’s not against the law, right?”
Operator: “Not to the best of my knowledge it’s not.”
Caller: “So there’s no complaint I could make or have?”
Operator: “I imagine you could complain if you like ma’am. We can always send an officer down there.”
The remarks of two Birmingham women passersby when 20/20 has a lesbian couple sit on the bench are predictable. That’s below the fold.
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UPDATE: A whole lot of people who did tune in didn’t like what they saw — and folks are ripping ABC a new one. Check out the 6000+ comments on the network’s site. DHinMI (Dana) at DKos sums up the performances of Gibson and Stephanopolus this way — Lee Atwater Lives.
UPDATE 2: If you missed it, Nicole Belle @ Crooks & Liars has more. I placed the mashup below the fold (along with a partial transcript for those of you who can’t view the mind-boggling video at work), as well as a video of George and Charlie getting heckled after the debate.
I didn’t bother turning on the presidential debate held in Pennsylvania tonight; thank goodness I didn’t. Based on the blow-by-blow, the majority of it involved ignoring actual issues — oh, say Iraq, health care, the economy. Apparently ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos thought it would inform viewers more about where either candidate would take the country if they dredged up the various bloody political battles/scandals/bloopers of the campaign for deeper analysis. So much for the MSM taking the high road of “news” while the blogosphere represents the unwashed, unethical masses tapping away with Cheetos-stained keyboard fingers.
For those who did watch, did they bring up the latest flap over Hillary’s 1995 comments about lunch-bucket Dems (the demo she’s cozying up to these days):
Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.That surely would have given George and Charlie an on-air woody.“Screw ‘em,” she told her husband. “You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”
I’m beginning to think that, as irritating as it is, this drawn out primary is going to have one good side to it. At least the nominee, whoever he or she may be, will have had a chance to get some coverage before the full-blown onslaught of fanboy enthusiasm for McCain from our ridiculous mainstream press kicks in. I’m entirely unsure how the hell a Democrat is supposed to have a fighting chance with the ridiculous, deceitful McCain worship from the press.
STUDENT: We can see that this isn’t completely absent, uh, political motivation isn’t completely absent, yet we were told this isn’t a political event. So, what exactly is your purpose in being here, not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity, but I’d just like some clarification.
Seriously, watch the video. The student’s tone is even more measured and respectful than you would imagine reading the already bland transcript. I swear to god, if trends continue, before long, it’s going to be called a “terrorist act” to ask McCain any question other than, “May I fluff your pillow, Senator? Would you like another chocolate, Your Eminence?”
I don’t watch a lot of debating TV shows, because the format is geared towards using shouting matches instead of actual discussion, causing the conservatives to “win” the debate while actually losing the argument, and causing me to want to poke my eyeballs out with a fork and run around with gauze wrapped around my eyes, draped in robes and telling people on the streets about the pending end of American civilization. That was my reaction after watching a few minutes of Bill Maher last night. When we first flipped it on, it was shockingly good. Not great—still jumping around, not making cohesive points, but at least it wasn’t a cage match between some liberals who actually want to talk about the issues and some conservative doing the dance of destroying the conversation so that no one can speak a moment of truth on TV. It was some actor/activist guy who was alright, though he got a little excited and stated things that were largely true in ways that made him easy to discredit. And then there was Robert Reich and Rep. Barbara Lee, both of whom were awesome and amazing and making solid, killer points about our coming economic downfall from the twin national disasters of funneling wealth up (to the upper classes from everyone else) and out (into Iraq). Because things were getting uncomfortably intelligent, they had to drag some pipsqueak conservative on stage. I forget her name, but her parents should be ashamed. At that point, all the oxygen left the room and stupid reigned supreme. The liberals were winning, but instead of making genuine arguments, they were stuck scoring points with the audience, which doesn’t amount to much at the end of the day.
But what occurred to me was that liberals or even people who just care about keeping this country from flying completely off the tracks do need to go on these shows, because these shows have the audience that we need to reach. But if you go on them, you’re going to face off with a conservative who isn’t there to argue (because their arguments don’t hold water), but to make sure that you don’t have a chance to argue your points. What we need is some kind of training to see these distraction tactics coming, so that people speaking for the left/thinking people can avoid these traps and make their arguments. Here’s a list of a few tactics conservatives use to shut down discussion, and what people arguing with them, especially on TV, need to do.
The video that changed the world.
Update: A couple of other points from comments. Podcasts can help reach people that have learning disabilities or vision problems that can make blog reading problematic at times. Also, podcasting is a way to reject corporate radio while not losing out on the great potential of radio.
Echidne asks if people really like podcasts.
I can see the value of being able to listen to an interesting geeky political podcast while commuting, say, but to me the podcasts have a serious flaw: Listening to them takes much more time than reading the same as a written text, and life is short, short.
Unless the ear is offered something extra: emotional nuances, perhaps, the extra time requirement isn’t worth the trouble for me. But that’s just me, and I’m sure that other people have very different views on podcasts.
She’s being asked to do a podcast, and I would say that I’d listen to hers. I’m very attuned to the “do something different” thing with podcasts, so I try very hard to make mine feel different than just a blog post. And because I have one, I’m probably prejudiced here, but I love podcasts. But it’s also because I agree that life is short.
Okay, this article that Jill linked to is so worth blogging. It’s this weird, semi-guilty article about those oh-so-picky-bitches who just want men they partner with to clear certain basic standards in conversation ability. Okay, well, dumping someone just because he’s never heard of Pushkin is a little extreme, at least if he demonstrates good taste overall. Some women need to learn the joys of introducing a lover to something new, though of course you always run the danger that he’ll hate it.
But the notion that holding potential mates to a taste standard is shallow frankly blows my mind. I think, and said this in the comments at Feministe, that the admirable liberal movement against being judgmental sometimes suffers from what can only be considered a definitional issue. Judging someone for their race, religion, sex life, whatever, when it comes to their basic human rights and access to involvement in the political system is clearly wrong. Judging someone on these things and refusing to be friends or lovers with them is your right, but it makes you stupid and limits you more than anything else. But judging someone that you share a friendship with, much less your life, on personal qualities strikes me as perfectly reasonable and the only efficient way to handle your social life. If you can’t stand someone’s horrible taste or sense of humor, it seems that it’s best for everyone involved to go their separate ways.
With that in mind, I offer the same discussion question Jill did: What are your deal-breakers with someone you’re dating?
The Maverick thumbed his nose at the FEC when his latest campaign finance report showed that he blew past the public financing spending limit. He had agreed to take public financing when his campaign was in the crapper and he needed the matching funds. Once his political fortunes turned around, he decided that he wanted to withdraw from the system, and take private money. There’s also the possibility that he used public money to obtain a loan. The AP shows why he’s in trouble (or at least he should be):
McCain has now spent $58.4 million in his primary bid, surpassing the $50 million limit he would have faced if he participated in the public financing system he had been certified to join. McCain has decided not to accept the public matching funds, but the FEC wants him to assure regulators that he did not use the promise of public money as collateral for a $4 million loan.The DNC cried foul and submitted its own complaint. Even with the weak FEC, the regulating body warned McCain that he cannot arbitrarily remove himself from the system, the FEC must approve his withdrawal. In fact, the FEC even sent the campaign a harsh letter not letting him off the hook.McCain and his lawyers said the loan was secured with other collateral, thus freeing him to spend as much money as he wishes on his primary campaign. The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the FEC arguing McCain cannot withdraw from the public finance system without FEC approval.
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We all know Fox is a GOP propaganda organ rather than a news network, but they really have jumped the shark spending precious air time deconstructing the “ethnic” significance of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s beard. Yes, this is the best they can do when discussing the impact of the former Clinton cabinet member’s endorsement of Barack Obama. (Media Matters):
When I saw Richardson’s beard for the first time, what came into my mind is that he looks great with it, not whether he looked Hispanic enough. It certainly is more becoming than Al Gore’s post-2000 facial fur.
I guess these Faux folks are so color aroused that their implicit biases just take over.
I was on The Mike Signorile Show (SIRIUS OutQ - channel 109) on Friday to discuss Obama’s speech about race relations, and the impact of race on politics and culture — along with our lack of ability to discuss it in a productive manner. While we are doing a pretty good job here on Pandagon (see the comments in the recent post on Pat Buchanan’s outlandish column), I think that is the exception, not the rule.
Here is the audio. Use the player below or click here for the MP3
Watch this surprising light of truth out of the mouth of Fox News Sunday host’s mouth as he holds the biased bigots at Fox and Friends accountable for selected editing of Barack Obama’s speech on race.
They look like a bunch of morons and they start whining and stammering uncontrollably as Wallace schools them with a nice big paddle on the fanny. Fox News and Friends host Brian Kilmeade got so hot under the collar that he walked off the set. See below the fold.
That’s what TVNewser is reporting.
The official announcement, expected tomorrow, will include details about who will replace Tucker at 6pmET as well as other political programming additions. Sources say the network is going to beef up its schedule with more NBC News talent.Alex Blaze of The Bilerico Project is spot-on:In recent days, Jossip, as well as other blogs, ratcheted up the talk that Tucker would be replaced “for a new project.” In its 33-month run, Carlson’s show has had two names, four time slots and multiple formats.
Maybe MSNBC has realized that swinging to the Right to try and shake out Fox News for viewers isn’t a winning strategy. Or maybe they realized that at least half their commentators should accept the reality that white men aren’t oppressed. Or maybe they think that people don’t want to watch a bully wannabe talk about his fun days of beating up fags. Or maybe they got tired of his history of abusing the rules of logic, evidence, and reality.Or how about this gem, questioning Barack Obama’s masculinity for having a book club:
…Carlson recently referred to Obama’s “rhetoric” as “kind of wimpy” and said that Obama “seems like kind of a wuss.” Carlson also said that Obama “sounds like a pothead.”It looks like we’ll still see more of the secure-in-his-masculinity Mr. Carlson on the campaign trail for all you fans out there.During the segment, Carlson discussed the book clubs with Geist, who claimed that “Obama has violated the trust of men everywhere,” and said: “It makes you wonder what he won’t compromise of himself. Are we going to have mani/pedi parties next? You know what I mean?“
While the Democrats are fighting it out and raising unbelieveable amounts of money, McCain started out the process of winning by purchasing the billions of dollars of free advertising provided to him by our puerile campaign press corps. Who needs a campaign war chest when you have the entire press swooning over you because you just charm the pants off them by throwing them a BBQ? Say what you will about the Republicans’ collective inability (more like inability to care) at running a government—they know how to win an election. While the hard right threw a fit over McCain, the voters wisely chose to nominate the man who will probably get a major pundit to literally give him a hand job live on-air before this is all over. Which will then be described as an excellent demonstration of McCain’s natural skills at foreign policy—if he can fuck Chris Matthews, surely he can fuck the world, will go the reasoning.
The trick of banning the press from his inner circle and then letting them in to feed them Man Food like ribs seems very obvious to non-puerile human beings, but let’s face it, it’s a brilliant maneuver. Some high school nerds reject rule by jocks and assholes in high school, resenting them, often with sarcasm, and then moving onto careers in the arts, sciences, and high-paying tech jobs. They then become hip nerds, with their indie rock and their microbrews, or if they’re Boomers, their organic foods and record collections. But never mind the normal people. Some nerds never get over trying to impress the assholes of the world, as they’re secretly convinced that they’ll one day get an audience and be able to make their case and finally get accepted. For reasons I don’t quite understand, those nerds all seem to go into political journalism.
I disagree with this statement:
Few candidates work as hard to woo the reporters who cover him as McCain. In the past he has jokingly called the news media his constituency. Most candidates tend to see such events as snake handling, interesting but the thing could bite you at any moment.
The debate over whether professionally closeted/socially openly gay public figures bear a social responsibility to come out arises every so often, and AfterElton’s Christie Keith takes a look at the pros and cons in “Inching out of the closet.”
“Inching out” refers to the relatively recent phenomenon of celebrities not bothering to hide from cameras while “off-duty” — mingling in gay bars, or out shopping with their partners. They are fully confident that the mainstream gay and straight press will not press them in “on-duty” interviews about their sexual orientation, thus informing much of gaydar-deficient America that the celebrity is gay.
The problem for this kind of semi-closeted public figure is that, in an age of stalkerazzi, camera phones and gossip bloggers posting telltale photos on the Internet, it’s impossible to keep the door of the closet only partially open. And that’s what happened, for example, to former boy-bander Lance Bass and Neil Patrick Harris.
Take actor Neil Patrick Harris, who publicly came out a year and aMore after the jump.
half ago in the pages of People magazine. Many gay fans considered him to be “out” even before he acknowledged it to the press, treating reports he’d been seen in public with his male partner as a tacit coming out announcement.Before Harris told People that he was “proud to say that I
am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest,” Towleroad.com blogged that Harris’ publicist had issued a statement denying he was “of that persuasion.” Reaction among readers was amused surprise. “Has his
publicist met Neil Patrick Harris?” wrote one.Harris was yet another public figure who was “out in the community, but not in the press.” In other words, gay fans knew, along with varying numbers of other people, but it hadn’t been reported in the media, and mainstream America was perfectly free to ignore it if they wished. In fact, most of mainstream America isn’t ignoring the existence of queer celebrities; thanks to close-mouthed celebrities and a complicit media, they really don’t know.
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It’s clear that there’s a serious problem out there that none of the involved parties — the MSM, the campaigns, the political establishment — want to discuss when it comes to race, gender, even religion and their impact on the presidential race — their bumbling roles.
Well-paid pundits pull “analysis” out of their posteriors during these primaries and caucuses and have nothing to back up their predictions (which usually end up wrong anyway). Political experts both in the campaigns, the pollsters and in the MSM really don’t know WTF they are chattering about, but they simply cannot admit it. You get the feeling when you watch that they think they know more than you do and want to project that all-knowing gravitas, but as we’ve seen, all that some of them have managed to do is look like jackasses over and over.
Why? This is an presidential election with so many firsts — a black man and a woman at the precipice of being a party’s nominee, a Mormon candidate, a former president campaigning for his wife — all the rules and standard operating procedures have gone out the window and you see serious on-air and in-print fumbling. There are desperate attempts to make sense of wide margins of victory that were not predicted (for Clinton or Obama), why John McCain’s campaign rose from the dead, or what role did anti-Mormonism play in Romney’s defeat. No one knows, and they cannot claim to know. There are no “experts” on this. Part of the mystery is that the voters are not behaving in predictable fashion, and the establishment doesn’t like unpredictability.
For spectators like me, it’s refreshing to see the chaos, as it provides ample entertainment to see pundits self-immolate on live TV. There’s so much freelancing and free association going on that is actually foot-in-mouth disease, as cultural and gender biases just tumble out. It’s fascinating, if painful. If only opportunities like these would turn into more self-reflection on the role of subjects that are avoided in polite company because it makes people uncomfortable. We have another example today…
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Well at least he had sense to cash in at the right network. I won’t have to worry about seeing him since I never turn to that pathetic propaganda channel.
Karl Rove, the strategist behind President George W. Bush’s ascendancy to the White House, will join Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel as a contributor starting with Super Tuesday, the network said.Rove was chief strategist for Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and joined him in the White House in several capacities, including deputy chief of staff. He left the White House in August.
I’m glad that poverty and the carnage after Katrina down in the Gulf is all the fault of the residents who didn’t have the means to leave. Neal Boortz sets the record straight on the January 30 edition of Cox Radio Syndication’s The Neal Boortz Show. (Media Matters):
“Edwards’ campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago, with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn’t hear the cries of the downtrodden.” Cries of the downtrodden, my left butt cheek. That wasn’t the cries of the downtrodden; that’s the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them.It’s almost beyond words……When these Katrina so-called refugees were scattered about the country, it was just a glorified episode of putting out the garbage.
…The primary blame goes on the worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans who you — couldn’t even wipe themselves, let alone get out of the way of the water when that levee broke.
Cox Radio Syndication
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Atlanta, GA 30309
Phone 404.962.2078
Fax 404.897.2226
Email the Boortz show.
Congrats to Jessica for the big time coverage in the NY Times. Anything that gets the word out about the feminist blogosphere is a net good for us.
That said: Aye, I hate the catfight narrative the mainstream media puts on any situation where two women disagree. This article contrasts Marcia A. Pappas, who wrote an overheated press release on behalf of NY NOW accusing Senator Kennedy of betraying women because he endorsed Obama, with Jessica Valenti, who owns the website that denounced Pappas for claiming to speak for all women on this. (Feministing could have gone further and pointed out that the hyper-focus on the achievements of a wealthy white woman running for President over and beyond all other issues of more immediate importance to workaday Americans, half of whom are female, only reinforces criticisms that feminism is a movement more worried about a fraction of all women, even to the detriment of others. I disagree that this is true, and when someone lives up to that stereotype like Pappas did, I get pretty angry. I think having a female President is a very important goal. But I don’t think it outstrips all other concerns.) The article could have focused on the substantive differences between the two women, but instead they chose to do a fucked-up hatchet job on both that implies that Jessica is a lightweight (untrue) and Pappas is an ax-wielding man-hater (I don’t know her, but I bet that’s not true).
Before the article gets around to even mentioning the actual views of the women involved, clothes must be discussed.
Yawn 1, yawn 2. I know this is a big endorsement for the two candidates, but surprising? No.
First, McCain, who has picked up steam (and money, raising $7 million this month); the NYT takes a swipe at the lunatic professional “Christian” set and warmongering neo-cons that have done a fabulous job of taking the country down a dark moral path:
We have strong disagreements with all the Republicans running for president. The leading candidates have no plan for getting American troops out of Iraq. They are too wedded to discredited economic theories and unwilling even now to break with the legacy of President Bush. We disagree with them strongly on what makes a good Supreme Court justice.Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.
…Mr. McCain was one of the first prominent Republicans to point out how badly the war in Iraq was being managed. We wish he could now see as clearly past the temporary victories produced by Mr. Bush’s unsustainable escalation, which have not led to any change in Iraq’s murderous political calculus. At the least, he owes Americans a real idea of how he would win this war, which he says he can do. We disagree on issues like reproductive rights and gay marriage.
Gee, how could the NYT overlook the incredible performances of McCain last year, trying to prop up administration policy, like the infamous high-security Baghdad market excursion? What about his courting of the Creationist vote and unsuccessful, fawning courting of Daddy D, or his mind-boggling ignorant statements about HIV transmission and prevention. What it tells you is that the GOP field is so weak, so full of empty suits, theocrats or sure-fire losers, that it was slim pickins.
My favorite part of the endorsement, however, is the absolute blast Rudy Giuliani receives. The NYT could have continued its lovefest with the Tool, but it shot a Taser into the former NY mayor. Read the carnage after the jump.
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[UPDATE: I’ve added the Blog Buzz transcript below the fold.]
Thanks to Joe Sudbay for the video.
I was on CNN Newsroom’s Blog Buzz at 7:30 ET tonight to discuss the results in Nevada and South Carolina. Tony Harris asked about McCain’s “momentum” and we discussed the issue of race as it has been playing out so far in the primaries.
The blogger/columnist for the Right is Mary Katharine Ham of Town Hall.
Update: Please make sure to give Katha a title when you send your signature. Just whatever it is that you “do”—writer, blogger, student, activist, editor, or your job title. Whatever you feel your relevant identity is. Not your honorific “Mr.” or “Ms”. For instance, I put my title as Amanda Marcotte, Executive Editor, Pandagon.
Katha Pollitt has written a letter addressing the relentless, unfair accusation that American feminists don’t care about women around the world, an accusation that comes, more often from not, from war-mongering conservatives who think that the only appropriate way to care about Muslim women is to bomb their homes and kill their families. I’m reprinting it here, because she’s calling for signatures. If you’d like to sign it, please email Katha at kpollitt at thenation dot com. Include your preferred name and title.
An Open Letter from American Feminists
Columnists and opinion writers from The Weekly Standard to the Washington Post to Slate have recently accused American feminists of focusing obsessively on minor or even nonexistent injustices in the United States while ignoring atrocities against women in other countries, especially the Muslim world. A number of reasons are given for this supposed neglect: narcissism, ideological rigidity, reflexive anti-Americanism, fear of seeming insensitive or even racist. Yet what is the evidence for this apparently now broadly accepted claim that feminists don’t support the struggles of women around the globe? It usually comes down to a quick scan of the home page of the National Organization for Women’s website, observing that a particular writer hasn’t covered a particular outrage, plus a handful of quotes wrenched out of context.
I’ll tell you what:
When we’re all drowning in the Arctic Ocean, I’ll be very relieved to know that it may not have been humans that caused it.
I’ll tell you what else:
I’m simply on the edge of my seat to find out what NBC Nightly News has to tell me about how boys and girls are just different.
Violet picked up a revealing little detail in the NY Times coverage of Huckabee’s inability to keep a lid on the fact that he helped release a known rapist from prison because he was enamored of a right wing conspiracy theory/to get back at Bill Clinton.
It has all the markings of salacious, tabloidian detail that can haunt a candidate, a lawmaker, an elected official, who walks and stalks the halls of criminal justice, who has, as he has said, weighed decisions on whether to impose capital punishment, and has ordered death.
She did us a favor and looked up the word, in case you don’t know what it means.
Main Entry: sa·la·cious
Function: adjective
1 : arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination : lascivious
2 : lecherous, lustful
There’s a couple of things going on simultaneously here. The first is that this is just more evidence that reality is the opposite of what hysterical anti-feminists claim—it’s not that feminists think rape and sex are the same thing, but the larger society that thinks that, and feminists are the ones who beg to differ. There’s some confusion that’s been sown on that point to make us look bad, which implies that there’s something bad about collapsing the difference between sex and rape, so I expect all the people who hit the fainting couch over the misinterpretations of Andrea Dworkin’s work to be writing furious letters to the Times now, because they really did refuse to distinguish between the gleeful copulations we all strive for and the rape and then rape and murder of two women.
Maureen Dowd will never learn; she’s dedicating part of her column to the same whine that drove her book Are Men Necessary?—feminism ruined it for women because it didn’t make men change overnight into more acceptable mates for the smart, sassy and successful women out there.
In 2005, a year after Ellie Grossman, a doctor, met Ray Fisman, a professor, on a blind date, she was talking to her grandmother about her guy.
“Never let a man think you’re smarter,” her grandmother advised. “Men don’t like that.”
Ray and Ellie “had a good laugh, thinking times had changed,” he recalled. The pair went on to marry — after she proposed.
But now, he says, “it seems like the students at Columbia University should pay heed to Grandma Lil’s advice.”
Fisman ran a study on speed dating and found that the men who indulged in the practice tended to down rate women who they perceived as smarter or more ambitious than them. Yes, this is the same researcher who found that these men didn’t have racial preferences, and yes, the same obvious caveat that I mentioned yesterday seems to apply. I drew an illustration this time, to make clearer.
