Psssst

by digby

I received this email from Slate this morning:

I’m writing to let you know Slate has unveiled a new series on the 2008 candidates’ marriages this week. Melinda Henneberger, author of If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians to Hear, is exploring the dynamics of the candidates and their spouses, and what their marriages might tell us about the kind of president they would be.

Well, since I don’t think Melinda Henneberger can possibly know anything about the inner workings of the candidates’ marriages and I don’t think their most intimate relationship would tell me anything particularly relevant about what kind of president they would be anyway, this doesn’t interest me. Pretending to know what goes on in other people’s marriages is far more likely to be a projection of your own beliefs not theirs and I don’t care about Melinda Henneberger’s inner life.

Furthermore, I don’t believe it’s any of the public’s business beyond what the candidates themselves choose to share, because they already put everything relevant on the table, including their finances and their religious beliefs, and submit themselves to endless questions for months. It’s not as if we don’t have years long campaigns in which to pose every possible question to the candidates and get an idea of where they stand and how they might govern. Doing voyeuristic “investigative work” on their marriages is unnecessary.

People should be able to maintain one small piece of privacy for themselves and be allowed to simply say what they choose without being subjected to cheap Dr Phil psychobabble based on nothing but leering speculation and half-baked supposition. This is gossip, not campaign coverage.

It’s also very depressing that the woman who wrote a book called “If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians to Hear” is doing this series, apparently also aimed at women. I truly doubt that most women want politicians to “listen” to them chattering irrelevantly about their marriages, something which we can’t possibly have enough information about to make any kind of judgment at all, much less a political judgment. Women really do have issues and concerns that are relevant to government and civic life and would be far better served with campaign coverage that addresses those things instead of reading Melinda Henneberger’s thoughts on marriage.

If reporters spent less time in general pretending to analyze the candidates’ personalities and their private lives and more time analyzing the policies and political landscape we might not end up with people like George W. Bush for president. By all accounts his marriage is extremely stable and highly successful. Go figure.

Update: Krugman says we’re doomed.

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Change Election

by digby

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone’s running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation’s failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the “do-nothing” Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn’t been running things since 2000. (Not that the radical wingnuts haven’t always blamed the Clenis for everything, but the disappearing of Bush is a new element.)

I certainly don’t blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people’s minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.)

It’s an interesting phenomenon and one for which I hope the Democratic strategists are prepared. Their underlying theme seems to be, “If you want change, vote Republican!”

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Colonel Jackass

by digby

This is truly outrageous. I’m actually quite shocked that a Colonel and public affairs officer could ever write something so simpleminded, petty and crass. He is clearly unfit for this duty and should be relieved.

I would think Col. Boylan would have more important matters to attend to than writing me emails about how Alan Colmes is the “real talent” and how I lack the balls to go visit him in Iraq — beginning with finding out who has been working secretly with right-wing outlets in the Beauchamp and Bilal Hussein matters, if he does not already know. The linchpin of a republic under civilian rule — as well as faith in the armed services by a cross-section of Americans — is an apolitical military. Like all other branches of the government intended to be apolitical, this linchpin is eroding under this administration, and that ought to be of far greater concern to Boylan and Petraeus than hurling petty insults.

Glenn gets to the heart of the problem when he discusses the politicization of the military. We have known forever that the officer corps tilted heavily conservative, but for public affairs people to be involved in this sort of thing is, as far as I know, unprecedented. (Have you ever seen this sort of letter in the newspaper?)

The conservative movement’s Coulteresque dirty, take-no-prisoners political tactics have become standard operating procedure in every corner of the US Government over the past seven years and it is going to take a gargantuan effort to sweep it clean. Sadly, I’m not seeing much emphasis placed on this in the current congress, so it’s very difficult to see how it will happen under a more popular president, even a Democratic one that is being sabotaged from within his or her own government on a daily basis.

Update: This must be some kind of joke:

On Tuesday, while “wildfires raged” in California, FEMA staged a live press conference at which agency staffers posed as journalists and asked softball questions. One of those staffers, Director of External Affairs John “Pat” Philbin, has now resigned.

He has instead landed an “amazing opportunity” to head public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Update II: Now the Colonel is being coy (and extremely unconvincing) about whether he actually sent the e-mail. It certainly appears that he’s the one who sent it, but even if he didn’t his replies are those of an arrogant jackass. If someone sent the email as a hoax, they perfectly captured his unprofessionalism.

I hope he doesn’t think he has a career waiting for him in PR in the private sector because this is the kind of messy mistake that public affairs people are called in to clean up, not create.

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If Only

by tristero

Seems like everyone’s predicting the imminent implosion of modern christianism. And yes, it does look that way, doesn’t it? Despite the wide variety of clinical-level personality disorders on display amongst the current Republican candidates, the so-called “religious” right can’t find the particular flavor of lunacy that makes them get all hard. Call it electile dysfunction. As it happens Rich’s point is underlined by a simultaneous article in the Sunday Times on the same subject.

I truly wish this were so, that we didn’t have to worry about the theocrats amongst us. But I don’t believe it for a second. The “intelligent design” creationism movement, despite taking a huge hit from the outcome of the Kitzmiller trial, has regrouped. It’s new strategy is very simple and dangerous: Rather than advocate directly for creationism, they have designed and are selling a bad biology textbook that makes all sorts of specious critiques of Darwin and evolution. Get it? While you can insist that schools obey the law and not establish religion, it is very difficult to design a law that keeps schools from purchasing, and using, a terrible, error-filled textbook.

Furthermore, as far as I know, no viable candidate for the presidency has come out in favor of a rollback – I would prefer elimination – of the “faith-based” government handouts to political operatives in a priestly vestments such as Chuck Colson.

Rich and Kirkpatrick also ignore, or fail to emphasize, the unbelievably deep pockets of modern christianism. These are seriously wealthy people who take the long view. If, as is likely, there is no compellingly nutty candidate in ’08, they’ll bide their time, fund christianists in ’10, and look forwards to ’12.

They also forget the oft-made observation, apparently wished for by the right as often as the rest of us fear it, that the U.S. is one terrorist attack away from dramatically increased authoritarianism. Christianism would thrive in such an environment.

Finally, there is the wholesale, near-invisible adoption of at least some portions of a christianist worldview by even the most mainstream media. Here is a tiny little detail from Kirkpatrick’s article as one of many possible examples. It’s so small you might miss it no matter how opposed you are to christianism :

But in the wake of the ban on public-school prayer, the sexual revolution and the exodus to the suburbs that filled the new megachurches, protecting the unborn became the rallying cry of a new movement to uphold the traditional family.

The fact that the phrase “protecting the unborn” was not enclosed in quotes is a minor, trivial detail, but a telling one (note also the “traditional family” trope as well).

It means that for the author, or the editor, or both, conventional usage has dignified the pro-coathanger position as a normative one. To say the least, “protecting the unborn” is not really an accurate description of what that movement was, and is, up to. If it was, those so anxious to protect the unborn would begin by demanding high quality pre-natal care for all expectant mothers. Rather, what this movement really is about is coercion. It’s about coercing every mother to bring every pregnancy to term. It’s also about forcing poor, pregnant women to avail themselves of exceedingly dangerous back-alley abortions if they need (or choose) to terminate a pregnancy.

In short, slowly, inexorably, christianism has been mainstreamed to the point where we just slide right by some its most extreme, and kooky, expressions and accept them as “the way to look at the world.” This will continue, unless it is confronted and confounded.

Anyone in fall 2007 who thinks christianism’s been beaten back to the margins of American cultural and political life simply doesn’t understand who these people are, what they’ve been doing for some 82 years, and how far they have advanced over the past 8 years. It is a sad truth that the fight against American christianism will continue for a very long time to come. The mere absence, at present, of a viable national presidential candidate for ’08 who supports their theocratic agenda isn’t even a tiny victory but simply a statistical blip.

[UPDATE: In comments, Digby reminds us of there may be method behind the madness, Let a “liberal woman” preside over the Herculean clean up of George Bush’s stables. Since that will be all but impossible to do in a mere 4 years, it will make their job easier in ’12 to portray Dems (and liberals) as ineffectual and elect another white male sympathetic to theocracy. ]

Huggies

by digby

Jesus H. Christ. It’s hard to imagine that any news day could be this slow.

The wildfires in Southern California this week have served to remind the world once more about one of the singular and underappreciated skills of George W. Bush: The man is a generous hugger.

There he was, amid the charred remains of some formerly upscale neighborhood, embracing the weary and the dazed victims of the fire. He made a little speech as one of the unfortunate locals was snuggled up to his side, his arm clinching her close. The gesture suggested strength, solidarity, compassion. The resident looked almost reassured.

[…]

Journalistic skepticism compels us to note that presidential hugs usually are photo ops, staged for the cameras and calculated to deliver the prepackaged sentiment, as Bush 41 once put it, “Message: I care.” But the visual evidence also compels us to remark that Bush 43’s hugs are among the least stage-y of his mannerisms. There’s an athletic, energetic, almost muscular quality to them. They seem, in a word, genuine.

This is something that many men — at least many men of Bush’s background and generation — have long found difficult. Hugging, particularly hugging another man, is the kind of casual yet intimate PDA that such men shy from. It’s acceptable with family members, and on formal occasions, like weddings and funerals, or if you’ve just won the Super Bowl. But let’s not push it.

The reason he’s been hugging so many people is because his administration has been one disaster after another.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Oh come, all ye Pagans: DVDs for All Hallows Eve

By Dennis Hartley

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to horror flicks. I don’t truck with the slasher genre. I can’t take any film involving claustrophobic captivity. Physical torture as “entertainment” is out; the inexplicable success of films like “Hostel ”, “Saw” and “Turistas ” baffles me (“art” imitating Abu Ghraib is something I can live without).

If I am in a mood to have the bejesus scared out of me, an old fashioned, atmospheric suspense yarn, like a Peter Weir (“The Last Wave” or “Picnic at Hanging Rock ”), or a taut thriller a la Polanski (“Rosemary’s Baby”, “The Tenant” or “Repulsion”), will usually suffice. Oh, I can take a little gore and viscera if it’s delivered with a nod and a wink (so over-the-top that it’s funny fare like “Dead Alive”, “Shaun of the Dead” or “Bubba Ho-Tep”) or just for pure campy fun (“Young Frankenstein”, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show ” or “Little Shop of Horrors”). I can always tune in to the nightly horrors on the Nancy Grace Show if I crave a dose of real murder and mayhem, eh?

In addition to any film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Tod Browning or F.W. Murnau (duh!), here are a few more recommendations, submitted for your Halloween pleasure:

The Abominable Dr. Phibes/Dr. Phibes Rises Again!-MGM reissued these Vincent Price classics as a “two-fer” DVD a couple years ago. In the first film, weird Dr. Phibes finds a plethora of wickedly imaginative ways to kill off the doctors he blames for his young wife’s untimely death (I suppose that’s one approach to dealing with the health care crisis). In the sequel, things get even more twisted when the doc finds it necessary to wreak revenge on all those who thwart the planned resurrection of said dead spouse (lovely Caroline Munro-yowsah!). IMHO, these are THE quintessential Price films.

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter-“What he doesn’t know about vampires wouldn’t even fill a flea’s codpiece!” This unusually droll Hammer entry benefits from direction and a clever script by Brian Clemens, one of the creators behind “The Avengers” TV show. And may I mention it also features Caroline Munro? (Uh, I’m not obsessed…)

Cemetery Man -Rupert Everett is the sleep-deprived keeper of a cemetery where the freshly buried don’t care much for the accommodations; after several days, they start clawing their way back out. It’s up to the weary cemetery man to give them the old zombie coup de grace so that they may rest in peace. Everett’s (literally) soul-sucking 9-5 gig is spiced up considerably when voluptuous Anna Falchi sashays into his bone yard. The cryptic, mind-blowing final shot is on a par with the last scene in “The Quiet Earth”.

Don’t Look Now-Based on a Daphne du Maurier ghost story, this vivid, one-of-a-kind psychological thriller from director Nicholas Roeg precipitates the likes of “The Sixth Sense” by a good 25 years. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie portray a couple dealing with the post-traumatic stress following the drowning death of their child. Roeg slowly builds a subtle sense of impending doom, drenched in the Gothic atmosphere of Venice.

Ed Wood -A perfect marriage between a particular film director’s sensibilities and the subject. Tim Burton’s penchant for turning quirky underdogs and outcasts into endearing protagonists (while letting his vivid imagination run wild in the process) found its ideal match in the tragicomic real-life story of the cross-dressing, ultra-low budget director Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Johnny Depp). Martin Landau steals every scene as Bela Lugosi.

Forbidden Zone-A cult film that nearly defies description. Picture if you will: an artistic marriage between John Waters, Guy Maddin, Busby Berkeley and Rod Serling. Now, imagine the wedding night (er-I’ll give you a moment). Suffice it to say, any film that features the late Herve Villchaize as the King of the Sixth Dimension, Susan Tyrell as his Queen and Danny Elfman channeling Cab Calloway in a devil costume is a dream for film geeks; a nightmare for others. Directed by Danny’s brother, Richard Elfman.

The Kingdom -“Dansk scum!” Lars von Trier pulls out all the stops in his twisty tale of the bizarre goings-on in a Danish hospital. Zombies, ghosts, a demon lovechild and a hypochondriac clairvoyant are all tossed into the mix along with the usual soap-opera hanky-panky between doctors and nurses, all demarcated by a Greek Chorus of mentally-challenged kitchen workers. Alas, “The Kingdom II” is currently on PAL DVD only.

The Lair of the White Worm-Before you put this Ken Russell flick in the player, you might want to shoo out any children, nervous adults or members of the clergy who might be hanging out in your media room. Amanda Donohue is a sexy, slinky serpentine siren, and a pre-Hollywood Hugh Grant camps it up as a modern-day “worm slayer”. There’s enough Freudian imagery here to choke a psych major. Over the top and quite a hoot.

Nightwatch(aka Nochnoy Dozor) A genre-defying film from the land of Eisenstein that tosses “Dark City”, “Delicatessen”, “Highlander”, “Constantine ” and “The Matrix” into a blender and produces one of the more unique thrillers of recent years. Vampires, a shape-shifting sorceress, and agents of Darkness and Light all converge in modern-day Moscow. Don’t look for a logical story; this one is about the exhilaration of pure cinema. A “two-fer” DVD, including the 2006 sequel, “Daywatch”, is due out on October 30.

The Sadist -This low budget wonder from 1963 weaves a truly frightening tale about some California motorists who find themselves stranded at a deserted gas station in the middle of nowhere and completely at the mercy of a sadistic, pistol-wielding creep (Arch Hall, Jr.). Interesting to note that the DP was none other than the great Vilmos Zsigmond!

And the best DVD box set to plow through on a dark and stormy night:

The Val Lewton Horror Collection -“Horror” may be a bit of a misnomer when you are talking about the best work from producer Val Lewton, well represented in this nine film collection. Thrillers like “The Seventh Victim”, “I Walked with a Zombie”, “Isle of the Dead” and “The Cat People” are more about building a sense of foreboding atmosphere and suspense than splashing the screen with blood and gore. All of these beautifully shot B&W films display an artistry that belies their B-movie budgets.

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The Kids Are In Play

by digby

Stalkin’ Malkin politics continues apace:

Virginia state Senate candidate Chap Petersen Friday accused his opponent Jeannemarie Devolites Davis of crossing the line by including his personal information in an attack ad.

Petersen held a news conference Friday in front of the Republican incumbent’s campaign office to address a piece of negative mail sent out this week by Devolites Davis, the wife of Rep. Tom Davis.

The mail raises questions about Petersen’s prior work for a lobbying law firm and whether he properly disclosed clients’ names on a public form.

Circled in red on the mail is part of a public document that lists Petersen’s home phone number and Fairfax City address.

The names of the former state delegate’s wife and two young daughters are also listed.

Petersen said a strange, jarring phone call to his home answered by his wife alerted him to the disclosure. He said his wife was so unnerved by that call and others that she refused to answer the phone and spent the day at her parents’.

“The thing that really bothers me is it was part of an attack ad,” Petersen said. “This ad is meant to incite anger at me, and then you have my daughters’ names circled and my home phone number circled and my home address circled. The net effect is to get somebody angry at me and have them contact me.”

[…]

Devolites Davis defended her campaign mail in her own news conference, pointing out that Petersen himself published the names and pictures of his family.

“I wanted to show this piece to all of you that Mr. Petersen sent to the mail to all of his voters,” Devolites Davis said.

The mail showcases the Petersen family, naming each child. Devolites Davis also said Petersen’s phone number is listed in the white pages and that he included his home address in a blog he wrote.

“If he’s concerned about public safety, what he did, sending their pictures out and their names, is far more egregious than me having a couple of names on an economic interest statement, and so I’m perplexed by his concern,” Devolites Davis said.

New rules for Democrats. If you put your home phone number in the phone book or a picture of your kids on a mailer to your supporters, your opponents are perfectly justified in publishing your home address, phone number and kids names circled in red in an attack ad and send it to a bunch of gun-toting, right wing neanderthals. If some freak starts calling your house after getting it, it’s your fault for admitting to having children.

Here’s how a local TV station put it:

Devolites Davis points out the Petersen’s home address and phone number can be easily be found on the Internet and in election filings. She also says Petersen put his family in play when he sent out a flyer talking about his kids’ activities – noting his daughter’s gymnastics lessons and hockey matches.

“If you’re going to serve in public office, you’re going to fill these forms out and they are available to everybody,” said Devolites Davis. “They are not private information – they are available to any person who wants to see them.”

This is the new reality for Democrats, I’m afraid. The kids are now “fair game.” Why wouldn’t they be? The Republicans think nothing of outing CIA agents for political purposes. Why should they care about siccing some nutcase on a kid? As we saw with the Graeme Frost thing, if you advocate for Democratic policies, or you have the temerity to allow your child to participate in civic life in any way, you are asking to be stalked, threatened and harmed by those who oppose you. Get used to it.

You’ll be glad to know that this practice isn’t considered to be a big deal by Villagers and their friends:

University of Virginia political expert Larry Sabato said the mailer went too far, but doubted the issue would “effect the election.”

“I don’t blame anyone in the public eye being upset at having the home address and phone number listed,” Sabato said. “As a rule, candidates and campaigns ought to stick to official numbers and addresses. This is a venial sin instead of a mortal sin.”

Too true. Hey, if your little seven year old girl can’t take the heat then maybe daddy and mommy ought to stay out of the political kitchen, eh? Politics ain’t beanbag, kid.

H/T to NickM

Dogwhistling Dixie

by digby

You’ve all heard by now about the Obama campaign hiring “ex-gay” singer Donnie McClurkin for their South Carolina gospel tour and refusing to fire him when it became known. Here’s the official explanation:

“The Obama campaign is trying to bridge real divides and bring people together. Two things are certain: We will never be able to bridge those divides if we are unwilling to listen to voices we don’t agree with, and we will never change anyone’s mind if we refuse to talk to him,” Griffs said in a statement.

Come on. What kind of turnip truck does this guy think we just fell head-first off of? This is obviously a very clumsy South Carolina “Sistah Soljah” which is really disappointing coming from Obama, the self-proclaimed healer of our blue and red wounds. The point of these exercises is to give a wink and a nod to bigots by picking out some despised element of your own coalition and demonstrating to targeted voters that you are against them too. Just because in this case it’s aimed at conservative African Americans who don’t like gays rather than racist whites who don’t like African Americans doesn’t make it any less ugly.

I would be skeptical of their intentions if the campaign had chosen by happenstance an African American pastor or gospel singer who was against gay marriage or even who believed that homosexuality was against biblical teachings. People can differ in their personal opinions and one can’t be expected to sign on to every litmus test in order to perform for a campaign. But this man is a crusader for the idea that being gay is a disease, using himself as the example of one who has been cured. You can “talk” to someone like that but the divide will never be bridged. It’s an assault on reason as well as an insult to gays.

This stuff doesn’t happen by accident. Homeboy Lee Atwater, the Grand Vizier of the dark arts of the southern strategy and the man who made Willie Horton a household name, called South Carolina the “firewall” — that’s where a ruthless negative campaign could stop the momentum of any GOP insurgent who had the temerity to buck the Big Money Boyz’s designated candidate. He perfected it in 1988 and his successor in ugly campaigning, Karl Rove, destroyed John McCain’s surging campaign there in 2000. Atwater knew very well that South Carolina was a place that trafficked in race baiting and nasty attacks on patriotism and he used them to great effect. This history is known to everyone who has followed politics for the past two decades so it is simply not believable to me that Obama’s campaign didn’t do this purposefully. South Carolina is ground zero for American bigotry.

The truly ironic thing about it is that homophobia is the new black among many of the Southern heritage groups down south. It is itself a dogwhistle. I wrote about this some time back in this post I did on racist codes for FDL:

Perhaps the most obscure form of racist code speech is rampant neo-confederate homophobia. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. Anti-gay language, crude or not so crude, can be found in many neo-confederate tracts and articles. They often use the traditional language of anti-semitism. (All that “disease” talk. )I was confused by this for a while, wondering if the antebellum south had had an underground gay sub-culture that had been scorned as a southern tradition. But it is actually just another code for traditional bigotry which they base on this:

When I served on the State Textbook Committee, I asked each publisher, “what is your definition of family?” Almost without exception, the publishers, out of deference to the homosexual, lesbian, and feminist movements, define family as two or more people living together who care for one another. By their definition, any two people living together – men, women, married, unmarried – are now defined as a family. The antebellum South was a society founded on the traditional family of husband, wife, and children. Even today, more than the rest of the US, the South is still more family oriented. Southerners still do not move as often as other people do. More than 75% of the people living in Alabama today were born in Alabama. Because the South was, and is more family oriented, and because our definition of family is increasingly unacceptable to many Americans, all things Southern, including our concept of family, are attacked.

This convenient conflation of “traditional” southern culture and family, of course, ignores the fact that slave families were ruthlessly broken up. (And anyway the slaves had a mental defect that made them want to run away.) But, no matter. You can see how easily the neoconfederates have incorporated this “family values” rhetoric and substituted their overt racism with overt homophobia.

This is not something for Democrats to be playing around with in the name of “building bridges” and singing kumbaya. Obama is making a huge mistake and he should rectify it.

And I second Jane Hamsher in saying this:

Gotta give it up for Aravosis and the GLBT blogosphere. They have really hammered this thing, and the narrative has taken root in the traditional media — at a time when Obama can least afford to have this kind of backlash.

Play with bigots and reap the whirlwind.

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Quiz Day

by tristero

As long as we’re doin’ quizzes today:

Looking For A Hissy

by digby

Jonathan Schwarz at A Tiny Revolution notices that some extremely irresponsible politicians have been meeting with an aggressively anti-Israeli and anti-American middle eastern politician who says things like this:

• “We are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory.”

• In October 2003, after rockets were fired at the hotel at which Paul Wolfowitz was staying in Baghdad, that “We hope that next time the rockets will be more accurate and effective in getting rid of this virus and his like, who wreak corruption in Arab lands.”

• That he felt “great joy” at the 2002 space shuttle Columbia disaster because one of the astronauts was Israeli.

• That the real axis of evil is “oil and Jews,” and “The oil axis is present in most of the U.S. administration, beginning with its president, vice president, and top advisers, including Rice, who is oil-colored, while the axis of Jews is present with Paul Wolfowitz.”

I feel a faint coming on, don’t you? Click here to find out who it is — and who is meeting with him.

Now, I don’t personally have a problem with meeting batshit insane foreign politicians. It falls under the heading of “diplomacy”, no matter how distasteful. (And frankly, if that’s the new criteria, we can clear Bush and Cheney’s schedule for the rest of their term.)

But the last I heard, the right wing didn’t agree. I wonder what they think of this?

Or this?

H/T to Julia