Month: November 2007

St John McCain

by digby

“When someone says waterboarding is similar to harsh interrogation techniques used against the mafia in New York City, they do not have enough experience to lead our military,” McCain said Sunday night at a town-hall meeting here.

Actually that’s not true. They don’t have enough common sense or morality to lead our military. Decent people don’t have to have been in the service or tortured themselves to know it’s wrong.

McCain’s position in this torture debate is very complicated and interesting. On the one hand he sold his conscience down the river when he signed off on that monstrosity of a Military Commissions Act, either through stupidity or ambition, neither of which speaks well for him. On the other hand, if he had fully jumped on the sadistic GOP bandwagon on this issue he could have done himself a lot of good among the Republican Neanderthals who thinks this stuff is some sort of a game. He is the one person in the race who could have lent a veneer of legitimacy to the argument that there are times when torture is justified. But (rhetorically at least) he has never allowed himself to do that.

McCain is a bloodthirsty right wing warmonger. But he’s not an outright sadist. That is the range of what passes for morality among the GOP candidates.

And by the way, he’s losing because of it.

H/T to bb

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Intelligent Design Creationism And The Erosion Of Trust

by tristero

Via PZ Myers, I’ve been keeping abreast of the latest rebuttals to the arrant nonsense of various creationists, like William Dembski and Michael Behe. Here’s a link to PZ’s latest, which refers us to this post, one in a series where SA Smith challenges Behe’s competence in the HIV research in which she is expert.

Until very recently, I could follow, sometimes with difficulty, most of the actual arguments being made, and the rebuttals by scientists. Things like the notorious bacterial flagellum, the peppered moths, and so on – the discussion got tricky but it wasn’t impossible. The mistakes in reasoning by id creationists are so egregious that a scientifically inclined 10 year old could easily see them, as could any layperson who spent a little bit of effort. But reading Smith’s post on HIV evolution, I have to confess I can’t for the life of me understand it. Ms Smith, I promise I’ll spend some more time on it later and try to puzzle it out; I like that kind of a challenge (and please don’t bother rewriting it for civilians, you’ve got better things to do!). But the tactic Behe is employing worries me, because it is so cynical, and dangerously effective.

Essentially, id creationists are slowly trying to build the case that their arguments and “data” are so subtle that only “other” scientists can possibly enter the discussion. Since the rest of us have neither the time, the inclination, nor often the analytical talent to follow the details, we have no way to come to our own conclusions based on reason alone. Yes, I suppose I could spend a few years studying up on HIV and retroviruses in general, so theoretically I could acquire the knowledge to make my own conclusion. But in reality, it is very unlikely I will do so. Nor will you, unless this, or something similar, is your field. The knowledge and data needed are too specialized.

You see where this is going? ID creationists are deliberately forcing the question of who we laypeople will trust. Since we are not in any position to judge Smith vs Behe on the playing field of the data, we must rely on irrelevant social heuristics to decide who makes the better case. Behe plays two of these cards, his rank and his gender. Smith plays her own card, namely her acquisition of knowledge as a graduate student specializing in this area. Since I can’t understand the argument as an argument, how do I determine who I wish to trust? (And “neither” for a variety of reasons is not an answer. Why is a whole ‘nother discussion.)

Rank and gender mean absolutely nothing to me. And I’ve studied enough rhetoric to recognize the fallacy of a simple ad hominem argument and learned also that ad hominem attacks are often deployed when the debater has bupkis (they are also used when the person is knowledgeable, as Smith demonstrates so capably). OTOH, expertise matters a great deal to me.

So, I trust Smith and believe she surely is right.

Believe. It’s a perfectly fine word, it has its uses, but in this context, it’s an obscenity, I bitterly resent being forced, by Behe, not Smith, to fall back on it. I want to know about evolution and the science of species’ origins, to understand a bit of it. I have not the slightest interest in “believing in it.” But I don’t have a choice if I try to follow this argument. And this gets to the crux of the problem. Many people – possibly even most – who encounter the evolution vs. id creationism debate for the first time will look at Behe’s degrees – he’s got a PhD – and his list of publications (without reading them) and, perhaps unconsciously, factor in his gender to conclude that, at best, Smith may not have a broad enough grasp of her specialty to put the facts she studies into the proper perspective.

In other words, we have the weirdest of paradoxes. The more abstruse and detailed the argumentation gets in the fight against creationism, the more important emotional, non-rational cues become for the vast majority of us in weighing how to judge who’s right! What this implies is that it makes little sense for a scientist of Smith’s caliber to “engage” Behe if he is arguing in an irresponsible fashion. Two reasons:

1. If Behe has nothing to contribute to the science, Smith is wasting her time by arguing with a malicious fool. Behe has a long, documented history of making arguments that pretend to be scientific but are patently worthless. If this is another – and no doubt it is – who has time?

2. If the purpose of engaging Behe is to rebut his arguments for the benefit of we interested laypeople, there is in fact the very real possibility that even the most interested of such folks – and I include myself in that list – will simply not be able to follow it. This inadvertently aids Behe and other creationists by all but forcing us to rely on emotional cues, tribal loyalties, and social norms in order to choose sides. This is surely the exact opposite of Smith’s intent.

Let me stop for a moment and say unequivocally that I’m on Smith’s side. I’ve read (and fully understood) enough Behe and his scientifically knowledgeable opponents to know that when it comes to the science, the man is either a fool, paid to act like a fool, or both. The questions I am bringing up are tactical. What is the point of arguing with Behe at such a level of detail? Who does it inform? Who does it benefit? Who does it hurt? I’m beginning to suspect that it would be far better to find new and creative ways to ignore Behe than to raise his status by arguing with him over stuff everyone who’s studied the field knows is sheer idiocy.

Yes, some laypeople might be better equipped than I to follow Smith’s arguments. Which simply means that Behe and his ilk will up the ante until even they are hopelessly lost, without ever once contributing anything to a genuine discussion of science. Ultimately, I think scientists must somehow find a way to push Behe to the side, not in the Mooney/Nisbet framing sense, but by making the modern case for evolution so crystal clear, and by restating that case over and over again, so that Behe sounds as much like a Flat-Earther to laypeople as he does to Smith (and me). The basic science isn’t that hard to grasp, people. And, y’know, it really is incredibly exciting stuff, what’s going on, what’s been discovered.

PZ is certainly doing a great job in the blogosphere. And so does SA. Smith among others, . In the bookish world, Sean Carroll’s books on evo-devo are masterpieces of popular science (links to come). What is needed, however, are regular. well-respected, and persuasive people in the mass media (television most of all) and in politics who will put science, especially the science of evolution, front and center. Not because it’s an ideology with a covert morality. It isn’t and it doesn’t have any. But because the theory of evolution is one of the most extraordinary and most easily understood ideas anyone’s ever had.

More on that last point soon (grin).

California Split

by tristero

Looks like Republicans are back in the saddle, trying to steal California electoral votes again:

…the idea of stealing California’s electoral votes was too good for the national GOP big-wigs to let fail. All it needed was a mischievous millionaire to rescue the scheme from the incompetents.

That’s when Darrell Issa came riding in on his white elephant to save the day. Issa, a conservative Republican who has represented the 49th Congressional District in northern San Diego County since 2001…

In 2003, he spent $2.3 to bankroll the signature-gathering effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis, who had barely won re-election the previous November. Issa expected to run for Davis’ job, but he was pushed aside by Schwarzenegger.

Now he’s back on the scene, ponying up and raising the bucks needed to resurrect the GOP’s dirty tricks scheme to divide California’s electoral votes, which Issa and his pals now call the California Counts campaign. The New York Times reported that Issa made an initial $50,000 contribution to the initiative and was actively soliciting contributions from others. The San Jose Mercury News reported that soon after Issa stepped into the campaign in late October, it had nearly $2 million in the bank…

If the GOP initiative gets on the June ballot, Democrats will have to spend millions of dollars trying to defeat it. And if a majority of California voters support the June initiative, whichever candidate wins the Democratic nomination will be forced to spend a lot of money and a lot of time in the state that would otherwise have been targeted elsewhere.

This is clearly something the Democrats would like to avoid…

As Harvard historian Alexander Keyssar recently wrote in The Los Angeles Times:

“If the Republicans truly believe that it would be fairer and more democratic to choose electors by district, then instead of introducing such plans piecemeal in states where they would benefit, they should introduce a constitutional amendment to create a national district system — one that would apply to Texas and South Carolina as well as California.”

No doubt about it. The year 2008 will be a very interesting year.

Poppy’s Pain

by digby

I always find it interesting when Poppy Bush goes off the reservation. Crooks and Liars caught him today on Fox:

Bush defends his son’s disastrous presidency, but later in the interview as he and Wallace stood in a mock up of a tent used by U.S. soldiers during the first Gulf War, he vehemently defended his decision not to march on to Baghdad in 1991. While watching footage of news clips from the conflict, Poppy becomes emotional when he describes what he believes to be the most lasting images from the conflict — the humane way in which the U.S. treated Iraqi prisoners.

Wallace: “The President remembered the courage and humanity of American soldiers and he grew emotional.” Bush: “My favorite picture is a picture of American soldiers surrounding a guy whose been in a foxhole, Iraqi soldier, and the American guy says, we’re not going to harm you, we’re American soldiers.” (fights back tears) Bush: “…See, that side of the war never got — the fact that we treated those people with respect in spite of the fact they were the enemy, it’s really good.

You can see the whole clip here.

Poppy has an ego. He became president of the United States and you can’t do that if you don’t have an ego. But he also loves his son and (even more importantly perhaps) the family name.

So what kind of hell do you think the man has gone through these past few years watching his idiot son not just fail miserably, but destroy his own most important accomplishment —- the global coalition he brought together to successfully wage the first Gulf War (or at least how history first recorded it.) It must kill him to see that get all mashed up with Junior’s debacle. He was a president too and now he’s mostly seen as the father of the worst president in history, who, even more painfully, went out of his way to knock down his father’s legacy.

And to watch all those fine old fashioned patriotic values of honor and decency that he once espoused (even if he was completely full of shit at the time) be just thrown into the trash bin by his own son must be excruciating.

Only fiction or poetry can do this story justice.

New Rules

by digby

eriposte at The Left Coaster discusses the journalistic malpractice exposed in this exchange from the last debate:

Here was an exchange from the Oct 30 Democratic Presidential debate (emphasis mine):

Russert: Senator Clinton,☼ I’d like to follow up, because in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave? Because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012. Clinton: Well, actually, Tim, the Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There’s about 20 million pieces of paper there. And they are move, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that. Now, all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available. Others are becoming available. And I think that, you know, the Archives will continue to move as rapidly as its circumstances and processes demand. Russert: But there was a letter written by President Clinton specifically asking that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012. Would you lift that ban? Clinton: Well, that’s not my decision to make, and I don’t believe that any president or first lady ever has. But, certainly, we’re move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.

eriposte points out that even though president Clinton subsequently explained that his request (from five years ago) was to speed up the release of documents, NBC stood by its biased and misleading question which implied that Senator Clinton was hiding something. What a surprise.

But an astute reader pointed something else out to me about this question:

Correct me if I’m wrong……..has anyone asked a VP running for the presidency to disclose his confidential communications with the president? Did they ask Bush I to talk about his conversations with Reagan?

I don’t recall in 2000 Gore being asked to asked to reveal all of his conversations and official papers relating to his position as vice president either. Or Mondale in 1984. Or any other VPs, who are always running at least in part on the basis of their experience in a former administration.

Even weirder, what Russert is asking for is papers relating to personal advice she gave to the president, which I don’t recall anyone ever asking from any candidate who had once worked in former administrations or who had a personal relationship with a former president. Cheney wasn’t asked to release all of his correspondence with Bush Sr from when he was Sec Def. Bush Jr was never asked, as far as I know, to reveal records of his personal conversations with his father, (although I’m fairly sure if he had been he would have told the questioner to go Cheney himself.)

The fact is that relationships with former presidents, whether as members of the administration, or as close associates, are taken at face value. If the former president thought you were someone worth listening to, the press didn’t demand that you reveal exactly what was said. The voter is expected to evaluate that endorsement on the basis of how they felt about the one who gave it — the former president — rather than demanding to judge each piece of advice for itself. If you liked Reagan, then you assumed that James Baker and George Bush Sr were your kind of guys too.

Not so for Clinton. Apparently, the thrill of examining every single aspect of that marriage, from sleeping arrangements to pillow talk, is of unending interest to the Village biddies. Why else would they demand that President Clinton release the records for Hillary but not for Al?

Finally, one can only gasp at the extreme irony of Russert pressing Clinton like she was a criminal for allegedly trying to keep some mid-90’s advice about welfare reform a secret. Right before his eyes is an administration that has made a fetish of secrecy to the point where we are now waging wars and torturing people which, short of revolution, we can’t seem to do a damned thing about. But for some reason Tim doesn’t see a problem with that, at least as far as I can discern. He doesn’t have problem with the president commuting the sentence of one of his felonious henchmen, and he doesn’t have problem with an administration that pretty much says the laws don’t apply to him. He doesn’t even ask the Republican candidates if they agree with these policies or press them on whether they would endorse these actions.

But, he’s hell on seeing Hillary’s memos from 1997.

Has Tim ever said one thing about the fact that this White House has taken the nearly unprecedented step of directing its former employees to openly defy congressional subpoenas, leaving the congress’ only option to send the Sergeant at Arms to arrest them in their homes and hold them in a little jail in the capitol that hasn’t been used in about a century? Has that been a matter of interest to Russert and the kewl kidz, because I haven’t heard them fulminating about it, have you? That’s the kind of “executive privilege” we’re talking about with this administration — telling the United States congress to shove it, over and over again.

But seeing those thank you notes from 1995 is something that the public demands.

Grab the Maalox kids because I can feel it in my gut. The bad breath and the sleepy eyes and the bedhead are all around us. Come 2009, if a Democrat wins the presidency, the Village press will finally wake up from its 8 year somnambulent drool and rediscover its “conscience” and its “professionalism.” The Republicans will only have to breathe their character assassination lightly into the ether — the Village gossips will do the rest. And if this new president resists in any way, a primal scream will build until he or she is forced to appoint a special counsel to investigate the “cover up” and grovel repeatedly in forced acts of contrition in response to manufactured GOP hissy fits and media hysteria. We’re going forward into the past (and judging from the haircut nonsense we’ve already seen, it isn’t confined to Clinton.)

Reforming politics isn’t enough. Reforming the media is just as important. The current administration is so power mad, morally bankrupt and inept that their natural heir is a barking madman. (And some excellent reporting has been done to expose them.) But the Village kewl kidz and the queen bees who set the political agenda and dominate the coverage have never found any of that interesting or worthwhile. They care about their silly little shorthand parlor games that they think reveal politicians’ “character.” And their judgment of character is about as useful to the average voter as Brittney and K-Fed’s.

They are a huge problem and I can’t see how this country can pull out of this spiral until this is dealt with.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Girl You Know It’s True

By Dennis Hartley

You’ve heard the expression, “If I told the truth, no one would believe me”? Dig this: I’ve just watched the best Christopher Guest film ever made, but it wasn’t made by Christopher Guest. In fact, it wasn’t even a “mockumentary”.

Amar Bar-Lev’s new documentary, “My Kid Could Paint That”, is ostensibly about the “career” of 4-year old (not a typo) Marla Olmstead, who hit the MSM spotlight briefly a few years back when her abstract paintings became a surprise hit in the New York art world. I use the qualifier “ostensibly”, because by the time the credits roll, you realize that this film goes much, much deeper than standard issue news-kicker fodder about yet another child prodigy. As one of the film’s subjects, a reporter for a local newspaper, muses to the filmmaker, “…this story is really more about the adults (in Marla’s orbit).”

The back story: Mark and Laura Olmstead, a young couple living in sleepy Binghamton, New York, begin to notice that their daughter, Marla, appears to have a knack for art that transcends the random scribbling of a typical toddler. To be sure, every parent likes to think their kid is a bloody little genius, but the Olmsteads receive validation when a friend suggests they hang some of Marla’s work in his local coffee shop (for a lark) and to their surprise, the paintings start selling like hotcakes. A local newspaper reporter picks up on the story, as does the owner of a local art gallery. Then, faster than you can say “just out of diapers”, young Marla becomes a media darling, resulting in a substantial spike in the value of her paintings (some are sold in the five-figure range). Everything is going quite swimmingly until “60 Minutes” sets their sights on the family, airing a “takedown” story in 2004 that includes hidden camera footage showing Mark Olmstead barking instructions at Marla as she paints. Needless to say, sales drop off dramatically.

Bar-Lev began filming prior to the “60 Minutes” story; hence the first act is fairly standard documentary fare, incorporating interviews with the parents, the gallery owner and the newspaper reporter with some of the family’s home movies. You do get a vibe early on that Mark Olmstead is enjoying the spotlight more than the rest of his family; Marla is way too young to really understand what’s going on, and his wife Laura retains a cautious pragmatism. “I know there’s a fine line between a child prodigy and a freak show…” she says at one point. Even while she is backstage getting prepped for Marla’s appearance on the “Tonight Show”, she worries out loud “…if all of this is really good for Marla”. Is she telling this to the camera, or taking a by-proxy jab at her husband?

The first real seeds of doubt are sown when Bar-Lev sets up his camera to capture Marla at work. Marla sits on the floor, staring an empty canvas for quite some time while her father fidgets. At one point, Marla says something very interesting. “Do you want to paint something, Daddy?” Whoops! “I don’t know what’s wrong,” Mark says nervously, “She usually doesn’t act like this…” Uh huh. The awkward moments are just beginning.

On the night that the “60 Minutes” story airs, Bar-Lev’s camera is there in the Olmstead’s living room, focusing on Mark and Laura, with their faces bathed in the light of the TV screen. This is where things really start to get interesting. Apparently, the parents have no idea exactly what Mike Wallace & co. are planning until the night the story airs. This is evidenced by Mark’s facial expression, which morphs from curiously smug self-satisfaction to consternation, then shock, disbelief and resignation. By the time you hear the “tick-tick-tick” emanating from the TV speaker, his face has gone completely ashen.

Now the film takes a fascinating turn as Bar-Lev, who has become somewhat attached to his subjects, reacts to this possibility of deception in a palpable fashion. He starts to question his own motivations for making his film. He wants to be on their side, but now he will not rest until he has documented Marla creating a painting, from start to finish. From this point on, the film almost becomes a thriller. It begins to seem that none of the principals are really who they appear to be (with the exception of the 4-year old Marla).

For me, the “money shot” arrives in a scene where you can hear Bar-Lev apologizing off-camera to the couple for intruding on their lives in the first place. A tearful Laura suddenly explodes at him. “Stop saying you’re sorry!” she screams at the camera, then adds, with a perfect pitch of irony and sarcasm, “This is documentary gold!” as she leaps up from the couch and then stalks up and exits out of the shot, leaving her husband alone on the couch, staring at his shoes. It is, indeed, a moment of pure documentary gold.

At the end of the day, “My Kid Can Paint That” is not just about whether or not Marla is for real; it’s about the nature of “art” itself (be it painting, filmmaking, music, whatever) At what point does childish scribbling become “abstract expressionism”? Does a “documentary” become a lie the moment the filmmaker makes the first edit? Whose judgment determines the intrinsic and/or monetary value of a painting-a local newspaper reporter, a New York Times art critic or Mike Wallace? Does the eye of the beholder still count for anything? Does it really matter who painted it, if you feel it’s worth hanging on your wall? Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays-Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford, and do you care? Does it really matter that the Monkees didn’t write any of their hits or play their own instruments? Feast your eyes on this exceptional film and decide for yourself.

Art carnies: F for Fake, Who the Fuck Is Jackson Pollock?, Art School Confidential, Pecker, Incognito, The Thomas Crown Affair(1999), The Art of Love.

…and tangentially speaking: Being There, Singin’ in the Rain, Phantom of the Paradise, Cyrano De Bergerac (1950), Roxanne, The Front,Bullets Over Broadway.

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“Sorry Is Just Too Late”

by digby

Donna Edwards takes Al Wynn downtown — with Steny Hoyer looking on!

They’ve managed to raise $70,000 so far, only 30k to go. FDL has more, here.

And Emily’s List just endorsed her.

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They’re All Naked

by digby

I’m over at Firedoglake right now hosting the book salon with Greg Anrig, author of “The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right Wing Ideas Keep Failing.”

A few years back a very smart friend of mine mused over coffee, “I wonder what it’s like to be William F. Buckley today? He got everything he ever wanted.” He sure did. All those years of philosophizing and writing and proselytizing and building a political movement certainly came to full fruition in the Bush years, didn’t it? They had it all — global economic and military dominance, total political control of the US government, domestic prosperity, a budget surplus, a friendly media and a cowed and paralyzed opposition party. There has never been a more fertile time for any political movement to solidify its gains and create a long lasting political consensus.

How profoundly disoriented old Buckley must be today. They had it all — and in the course of 6 short years they managed to completely discredit their philosophy and prove their total ineptitude at running government. How could they have possibly failed so miserably?

Greg Anrig, TPM blogger and VP at The Century Foundation, has written an entertaining and satisfying book explaining step-by-step just how and why it happened. The overarching answer, of course, is that any philosophy that doesn’t believe in government would naturally not be very good at running one. (Indeed, one of the inescapable conclusions is that they consciously seek to run it badly in order to prove their thesis that government can’t do anything right!)

And yet for years, the Republicans portrayed themselves as “the grown-ups” the “serious” people who knew how to “get things done.” The beltway Village continues to see these people as deeply mature and responsible despite their clear record of abject failure. It’s a triumph of public relations and marketing that they keep these people drinking the poison long after the effects are known.

For those of us who have been following this story for years, Anrig’s book is a deeply satisfying deconstruction of the conservative program. For those who haven’t, it will be a revelation. From making America safer to shrinking government to their radical insistence on privatization, Anrig reveals the methods to their madness and shows just how thorough their failures have been.

Anrig concludes with this twist on Reagan’s famous dictum: “conservatism is not the solution, conservatism is the problem.” But he warns that despite their failure, the conservatives aren’t finished and will continue to promote their program with relentless focus. After all, with the exception of destroying the opposition, it’s the only thing they really do well.

Come on over to FDL and chat with Greg Anrig (and me) at today’s book salon.

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Too Much Fun

by digby

I just saw Jeanne Moos do one of her cute little feature stories on … waterboarding. Lots of adorable stories of people trying it and timing themselves and laughing about it afterwards. Funny, funny stuff. I only wish they’d put her in a stress position for 48 hours naked so we could see how hilarious that is too.

At the end she did warn people that they could actually kill themselves if they do this wrong, so when you kids are having your kicks trying to waterboard each other keep that in mind.

I think the debate is over, folks. Every time they normalize state sanctioned sadism, from tasering to waterboarding, we are one step closer to fully accepting a police state. That’s how they do it. It never happens over night. It happens one taboo at a time.

We are a torture culture, immoral, vulgar and profane. We actually think it’s fun. If college boys and reporters can laugh about it, how bad can it be? Thanks Dick and George.

Update: Here’s the transcript

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It’s one thing to see an animation of water boarding and another to see the real thing. Sounds like the Bush administration’s nominee for attorney general hasn’t seen a demo.

MICHAEL MUKASEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: I don’t know what’s involved in the technique, if water boarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.

MOOS: It depends what the definition of water boarding is, but this reporter didn’t define it, he demonstrated it, on himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you have to say? What do you have to say?

MOOS: Kaj Larsen is a reporter for Current TV, Al Gore’s outfit. He used to be special ops and once had to undergo water boarding as part of military training, but this time he paid other professional interrogators.

KAJ LARSEN, REPORTER: I weaseled him down to $800.

MOOS: To waterboard him so folks could decide if it amounts to torture.

LARSEN: It start to create the sensation of drowning.

MOOS: They stuffed a rag into Larsen’s mouth. They began pouring and then the shaking began.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he’s getting ready to say something.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can end this now, just talk.

MOOS: Larsen’s producer actually ended it telling the interrogators to stop after 24 minutes. Normally a person breaks after two or three.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You OK?

LARSEN: Oh, that sucked.[laughing]

MOOS: Current TV says Larsen was the first to do a serious demonstration of water boarding over a year ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only place he can breathe is through his nose and we’re going to fill that with water.

MOOS: FOX News reporter, Steve Harrigan, also water boarded himself. They placed cellophane over his mouth and poured water in his nose.

Anti-war demonstrators have taken the demonstrating water boarding and posting their protests on You Tube. Even a few amateurs have tried it at home, timing themselves to see how long they can last. [more laughter]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 11.9.

MOOS: Not smart. Do it wrong and experts say water boarding can kill you. And then there’s this instructional water boarding tape supposedly leaked from the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step two, blindfold your subject.

MOOS: Turns it’s a parody. They recommend splashing water generously.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will overall aid in the overall drowning look and feel.

MOOS: For the good old days when water boarding meant riding a board on water.

Now, that’s constitutional, Mr. Attorney general nominee. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: The length that some people go to.

HOLMES: And with that, CNN NEWSROOM continues.

WHITFIELD: I loved watching your expressions. You both were like, what?

NGUYEN: Exactly.

WHITFIELD: In fact, that reminds me, we have a segment coming up later on in this hour, stories that kind of evoke that response. Kind of what, what were they thinking? We’ve got that coming up. You’ll have to stay tuned for that.

But it has nothing to do with water boarding. Instead it has something to do with breast milk.

NGUYEN: Oh, lovely.

WHITFIELD: I know, well, you’ll have to watch. You guys have a great day.

Yep.

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Let’s See What You’ve Got, Babe

by digby

You know, I’m perfectly willing to say that Hillary shouldn’t “play the gender card.” It’s just not right.

Chris Matthews puts it best, I think:

MATTHEWS: Another thing Russert pointed out the other night. If you’re running on your record as first lady, let’s see the records, babe. Let’s see them. Lets see what you’re bragging about here and then to say, that’s not my decision, that’s not a first lady’s decision, that’s my husband’s decision, what?

You can’t keep playing this “I’m a little girl” thing, and “my husband makes all the decisions” if you’re running for president.

So true. And now I will be eagerly looking forward to him and the rest of the commentators calling out the entire Republican field for also playing the “gender” card as they’ve been doing for the past few decades. Indeed, the entire Republican campaign strategy can be said to be one big gender card — the only people they believe matter in this country are delicate, insecure creatures who are so sensitive that they have to be pampered and pandered to like a bunch of overfed princes who like to play cowboy and don’t want to share their favorite binky.

Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn’t considered playing “the gender card.” It’s just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who’ve been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

I’m sorry, but this is truly sexist crap. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are out there one upping each other on who will be the most macho sadists among the crowd of warring GOP thugs. Hillary goes to her alma mater and says that her education at the women’s college prepared her to do battle with the political boys club and the gasbags’ eyes roll back in their heads and they start drooling and whining that she’s broken the rules.

Well boo fucking hoo. The rules are changing. Get used to it.

Half of this country is female and they’ve noticed, in case these manly men haven’t, that presidential politics is a very exclusive a boys club and we don’t find it all that odd to mention it. Certainly, if it’s ok for politicians to literally walk around with a codpiece to show their masculine bona fides, I don’t think it’s out of line for a female candidate to speak to a younger generation of women at her college and take a little bit of pride in the institution and her own accomplishments — since she does happen to be the first serious female contender for president in the whole history of the country. Excuse me for thinking she has the damned right to do it.

All these squirming little fools who talk about how they have to “cross their legs” whenever they hear her voice, or hallucinate that she’s “acting like a little girl” or any of a dozen other ridiculous, sexist responses to Clinton are revealing far more about themselves than they are about her. If anyone’s playing the gender card it’s them — and it’s a picture of a quivering little boy crying in the corner because he doesn’t want to share his toys with a girl. Tough. Eat some pork rinds and stfu.

Update: Just for a little flavor of the Matthews hysteria:

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the Wellesly speech?

KLEIN: If she does it again, if she goes somewhere that isn‘t her Wellesly, isn‘t her own college, where she‘s whipping up students, and begins making this the issue in her campaign, I think then that will backfire terribly. This is one line.

MATTHEWS: No, no, no. Let‘s go to the jukebox, go back a bit. Remember where she said—she‘s made comments like this before about the woman thing. She does this. This is not the first time. She does this.

CILLIZZA: Chris, I do think one potential problem for her is she‘s trying to both at the same time be somewhat of a victim, in that these men ganged up on her—

MATTHEWS: What gives me experience of dealing with evil men; come on, what was that about?

KLEIN: She does try to play a solidarity card. I think it‘s always smart for her to do so. Hillary Clinton gets that she‘s got to solidify women to go against —

MATTHEWS: It works in the Democratic primaries because 60 percent of the participants are women in the caucuses. Will it backfire in the general? I think it‘s the first time in the campaign she‘s traded general election votes for primary votes and she‘s so far ahead. I don‘t know why she‘s doing it. We‘ll be back with the round table. I seem to be the odd man out here—the odd person out I should say. You‘re watching HARDBALL only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: We‘re back with the round table. Carla Marinucci, I was just triggered into thinking about the number of times Hillary Clinton has yielded herself to this gender card; I‘m your girl out in Chicago. What gives me experience in dealing with evil men, and now this one, rallying the troops up at Wellesly. Is she going to do a seven sisters tour now, a college tour now with Hillary to rally the women against the men?

MARINUCCI: Listen, the men have come after her too, Chris. Let‘s remember Rudy Giuliani last week, talking about what has she really done, what experience does she have to be president? She doesn‘t have my kind of executive experience. I‘m sorry, but that sounded like a Ward Cleaver (ph), 1950‘s guy coming home after work with the woman with five kids and saying what have you done all day?

MATTHEWS: Where did you learn these lines? Marinucci, you‘re too young to know the 1950‘s. How do you know them? That‘s my dad. My mother had to hide the magazines that she read that day from my dad. I think that‘s so great.

MARINUCCI: That‘s what I‘m talking about, Chris. That‘s what I‘m talking about. Women hear that and that‘s why this whole thing is working for her right now.

MATTHEWS: I love that stuff. Anyway, what do you think? Suppose one of the guys says, why don‘t we all get together, guys, and let‘s vote guy.

KLEIN: I‘m pretty sure—

MATTHEWS: Imagine one of them saying, let‘s vote guy this year.

KLEIN: Thompson is running on the fact that he‘s a very tall man.

MATTHEWS: Who did that?

KLEIN: Thompson did. I think it‘s his campaign platform. He‘s not only male, but over six feet tall.

MATTHEWS: Did he bring that up?

KLEIN: Everything you see about Thompson says he‘s huge.

MATTHEWS: Tall.

KLEIN: He‘s tall. He‘s big. He‘s manly. The guy‘s running—

(CROSS TALK)

MATTHEWS: I think that was my problem with John Stewart the other night, by the way. That‘s just a hunch. What do you think?

KLEIN: I think when Hillary says I‘m your girl, when she invokes her femininity, I think that‘s fine and it‘s good for women voters. If she made this—if she the attacks on me are unfair—

(CROSS TALK)

MATTHEWS: Like the boys have got their club house. We can‘t get in the boys‘ club tree house.

KLEIN: She‘s the only woman in this race. She‘s the first time we‘ve ever had a woman that may win.

MATTHEWS: Cillizza, what do you think? Is Hillary right to keep up this torrent of abuse against—just kidding. This torrent of feminism or is she smart to drop it after today? I say drop it. You made your point.

Sadly, this isn’t just confined to Matthews. The village pooh-bahs and their enabling little TV harpies are all over this thing. (Kudos to Ezra Klein for being the only voice of sanity in that ridiculous exchange. And you’ve got to love Matthews view that his “problem” with Jon Stewart is that he’s so tall. What a putz.)

I’ve got no problem with attacking Clinton on her voting record or her policies and I even think it’s ok for Obama to make this a line of attack if he wants to take that chance. You know the Republicans will. But the Village blowhards are the ones taking the lead on this and those fools have no standing to play this game. They are a bunch of elitist little pricks whose influence is poisonous to our body politic. It’s hard to see anything more antithetical to our democracy than this little fraternity of nitwits in charge of the political conversation.

Update II: Thank goodness for liberal men.

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