Month: December 2008

They Don’t Know Halfway

by dday

After shrugging off Republican caterwauling about the Holder nomination, the only one the right seems to have any interest in making a stink over, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy is pushing back the hearing date a week, a kind of compromise.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will delay confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder after all — accommodating Republican concerns that the appointment was being rushed and more vetting of Holder’s resume was needed.

In an announcement from his Senate office on Monday afternoon, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said the hearings would be moved back from January 9 to January 15, giving Republicans more than “30 days from today” to consider Holder’s qualifications.

I sincerely hope that Leahy doesn’t think this will calm anybody on the other side of the aisle. In fact, there will be some talk that this “proves” the “bipartisan concern” with the nomination, and the perception that it’s in trouble, and that Holder will have to endure even more scrutiny, perhaps a request for multiple confirmation hearings, etc. This is not necessarily about blocking Holder from becoming the Attorney General but elongating the process and throwing up doubt. They’ve de-mothballed Karl Rove to lead the effort:

On Dec. 1, just one day after Holder’s nomination, Karl Rove told the Today Show that Holder’s record “will be examined” because he was the “one controversial nominee“:

ROVE: He was deeply involved as the Deputy Attorney General in the controversial pardon of Marc Rich. … I think it’s going to be clearly examined, if for no other reason that people want to lay down markers that that kind of behavior is inappropriate. … But again, there will be some attention paid to this […]

Today on MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Show, Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly revealed that Rove is indeed “helping lead” the effort against Holder:

CONNOLLY: Word on the street is that Karl Rove is going to be helping lead the fight against Eric Holder when his nomination for Attorney General heads up to the Senate.

This is a textbook partisan ploy, designed to engender anger throughout the base and a whiff of illegitimacy to the Justice Department. Of course, that agency is already hopelessly compromised, so any effort to improve it or, ye gods, fire those burrowed deep inside the Department who are responsible for the politicization of the past few years, will then have a counterpoint in the figure of Holder, no matter how ridiculous it may appear.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that the one cabinet post Rove is being tapped to sully and turn into a partisan brawl is the one that happens to be investigating him. There may or may not be merit to the idea that Rove wants to provide cover for Bush’s pardons, but the Siegelman case threatens Rove where he lives, and he desperately needs to paint it as the rantings of a partisan liberal Justice Department. In fact, painting justice itself as partisan, putting it into the political arena, serves Republican needs in a variety of ways, devaluing the rule of law as just another he-said/she-said situation.

I think Leahy did the wrong thing by listening to these jackals. They have no interest in being mollified.

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Royal Workers

by digby

Here’s a revealing look at how Republicans see the new post partisan environment:

During the final closed-door negotiations Thursday night, union officials were in one room while management officials were in an adjacent room.

Republicans complained that the union officials had more access to the senatorial negotiators than did management. Democrats denied that, saying that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., shuttled between the two rooms.

And, the Democrats said, more union input was needed because of the insistence from Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., that American carmakers bring labor costs in line with overseas-based manufacturers that operate in the U.S. Chattanooga, Tenn., where Corker was mayor before his election to the Senate, secured a new Volkswagen plant in July. Tennessee also is home to GM and Nissan vehicle assembly plants.

Democrats charged that Republicans was out to hurt the union. Corker denied such motivation, saying that the agreement imploded over three words — the date by which the unionized workers would have to achieve parity with those at foreign-owned U.S. plants.

Republicans wanted parity next year; Democrats sought a delay until 2011. Asked why he wouldn’t move off the 2009 date, Corker said, “Then I’d be negotiating with myself.”

Bush always said that, of course, which is an indication of what a super smart statement it is. Republicans think compromise is negotiating with themselves. And what’s interesting about it is that they were also “negotiating” with Republican white house. Somehow, I suspect they will have even less desire to compromise with a Democrat.

The article goes on to explain that Republicans needed to do something that would make them feel good about themselves. It’s been a couple of months since they screwed anything up, after all, and they were afraid they were losing their touch. It’s also clear their constituents were all amped up (presumably from the talk radio gasbags speaking in tongues and putting curses on the auto workers.) Some of the politicians got so excited they forgot their conservative talking points and blamed the wrong people:

“People don’t like rich people, and these guys are not only rich, but they screwed up,” said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., speaking of the Big Three executives who came to Capitol Hill on private jets with cups in hand.

Noooo. Guys with private jets are great producers of wealth and deserve every penny they can lay their grubby hands on. It’s the UAW workers who are the rich exploiters. I think this says it best:

ROMANS: Peter Morici the Senate was right to bail out on this bailout?

Peter Morici,University of Maryland School of Business: They didn’t bail out. Gettlefinger bailed out. Toyota workers are paid very well, they have outstanding benefits, but that is not good enough for Ron Gettlefinger in the UAW. Instead they want a gold plated package as if they’re the British aristocracy.I don’t think a waitress making $30,000 a year in Indiana ought to send her tax dollars to Washington to subsidize that nonsense.

See, the unions are the nobility who are keeping workers down in this country and the conservatives are stepping up to fight with pitchforks on their behalf. To accuse the executives of wrongdoing, or say that Americans don’t like rich people, is waging class warfare and that is unacceptable.

LaHood just made a mistake. He was obviously giddy with excitement that he’d just helped make the economic lives of millions of Americans far worse than they would have been and he was undoubtedly thinking ahead to future thrilling successes with long term unemployment, denial of health care and homelessness. For Republicans, happy days are here again.

This is going to be a very interesting couple of years — if we can survive the Republican guillotine.

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Line In The Sand

by digby

The conservatives are all very excited about the mission being accomplished. But, there’s a fly in the ointment:

NRO‘s Andy McCarthy: “All praise to Mitch McConnell for leading the charge that beat back this lunacy. Can someone explain why the White House thought this was a good idea?”

Actually, Dick Cheney made himself pretty clear:

“If we don’t do this, we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever,”

Michelle Malkin, however, like most Republicans, believes there are more important things than throwing the country into a depression:

“The Bush administration apparently didn’t understand the message last night. […] Senate Republicans drew a line in the sand on bailout mania. And now the White House is scrambling to erase it and expand the crap sandwich once more to rescue the UAW. No means no.“

The Republicans are giving the majority of the country tough love.

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Don’t Defend It, Don’t Mend It, End it

by digby

So, I see that Victoria Toensing is back in the Patrick Fitzgerald bashing business, reprising her complaint that he goes way too far in his public characterizations of criminal wrongdoing prior to trial. Coming from her, that’s pretty rich, considering that she was Ken Starr’s most ardent supporter and throughly supported the outrageously over-the-top bad Romance novel he presented to the pubic and the congress prior to impeachment and trial:

Whereas the President testified that “what began as a friendship came to include [intimate contact],” Ms. Lewinsky explained that the relationship moved in the opposite direction: “[T]he emotional and friendship aspects . . . developed after the beginning of our sexual relationship.” As the relationship developed over time, Ms. Lewinsky grew emotionally attached to President Clinton. She testified: “I never expected to fall in love with the President. I was surprised that I did.” Ms. Lewinsky told him of her feelings.At times, she believed that he loved her too. They were physically affectionate: “A lot of hugging, holding hands sometimes. He always used to push the hair out of my face.” She called him “Handsome”; on occasion, he called her “Sweetie,” “Baby,” or sometimes “Dear.” He told her that he enjoyed talking to her — she recalled his saying that the two of them were “emotive and full of fire,” and she made him feel young. He said he wished he could spend more time with her.

All the gasbags and right wing screamers thought that was perfectly legitimate prosecutorial conduct. But then, we are about to see some very interesting gyrations among the wingnut legal beagles as power shifts again in Washington. I think the one that interests me most is the case of Uber villager Stuart Taylor, one of the chief cable inquisitors in the Lewinsky scandal, who insisted that Clinton was a major criminal for lying about the “crime” discussed above and should be impeached and prosecuted for it.

Howie Kurtz wrote a typical insider piece about his ubiquitous presence on TV back in the day, revealing more about the guy than he probably realized:

Friends worry that Taylor, by so constantly and unambiguously assailing Clinton as a liar, may be tarnishing his hard-won reputation as a dispassionate legal analyst. The “NewsHour,” concerned about the appearance of bias, has stopped using him to talk about Clinton and Lewinsky. Says Taylor: “There’s hardly anyone in the city of Washington who believes him. I don’t see much point in pretending the evidence is in equipoise when it isn’t.”[…]
The case that boosted Taylor into the media stratosphere involved not Monica Lewinsky but Paula Jones. When the former Arkansas clerk first accused Clinton in 1994 of having dropped his trousers and propositioned her in a Little Rock hotel room, Taylor was skeptical: “I thought Clinton was not owning up to what happened but I couldn’t believe he did the whole thing. That would be too crude. She was not the most believable person in the world.” But in the summer of 1996, Taylor began work on what would become a 15,000-word manifesto about the case for American Lawyer. Brill says they both believed that “this would be the quintessential frivolous-litigation story.” Instead, Taylor concluded that Jones had a far stronger case against Clinton than journalists had let on, in part because of “class bias” and “the mainstream media’s manifest disdain for Paula Jones.” It also took aim at what Taylor now calls “the really flamboyant hypocrisy of many liberal feminists.” The contrarian piece instantly transformed the conventional media wisdom about Jones’s sexual harassment suit, which Taylor believes had been colored by liberal bias. “There was a huge, pent-up, Clinton-is-getting-away-with-too-much feeling in the press that was suppressed during the election, partly because they didn’t want to elect Dole,” he says.

Your political establishment in all its glory, laid out before you, unadorned and shameless.

Taylor remains one of the most respected establishment legal journalists in the country, commonly called upon by gasbags of all stripes to comment in an “unbiased” fashion, particularly on the crossroads of politics and the legal system. I’m sure you’ll be fascinated to hear about his latest crusade, which I think, once again, accurately describes the establishment mindset:

…. it would be a terrible mistake, in my view, to launch anything like the big, public criminal investigation that almost 60 House liberals, human rights groups, and others are seeking into allegations that John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, President Bush, and other top officials reportedly approved harsh interrogation methods including water-boarding (subject to limitations that have not yet been publicly identified). I suspect, without benefit of inside information, that Obama attorney general pick Eric Holder and other top officials of the incoming administration would agree with me.First, such investigations and prosecutions would tear apart the country and blow up Obama’s hopes of lifting us out of our multiple crises.

And who would be the people doing that? Why, the right, of course. This is their standard blackmail — either do it our way or we’ll tear this place apart. And because they’ve gotten away with such silly things as the General Betrayus hissy fit, we know that we’ll be seeing Democrats rolling on their backs in total submission the minute the right starts keening and rending their garments over keeping the babies safe.
Taylor goes on to explain that people can’t be held responsible for committing crimes if a lawyer told them it was legal and you can’t hold lawyers responsible for telling them it was legal if they used a crackpot, untested legal theory to support it. So, heck — all any president needs is a creative lawyer like Yoo and it’s get out of jail free. (It’s an interesting concept not fully anticipated by our naive founders, although Shakespeare might have seen the possibilities there.) Besides, Taylor says waterboarding isn’t necessarily torture and the congress later legalized the whole thing anyway, so what’s the problem? It was really just an honest mistake rather than an evil crime.
Taylor, like Toensing, originally supported the idea of the president issuing a blanket pardon and then instituting a truth commission, but that would tear apart the country too, so that’s out. In fact, since the report about a potential WMD killing us all in a couple of years came out a couple of weeks ago, Taylor is convinced that Obama’s going to have to keep those gloves off.

The man who believed that Paula Jones being allegedly sexually harrassed by the president years before he even took office demanded that the government come to a complete halt to investigate, is very impatient with the damned civil libertarians for their hysterical insistence on not torturing and illegally wiretapping:

But the civil libertarians’ outrage does not stop there. Indeed, the prospect of anyone in the U.S. being inappropriately wiretapped, surveilled, or data-mined seems to stir the viscera of many Bush critics more than the prospect of thousands of people being murdered by terrorists. This despite the paucity of evidence that any innocent person anywhere has been seriously harmed in recent decades by governmental abuse of wiretapping, surveillance, or data mining. On these and similar issues, Obama will have a choice: He can give the Left what it wants and weaken our defenses. Or he can follow the advice of his more prudent advisers, recognize that Congress, the courts, and officials including Attorney General Michael Mukasey have already moved to end the worst Bush administration abuses — and kick the hard Left gently in the teeth. I’m betting that Obama is smart and tough enough to do the latter. This is not to suggest that the president-elect will or should condone torture, bypass Congress, disregard international law and opinion, or adopt other Bush excesses that Obama and Attorney General-designate Eric Holder have assailed. But Obama does need to claim and use far more muscular powers to avert catastrophic loss of life and protect our security than most human-rights activists (and most Europeans) would allow.[…]And the only way … is through aggressive use of wiretaps, data mining, searches, seizures, other forms of surveillance, detention, interrogation, subpoenas, informants, and, sometimes, group-based profiling. Many of these powers and techniques are still tightly restricted by the web of legal restraints and media-driven cultural norms that were developed in sunnier times to protect civil liberties — and would be even more tightly restricted if civil libertarians had their way.

So, he not only shouldn’t follow up on past abuses, he should work to loosen the restrictions even more. He goes on to advise that the way to do this is by making phony compromises, creating yet another hybrid court system that will not work and basically keeping everything the same, just in slightly different form.

Meanwhile, Newsweek is reporting that the “secret program” Jack Goldsmith and James Comey objected to was, as many suspected, a data mining program gathering and storing massive amounts of Americans’ communication. They weren’t upset by the intent so much as the fact that it violated the FISA requirement for warrants. (Hey, they’re conservatives, so it’s the best you can hope for and a good reason to have those laws there in the first place. If it hadn’t been, they apparently wouldn’t have objected to those activities on either constitutional or ethical grounds..)

Taylor contends that no American was harmed by civil liberties intrusions over the past few decades. Apparently, he doesn’t think there’s any harm in those NSA operators listening in on intimate phone conversations between soldiers in Iraq and their wives back home — and passing around the “good parts.” And despite what Taylor says, we know that the government spied on political protesters during the period after 9/11 and the history of the country suggests that it has done this many times in the past. Perhaps he thinks there’s no harm in that — he’s so afraid of terrorism he’s nearly fouling his trousers, after all. But less hysterical types think that the country can keep itself safe and adhere to the constitution at the same time.
In spite of Taylor’s history of being a right wing hit man (or perhaps because of it) he’s considered to one of those vaunted moderate, centrist, bipartisan straight shooting ‘serious’ people to whom respect must be paid. I suspect that his advice is fairly typical of that coming to Obama from the establishment. They all pay lip service to ending torture and Guantanamo and torture and illegal surveillance. But then they issue a dozen different reasons why all those things must be continued, perhaps with a little tweaking around the edges so it isn’t quite so obviously crude and unpleasant. (Different colored jumpsuits or something …)

I have thought that Gitmo and torture might be Obama’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” moment, in which the political establishment and national security apparatus lets the new Democrat know who’s boss. This one’s far more complicated than that and I think I may have reached for the wrong bumper sticker slogan. What the village is proposing on all these issues is not Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, it’s “Mend It Don’t End it,” and with the news that people like Feinstein and Wyden are starting to hedge on language and perhaps open the door for some other ways of looking at this, along with House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes essentially agreeing with Stuart Taylor, I suspect the pressure is becoming quite intense to do it.

This is one of those issues, however, where Obama could kick “the left” in the teeth repeatedly, but it wouldn’t shut them up no matter how much it hurt. I suspect it won’t shut up the Europeans either or anyone else on the planet who thinks that torture and indefinite imprisonment under a kangaroo court is acceptable behavior for a global leader. And that’s a problem. Obama’s whole foreign policy at risk if this becomes a hugely contentious issue under his presidency.

This isn’t the 90’s when shills like Taylor held the only public platform, so it’s not so simple anymore. Obama has to contend with civil liberties defenders who will publicly expose and fight against any “tweaking” that doesn’t result in a return to the rule of law and respect for constitutional principles. I’m sorry to put it that starkly, but it’s the truth. A fight over civil liberties is the last thing Obama needs, but he’ll have one on his hands if he listens to people like Stuart Taylor.

Those with a well documented history of bad faith and partisan hostility, no matter how “respected” by the villagers, should be disregarded by the new administration, period. They have proven over and over again that they cannot be trusted and yet, because they’ve thrown a few bipartisan bones out there from time to time to create the illusion that they are fair ‘n balanced, they draw even well intentioned Democrats into their web over and over gain with disastrous results — often at the ballot box. (Bad intentioned Democrats just go along because they agree with them — I’d put Reyes in that category.)

For all his obsequiousness toward Obama, Taylor’s trap is that he has laid out a plan which must be adhered to in every detail or risk being seen as a capitulation to the allegedly hysterical lefties. Taylor will see Obama’s deviation from the one true path as a personal rejection and an abandonment of his responsibilities (as Taylor’s defined them) and turn on him viciously. As always, you must be avowedly with them.

There is no splitting the baby on this. You either respect the rule of the law and the constitution or you don’t. Don’t defend it, don’t mend it, just end it.

(And some prosecutions would really hammer the point home in a way that nobody would misuderstand for a long time to come.)

Return Of The Shoe Bomber

by digby

An Iraqi reporter called visiting U.S. President George W. Bush a “dog” in Arabic on Sunday and threw his shoes at him during a news conference in Baghdad. Iraqi security officers and U.S. secret service agents leapt at the man and dragged him struggling and screaming out of the room where Bush was giving a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The shoes missed their target about 15 feet (4.5 metres) away. One sailed over Bush’s head as he stood next to Maliki and smacked into the wall behind him. Bush smiled uncomfortably and Maliki looked strained.

According to CNN, this is the worst insult in Iraqi culture.

If you haven’t seen the footage, make a point of seeing it. Bush had to duck. It’s priceless.

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(Late) Saturday Night At The Movies

Stocking Stuffers: Vintage reels for your Xmas creel

By Dennis Hartley

It’s that time of year- for the obligatory Top 10 lists. This week, I thought I would share some of my favorite “back catalog” DVD reissues for 2008, and perhaps give you last-minute procrastinators some gift ideas for the discerning cinema buff on your list (BTW if you do click a movie link from this site and end up making a purchase, you will also be helping your favorite starving bloggers get a little something more than just a lump of coal in their Hanukkah stockings in these harsh economic times… *cough* … *wink*).

We’ve had a fair amount of “wish list” fulfillment this year, with some rarities making their belated debut on DVD, amongst the inevitable “Definitive Remastering of the Previously Ultimate Restored and Remastered” versions (what’s an obsessive-compulsive/completist to do-buy that new box set, or pay the rent? Oh, the humanity!).

So here are my picks for the top 10 of the year (in no particular ranking order)…

The Godfather – The Coppola Restoration Giftset DVD– “I believe in America.” And so begins the single most essential “desert island” film trilogy to own for even the most casual of DVD collectors; and a requisite semi-annual “unplug the phone and don’t answer the door” 10-hour marathon for anyone claiming to be a serious film geek. OK, I hear you-maybe “III” is not so essential; admittedly it has its problems (mostly due to an ill-advised nepotistic casting choice for a key role) but you gotta know how the story ends…capice, pasian? At any rate, this newly restored box set finally does justice to Francis Ford Coppola’s masterwork (although you are still best served by catching a revival print in a theatre for the ultimate appreciation). The moody, autumnal cinematography by Gordon Willis has never looked this rich on the home screen; the artful symbiosis between his striking chiaroscuro tonality and the ace production design by Dean Tavoularis is well served by the restoration (especially in the first two films).

Touch Of Evil (50th Anniversary Edition)– Yes, this is the sleaze-noir Orson Welles classic with THAT famous tracking shot, Charlton Heston as a Mexican police detective, and Janet Leigh in various stages of undress. Welles casts himself as Hank Quinlan, a morally bankrupt police captain who lords over a corrupt border town. Quinlan is the most hideous grotesquerie Welles ever created as an actor, and certainly stands as one the most unique and complex heavies in all of film noir. The film features one of the last great roles for Marlene Dietrich, who gets all the best lines (“You should lay off those candy bars.”). The scene where Leigh gets terrorized in an abandoned motel by a group of thugs led by an ultra-creepy, leather-jacketed Mercedes McCambridge could have been directed by David Lynch; there are numerous such stylistic flourishes throughout that are simply light-years ahead of anything else going on in filmmaking at the time (1958). Fans of the film have had to make do with an improperly matted and cropped DVD transfer-until now. Not only have those screen ratio issues been corrected, but we are also given 3 different cuts of the film in this new edition: the restored and re-edited 1998 version (re-cut to the specifications that Welles had requested in a 58-page memo to the studio that ultimately fell on deaf ears), the original theatrical version, and the preview version (which has a commentary track with Heston and Leigh). Extras galore.

I, Claudius-And you thought Don Corleone had a (murderously) dysfunctional family…wait ‘til you meet the Claudians! They’re all here, from Augustus to Nero, as seen through the eyes of the Roman emperor Claudius (Derek Jacobi). An incisive, highly intelligent script (adapted by Jack Pulman, from the Robert Graves novels) and an outstanding cast of accomplished British thespians (many hailing from the Royal Shakespeare Company) more than make up for the semi-cheesy soundstage bound production design. It may not be 100% historically accurate (there’s an awful lot of room for speculation), but its 101% entertaining. Although this watershed BBC miniseries was previously available on DVD, the quality of the transfer was a bit dubious. However, it has now been spiffed up quite nicely with a 2008 digital remastering. The sound is much improved, and after doing an A/B comparison, I can attest that the picture now looks as good as it is ever going to (considering that it was originally mastered on video in 1976).

$ (Dollars)-This lesser-known Warren Beatty/Goldie Hawn vehicle (from 1971) has been languishing in the vaults for a quite a while, and is due for rediscovery. Beatty is a bank security expert who uses inside “pillow talk” info provided by his hooker girlfriend (Hawn) to hatch an ingenious plan to pinch three safety deposit boxes sitting in the vault of a German bank that she has confirmed as belonging to people associated with criminal enterprises (what are they going to do-go to the police for help?). The robbery scene is a real nail-biter. What sets this film apart from standard heist capers is its unique chase sequence, which seems to run through most of Germany and takes up a whopping 25 minutes of screen time (a record?). The cast includes Robert Webber and Gert Frobe (Mr. Goldfinger!). Great score from Quincy Jones, too. This DVD is part of a new series of reissues from Sony Pictures, which they have curiously labeled “Martini Movies”. The first batch of five (released concurrently) includes The Anderson Tapes (highly recommended), The New Centurions, The Garment Jungle and Affair in Trinidad.

Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith-I had just about abandoned all hope that this 1978 sleeper from Australian writer-director Fred Schepisi would ever see the light of day on DVD, until I was pleasantly surprised to see it pop up on the “new release” rack of my favorite neighborhood independent video store last month (I quickly snapped up the last copy). Adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel (which was inspired by true events) this semi-epic tale concerns the travails of the title character, played with explosive intensity by non-professional actor Tommy Lewis. Jimmie is a half-caste Aboriginal, living in New South Wales in 1900. He struggles between the pull of his native culture and the insistence of white sponsors who want him to “do the right thing” and assimilate into “civilized” society. This is easier said than done; it seems that the harder he tries to please everyone, the more he is shunned by all. Jimmie sublimates his reaction to the enveloping systemic racism and roiling inner conflicts for too long, which eventually leads to a shocking explosion of violence. This is raw, powerful and disturbing stuff (not for the squeamish), but well worth your time. The DVD includes a recent interview with Lewis.

The Boys in the Band– William Friedkin’s groundbreaking 1970 adaptation of Mart Crowley’s off-Broadway play has made its belated DVD debut in 2008. A group of gay friends gather to celebrate a birthday, and as the booze starts to flow, the fur begins to fly. Even though it may not seem as “bold” or “daring” as it was to viewers nearly 40 years ago, the hard truths about human nature revealed here remain universal and timeless, transcending sexual preference or lifestyle choice. I consider this one of the best American dramas of 70s cinema, period. This was the Glengarry Glen Ross of its day; a wickedly acidic verbal jousting match delivered by a crackerjack acting ensemble in such finely tuned synchronization that you could set a metronome to the performances. The film is also unique for enlisting the entire original stage cast to recreate their roles onscreen. The DVD features an enlightening commentary track from the always-chatty Friedkin, plus three featurettes including present-day interviews with two of the surviving cast members (sadly, we learn all principal actors save for three have since passed away). Warning: Burt Bacharach’s “The Look of Love” will be playing in your head for days.

The Day of the Outlaw– When this film was originally released in 1959, the posters screamed “Out of the blizzard came the most feared killers who ever took over a town!” A tough, gritty and stark film noir, cleverly disguised as a western. Directed by the late Andre de Toth (House of Wax), who had a propensity for creating evocatively atmospheric B-films that belied their low budgets (like the 1954 film noir Crime Wave, which I reviewed here.) Robert Ryan plays a hard-ass cattle rancher who is at odds with (surprise!) one of the neighboring farmers. Complicating things further is the fact that he has the hots for his rival’s wife, who is played by sexy Tina Louise (the Movie Star!). Just when you think this is going to turn into another illustration as to why the Farmer and the Cowman cain’t be fray-ends, the story heads into proto-Tarantino territory when some very nasty outlaws ride into town, led by Burl Ives. Ives is not so holly-jolly in this role; he convincingly plays a truly vile bastard. The general nastiness that ensues, set in an unforgiving wintry Wyoming landscape, may have influenced the equally strange 1968 spaghetti western, The Great Silence. The DVD has no frills, but sports a good transfer.

Serial– Well, there’s good news and bad news here. The good news, of course is that this 1980 comedy gem starring Martin Mull and Tuesday Weld has finally been released on DVD. The bad news is that after the interminable wait, the releasing studio has done a less-than-stellar job with the transfer. The picture is adequate (and enhanced for 16×9) but really not that much of an improvement over previous VHS versions; the audio could have stood at least a minimum of EQ tweaking (it’s a bit muffled and thin). So why am I still recommending it? Because it’s a truly hilarious satire of California trendies, featuring a crack ensemble of screen comedy pros (Sally Kellerman, Tommy Smothers, Peter Bonerz, Bill Macy). Based on Cyra McFadden’s 1977 book, the film is a pre-cursor to Michael Tolkin’s excellent 1994 L.A. satire, The New Age (which remains MIA on DVD, much to my chagrin). Serial takes a brisk stroll through California Yuppie Hell, with its barbs aimed at the late 70s Marin County crowd. Psycho-babblers blather, hot tubs gurgle, and razor-sharp one-liners are dispensed between gulps of white wine and bites of Brie. Almost worth the price of admission alone: Christopher Lee as a gay biker!

The Ritz-Everything’s coming up sunshine and Santa Claus! I would suspect that lots of folks have been waiting for this film to come out of the vaults (closet?). I’m usually not a fan of broadly comic, door-slamming farce (is it necessary for the actors to always scream their lines?)-but I do make an exception for Richard Lester’s 1976 film adaptation of Terrence McNally’s stage play, because it always puts me in stitches, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. Jack Weston plays a N.Y.C. businessman on the run from the mob, who decides to seek temporary asylum in what he figures will be the last place on earth that the hit men would think of to search for him-a gay bath house. And yes, hilarity ensues. The dynamite cast includes F. Murray Abraham, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, and Treat Williams as a private detective with a very interesting speaking voice. They are all excellent, but ultimately become overshadowed by the lady who absolutely steals the movie-Rita Moreno as Googie Gomez, a sort of female version of Bill Murray’s cheesy lounge act character on those old SNL episodes. I have learned from experience to be sure NOT to be sipping a beverage or munching a snack when Googie launches into her interpretation of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, because otherwise, I will be passing some form of matter through my nose. The DVD features an excellent transfer.

Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains-Finally, we have a proper DVD release of this coveted, oft-bootlegged 1981 curio, which was initially shelved from theatrical distribution but managed to build a rabidly devoted cult base, thanks to several showings on USA Network’s “Night Flight” back in the day. As a narrative, this effort from legendary record mogul turned (sort of) movie director Lou Adler would have benefited immensely from some script doctoring (Slap Shot scripter Nancy Dowd is off her game here) but for punk/new wave nostalgia junkies, it’s still a marvelous time capsule. Diane Lane plays a nihilistic mall rat who decides to break out of the ‘burbs by forming an all-female punk band called The Stains. Armed with a mission statement (“We don’t put out!”) and a stage look that appears to have been co-opted from Divine in Pink Flamingos, this proto riot-grrl outfit sets out to conquer the world (and learn to play their instruments along the way). Music biz/star maker machinery clichés abound, but it’s still a guilty pleasure, particularly due to the real-life rock luminaries in the cast. Fee Waybill (surprisingly effective) and Vince Welnick of The Tubes are a hoot as a couple of washed up glam rockers. The fictional punk band, The Looters (fronted by none other than an angry young Ray Winstone) features the talents of Paul Simonon from The Clash and Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols. There’s also a memorable cameo by Black Randy (“Who?”) Well, he’s exciting to “deep catalogue” geeks like me (what can I say?).

DH

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Villager Backscratching

by dday

Just wanted to follow up on this endorsement of Chris Matthews for Senate from Ed Rendell, from the Rendell angle. Tweety has been fellating Rendell for the past year, giving him all kinds of face time, particularly throughout the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, when he was practically on every day. It’s been the most gruesome and blatant suck-up session I’ve ever seen in public. Here’s some of it:

* During the 6 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC’s November 4 presidential election coverage, during an interview with Rendell in which Rendell said, “We’re doing especially well in the Philadelphia suburbs, which you know have always been a swing area,” Matthews replied: “Well, that’s the Rendell strength you’ve just described. That’s where you’ve always done incredibly well: the suburbs of Philly, the city itself, of course, where you were mayor.” Matthews later said, “Well, you’re the best political analyst in Pennsylvania, Governor.”

* During an interview with Rendell on the October 23 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, Matthews prefaced a question by saying, “I want to run this by you because you’re the best pol in the state.”

* During the April 2 edition of MSNBC’s Race for the White House with David Gregory, Matthews said of the Pennsylvania governor: “I think Eddie Rendell is the smartest politician in this state, as we know.”

* During an interview with Rendell on the March 31 edition of Hardball, Matthews asked Rendell: “Would you be available … to be a running mate with [then-Democratic primary rivals Sens.] Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?” Matthews later went on to say, “I think you’d be a great running — I understand the situation at home and your responsibilities to the commonwealth. Anyway, I’m here to build you up because I do think you’re the best pol around.” He added: “[Y]ou’re running a hell of a campaign for Hillary Clinton.”

* During the opening of the February 13 edition of Hardball, during which he teased an upcoming interview with Rendell, Matthews said: “We’ll ask one of the smartest people in politics, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who’s on Senator Clinton’s side in this fight.”

* During the 8 p.m. ET hour of MSNBC’s January 8 presidential primary election coverage and during an interview with Rendell in which Rendell and Matthews discussed potential vice-presidential choices for the Democratic ticket, Rendell said: “[T]here are a wealth of good candidates. I mean, if Barack Obama was our candidate for president, I think Joe Biden with his foreign policy and terrorism experience would be perfect. I mean, we’ve got a whole host of good candidates.” Matthews replied: “No, you’d be actually better, because you’re very good at slicing up the opposition.” He went on to say, “You’d be a great VP running mate.”

I don’t think Rendell’s vain enough to be swayed by simple flattery. But he has a history of playing kingmaker in Pennsylvania since he was mayor of Philadelphia when I lived there, and all the time on the teevee feted as the grand poohbah of politics in one of the most important swing states in the country certainly has a salutary effect for his public profile. And it’s rubbed off on him. This week he pontificated on Obama’s “mishandling” of the Blagojevich scandal like a good little Villager.

Rendell’s got some candid observations here too about President-elect Barack Obama and his mishandling of the state scandal now surrounding his former political ally, Blagojevich.

Rendell’s pointed criticism of Obama: Perhaps because the new president has never had any executive-level experience, as with a governorship, he’s let the issue of any Blagojevich connection or non-connection with his team hang around way too long.

Could have made it a one-day story by saying: “I never talked to the governor, but, of course, my staff did on this day, this day and that day. But as you can tell from the governor’s swearing about me, we were never a part of any dealmaking. Period.”

Thanks so much for perpetuating the non-story and demanding the answering of more meaningless “questions,” Eddie! You’re the best pol in the state!

The Matthews thing is just one Villager paying off another.

P.S. Rendell’s such a paragon of honesty himself, and so smooth with the press, he’s perfectly qualified on this issue.

Back in the day, when Eddie was America’s Mayor, his temper and passion for Philadelphia were spicy hot. Once, after a particularly stressful day, the Mayor encountered Amy Rosenberg, a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer who was brazen enough to ask a question his Honor didn’t like. What was she thinking?

Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who chronicled Rendell’s first mayoral term in his book, A Prayer for the City, described the scene. “Suddenly and impulsively, he threw out his arm and grabbed the reporter by her neck and shoulders as they continued to walk, almost as if he was putting her in a vise. The look on his face, inches from hers, was a lock-jawed grimace, and he spit out his words as he muttered at least one obscenity. He looked frightening.”

Yet, here comes the strange part of the story. Ed Rendell, our former D.A., never was charged, never hired an expensive attorney and never endured bad press. He apologized to Amy and later Amy’s boss sent Rendell a letter thanking him for the apology but reminding him that the Inquirer still felt it was “inappropriate behavior” to manhandle reporters. Ouch, that must have hurt. “The paper was mercifully kind the next day in its reporting of what had taken place,” Bissinger wrote.

Maybe that happened when Rendell didn’t have any executive-level experience.

What a jerk.

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Pragmatic Idealism

by digby

I don’t have time today to delve into this fine piece by Chris Hayes (which many of you have no doubt already read) about Obama’s pragmatism and what it means. Hayes gets to the nub of the discussions we’ve all been having about Obama’s choices for the cabinet, the “angry left” and the Overton Window and how we think about ideology.

This one point is worth highlighting:

If “pragmatic” is the highest praise one can offer in DC these days, “ideological” is perhaps the sharpest slur. And it is by this twisted logic that the crimes of the Bush cabinet are laid at the feet of the blogosphere, that the sins of Paul Wolfowitz end up draped upon the slender shoulders of Dennis Kucinich. But privileging pragmatism over ideology, while perhaps understandable in the wake of the Bush years, misses the point. For one thing, as Glenn Greenwald has astutely pointed out on his blog, while ideology can lead decision-makers to ignore facts, it is also what sets the limiting conditions for any pragmatic calculation of interests. “Presumably, there are instances where a proposed war might be very pragmatically beneficial in promoting our national self-interest,” Greenwald wrote, “but is still something that we ought not to do. Why? Because as a matter of principle–of ideology–we believe that it is not just to do it, no matter how many benefits we might reap, no matter how much it might advance our ‘national self-interest.'”

I would just add that the constitution itself enshrines that notion with the Bill of Rights. nothing pragmatic about free speech or due process. but it’s in there because the experience of human kind shows that you can excuse any kind of behavior as “necessary” if you really want to. Indeed, we’ve just seen that played out before our eyes.

There’s another problem with the fetishization of the pragmatic, which is the brute fact that, at some level, ideology is inescapable. Obama may have told Steve Kroft that he’s solely interested in “what works,” but what constitutes “working” is not self-evident and, indeed, is impossible to detach from some worldview and set of principles. Alan Greenspan, of all people, made this point deftly while testifying before Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee. Waxman asked Greenspan, “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?” To which Greenspan responded, “Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to–to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.” In Greenspan’s case, it was not. But more destructive than his ideological rigidity was the delusional pretense shared by so many observers that he was operating without any ideology whatsoever. In a 1987 profile, which ran soon after Greenspan’s appointment as Fed chair, the Times quoted a fellow economist who said Greenspan didn’t fit into any set ideological category. “If he’s anything,” the colleague remarked, “he’s a pragmatist, and as such, he is somewhat unpredictable.” The rest of the article chronicled Greenspan’s support for wholesale deregulation of the financial industry and philosophical devotion to Ayn Rand. It’s tempting to conclude that Greenspan’s ideology was allowed to wreak the havoc it did only because it was never actually called by its name.

I actually disagree with Chris a little bit there. I think everyone said that Greenspan wasn’t ideological. But that was just Fed PR. In reality everyone knew that Greenspan came from the right side of the dial. The issue in American politics is less ideology than which ideology. Indeed, conservative ideology has been something openly and enthusaistically embraced up until very recently by anyone who wanted membership in the political establishment. It was just a couple of years ago that Joe Klein was saying things like this:

You know, I’m pretty much a social conservative on a lot of stuff. I’m certainly opposed to late term abortion, and I think the deal to be made is morning after pill is legal, anything after that probably shouldn’t be…in the past year, I’ve stood for the following things. I’ve taken the following positions. I agreed with the President on social security reform. I supported his two Supreme Court nominees, and I support, even though I opposed this war, I support staying the course in Iraq, and doing whatever we have to do in order to stabilize the region.

Obviously, progressive solutions to the nation’s ills can sneak in the back door under the guise of pragmatism, but when the other side reasserts itself it boldly proclaims itself ideological, identifying believers through a strong tribal identity. The end result is a politics that operates between the two poles of centrism and conservatism as embodied by Joe Klein. And the result is messes like the one we’re in now.

As I said, I’ll write more about this next week when I have time, but I urge you to read Hayes’ article in the meantime and consider all the points he makes. At the end of the piece he makes an observation that has made me think very hard about what pragmatism might mean in terms of Obama and how it applies to this time of crisis:

Dewey’s pragmatism was reformist, not radical. He sought to ameliorate the excesses of early industrial capitalism, not to topple it. Nonetheless, pragmatism requires an openness to the possibility of radical solutions. It demands a skepticism not just toward the certainties of ideologues and dogmatism but also of elite consensus and the status quo. This is a definition of pragmatism that is in almost every way the opposite of its invocation among those in the establishment. For them, pragmatism means accepting the institutional forces that severely limit innovation and boldness; it means listening to the counsel of the Wise Men; it means not rocking the boat. But Dewey understood that progress demands that the boat be rocked. And his contemporary Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood it as well. “The country needs,” Roosevelt said in May 1932, “and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.” That is pragmatism we can believe in. Our times demand no less.

That’s exactly what the doctor ordered, but we don’t know yet how the new administration is going to operate. Obama is a somewhat inscrutable politician and the Republican wrecking crew is saying pretty clearly that they don’t believe in no stinking pragmatism. But Hayes is certainly right when he says our times demand no less.

Top Cat

by digby

Socks:

We have some bad news today on the presidential pet front. Socks the cat, probably the most photographed presidential kitty in history, has cancer and isn’t expected to live. “His days are numbered,” says Barry Landau, a friend of Socks’ master, Betty Currie. Landau, a presidential historian and author of The President’s Table, tells our Suzi Parker that the Currie family could have put Socks on feeding tubes, but decided against it. “They fear he is too old,” adds Landau, who is writing a book on presidential inaugurations. And a second source told us that Socks is gravely ill. Recall that Currie, who lives in Southern Maryland and was Bill Clinton‘s personal secretary, took Socks after the Democrats left office. At the time, Hillary Clinton had been elected to the Senate and Bubba was moving to New York to run his foundation. In recent years, Socks has been hanging out at Currie’s Hollywood, Md., home and sometimes making guest appearances. But since we last wrote about Socks, his conditions have worsened and included weight loss and kidney problems. Southern Maryland Newspapers Online did a wonderful story about this last year, quoting Currie’s husband Bob saying what lots of us pet owners say: Socks “lives better than I do.”

The presidential pets are always one of the best thing about a White House. Sometimes the only good thing. The current residents two Scotties always bring a smile to my face no matter how much I may loathe their owners. (And I don’t blame Barney for biting that reporter, either.)

Hard as it is to believe, when Clinton came into office it was with a lot of the same excited celebrity obsession that we have today and everybody was gaga about the cat. It wasn’t long before Dan Burton was investigating the cat’s expenses (seriously) and the honeymoon was over, but in spite of the “taint” he was always a good first cat, a celebrity in his own right. I’m glad he has spent his elder years in peace.

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They Can’t Be That Desperate

by digby

Dear God:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell gave Chris Matthews a glowing endorsement for his potential Senate candidacy today, calling the MSNBC host the “strongest Democratic candidate without any doubt” in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

Rendell added that he doesn’t “really know” if Matthews has made a decision to run yet. And he cautioned that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) would be a formidable opponent because of his strong ties to independents and moderate Democrats.

Rendell’s longtime political consultant, Neil Oxman, has been talking with Matthews about running for Specter’s seat and is encouraging him to jump in the race.

His comments come in light of a new poll, conducted by Research 2000, that shows Matthews leading in a Democratic primary field, and would be just one point behind Specter if an election was held today.

The interview will air on Bloomberg TV’s show “Night Talk” this weekend.

I honestly don’t know quite how to deal with this. Over the past year I have strained and even broken treasured friendships over the idea that allowing a Republican to win over a Democrat, no matter how bad he or she is, would be to empower the more destructive of the two parties and ultimately enable the kind of horror show we’ve seen in the past eight years.
But Matthews is a bridge too far. I could never vote for, raise funds for or in any other way help Chris Matthews become a member of the Senate and if it came down to it, if I lived in Pa, I’d probably support Specter. If we thought Lieberman was perfidious and unreliable, we haven’t seen anything yet. Matthews is very nearly nuts as far as I can tell.

I don’t think he can actually win once the Republicans haul out some of his more, shall we say, eccentric blatherings, but Gawd help us if he happens to win.

Here’s just one little example of some of the things this potential Senator has said in just the last couple of months:

Matthews: I’ve been so impressed by Lincoln’s words this week — government of, by and for the people. It isn’t government of, by and for the people. This is being decided, the biggest issue of our time, this economic crisis, the worst, according to the wall Street Journal,since the 1930s, by people so much bigger headed than most voters, than most members of congress, certainly than me. This is being decided by people like Hank Paulson.

THANK GOD this president has this secretary of treasury and not the one other ones he had before, perhaps. But Richard, the people can’t vote on things like this.

Wolf: (nods sagely)

Matthews: We can’t understand it. I’m one of them. I don’t get it. What are all these derivatives and all this short selling and all this complicated financial … skigamadoo or whatever you call it. What is it?

Wolf: Even the candidates have problem getting through this alphabet soup. I mean, they’ve both mangled the players and the key terms of those involved here. Are they talking about firing the right person when he talks about Chris Cox? Is it Fannie Mac or Freddie Mae?

Matthews: I’m just wondering if it’s above our pay grade? I think Carly Fiorina may have been right. These guys can run for president but they can’t be Secretary of the Treasury.

Matthews: Even elected presidents can’t master this financial game. It’s too complicated. Shouldn’t they come out and tell us who their economic team’s gonna be? … The reason I ask is because we saw the president this week and Bush has all the native intelligence you can have. He doesn’t want to touch it because for a layman to start talking about the economy right now is very dangerous. Right Lynn?

Lynn Sweet: It’s tough. It’s interesting because who would have thought that his treasury secretary would emerge from this crisis…

Matthews:the third secretary, two are gone…

Sweet: Right. That he would emerge from this looking as the strong person in the administration, who’s pulling it together. And we’ll see if the congress gives him the power to run the economy.

Matthews: Is congress willing to make him King Henry as they put on the one of the magazine covers?

Wolf: the cover of Newsweek…

Matthews: Will they let him be King Henry?

Sound good to you?

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