Month: February 2011

Leonard’s Dance

by digby

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post has a great item today about Blue America’s ongoing battle with health care hypocrite Leonard Lance over whether or not he refused government paid health care while denying it to others. Let’s just say that Lance has been hoist by his own petard:

One of those GOPers is Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey, a fiscal hawk who opposes the health reform law out of opposition to big government. He is in the crosshairs of an ad by Blue America PAC accusing him of enjoying taxpayer-funded insurance. After that ad started running, Lance’s office protested that he is not enrolled in the plan enjoyed by members of Congress, and successfully got the ad pulled. But in response, New Jersey’s Courier-Post did some digging and found that as a retired state government official, he and his family do enjoy taxpayer-funded health care on the state level:

Lance opposes the health care reform package on cost concerns — he’s a deficit hawk — and on small-government principles. But it turns out he receives medical care for practically nothing, thanks to the taxpayers of New Jersey. Lance receives family health coverage that is free except for co-pays, the state Department of Treasury confirmed Friday. The former state senator, assemblyman and Kean administration official qualified for retirement in 2006, his 25th year of service. He retired in January 2009, when he moved on to Washington, and enrolled in the state’s free health plan for retirees. The family plan Lance is enrolled in is the most expensive of the 10 options available. His coverage costs $1,906.42 per month, or $22,877.04 per year.

Whoops! Rep. Lance’s chief of staff appears to realize that by protesting the ad attacking him, he’s only created more problems. The aide told the Courier-Post: “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

23k a year for health insurance? Paid for by the taxpayers of New Jersey. And this guy’s out there screaming for repeal of the health care reform bill.

The citizens of New Jersey should be appalled that first of all that someone like this fellow has the option of taking the state cadillac plan or the federal cadillac plan while he votes against things like unemployment insurance. I guess he’s got his priorities. He’s certainly cot choices that very few people in this country have unless they are independently wealthy. must be nice being a government employee who isn’t at the mercy of cruel hypocrites like Leonard Lance.

Howie has more here:

The station general manager suggested me re-do the ad. We’re working on it. And we’d like to run it on some of the bigger stations in the district. Can you help us raise the money we need to do it at this ActBlue page? New Jersey is one of the most expensive media markets in the country. But this is a story that needs to get out so New Jersey voters get a better understanding of the character of the man is asking for their votes. (In 2010, in the midst of a GOP sweep, Lance only managed to win with a 30,000 vote margin, a district Obama took 51-48% 2 years earlier.)

If Lance’s aide’s little “whoops” is any indication, this is not something they want to raise among their constituents. But don’t you think they deserve to know about it?

Donate here to keep the heat on Lance. He’s vulnerable next time out and it’s never to early to weaken him even more.

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Insurance Pool

by digby

Ezra Klein has an interesting post up today making the case that the government is essentially a gigantic insurance program backed by a standing army. It sounds jarring at first, but when you think about, it makes sense. (There used to be another name for it — “the welfare state” — but don’t tell anybody.)

Our biggest problem with it at the moment is that it isn’t very efficient because we have one of our political parties devoted to screwing it up so they don’t have to pay into the pool in which people they don’t like might benefit. But a welfare state it is, and from what the polls are telling us, people like what it provides them.

Ezra writes:

[I]t’s time to admit that there’s little in the budget that’s truly unpopular. If it was unpopular, it either wouldn’t be there in the first place, or it would’ve been zeroed out when politicians went hunting for offsets to pay for programs that interested them more. Anything that’s survived Congress’s occasional spasms of fiscal responsibility and constant hunger for easy money has some sort of a constituency behind it.

And though cutting non-defense discretionary spending might buy us some time on the deficit, we’re eventually going to have to do as legendary robber Willie Sutton did when he started hitting banks: We’ll have to go where the money is. That means our social insurance programs, and our military. Of this group, Social Security is in the best shape, and is by far the most efficient. It should be last on our list. Not, as it often seems to be, first.

The military remains largely untouched — and that is true in the budgets released by both the Republicans and the Democrats. This is one case where politicians are lagging behind the public: In the Pew poll, military spending was the third-least popular category of spending, even though in Washington, it’s frequently considered politically unassailable. But perhaps we’ll see more action on this soon: A bipartisan group of legislators including Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Tex.) created the Sustainable Defense Task Force to look at ways to reduce our military spending, and the plan they developed could save us a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.

He concludes with the unwelcome but unavoidable truth that the big items eating the budget alive are health care costs, which the health reform law may help curb in some small measures if the experiments within it work, but there are no guarantees. I suspect that this is going to be the most contentious issue of the next couple of decades.

Ezra’s formulation is an interesting way of looking at things, I think. If you were to ask people what government is supposed to do, I wonder if they would object to the idea that it’s a big insurance program? I think a lot of them would think that makes pretty good sense. Why not?

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Baby Steps To Sanity

by digby

Here are the relevant passages in the Obama budget on Social Security:

p.23-24 From “Putting the Nation on a Sustainable Fiscal Path” section: “Cutting funding for discretionary programs and using those dollars more effectively and efficiently are important to begin to rein in our deficits. But non-security, discretionary spending represents approximately 12 percent of all spending. The solution to our long-term fiscal problems cannot rest on this alone. Taking on many of these long-term funding issues will take months, if not years, of discussion and deliberation. The Fiscal Commission’s report opened a debate on many of these topics, such as tax reform and Social Security. The President hopes to build on the work they did to create space to discuss these issues, and begin a process of reform that results in putting the Nation on sound fiscal footing, creating the conditions for long-term economic growth, and doing both in a way that remains true to our most deeply-held values. The Administration will…”

p.26-27 More from “Putting the Nation On a Sustainable Fiscal Path” section:”Secure Social Security. On January 1 of this year, the very first Baby Boomers turned 65. As this large generation ages and retires, it will put stress on the Social Security system. Although Social Security does not face an immediate crisis and is not driving our short-term deficits or long-term debt, it does face a long-term financing shortfall. Failing to strengthen Social Security will result in substantial benefit cuts for future retirees and will undermine the basic notion that a lifetime of hard work should be rewarded with dignity in retirement. If we address these longterm challenges early, we can help ensure that Social Security’s compact remains strong and progressive for future generations.

“The President believes that we should come together now, in bipartisan fashion, to strengthen Social Security for the future. He calls on the Congress to follow the example of great party leaders in the past— such as Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. and President Ronald Reagan—and work in a bipartisan fashion to strengthen Social Security for years to come. Guiding the Administration in these talks will be the President’s six principles for reform:

• Any reform should strengthen Social Security for future generations and restore long-term solvency.
• The Administration will oppose any measures that privatize or weaken the Social Security system.
• While all measures to strengthen solvency should be on the table, the Administration will not accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations.
• No current beneficiaries should see their basic benefits reduced.
• Reform should strengthen retirement security for the most vulnerable, including low-income seniors.
• Reform should maintain robust disability and survivors’ benefits.”

Unless they have decided to define raising the retirement age something other than “slashing” benefits cuts, this sounds like the only thing they are willing to consider is raising the cap, which is very good news. It’s the rational choice.

Who knows where this will end up in negotiations, but it’s a strong a statement as we’ve heard since the president inexplicably decided to talk about social security solvency at the beginning of his term. If they’ve backed off cuts, I think it’s because of the sharp resistance from the left, which wisely mobilized the minute they announced Pete Peterson as a key speaker at their Fiscal Responsibility Summit. All of us shrieking Cassandras may have had the desired effect of keeping SS a third rail they just don’t want to touch — which is always the point. (And it’s not like there aren’t more pressing issues.)

It is still worrisome since the administration seem to have adopted “sending signals” to Wall Street as their economic strategy, and part of that messaging is being “tough” on issues they “care about”. But at least they aren’t opening with a capitulation, which is good news.

Update: The Hill reports new numbers on Social Security

A sizable majority of likely voters is worried about Social Security’s future but much more divided over whether the retirement age for the program should be raised, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill.

Seventy-seven percent of likely voters believe Social Security is in trouble, while just 15 percent believe the program is financially sound.

Still, a plurality – 48 percent – also believed that the Social Security age should not be raised for people born after 1960, who are currently slated to begin receiving full benefits at age 67. Forty percent favored pushing back the retirement age…

While likely voters generally believed Social Security was not on sound footing, no matter what their gender, race or political beliefs, the question of whether to raise the retirement age broke down more along party lines.

Republicans and conservatives were roughly split over whether to increase the age at which someone can receive full benefits, while Democrats and liberals strongly opposed the idea. Moderate voters also were against raising the Social Security age, though not as strongly as those to their political left.

However, that this many people still think this after the crash of 2008 is shocking. (And I’d like to see the age demographics on that. I doubt that many people over the age of 50 think this):

Voters were also split over whether to allow people to invest the Social Security taxes they pay into personal retirement accounts, an idea that was a linchpin of then-President George W. Bush’s plan to reform the program.

Thirty-six percent of likely voters believe diverting payroll taxes to personal accounts should not be permitted at all, while 37 percent backed being able to invest either 25 percent or 50 percent. Sixteen percent supported the ability to invest three-fourths or all of one’s Social Security taxes.

The poll also found that Democrats (58 percent) were nearly three times likelier to favor not allowing any Social Security taxes to be used in individual accounts than Republicans (20 percent). On the flip side, 48 percent of Republicans backed allowing a quarter or half of payroll taxes to go into personal accounts, as opposed to 25 percent of Democrats.

The poll found more consensus about whether to raise the amount of income that can be taxed for Social Security, an idea that has garnered support from President Obama’s bipartisan debt commission and Senate progressives.

Sixty-seven percent of likely voters backed that idea, with only 23 percent against it. Even a majority of those making more than $100,000 – who would be most affected by this plan – supported the move.

I’d say we’ve got us a bipartisan consensus — if anyone cares to notice.

Unfortunately, the Village is obsessed with the Fiscal Commission and so danger still lurks. But if they listen to the people they will put old man Simpson and his little dog Bowles out to pasture.

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Drunk or hungover?

by digby

Somebody’s been partying a little too much with the GOProud guys:

I apologize on behalf of all Angelenos. There’s no excuse for this, not even in Hollywood.

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Only the little people pay for lunch

by digby

This new Pew Poll showing that there isn’t a majority for reducing spending on anything but foreign aid is the perfect illustration of just what a quixotic political enterprise the Democrats have embarked upon in trying to show how “tough” they are by cutting specific programs.

People like the idea of cutting spending, but only about a quarter of them at most are willing to cut specifics. So actually doing it means that people will be hurt but there will be no political benefit to the politicians whose constituents care about people getting hurt. (Hint: it’s not the Republicans.) And for a look at how austerity is working out economically, take a look at Europe.

The only up side to all this seems to be that Obama might be able to appease the petulant princes of Wall Street enough to give him money for his re-election campaign. But I’m guessing it won’t work unless he comes up with a bipartisan agreement to really stick it to the common folk hard. They need to be taught a lesson — don’t ever think of holding the Big Money Boyz responsible for anything ever again. Even talking about it will bring a world of hurt.

Apparently, Obama is going to try to thread the needle by talking about how he wants to spend money and also cut spending. It’s going to take all of his rhetorical skills to make sense of that once the sausage making starts. WTF!

(h/t to Greg Sargent)
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Don’t Tease The (White) Panther

by digby

Yet another isolated incident:

A Gwinnett judge sentenced a tea party member to serve eight years in prison for attacking and hospitalizing a President Barack Obama supporter during a 2009 bar room altercation, a prosecutor said Thursday. Jurors convicted Carnesville resident Larry Morgan, 39, of aggravated assault and two counts of aggravated battery this week for smashing several bones in the victim’s face with a pool cue on Jan. 31, 2009 — a few days after Obama’s inauguration. Deliberations took only an hour.
The single blow, which broke the pool stick in half, happened about 1:30 a.m. at Will Henry’s Tavern in Stone Mountain, said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Taylor, who prosecuted.The victim, Patrick O’Neill, then 24, was hospitalized for five days and endured a months-long recovery. He testified that he suffered numerous facial fractures, including a broken nose and orbital ethmoid bone, Taylor said. “The pictures of his injuries were some of the most egregious pictures I have seen,” Taylor said. “(He) is very lucky to be alive.” According to testimony, trouble began when Morgan was talking to other bar patrons about his negative feelings about Obama, when one of O’Neill’s friends said he had voted for the president. Morgan replied, “Well, you are stupid as hell,” before making some racist comments or jokes, witnesses testified, Taylor said. All people involved were white, she said. Later, O’Neill and his friend were laughing about or poking fun at Morgan’s comments when he became angry, fetched a pool cue and broke it across O’Neill’s face. The impact was so forceful that the victim had no memory of being struck or the circumstances leading up to it, Taylor said. Morgan, who testified he considers himself a tea party member, told the court he was acting in self-defense. He claimed O’Neill and his friend had threatened “to beat him up in the parking lot,” Taylor said, recalling testimony.

Gosh, if only he’d been allowed to carry a gun he might have been able to defend himself even better.

This can’t be blamed on the tea party, of course. They didn’t really gear up until after this event. But there was this during the campaign:

And this:

And this:

It’s impossible to know how many of those racist Obama haters joined the Tea party. But I think it’s fair to assume that more than just this one guy did.

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“This Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You”

by digby

When I got a spanking as a kid my father always used to say that it hurt him more than it hurt me. I knew he was full of shit, even at the age of five. And I know it now:

Faced with growing annual budget deficits and a national debt into the trillions of dollars, Obama has said his latest budget proposal would save $400 billion over the next decade, including through a five-year freeze on some discretionary spending and cuts to programs that he says even he cares about.

Quite the sacrifice, wouldn’t you say? More from Jack Lew:

“We are reducing programs that are important programs that we care about, and we’re doing what every family does when it sits around its kitchen table: we’re making the choices about what do we need for the future,” Lew said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Uhm, what do you mean “we” dude? The government is not like a family figuring out how to cut back on expenses. (If it is Dad is a real deadbeat because he decided to give up half his income last December to some rich frat boys.) And this isn’t really about programs President Obama “cares about” or about how “tough” it is for him. President Obama will not have to personally worry about these things and neither will his children, so the idea that he “cares” is just a tiny bit abstract in this context. This is about actual human beings and their ability to survive now and build a decent future.

The main problem with all this, of course, is that he willingly signed a tax cut extension for the wealthiest people on the planet just two months ago even as they are making money hand over fist as it is, so any talk about “shared sacrifice” rings just a little bit hollow now. If he wants to be honest about this and admit that he’s catering to spoiled plutocrats and Wall Street Demi-Gods because he truly believes that he needs to sacrifice ordinary Americans on the alter of their egos, that’s one thing. But blowing smoke about how this hurts him just as much as the college kid who has to drop out in a terrible labor market — but he’s willing to make the sacrifice and so should we — well, it is too cynically cheap for words.

Oh and by the way, that’s Obama’s opening gambit. Look what the other side has come back with:

Republicans are already basically rejecting it out of hand. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Sunday on Fox News that the plan will offer “paltry savings.”

“It looks like to me that it is going to be very small on spending discipline and a lot of new spending so-called investments,” he said.

How do you think that’s going to go?

Update: I am watching Obama’s pal the “savvy businessman” Jamie Dimond on Fareed Zakaria right now whine and snivel like a tired toddler about how unfair everyone is to rich bankers and I want to put my foot through the TV. He makes weepy John Boehner look like Clint Eastwood in “Hang ‘Em High” by comparison. The fact that the world economy was brought low by people with such spoiled character and mediocre intellect is not surprising. But it’s truly stunning that they are still calling the shots. We desperately need political leadership that has the imagination and guts to confront these people instead of kowtowing to them or we are truly doomed.

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“Happy” Anniversary

by digby

It’s time to Re-think Afghanistan:

Derrick Crowe writes:

Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, U.S. and other international forces began Operation Moshtarak, the invasion of Marja District in Helmand Province. Looking back, the hubris and hype surrounding this military operation boggle the mind. General McChrystal promised, “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in,” meaning that good governance and the extension of Kabul’s writ would be implemented very rapidly. The operation was supposed to be a prototype for future campaigns in Afghanistan and a “confidence builder” for both U.S. forces and a restive political class in Washington, D.C., not all of whom were happy about the escalation or McChrystal’s brashness in pushing it. To put it mildly, Moshtarak failed to live up to the hype:

“[I]n the weeks leading up to the imminent offensive to take the Helmand River Valley town of Marjah in southern Afghanistan, the Marines’ commander, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, sat with dozens of Afghan tribal elders…offering reassurances that his top priority will be the safety of Afghan civilians.”–Chicago Tribune, February 10, 2010.

Almost immediately, this hype about an operation purported to be proof-of-concept for the population-protecting counterinsurgency strategy fell apart in the face of U.S.-caused civilian deaths. Just prior to the operation, coalition forces dropped leaflets on the largely illiterate district warning people to stay in their homes. An Italian NGO, Emergeny, warned that military blockades were preventing civilians from fleeing the area. At the same time commanders bragged that the “evacuation” of the residents would allow the use of air strikes without the danger of civilian casualties. These contradictions soon bore deadly fruit: On the second day of the offensive, U.S. troops fired a HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) weapon on a house full of civilians, killing roughly a dozen people. By February 23, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reported that ISAF forces were responsible for most civilian deaths so far in the incursion.

Read on.

It would be one thing if progress of any sort were being made. But we are making them worse. At a time when the Muslim world seems ripe for positive change it’s the worst time for the US to be meddling — badly — in a country we don’t understand and in which we cannot prevail. It’s a troublesome part of the world, for sure. But the US is not capable of fixing it with military power. We only make it more dangerous and unstable with our presence.

Update: Because it worked out so well the last time.

Junior’s Whiff ‘o Freedom:

Security forces in northern Iraq found a mass grave containing scores of people killed during the height of sectarian violence last decade, police told CNN on Saturday. At least 153 bodies were discovered in Buhriz, just south of Baquba in Diyala province — a region north and east of Baghdad that endured waves of violence during the Iraqi war. Baquba police Lt. Col. Ghalib Atiya al-Jabouri said the victims included civilians, police and soldiers slain during the height of sectarian violence between 2005 and 2008. Iraq had been engulfed by fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

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Focus On The Fatuousness

by digby

Beware of Theocrats bearing gifts. It’s never worked out well:

Focus on the Family president Jim Daly on Friday said he will bridge a great divide by asking abortion-rights advocates to work with his conservative Christian ministry to make abortion less common.

Reproductive-rights supporters say they want abortion to be legal, safe and rare, Daly said, and so his Colorado Springs-based media powerhouse will try to walk that common ground with them — lessening demand for abortion.

The “let’s talk” offer to reproductive-rights groups signals a sea change in Focus’ uncompromising approach to the abortion issue. It is bound to engender controversy about whether detente advances or hinders Daly’s ultimate goal of making abortion illegal.

However, it is in keeping with his makeover of the house that James Dobson built. Daly has said he wants the ministry, which it says reaches 220 million listeners worldwide with its daily broadcasts, to have more conversations and fewer fights.

And Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains said it is willing to listen.

“As I think about this,” Daly said during his Friday broadcast, “I think about the babies that we’re losing right now because we cannot sit down and say, ‘You want to make it rare — tell us how.’ We won’t agree that (abortion) is safe. We certainly will fight for the day that we can overturn Roe vs. Wade, because we want every life to be sacred.”

In the meantime, Daly said, he wants to work with people who may disagree with Focus but with whom “we can eliminate 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 of 1.2 million babies lost every year.”

This would be the “good guy” to the House anti-abortion “bad guy” team who are trying to destroy Planned Parenthood, the group that dispenses birth control to vast numbers of American women. I think we can easily see what constitutes common ground, here don’t you? I can see the outlines of a deal that spares Planned parenthood’s birth control function but requires that they no longer perform abortions. After all, we now know that it’s “tradition” for the right wing to dictate how their tax dollars are spent so it’s only right that pro-choice people agree to a compromise that exchanges “common ground” on birth control with codification of that fine tradition which says that no federal dollars can be spent in any way that even touches a dollar spent on abortion. I don’t know exactly when it was decided that this was “tradition” but at some point the political establishment seems to have assumed it.

This is all nonsense. Women always have and always will have abortions. And even if birth control is offered as part of the school lunch program and free at the DMV, many will still get pregnant and go through whatever they need to do to get them. It’s the nature of human sexuality that there will be more pregnancies, regardless of birth control, than women who are in a position to carry them to term. Access to birth control is essential, as pro-choice people have proselytizing for decades. But it will never completely eradicate the need for abortion. Indeed, there is some evidence that free access won’t even result in a major reduction in abortion — after all, birth control doesn’t always work and the urge to have sex seems to be more powerful than reason at least some of the time. (Surprise!) So unless you consider bearing children a just punishment for “irresponsibility,” you should reconsider this notion that once birth control is made more accessible then we can all agree that abortion can be banned — which is the implicit deal in “common ground” politics. The only thing that will happen is that abortion will go back underground, although if you consider it a matter of personal responsibility alone, you will probably think the women who die from illegal abortions deserve it.

Pregnancy and childbirth is far more than just a nine month “inconvenience” or a temporary health complication, regardless of whether one raises the child. It affects one’s entire lifetime. Control of one’s reproduction is fundamental to liberty, which is one reason why women have historically been second class citizens whose lives have been circumscribed by biology. That is what Focus on the Family believes in, that’s what the conservative zealots in congress are trying to do and that is what the Democrats who continue to enable this assault on women’s rights are letting them do.

As Ta-Nahesi Coates writes in this fine post, pregnancy is a unique and complicated human endeavor and decisions about it must be left to the discretion of the individuals who experience it. In a world in which women have equal rights, there is simply no other choice.

Update: Fred Clarkson at Talk To Action has more on the FOTF “outreach.” Suffice to say that it is less than meets the eye.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Maid in Korea

By Dennis Hartley

Sonatas for the servile class: The Housemaid

So-are you searching for that perfect date movie for Valentine’s Day? Korean director Im Sang-soo’s film, The Housemaid (in limited release and on IFC pay-per-view) would probably not be my first recommendation (unless your short list of “perfect date movies” includes the likes of Angels and Insects and Crimes and Misdemeanors). However, if you are in the mood for a stylishly mounted mélange of psychosexual melodrama, psychological thriller, Greek tragedy and class warfare allegory, this could be your ticket.

An unassuming, angel-faced young divorcee named Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon), who lives in a dingy, low-rent apartment where she shares a bed with her mother, is offered a position as a housekeeper/nanny for a wealthy couple (expectant with twins) with a five-year-old daughter. Eun-yi eagerly accepts the job, exuding an almost child-like wonderment at her new employers’ palatial digs. Indeed, this family seems to “have it all”. The husband, Hoon (Lee Jung-Jae) is impossibly handsome; although it is never made quite clear as to what he does for a living (he does leave the house every day via limo, carrying a briefcase and at times surrounded by an entourage-but that’s all we’re given) he does carry himself with that self-assured air of someone who is used to always getting what he wants, when he wants it (more on that in a moment). His wife Haera (Seo Woo), looking to be in her third trimester, is young, quite beautiful, and has “high-maintenance trophy” written all over her. Every night after work, Hoon cracks open a vintage bottle from his wine cellar, and after sitting down to an opulent meal with wife and child, retires to his music room to play classical sonatas (note-perfectly, of course) on a concert grand piano. Now, I can guess what you’re thinking right now-likely the same thing I was thinking: “Oh…that is SO much like my life.” But, as a great lady once said (if I may quote Queen Eleanor, from The Lion in Winter) – “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”

There’s one member of the household who knows about all the “downs”. She is the long-time, long suffering elder housekeeper, Byung-sik (Yun-Yeo-Jong) who is giving Eun-yi the crash-course on how to best navigate her way through the family’s quirky waters. Outspoken and wryly cynical whenever she is out of the family’s earshot, Byung-sik is like the grizzled sergeant who knows exactly when to salute and precisely how much to defer-just enough to make the clueless captain think that he’s the one who is actually running the company. In the meantime, Haera and Hoon, while accepting of their new employee, essentially abandon her to Byung-sik’s tutelage and quickly set about ignoring Eun-yi’s presence in the room with that casually chilly aloofness the filthy rich traditionally reserve for the help. Their daughter Nami (Ahn seo-hyeon), on the other hand, reaches out to befriend the new nanny, reciprocated in kind by a delighted Eun-yi (although we are not sure whether this instant bond can be attributed to the non-judgmental mind of the five year old, or to the innocence of the childlike young woman).

Things appear to be going swimmingly, until late one sultry evening-when Eun-yi is startled awake by master Hoon looming over her bed, going for that frisky “Speedos and open silk robe” look whilst coddling an open bottle of vintage from the wine cellar (and two glasses). One thing leads to another, and…well, you can figure out the rest. Yes, Hoon is a creepy, arrogant rich prick with an overdeveloped sense of sexual entitlement-but we also find out that Eun-yi may not be quite as “innocent” as we initially thought. And when the clandestine (and careless) couplings eventually lead to the inevitable, erm, “complication” we really get to see all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out; especially when the megafauna viper of the (any?) family slithers into the pit-the Mother-in-Law (a scenery-chewing Park Ji-young, who may be channeling Livia in I, Claudius).

Gosh, one might assume from watching this film that the rich and powerful are generally concerned with little else in this life than remaining so, ever vigilant to decisively quash any threat of exposure or usurpation, no matter who or what gets hosed in the process (and anyone who follows world events and/or reads this blog would be the first to tell you that one would be absolutely correct in this assumption). Then again-perhaps I’m projecting too much of my own world view as to where the root cause of all socio-political evil lies-sometimes a psychological thriller is just a psychological thriller. At any rate, writer-director Sang-soo (who based his screenplay on a 1960 Korean thriller of the same name, switching around some of the personality dynamics of several principal characters) has fashioned an involving (if a little slow on the boil) entertainment. Some Grand Guignol in the film’s climactic scene and an enigmatic fadeout at the dénouement may prove a dream for some, but a nightmare for others; just don’t say I didn’t warn you!

While watching Sang-soo’s film, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite British dramas-Joseph Losey’s brooding and decadent class-struggle allegory, The Servant. The 1963 film features the late great Dirk Bogarde, who delivers a note-perfect performance as the “manservant” hired by a snobby playboy (James Fox) to help him settle into his new upscale London digs. It soon becomes apparent that this butler has a little more on the agenda than just polishing silverware and dusting the mantle. You know how actors talk about giving your character “an inner life”? Just study Bogarde’s sly facial expressions and body language throughout and see a master craftsman at work. A young (and alluring) Sara Miles is memorable as Bogarde’s “sister” who is hired as the maid. If you’ve seen Wings of the Dove or Days of Heaven you might figure things out early on, but you’ll enjoy the ride all the same. The expressive chiaroscuro cinematography (by Douglas Slocombe) sets an increasingly claustrophobic mood as the story progresses (watch for the clever use of convex mirrors to “trap” the images of the principal characters). By the way, if you are a fan of 1960’s British folk music, keep your eyes and ears peeled for a rare and unbilled glimpse of legendary guitarist Davey Graham, playing and singing (live-not dubbed!) in a scene where James Fox walks into a coffeehouse. Harold Pinter’s typically acidic screenplay was adapted from the Robin Maugham novel.

Previous posts with related themes:

La Nana

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