Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Look Who’s Talking

This interesting article on the long term plan for SS privatization in today’s LA Times contains a shocking, shocking revelation!

“It could be many years before the conditions are such that a radical reform of Social Security is possible,” wrote Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis, Heritage Foundation analysts, in a 1983 article in the Cato Journal. “But then, as Lenin well knew, to be a successful revolutionary, one must also be patient and consistently plan for real reform.”

…analysts Butler and Germanis argued in their prescient 1983 article — provocatively titled “Achieving a ‘Leninist’ Strategy” — that privatizing Social Security required a calculated, long-term campaign to transform the political environment.

Now that’s odd. It seems like just a minute ago that I read a scathing take down of “the left” that seemed to indicate that such imagery wasn’t exactly, well …. patriotic:

And this review of Steve Earle’s concert in Knoxville — in which he performed before a hammer and sickle — observes:

The Soviet imagery might have seemed corny five years ago, but in the current right-leaning climate, a left-wing backlash is inevitable. Expect to see more of it.

If Kerry had won, would it be understandable for Republican artists to perform in front of swastikas? And how seriously should we take people who wish we had lost the Cold War, and who want us to lose this one?

Well, there aren’t any Republican artists so that point is moot. There are, however, VMI cadets who think that dressing up in nazi gear and blackface is training for future leadership and anyone who doesn’t like it should just STFU:

Numerous VMI supporters defended the students’ right to enjoy themselves during a break from their rigorous training program and attacked what they perceive as political correctness run amok.

“You have no idea what we go through here at VMI, and if the cadets and rats choose to have fun on Halloween, you should not have anything to say about it,” a VMI cadet wrote. “Just remember, we are the future leaders of America, and we will be the ones defending your rights.”

I wonder which party that young man belongs to?

You would think that those on the right would find it a bit alarming that right wing analysts were openly apeing communist revolutionary tactics even before the cold war was “won,” too, but apparently there’s nothing wrong with a little sincere flattery.

When it comes to obscure left wing professors who nobody has ever heard of, though, the buck has come to a full stop at the door of us decaying immoral liberals who must be held accountable for every word he said.

And they are right. This kind of nutty talk shouldn’t be allowed to pollute the discourse without somebody standing up and saying no. So I’ll tell you what, fellas. I’ll disavow this joker from Nowhere University when you guys disavow the vomitous spew with which your millionaire pundits and “entertainers” disgrace this nation’s airwaves every single day to tens of millions of listeners, ok?

Here’s a little sample of the fetid swill that passes for political discourse on the right in this country:

LIMBAUGH: We killed his sons. We took his country. We put him in jail. He is still calmer and more rational than Howard Dean after he lost Iowa. He’s calmer and more rational than Gore after he lost his mind. He’s calmer and more rational than George Soros is.

LIMBAUGH: I mean, if there is a party that’s soulless, it’s the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals — by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know? No. No. You can’t go there.

LIMBAUGH: Women still make up an average of only 13 percent of police officers… They’re never happy. And I don’t mean women. I’m talking about the activists. Don’t lose your cookies out there. This is according to the National Center for Women and Policing, which is a division of the Feminist Majority Foundation of American, which is the feminazis. This is exactly what I’m talking about. So what’s the reaction to this? Well, here’s my reaction, in the typical Rush fashion: If we’ve got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu [Algore pronunciation] Grab. That’s how you do it.

VESTER: You say you’d rather not talk to liberals at all?

COULTER: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days. [FOX News Channel, DaySide with Linda Vester, 10/6]

“My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie-chick pie wagons they call “women” at the Democratic National Convention.”

SAVAGE: And we have all of the leaders — we have Obergrupenführer Clinton; we have Grupenführer Carter; we have Brigadeführer Daschle. … There are only a few rotten führers on the bottom of the corporals; they’re the ones wearing the little funny green costumes down there. But they’re all there. That’s how I see them.

Instapundit: There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn’t a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone.

This particular type of rhetoric using violent imagery, nazi and terrorist comparisons, revolting physical descriptions,and characterizations as irrational, soulless, fragrant, hirsute, rotten, far gone can only be described as eliminationist. Its tone is so derisive and so relentlessly contemptuous that it becomes difficult for people who listen to this stuff everyday to even think of liberals or “the left” or Democrats as even human much less fellow Americans.

There was a time when I thought that someone like Instapundit was a cut above this type of thing, but no more. It’s no longer just right wing talk show hosts ostensibly “entertaining” the folks. It’s law professors and Claremont fellows publicly accusing “the left” of being terrorist sympathizers.

Some people need to get out of the right wing echo chamber and breathe some fresh air. They have lost the capacity to see and hear what they and their allies are really saying. This is a very destructive genie they have let out of bottle.

Update: Now this is just funny. Instapundit quotes Ed Driscoll writing:

In the 1950s, Bill Buckley was able to create a new conservatism by casting out the John Birchers and their anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories. Now it’s the left’s turn to try to do much the same.

Uh huh. That’s a nice story. It’s true that William Buckley chastized the birchers for accusing Eisenhower of being a communist. But cast them out? Nah.

From the Columbia Encyclopedia:

“…the society was founded to fight subversive Communism within the United States. Its other objectives have included the abolition of the graduated income tax, the repeal of social security legislation, the impeachment of various high government officials, the end to busing for the purpose of school integration, the end to U.S. membership in the United Nations, and the nullification of the treaty that turned over the Panama Canal to Panama.”

Now where have I heard that agenda before? Give me a minute….

Replace “communist” with “liberal” (when they even bother with the distinction) and there is very little difference between what you hear coming out of the mouths of modern conservatives and the John Birchers. As far as conspiracies go, there is nothing like the myth of the liberal media to keep those paranoid juices flowing. They weren’t cast out, they were simply asked to be loyal Republicans.

Who’s Counting The Votes?

Following up on my post below, Matthews just reiterated the apeculation that Ahmad Chalabi is likely to be part of this new government. Pat Lang, the intelligence expert said that he hoped that Chalabi won’t be given the Ministry of Interior because he would be in charge of the police. No shit.

Is it at all possible that Ahmad Chalabi is going to be “elected” under American occupation and be allowed to take an active role? It sure seems like a funny way to establish the legitimacy of this election.

I guess they can get away with absolutely anything. After all, they got away with Florida, they can certainly install every neocon’s favorite Iraqi if they damn well please. Legitimacy is for losers.

Let Freedom Ring: Second Verse Same As The First

James Wolcott writes:

Yesterday on one of the Fox financial shows, James Rogers, author of Investment Biker, commodities guru, and neighbor-down-the-block (an utterly irrelevant detail I thought I’d toss in to make this blog sound more “personal”), was asked by host Neil Cavuto whether the elections in Iraq would be successful. Rogers said, “They’ll be successful because the media will say they’re successful,” adding impishly, “Fox News probably already has the results.”

And I think they got them from CNN. I haven’t seen this much gushing since Asheigh Banfield threw on a little black burka and hitched a camel ride to Kabul.

Clearly, the media loves these trumped up Iraq milestones. They sent Anderson and Campbell over to hang out in the Green Zone and get “the feel” for the place while they patch up their pancake blush and admire each other’s groovy winter desert wear in the bar.

They all agree that there was an excellent turn-out. 72%! (But I hear that Warren Mitofsky may have screwed up the exit polling, so don’t hold your breath. This number is subject to change.) It’s bigger than most people predicted, only rivaled by the phenomenal 98% turn-out for Saddam in the last election thus proving that Iraqis have always been big on voting. You can’t blame them. Abu Ghraib is murder this time of year.

I agree, of course, that democracy is the bestest thing in the whole wide world (except the Bible) and that we have a responsibility to spread it and layer it and smooth it and sprinkle coconut on it it wherever there are people who don’t have it. Nobody argues with that. (Praise democracy. Praise freedom. Praise liberty. Praise God. Praise George W. Bush. Amen. nowletmego.)

The counting is sure to be transparent to all. That’s how we do these things in Murikin democracy. Needless to say, no Iraqi will ever have cause to believe that the vote was rigged in favor of American interests. Why, I’m pretty sure that Lil’ Judy Miller just told Chris Matthews that Ahmad Chalabis “list” looks to be doing very well. She’s quite the reporter. Always has the big scoop. She knows which lists have done well already. Matthews posits that Chalabi ends up as oil minister.

But, whaterver. This is a great day for Americademocracylibertyandfreedom. As Judy just reminded us, the president is on a roll. “He” has just had three free elections — Afghanistan, Palestine and now Iraq. She didn’t mention the US.

Oh Maggie, I Wish I’d Never Seen Your Face

Thanks again to Kathy G, here’s some more from traditional morals maven, Maggie Gallagher:

(Via Lexis-Nexis) August 10, 1998, Monday

AN UNWED TEEN MOM’S DILEMMA

BY: MAGGIE GALLAGHER

SUPPOSE you’re an intelligent 17-year-old single girl who has just had a baby. Suppose you’re even smart enough to know that, as one such young unwed mom named Chasity told The New York Times, “I made a mistake … I’m not recommending this.” Now suppose your local school’s chapter of the National Honor Society, worried about sending a message that an unwed teen parent is a good role model, turns you down for membership, despite your high G.P.A.

What do you do?

If you are Chasity Glass, or her friend Somer Chipman, two 17-year- old students at Grant County High School in Kentucky, you agree to become poster girls for a new national legal campaign by the ACLU to establish unwed motherhood as the right of minor children everywhere.

Not that I blame Somer and Chasity so much. They’re teen-agers after all, and teens are notoriously obsessed with their own feelings and rights. That’s one of the reasons that youngsters shouldn’t be parents, especially outside of marriage. But what’s the ACLU’s excuse?

Gender equality, intones ACLU lawyer Sara Mandelbaum self-righteously, as if the natural first step to raising women’s status is to confer on teen-age girls a right to have babies. There is no social attitude or law on the books that is as big an obstacle to career achievement for women as having babies outside of wedlock, especially before adulthood.

And, incidentally, research shows that becoming an unwed mom is an equally large obstacle to eventually building a successful marriage; not only is it harder to find a good mate, but having a child with a man who is not your husband makes divorce more likely. All the way around these two girls have taken a step that may injure their own and, more important, their babies’ chances in life for years to come. I wish them luck.

Yeah, a mother fighting for the right to an honor that she already earned because screeching moralists like Maggie Gallagher are worried “the message” it sends is sure to harm their babies’ chances in life for years to come. I’m just sure of it. it must be true. She’s an expert.

Maggie waited until she was 21 before she got knocked up by her kid’s father whom she didn’t bother to marry. By her own standards she was too selfish to marry for the next ten years. But she always finds others to castigate for their immorality and selfishness, rarely copping to what she would call a decadent lifestyle if another woman lived it. Her story remains vague and unknown to most people who read her material. Her close friends, the right wing think tankers and pundits in Manhattan and DC don’t see anything amiss, however. (Falafels and strip poker anyone?)

The timeline suggests, although I don’t have proof, that she may have been in a delicate condition while she was at Yale. I wonder what kind of message Maggie would think it sends for a pregnant college student to be allowed to receive a diploma when she is unwed. But, we needn’t worry about that. If Maggie (being the paragon of honesty that she is) were pregnant at the time of her graduation from college she undoubtedly would have stayed home from the ceremony because it would set such a bad example for others.

You have to give her credit, though. She became a hypocritical wingnut harpy lecturing others about their mistakes right out of the box. That’s the way it’s done girls. Get with the “do as I say, not as I do” party and make some big bucks. Even an “illegitimate” child and really bad haircut won’t hold you back.

Here are some more of those anti-feminist traditional values that sell so well:

…amazingly, deep within the bowels Title IX regulations (mostly used

heretofore to encourage women’s sports), the federal government does define unwed pregnancy as a young girl’s gender rights.

The intentions of Title IX were no doubt good: encouraging pregnant teens to stay in school. But time has proved even a high school diploma does not magically eliminate the enormous hardship that out-of-wedlock childbearing imposes. The ACLU’s misguided campaign will not advance women’s equality; it will no doubt encourage at least a few more immature teens to think about motherhood in terms of their own desires rather than their child’s needs.

Like a lying apple cheeked Yalie mom who forgot to get married for ten years while she created a “career” as a “marriage expert.”

But perhaps they might take a cue from another single young woman from Chasity and Somer’s high school, who had a child a few years back. She too had good grades and she too was denied entry into the National Honor Society. But unlike Somer and Chasity, Krissy Ford decided it was not worth making a federal case of it: “I had no hard feelings at all,” Krissy Ford told the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader last May. “It’s something that’s not worth dragging your school down. … It’s a mistake I made.”

Krissy respects the decision the two younger unwed moms made, but recalls, “My focus was on my child.”

If only the rest of us could be so mature.

Oh my yes. There is no doubt in my mind that the world would be a better place if Maggie had been mature enough to “focus” on her child instead of helping to create a multi-million dollar industry devoted to indoctrinating “the people” in backward bourgeois values (at which they themselves scoff) for political gain and financial profit.

In light of Maggie’s love-child, I wonder how all of her fellow up-tighty righties explain the strange advice to fellow travellers (from February 1999) such as “If you are going on the moral attack, wash your own hands first,” and “those of us who see clearly the connection between the privatization of morality(especially sexual morality) and the public squalor we must all live in have to be in the business not of rallying troops but of making conversions,” in light of the fact that she stands accused of not only greed, avarice and mendacity in taking payola from the government, but she’s also obviously someone who lived a secret life as an elitist libertine while making a living chastizing young girls for being as immoral as she is?

(Oh, what am I saying? They will resort to their usual sophistry and say that Gallagher never explicitly condemned unwed motherhood for dark haired women who graduated from Yale and besides keeping it a quasi secret is the right thing to do because she was trying to set an example. Next?)

Maggie Gallagher believes that unwed motherhood is the scourge of modern American life. In one of the self-serving screeds in which she failed to disclose that she was on the take from the Bush administration, she wrote:

But $300 million is a tiny fraction of what we spend to deal with the social problems created by high rates of illegitimacy and divorce. You know what really costs big bucks? Having one-third of our babies born outside of marriage. These children, through no fault of their own, are more likely to be poor,

welfare-dependent, to need special education, to get physically ill (Medicaid

dollars), to become substance abusers, experience mental illness, commit acts of

juvenile delinquency and become adult criminals, drop out of high school, be

held back a grade, and to go onto become young unwed mothers and fathers

themselves, perpetuating an expensive cycle of downward mobility.

Well, yes. Unless one is a high paid GOP shill who works as a “marriage expert” in no less than three of the bogus GOP propaganda front groups that call themselves “think tanks.” Then you can fuck to your hearts content, get knocked up, stay unmarried for ten years while you pursue your elitist career as a “scholor” and “columnist” and still be able to hector the rest of the country about traditional morality.

Man, oh man, The right is really where the money is. I’m beginning to feel a little bit foolish for not taking advantage of it. If you can cast off all personal integrity and can bear to kiss the asses of people like James Dobson, they don’t care what kind of a freak you are. What a great scam.

Update: Media Matters has all the data of the GOP front groups our gal Maggie has been sucking from for her entire “career” as a “marriage expert.” (I was going to say “who do you have to blow to get some of that action” and then I realized…ohmydeargawd)

Correction: I misspelled Kathy G’s name. It has been fixed in this post and the one below.

Charles Pierce

Did I just hear Richard Perle on Nightline say that the biggest mistake we made in Iraq was not handing the country over to Ahmad Chalabi three years ago? Yes, and the biggest flaw in our national economy is that we haven’t turned the Federal Reserve over to Ken Lay. Yes, and the biggest mistake I am likely to make in trying to understand this Festival of Fruitcakes is failing to have laid in enough mushrooms to get me through the State of the Union. To be fair, Perle tap-danced all around the name until Koppel finally brought it up, and then he said “Ahmad Chalabi” the way most people say, “trichinosis.” Still, sweet storebought Jeebus.

What do you suppose it would take to get Pierce to write these pithy gems more often than once a week?

Maggie Was A Bad Girl

Commenting on Eschaton yesterday, reader Kathy G let Maggie’s cat out of the bag:

Gallagher just looooves to rant about “family values” and how important it is that “elites” set an example (presumably so the lower orders remain properly deferential).

By any definition, Gallagher herself must be considered a member of the elite class – she went to Yale, after all. And her explanation about why she never went public about taking taxpayer money to ho for Bush – that she “forgot” about the $20,000 – kind of speaks for itself. Man, I sure as hell wish *I* could “forget” about $20,000.

Which brings us to this: Gallagher is yet another member of the wingnut “do as I say, not as I do” family values crowd. It turns out that, once upon a time, Ms. Gallagher was – gasp! horrors! – an UNWED MOTHER.

Apparently, as a young and lusty college-age lass, Maggie enjoyed her fun a little too much, and got knocked up. (Undoubtedly, the dastardly perpetrator of this deed was one of them Ivy League libruls, who did it solely with the plan of crediting our virtuous heroine).

How do I know this? Gallagher has written about it – though only in the context of a pious wingnut column about the horrors of abortion.

Anyway, she had the kid but, to my knowledge, did NOT marry the father. She didn’t meet and marry the present Mr. Gallagher (or whoever) until later.

I wish I had access to Lexis-Nexis right now, because I’m sure I could pin this story down if her old columns for the NY Post are up there. Hopefully Atrios or one of you other Eschatons can find it and broadcast it throughout the land. Maggie, you shameless hussy, you!

Of course, NOW Gallagher is unctuously, properly remorseful about her “sin.” But that didn’t prevent her from having her fun when she wanted it. It never does with these guys and gals. They want to be able to do anything they damn please, but then they turn around and with hell’s own fury castigate anyone else who wants to do the same.

Especially if, you know, they’re “not the right class, dear.” Or are the wrong color.

Frankly, I’m shocked. How unlike a wingnut to be so hypocritical.

Now, I know all of you Maggie defenders out there will probably say this is just some kind of Desperate Housewives catfight. Mags would never mislead her readers this way. But, you would be wrong. Maggie herself has written about it, rarely to be sure, and mostly a long time ago, but it’s not a complete secret. Just a little something she doesn’t advertise.

Maggie has been telling everyone who will listen, ad nauseum, that she has been a “marriage expert” for twenty years. But for ten of those years, fully half of her career, she was an unwed mother. That’s quite a CV.

Kathy Grier was kind enough to send along some links to a few of the rare Maggie writings in which she admits to her little moral boo-boo.

Here’s the evidence. (I know it’s early in the day, but you should pour yourself a stiff drink before you read it. You’re going to need it. Wow.)

And here’s an interview with the hedonistic San Francisco liberal mag, Salon, in which she says “I was an unwed mother for ten years.”

Let’s just say that there isn’t a paper trail showing that quote amongst her voluminous writings for right wing publications. She certainly doesn’t mention it when she’s hectoring girls about sex out of wedlock or decrying the husbandless home.

One can understand how difficult it is to find a mate and all, but if you believe so strongly that children should not be raised without both parents, ten years seems like quite a long time to wait to find a father for your child. There are matchmaking services on the Right that could have found Maggie a nice Christian man from Ardmore,Oklahoma who needed a mother for his five children. Maggie believes that any father is better than no father (unless he’s gay, of course) so the proper thing to have done would be for her to sacrifice her “career” as a “marriage expert” and you know, actually get married to any man who would have her in order to provide a proper home for her son. Otherwise she’s just another liberal feminazi putting her own need to live where she wanted and put her education to work and find a man she loved before the needs of her child. What will we tell the children?

This is an epidemic on the right. Gallagher reminds me of Susan Carpenter McMillan anti-abortion zealot (and Paula Jones stylist) who was revealed to have had two abortions to which she had never admitted.

I’m beginning to feel sorry for the poor sincere red state schmucks who believe in all this traditional values stuff. A bunch of slick, elitist, wingnut hucksters are taking them to the cleaners.

Calling Hollywood. Time for a remake of “Elmer Gantry.”

Spongebob Goes To Church

Via Amy at Political Animal, I see that it is possible for church leaders to have a sense of humor. This is funny.

You have to give it to the UCC. They are taking action. I like ’em.

High Level Diplomacy

I’m awfully glad that taxpayers are paying for the highest caliber of diplomats — intelligent, restrained, sophisticated. And with a wit that is just breathtaking. People who write things like this:

A friend of The Diplomad has provided us this letter which he “swears it’s real.” Of course, he also thought PanAm was a good investment . . . but, we can dream, eh?

Dear Concerned Citizen:

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously, and your opinion was heard loud and clear in Washington.You’ll be pleased to learn that thanks to concerned citizens like you, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the “Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers” program, or LARK for short. In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.

[…]

Although Ahmed is sociopathic and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his “attitudinal problem” will help him overcome these character flaws.

Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. He will bite you, given the chance. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with your wife or daughters (except sexually) since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him, and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that Ahmed will recommend as more appropriate attire. I’m sure the women in your household will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the bhurka – over time. Just remind them that it is all part of “respecting his culture and his religious beliefs” – wasn’t that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you, who know so much, keep us informed of the proper way to do our job.

You take good care of Ahmed – and remember…we’ll be watching. Good luck!

Cordially…

Your Buddy,

Don Rumsfeld

How many of you vote that the first LARK letter go to Teddy Kennedy followed by one to Michael Moore? Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has certainly earned himself the right to participate in LARK, too.

Man is that some hilarious material, or what? I’m proud to pay his salary, I can tell you that. Especially in light of this:

Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man’s face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider’s written account.

[…]

In November, in response to an AP request, the military described an April 2003 incident in which a female interrogator took off her uniform top, exposed her brown T-shirt, ran her fingers through a detainee’s hair and sat on his lap. That session was immediately ended by a supervisor and that interrogator received a written reprimand and additional training, the military said.

In another incident, the military reported that in early 2003 a different female interrogator “wiped dye from red magic marker on detainees’ shirt after detainee spit (cq) on her,” telling the detainee it was blood. She was verbally reprimanded, the military said.

Sexual tactics used by female interrogators have been criticized by the FBI (news – web sites), which complained in a letter obtained by AP last month that U.S. defense officials hadn’t acted on complaints by FBI observers of “highly aggressive” interrogation techniques, including one in which a female interrogator grabbed a detainee’s genitals.

Yeah, it’s some kind of a wonderful free society when female interrogators are used as dominatrix whores to humiliate a bunch of unlucky putzes who were sold for 5 grand by an Afghan warlord who’s still laughing his ass off at how easy it was to get rid of his hated brother-in-law.

I’m awfully impressed with all these kinky sexual interrogation techniques they are using against Muslim males. Clearly, this stuff wasn’t thought up by a single group of fucked up prison guards from West Virginia. In fact, we know where it came from — the fascinatingly stupid neocon bible called “The Arab Mind”, a cartoon anthropological guidebook that says things like “the Arab view [is] that masturbation is far more shameful than visiting prostitutes”.

The frightening thing is that presumably smart people actually believed that hard core terrorists would be so upset by masturbation and sexual humiliation that they’d crack like little bitty babies. The men and women in charge of our security are obviously puerile adolescents who think that “arabs” are so fundamentally different from us that they are a lesser species.

I think we might actually lose this thing. Thong panties and menstrual blood interrogation is so disturbingly on the wrong track that I think more Americans are going to die. These people are just too stupid, racist and deluded to understand what it’s going to take to win.

DNC Dance

For what it’s worth (which is nothing) I endorsed Dean for DNC chair many months ago. I felt that it was very important that Dean’s followers join the Democratic party with their full hearts because I thought the party needed them. I have long believed that the constant harping about hating the DNC and Democratic politicians by those of us on the left is doing almost as much harm to the party as what the Republicans have done. Indeed, it seems to me that those two forces have worked together in some ways to make it very difficult for some swing voters to vote for us. I believed that Dean as DNC chair might give people a reason to strongly defend the party for a change.

I have to say, however, that I’d be just as happy with Simon Rosenberg. His Plan sounds right on the money to me. If he does not become the chair, I certainly hope that he will remain influential in the party. These ideas are very thoughtful, forward looking and innovative. Whoever wins, I hope that this kind of thinking will lead the way.

Popular Kulturkampf

I missed this yesterday, but apparently the little mice in The Corner believe that lefties should be as dumb as the wingnuts who are embarrassing themselves with nonsensical cries of “liberal bias” because “The Passion” didn’t get nominated for Best Picture. The fact is that people who follow politics and popular culture (and don’t live in a right wing prayer group telephone tree) know how these things work and don’t pitch fits when the world works in thoroughly predictable ways.

For instance, people who read know that Michael Moore declined to submit “F9/11” for the “Best Documentary” category (in which he was the odds on favorite to win another Oscar) back in September because he was hoping to get a TV airing prior to the presidential election. The rules specify that you can’t air a documentary within nine months of it’s theatrical release to contend for a Best Documentary Oscar. Therefore, the only category for which his film could qualify was Best Picture, an extreme long shot.

The Academy can vote en masse for documentaries and it’s highly unlikely that the highest grossing documentary of all time would have been overlooked in that category. It is highly likely that he would have won that award. Therefore, it was actually quite a sacrifice on Moore’s part. Winning Oscars is no small thing and any filmmaker would love to have a couple of them on his mantle. He gave up what he knew was his best shot at winning — and getting a chance to make a big speech that would be heard around the world — in order to try to get his film seen by more people before the election.

He certainly has my gratitude for doing that, and for all he did during the campaign. I believe that he and many other representatives of popular culture helped our turn out. And for those who think we should distance ourselves from Hollywood, I can only laugh. Popular culture is our single most potent weapon in the post modern political world in which we live. It continues to prove day in and day out that the liberal consensus still exists in this country and that the way people actually live (as opposed to how they think they are supposed to say they live) is tolerant, progressive and as far from the cramped, hypocritical Republican worldview as can be.

But, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how to use it for partisan purposes. Any thoughts that we should leave Democratic politics completely in the hands of dry, boring wonks and political junkies is about the most obvious recipe for ongoing disaster I can see. In a world of millions of competing voices, we’d better find a better more hueristic way of translating the liberal consensus into political action or before we know it, the other side will have completely cowed the public into believed that up is down and wrong is right.

The other side has created its own blatantly partisan politico-entertainment sector with talk radio and FOX News. But they are a bunch of angry, ugly wankers. We can do much better than that if we put our minds to it. In fact, we must.

Do the Democrats have guys like these working for them? Do they think in these terms?

Mr. Schriefer said he and a team of White House big shots transformed Madison Square Garden into a giant TV studio, “stealing” elements from network TV newsmagazines, awards shows, David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. Mr. Bush’s intimate podium-in-the-round was designed by Joe Stewart, who has created set pieces for magician David Copperfield and Comedy Central’s The Man Show. The giant movie screen used for broadcasting video shorts and Reagan requiems was ripped directly from the Academy Awards. “We realized the big screen actually became a character in the whole thing,” said Mr. Schriefer.

[…]

“We live in a time when there’s a real cross-pollination between politics and pop culture,” he said. “As Republicans, we’re often thought of as behind the curve in popular culture, and we don’t have to be, and we can certainly compete on that level just as well as the Democrats can.”

[…]

“If you think about what images you have in your head from the Kennedy years, it’s really not video — except one awful piece of video,” he continued. “It’s stills. They deliberately modeled the West Wing intro after that; they’ve modeled it after these famous photos of Kennedy, standing by the window and stuff like that. They clearly studied this. These are the images you have of the Presidency. So in that sense, if you’re trying to elicit an emotion more than tell a linear narrative, stills can work — with great words.”

The movie also used “rotoscoping,” the technique used in the Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, that allows moving 3-D elements to be added to still photos. For instance, in the images from Yankee Stadium, they made the flash bulbs flash. They also used natural sound, “like a radio play,” said Mr. Stevens, “like an NPR story, so you’d hear these live sounds. You hear their breath and their footsteps. We wanted to get the other voices of the people in there — the firefighter. Those are obviously their real voices.”

Sure, Spielberg comes in and makes a nice film for Kerry, but he isn’t devoting his entire life to putting on the Democratic Show like these guys are. He doesn’t create a seamless road show from lighting to backdrop to sound to music that follows the campaign everywhere it goes that fellows like Stuart Stevens do. We are all aware of how they compose the shot to make Bush look more presidential and how they put the words they want people to absorb in a backdrop, but did anyone ever notice how they compress the sound at a Bush rally to sound as if the roar of approval builds to a frenzy? They are into all these details of presentation that we just seem to overlook. Our campaigns look old fashioned and ragged by comparison. Our TV pundits are tired and haplessly unprepared. We have no sense of drama as a party, as a movement. (This was, in my opinion, one of Clinton’s great gifts. For better or for worse, he was interesting.)

I’m hearing a little rumbling though that sounds promising and its coming from our own little corner of the political world. When an establishment expert like Stuart Rothenberg feels that it’s worth making derisive comments about you by calling you “clueless” and having an “exaggerated sense of your own importance,” you know that an upstart revolution is taking place.

Somebody isn’t being boring and that’s an excellent step in the right direction. Right now the left blogosphere is a nascent rag tag grassroots reform story that shows incredible energy and some long needed idealism. If Dean (or Rosenberg for that matter) becomes the chairman of the DNC, that’s the image this party is most likely to have going forward. I’d love to see a Democratic Stuart Stevens start working with this right now to market that energy and idealism to the public. We’re using media in a new way that’s fresh and exciting and it’s making the old guard nervous. Now that’s something we can work with. There’s a new revolutionary narrative emerging and if the Democrats are smart enough to see it, they’ll begin to build a popular culture presence right now to go with the substance of the reformation of the party. That’s how smart politics are played these days; you work on several different levels — it’s all part of the same thing.

And while Michael Moore is a flame throwing polemicist who serves a very particular function in this whole thing, he’s probably got some very good contacts in Hollywood who’d be more than interested in helping with this project. I would hope that any part of the Democratic establishment, new or old, that gets approached by people who know something about this stuff will listen. It’s one of the keys to our future.

Here’s another interesting article about how the two parties handle advertising. Very illuminating.

Update: To those who have written to me complaining that I have mischaracterized Michael Moore’s withholding his admission to the Academy Awards, here are the rules for submission to the Best Documentary Awards.

And as for your complaints that “F911” would not qualify as a documentary because it is not factual, bite me.