Topics:
Covering the Bhutto assassination: NBC drops the ball (08:47)
Would a second Clinton presidency offend Jefferson’s ghost? (07:09)
Hillary’s secrecy about her First Lady days (08:36)
Prosecuting steroid use in baseball (10:42)
Ron Paul’s many weird ideas (11:16)
Ann schools Steve in the art of blogging (09:20)
Posts
28 comments:
Listening to you and Steve, I envision both of you bitching and moaning about Hillary all the way into the voting booth, voting for her and spending the next 4-8 years moaning and bitching about her. The issues you raise should be enough to say yes or no and be done with it. There will be no revealtion anytime that will resolve your doubts, they are planning on that.
I'm sorry, but you talk about how Paul talks about fascism at the drop of a hat, without any justification, and that's true enough. But look at what Kaus' co-bloggers and commenters at how the HuffPo comduct themselves on the same front! Needless to say Kaus doesn't want to acknowledge that. And for that matter, here's Kaus who wants to pivot to a slander about the Federalist Society? What a tool.
I remembered the carrots while I was at the gym this morning. Exercise will do that. It was about Bill's weight, not sex! We will have to deal with that next time!
And Simon, I was thinking of you and your wrongheaded deification of Scalia while I was talking. Tell me. how does calling people names fit in on your contrived fact-opinion continuum?
Clarification: I mean Kaus is a tool. Which isn't news, I suppose. Maybe NBC will cover it.
I understood what you meant.
Heh, I was so angry I evidently forgot how to type. Apart from the obvious point that anyone who regards the FedSoc as "extreme" is unbearably ignorant, what I meant to say is that it's ludicrous for someone from the leftosphere to nod sagely at the suggestion that a politician's a bit too easy with the other F word when the bloggers and commenters with whom he shares the leftosphere daily hurl around foul-mouthed allegations of fascism, totalitarianism and so forth. It's just not credible for a resident of the sewer of the internet and smirk when you say (quite correctly, of course) that someone else stinks.
"It was about Bill's weight, not sex! "
So in your world, there is no double entendre?
Ever see the movie "Tom Jones"? Watch this. Stephen says, What?! They're having a nice dinner.
Sorry, the "you" in the previous comment referred to Ann - I hadn't realized that Mr. Kaus had decided to grace us with his presence.
Kaus is here.
And I'm participating in the comments over at Bloggingheads, where, as usual, they are being hostile to me.
Ann, if Bloggingheads was within the leftosphere instead of merely adjoining it, someone would have called you a fascist already. Give it time. ;)
BTW, I know I've said something to this effect before, but since it's directly on-point as to why anyone is attracted to Ron Paul, I think it breaks down into three groups, with a lot of overlap. The first is that for people who are strongly opposed to the war but who can't stomach the Democrats, Paul's really their only choice (although I think Kaus is correct in his assesment of why McCain would also be a rational choice for such people). The second is people who want to think of themselves as conservatives or republicans, but who haven't actually been Republicans in any realistic sense since the mid-1980s at the latest. These are the people who complain that the party's been hijacked by the religious right, Barry Goldwater, "neocons" etc., and that Paul represents a return to the old ways. Paul certainly sees himself in such terms, as evidenced by the Russert interview. And I think the third group (by far the largest) is simply an overreaction by those who have been sickened by the spending of the profligacy of spending and big government of the Bush administration. To give him credit, no candidate places so much focus on really shrinking government and limiting spending as Paul does, which means that if you don't look too closely, you might be fooled into thinking that he's a Gingrichite. And I think some people are so desperate to hear a Republican candidate espousing those values that they simply aren't looking closely enough to realize that Paul doensn't espouse limited government, but outright emasculated government. That is, there's a lot of people who have been seduced by not looking closely enough.
And then of course, there's the libertarian true believers, of whom I share your general assesment.
I mean, there's something terribly jarring to read all these Paulistas talking about how Paul is the "only real conservative in the race," but that at the same time, Paul is "revolutionary." Evidently "real conservatives" are ones who've not read Burke - who wasn't exactly fond of revolutions.
Bloggingheads wingnuts aside, I have one comment on the diavlog: your new haircut looks completely fabulous! Did you get it in Madison or NYC?
Tony Richardson parodied that scene in his next film The Loved One. It's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.
greenpoint, thanks. I've had my hair cut by the same person in Madison for well over a decade.
You know, they'll run that freakin' ticker under drama shows all time. They couldn't run a ticker saying what had happened to Bhutto?
Celtics 186,Knicks 87....Lakers 106
Spurs 105.....Taliban 1, Bhutto 0....Roger Clemens denies he used steroids...Althouse call Trevor an asshole and a piece of shit...film at eleven on Sports Center.
Ann
Too bad you didn't remind me yesterday. The Tom Jones scene was obviously sensual. My point was thet the Hillary-Bill scene was the exact opposite. Plus, they chose a Celine Dion song, to chase any hint of emotion out of the room.
When I eat carrots instead of onion rings, I am not thinking about sex. Actually, I guess it would be onion rings instead of carrots.
I think Tony Richardson and Mandy Grunwald have different thought processes.
Stephen said..."Too bad you didn't remind me yesterday."
We were out of time.
"The Tom Jones scene was obviously sensual. My point was thet the Hillary-Bill scene was the exact opposite."
Yes, that's MY point. See the double entendre? He wanted onion rings. She restricted him to sliced carrots. Obviously, she was denying him pleasure even at the food level, but the sexual imagery isn't much less obvious. We know he goes after other women. Onion rings are O-shaped — clearly they are holes. Carrots, on the other hand are phallic symbols. You said to Bob Wright that they were cut up -- as if that made them not phallic symbols, but it made them cut up phallic symbols. The castration/sexual repression imagery is quite obvious. And we know that for her to run for President he needs to refrain from sexual activity outside of the marriage. So, if she's running, he's not getting the onion rings and the carrots will be sliced into slivers.
"Plus, they chose a Celine Dion song, to chase any hint of emotion out of the room."
Yes, the sex goes in the opposite direction from "Tom Jones," but it's still about sex.
"When I eat carrots instead of onion rings, I am not thinking about sex."
How about when you film a movie scene and include very centrally carrots and onion rings? Ever do that? Because that would be the appropriate comparison.
"Actually, I guess it would be onion rings instead of carrots."
Isn't your wife "looking out for you"? (I'm quoting Hillary.)
Actually... about not reminding you... I just thought it was funny to claim victory on the basis of your not knowing what I was talking about. Just my perverse sense of humor...
Batman: Yes well this is all in good fun, but how is the Riddler going to explain to his wife when he get's sour cream all over the onion rings.
Robin: I know you couldn't resist. You were taken in by her, but I'm too young for that sort of thing.
(Batman, 1966)
Speaking of turn-offs, my 14 year old son reminded me that Hillary's slogan was "let the conversation begin."
If you Google that, it still leads right to Hillary's web site.
Paul's (limited) popularity isn't terribly mysterious. He is the only anti-war Republican, which immediately earns him a decent chunk of that percentage of conservatives who oppose the war no matter HOW nutty his other beliefs are. He's also filling the isolationist/protectionist role filled by Pat Buchanan in '00 and by Perot in the 90s. Basically he's picking up the outliers and nuts who have no mainstream candidate promoting their interests, the same was Nader usually does for the Left.
Rev, my question is whether you think he'll rat and run as an independent if he amasses a large pile of cash but totally fails in the GOP primaries?
there's something terribly jarring to read all these Paulistas talking about how Paul is the "only real conservative in the race," but that at the same time, Paul is "revolutionary.
I'd argue that he is neither conservative nor revolutionary. When you look at what his campaign promises actually are and how they compare to what the government actually does, his platform can be accurately summed up as "massive tax cuts combined with insignificant spending cuts". It is hard to see how running ungodly deficits is "revolutionary" OR "conservative".
Oh, sure, Paul TALKS about cutting spending. But all he's willing to commit to is cutting pork, foreign aid, nation-building, overseas deployments, etc -- all of which amount to only a fraction of total government spending. The kinds of tax cuts Paul is talking about would require the elimination not just of all that pork and foreign aid, but of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all other welfare programs, and most of the military. And Paul's either not honest or not bright enough to admit that that's what would have to be done. Quite the opposite -- he wants to increase Social Security benefits (by eliminating taxation of benefits) AND privatize them. The latter is financially responsible in the long term, but in the short term means trillions of dollars in extra spending over the course of several decades.
You don't even need to get in to Paul's nutty beliefs about gold standards and the Civil War to realize that the man's full of it. Even on basic topics like taxes and spending he's full of bologna.
Rev, my question is whether you think he'll rat and run as an independent if he amasses a large pile of cash but totally fails in the GOP primaries?
Apparently he shifted his position on third-party candidacy from "no" to "can't rule it out" last week. So I'd say yes, he'll run as an independent. He's got lots of money, an ego the size of Texas and nothing to lose. Why not?
Revenant:
As you know, I'm a liberal and would never vote for Ron Paul for many, many reasons.
However let me offer another explanation for his popularity:
Since a brief period in the late 1970's when all the dirty laundry of the J. Edgar Hoover era came out along with some revelations caused by Watergate, we've not had a President who gave much of a priority to protecting the rights of individuals from the government had nothing but a succession of Presidents, of both parties, who have progressively increased the power of both the government and (sometimes by action, sometimes by inaction) of others, ranging from vendors to criminals, to spy on you, get access to the point where someone if they want to can know pretty much everything you are doing, everywhere you go, and everyone you talk to.
The reasons for this have covered a whole lot of different explanations: cracking down on drug dealers, protecting us from domestic terrorism after Oklahoma City, protecting us from foreign terrorism after 9/11, protecting us from sex offenders, protecting us from illegal aliens....
Well, you get the theme here. It is always about the Government 'protecting' us from the bogeymen of the day and how they need to have just a little more power (read you have a little less privacy and other rights) to save us, like we are some damsel in distress locked in a tower and need saving. Frankly I've been disappointed by the failure of any of the major Democratic candidates to seriously address this issue, along with the major Republican candidates.
Maybe it's because I live in a rural area, but this is a big issue that is simmering just under the surface. People are concerned (not just concerned but in some cases actually quite angry and feeling powerless about it) about how much power the Federal government has accrued gradually over the past few decades and they see no one really willing to step forward and address the issue. I guess they are all afraid that if they say 'enough is enough' and oppose the Patriot Act XVII or something, then someone will accuse them of being soft of drug dealers/ terrorists/ child molesters/ illegal immigrants, or whoever else they are waving in our faces to get this stuff through.
So all of a sudden here comes Ron Paul. Even people who know he is a nut feel he is the only one really talking about the issue of how much people know about you and who knows it. The fact is, a lot of the people who really are angry about this stuff have given up on voting anymore and may not even be registered-- but they will send him money to 'get the word out.' I know this because I've met some of them. In rural America that's not hard.
It's an issue that will continue to boil under the surface, and will likely get hotter.
So, who had a washing machine going in the background?
"So, who had a washing machine going in the background?"
Not me.
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