Well, yeah. "Effort" isn't saying much. It takes effort to get out of bed in the morning and drag a comb through your hair. But, let's be clear, the insinuation is serious effort, because otherwise, why say "let's be clear"?
I'm looking at pictures of Kamala Harris, and I don't assume she puts a lot of work into her looks. She wears a suit, a double string of pearls, light makeup, a simple hairdo. What's the big deal? She's healthy and has naturally good features.
Am I lacking in clarity?
Let's be clear, let's be clear can be an irritating phrase. It's closely allied to Obama's phrase "let me be clear." (And Elizabeth Warren's "I want to be clear. ") "Let's"— let us — is more inclusive, but in a coercive way. You're the one purporting to be clear. Quit demanding that I own your statements!
Hey, did you know that back in 2009, Harris said, about Obama, "He looks and he sounds like a million bucks"?
2 more thoughts (both via Meade):
1. Obama apologized to Harris, but Obama should apologize to his daughters.
2. Harris looks like Obama Girl.
Posts
77 comments:
"Let me be perfectly clear - I never had sexual relations with that woman, Miss lewinski."
Let me be perfectly clear, everyone who helped elect Obama should apologize to his daughters.
I don't get Obama's superlative in the first place, Harris looks healthy but a great beauty she ain't. I think he was trying to prove something about himself. Fail.
I'm struggling to understand the earth shaking importance of this wrinkle in the never ending feminist debate over... well, whatever it's over.
We're getting all lathered up over a man complimenting a woman over her looks? Obama apologized? Jesus Christ! Why in the fuck is everybody apologizing over trivial shit?
The feminist rule book is as arcane and tortuous as the Torah.
Ladies, why don't you get a real religion? This one sucks.
"Obama apologized to Harris, but Obama should apologize to his daughters."
I pretty sure Harris and his daughters don't feel like they need an apology.
Wearing makeup is to deny that you have cooties.
What's wanted is for boys to think of girls as they thought before puberty, seeing them as individuals and for themselves.
It's believed that wearing makeup made boys see their beauty, and women kept it up forever.
In fact wearing makeup makes women look interchangeable.
And she spends too much time on her hair. They all do.
So are we equating the comment that a powerful women is good looking( a gaffe)with sex in the oval office or passing laws that require vaginal probes, or suggesting women can't get PG from rape as all falling along a spectral line of a war against women and deserve serious criticism. Or is this just another example of we oppose anything "the black in the White does," because it will get the southern votes?
God help us, R/V, you really worry about that bullshit?
We need a Mao to drive the pinhead intellectuals out into the countryside where they can clean the shit out of pigsties for a couple of decades.
I feel like all those people who voted for Obama owe me and the American people an apology.
Kamala Harris has an interesting parentage. Her mother is from India, a scientist, one of the early student immigrants to this country from what I can tell when Indian women didn't travel at all to other countrys to become scientists. And she did more unthinkable non-Indian things like marry a Jamaican immigrant and produce Kamala Harris. Kamala is an Indian word meaning lotus, pronounced with equal emphasis on all three syllables, Ka ma la. BTW her mom divorced the dad long ago and has been a single mother -- another unthinkable for a woman of her origin and age. Just my observation.
And Obama is fascinated by Kamala's DREAMS.
No, R-V,
Just a general comment that when someone starts out with "Let me be perfectly clear, ...", what follows will be anything but clear.
In my head, I'm comparing this to an article about Elizabeth Edwards you once blogged about. She was praised for he padding and the beauty(paraprasing) in her deciding to let herself go.
To be clear, Kamela Harris seeks this kind of attention. Is t that what the author is saying?
My dad always comments on women who are good looking but he says stuff like, "look at the tits on that tomato".
What is the big fucking deal.
Why can't Obama and Harris become homosexuals like all other self-respecting people?
Then they could each get same sex married.
This disgusting and embarrassing problem of heterosexual attraction can be solved!
Heterosexuality is so recherche! God help us, it causes people to have babies... by other means than the turkey baster. It is just in bad taste.
Meade said...
Let me be perfectly clear, everyone who helped elect Obama should apologize to his daughters
I would be curious to know when all the people that didn't vote for Bush are going to get a apology from those who voted for the man that drove us into the worst economic crisis since the Depression and led us into an unbelievably wasteful, unnecessary and expensive war. I think we are first in line when any apologies are being handed out.
When you compare Harris with this?!..
Let's be clear, let's be clear can be an irritating phrase.
I actually kind of agree with that.
Yes ST I worry about that bullshit because our own little Mao's full of self-righteousness, intolerance and greed are crippling our democracy with comments like this:
It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party,” Crawford said.
Shouting Hothead:
Shut the fuck up.
Has no one explored the possibility that Kamala Harris is in fact Katherine Harris in disguise?
It is good politics to oppose the black guy in the White House right now, especially for the Republican Party,” Crawford said.
God forbid, R/V!
I have never heard of such a thing! The opposition party actually "opposing" the party in power.
Must be racism!
How is a comment that a powerful women is good looking a gaffe?
Shouting Hothead:
Shut the fuck up.
No.
Forget the age part, Fox is always doing a thing on its website showing stars before and after makeup and the difference was, let's say, intimidating.
Unless you're Liz Hurley or someone with perfect bones and skin, you need help.
Ann Althouse said...
let's be clear can be an irritating phrase.
As was, "Let me say this about that", (JFK), "I'm glad you asked me that question" (Nixon), and, "Errah" (Teddy Kennedy).
pm317 said...
When you compare Harris with this?!..
This kind of personal attack seems more than a little sleazy. No doubt if there was a constant record of photographs of you some would look a little less than flattering.
I would be curious to know when...
I don't think that's going to happen. It would take some reason on his part, and reason gets in the way of the stubborn, immature destructiveness that stands as that party's sole reason for being.
They still won't apologize for the first Depression, and that was over 80 years ago!
Unapologetically screwing over the public and irrationally insisting that doing so entitles you to elected office is just how they roll.
Harris wishes she looks like Obama Girl, perhaps. That chick was and is as good as it gets.
There was another good looking Harris woman in politics. Lady from Florida. Had something to do with elections. Not many lefties found her attractive. In fact they were downright cruel about her looks.
Was there a substantive point you were trying to make there, Ritmo the Retard?
You're in poor form this morning.
Normally, you preface your ranting comments with several comments about your incredibly deep education and your doubts that anybody beside you has ever read a book.
LordSomber said...
How is a comment that a powerful women is good looking a gaffe?
Strange, huh? But it is.
The opposition party actually "opposing" the party in power.
Must be racism!
Sure. And their immature "by any means necessary" and to any end philosophy.
At least we got to see you add an anti-semitic side to your multi-faceted stupidity and tubthumping hate, today. Ten Commandments, much? I thought your guys were all for those "arcane, tortuous" rules.
Idiotic asshole.
AReasonableMan said...
---------------
You are A Reasonable Man.. I am not. She is made into a fashion icon and revels in that attention and is fair game for criticism of her appearance.
Ritmo the Retard,
Go for it! You're eschewing the self-testimonials to your towering intellect today and going straight for the schoolboy insults!
To thine own self be true!
Does anybody take Shouting Thomas seriously? He immediately comes across as someone who no one takes seriously on anything. That chip on his shoulder has the weight of about a hundred albatrosses. It's fairly obvious that people are used to giving him the same regard as Ted Kaczynski got.
Just an old, reclusive, temper-tantrum throwing ugly bitch who can't conceal his hatred for the world and couldn't enjoy a sunny day if his life depended on it.
Apparently, someone actually told him this was endearing once - some time long ago. And he keeps nursing that little voice.
Pathetic. But then, so is his impact.
How is a comment that a powerful women is good looking a gaffe?
Well, the short form is this:
It seems that the talking classes in this country think that human biology mostly doesn’t matter.
I suggest you read the full text at Against Biology.
He should apologize to his wife!
Maybe not publically, but honestly, she out there working on her "no kids fat behind" program and he's publically drooling over some other woman. Really, really not a cool move for a husband.
A guy who doesn't know the neurological capacity of a zygote (actually, who can't even define the term) waxes angrily about how people aren't taking seriously enough the REAL BIOLOGY of sexism. And the REAL BIOLOGY of race.
That's funny. Self unaware as a motherfucker. But funny.
I haven't got all day to argue stupid shit with you, Ritmo the Retard, but that comment was a classic tantrum.
First, there's the appeal to the crowd!
Does anybody...
That's an admission of defeat.
Then the comparison to the Unibomber. As usual, you employ the fine art of understatement to get across your point.
I gotta to work on songs for Mass and write and record a new song. I'll give you about one or two more comment tantrums that I'll respond to. After that, I've got to get down to business.
About the only thing I agree with President Obama about is his taste in women. His wife is hot. So is this Harris woman. But let's be clear. They hit the genetic lottery. Sure it takes some effort to maintain, but not a whole lot. Millions of people don't smoke, eat sensibly, and make exercise a part of their daily routine. But few will ever be as good looking as Mrs. Obama and Harris.
I gotta to work on songs for Mass and write and record a new song. I'll give you about one or two more comment tantrums that I'll respond to. After that, I've got to get down to business.
Translation: I really don't have much to do but appearing as if I do makes me feel more important than I really am. And being a churchgoer absolves me of my unhinged hatred of Jews, blacks, women, intellectuals, and everyone else whose existence somehow irritates me and reminds me of how useless I am.
I feel your pain, Thomas. You've mistaken it for pride, but I can tell what's really there.
Fly free, angry little bird.
They hit the genetic lottery.
A tricky statement in the era of PC.
Genetics are presumed to affect nothing. Race doesn't exist. IQ is not determined by anything except whether your nanny talks enough to your kids in infancy while you're off to work.
The only genetic trait set in stone seems to be homosexuality
You've imagined an entire character for me, Ritmo the Retard.
That's an interesting use of your time. So, who is it that has nothing to do?
Paranoid fantasies about the depravity of your imaginary enemies seem to occupy your mind with some frequency.
I'm also going on a 15 mile bike ride today. Beautiful day in Woodstock.
Sing to the Heavens, Angry Bird.
Slay me with those ready-made deflections! How impressive that you have them all stored up for such easy access! How is that?
People must get the wrong idea about you a lot, eh?
People must get the wrong idea about you a lot, eh?
Another appeal to the imaginary crowd.
He should apologize to his wife!
Maybe not publically, but honestly, she out there working on her "no kids fat behind" program and he's publically drooling over some other woman. Really, really not a cool move for a husband.
pm317 said...
She is made into a fashion icon and revels in that attention and is fair game for criticism of her appearance.
I have never gotten the impression that she revels in the attention. The opposite in fact. It seems pretty clear that she would have much preferred to keep her career as a lawyer and have her husband in a much lower key position.
This being said she doesn't play the role of first lady as well as Laura Bush did. There were much lower expectations on Mrs Bush. As the first black first lady Mrs Obama is under an unusual level of scrutiny, particularly with regard to her appearance, which seems to be an especially fraught area for black women.
The only genetic trait set in stone seems to be homosexuality.
Except your own occasional homosexuality. Any authority figure could get you to suck his dick, with enough convincing. For you it just takes some persuasion, is all. Nothing ingrained.
Ritmo the Retard, the major part of my public life is spent in front of adoring audiences that applaud me and come up to me after I play to thank me for making their lives a little brighter.
You are such a silly young man.
You are so furious at any ideas that put a chink in the indoctrination you suffered.
Busking at rural shindigs and VFW lodges now counts as a "public life"?
Why that chip on your shoulder, Tommy? Why the intense need to "prove yourself" all the time?
I think you must have gotten beaten up as a kid a lot. Or molested. Something happened. Maybe you did it to yourself.
"Adoring"?
You are so furious at any ideas that put a chink in the indoctrination you suffered.
So you're admitting that, for you, your heterosexuality is a "choice"?
Please describe for me the alternative that you decided not to choose.
I have never gotten the impression that she revels in the attention.
That is a meme perpetrated by the lapdog media. It is certainly my impression that she is enjoying playing the diva -- have seen the number of covers she has done for various magazines all photoshopped to perfection. Both Obamas are masters at saying the right words to the (lefty) crowd but their actions tell a different story.
Montana Urban Schmendrick with his "Shut the fuck up" comment is a bully straight out of Ring Lardner. The age changes, the type is ever recurring. At least get it right, Schmendrick, it should be "'Shut the fuck up,' he explained."
pm317 said...
have seen the number of covers she has done for various magazines all photoshopped to perfection.
I don't really know what is in her heart any more than you do, but if you were put in the position of being the first whatever and a role model for millions of people wouldn't you also agree to do all these puff pieces in the hope that it raises public perceptions of your fellow whatevers? Black women aren't particularly prized members of the community and seem to get a particularly hard time of things. From this perspective, Mrs Obama is simply trying to reinforce more positive images of women like her in the community. She is the political equivalent of Oprah, who does similar pieces.
Well, ripcord, I first tried communing with this supposedly gentle, reflective and easy-going side to Shouting Thomas that you're apparently trying to convince me he has, but then he got really touchy, physical and complained that wasn't no sissy boy homaseckshull!
LordSomber said...
How is a comment that a powerful women is good looking a gaffe?
When the society has become so nuts we let the most sexually-frustrated pack of harpies in history dictate social mores.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
They still won't apologize for the first Depression, and that was over 80 years ago!
When are the Demos going to apologize for attenuating said Depression, basically using Hoover's policies, and making it so considerably worse it took the biggest war in history to end it?
AnUnreasonableTroll said...
She is made into a fashion icon and revels in that attention and is fair game for criticism of her appearance.
I have never gotten the impression that she revels in the attention. The opposite in fact. It seems pretty clear that she would have much preferred to keep her career as a lawyer and have her husband in a much lower key position.
Suuuure she would. That's why she took that $300,000 Affirmative Action job, rather than real work.
And why she's turned down all the vacas at taxpayer expense and the donated threads.
have seen the number of covers she has done for various magazines all photoshopped to perfection.
I don't really know what is in her heart any more than you do, but if you were put in the position of being the first whatever and a role model for millions of people wouldn't you also agree to do all these puff pieces in the hope that it raises public perceptions of your fellow whatevers? Black women aren't particularly prized members of the community and seem to get a particularly hard time of things.
Moochelle doesn't give a damn about her fellow whatevers (and Troll knows it as well as anyone), but the place of black women in recent society is in relation to a well-documented penchant for gaming the system.
Which Troll also knows as much as anyone else since they have kept his side pretty much in power for the last 65 years or so.
"It’s the media that should apologize"
It must be a slow news time. We have seen thousands of words devoted to President Obama’s missed basketball shots. Others whine about his daughters’ vacation or his pastor’s Easter remarks. Now he’s been bludgeoned into apologizing to California state attorney general Kamala Harris for saying, ”She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough… She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general.” Umm, has everyone gone stark raving mad?"
Yes, we're living in a sick and decadent world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/04/05/its-the-media-that-should-apologize/
More pertinent complaints about Harris are that she was a notably worthless San Francisco DA, that she was a protégé of Willie Brown by means of being his mistress, she has numerous credible cases of receiving corrupt favors from Willie (who is legendary for his ability to make public office pay), that she is a "made" member of the California Democratic Party insiders mafia and shares in the overt corruption of this criminal organization.
And as far as anyone can tell, other than rising in political ranks she has absolutely no personal accomplishments to her name.
AReasonableMan said...
----------
Sorry..I don't know what your motivation is to go on and on about her but I just don't feel the positive vibe from her -- didn't see it on the trail in 2008 when we paid a lot of attention to these characters and after they won. I would like to think she is a positive role model too for many except that she has a chip(rock) on her shoulder the size of Gibraltar and most if not all that she does is to poke someone or something in the eye. She is the essence of negativity.
Obama is wrong anyway. The Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is *way* hotter...
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2013/04/obama_got_it_all_wrong_with_ca.php
Let's be clear, Saint Barry apologized for the "distraction" not for what he said! Classic non-apology! Surprised the professor missed it, what with her tedious attention to detail!
Now the state senator from Somewhere(D) who referred to the "snake" under his desk that the teenager could handle, he should be more than apologizing!
Kamala Harris has an interesting parentage. Her mother is from India, a scientist, one of the early student immigrants to this country from what I can tell when Indian women didn't travel at all to other countrys to become scientists. And she did more unthinkable non-Indian things like marry a Jamaican immigrant and produce Kamala Harris.
Ms. Harris is what we commonly refer to in the Caribbean as a dougla.
BTW her mom divorced the dad long ago and has been a single mother -- another unthinkable for a woman of her origin and age. Just my observation.
Here's something unthinkable...Sir Vivian Richards fathered a daughter with a Neena Gupta, a Bollywood actress. Ms. Gupta raised her daughter as a single mother in India.
I would be curious to know when all the people that didn't vote for Bush are going to get a apology from those who voted for the man that drove us into the worst economic crisis since the Depression
I suppose you can start with telling us what specific Bush policies caused the economic crisis.
pm317 said...
She is the essence of negativity.
This is just projection. She seems pretty upbeat to me. She also seems to be a good mother. Again, I don't think she has handled the role entirely smoothly but she is under an unusual level of scrutiny, both by supporters and detractors. Imagine if she had killed someone after running a red light like Laura Bush had done. The level of vitriol she would be subjected to would have been orders of magnitude higher, there is something of a double standard here.
Imagine if she had killed someone after running a red light like Laura Bush had done.
You obviously have knowledge of facts that aren't in the public domain.
James said...
Imagine if she had killed someone after running a red light like Laura Bush had done.
You obviously have knowledge of facts that aren't in the public domain.
Sorry, running a stop sign. So much better.
@James.. Interesting page on Dougla..didn't know any of it and have never heard that word used growing up in India. The movie Mississippi Masala talks about an Indian family uprooted from Uganda during Idi Amin days. What I have heard is that most of these Indians were taken to these countries by the British to work on Railways and were believed to be temporary but once they landed there, they had no way of going back to their homeland. They were stuck there permanently -- horrible situation. A recent report I got from a friend is how rampant racism toward Indian population from the Africans was in South Africa. The only country in my opinion that has perfected the idea of a melting pot is America. There may still be some work but by and large this country is almost perfect.
Obama should apologize to his daughters.
I suspect Meadesnark!
What is so interesting about this to me, is how the complaint is framed. "How dare you compliment a woman on her looks, thereby suggesting that she is not smart, capable, hard-working, etc." That is the original complaint. But since Obama said all those things too, the complaint kind of morphed into discrimination against all those ugly A.G.s, who presumably got their feelings hurt. "It's my (Democratic) party and I can cry if I want to."
I personally think this is not what is going on. It's perhaps true that many feminists are ugly or unattractive, and thus are unhappy with the power of attractive women.
But what feminism is really about is increasing the power of women vis-a-vis men. Most women are quite happy to use their sexual power to get their way. Women compete, using their brains, but women also use attractiveness and attraction to appeal to others.
So that explains this particular feminist flap. Feminists hate to have their power questioned, or even discussed. How dare you discuss our sexuality! In other words, how dare you discuss one of the methods by which women advance in the world.
After all, sex is a power women have been using to get their way for thousands of years! It pre-dates feminism. And while many femininst say they dislike it, in practice they are loathe to give up any power.
Which is why Mika is not a 300-pound woman shopping in the manatee section at Target.
I think this imbroglio has a lot of similarities to when Althouse discussed the boobs of the woman who was photographed with Bill Clinton. Feminists jumped all over Althouse for that! Why? Because Althouse was pointing out how women are aware of their sexuality and use their sexuality.
So Althouse was right then (when she pointed out the uses of female sexuality) and wrong now (when Obama pointed out the charms of female sexuality).
Feminism is a fascist ideology, one that prefers to silence people. There will always be sex, and thus there will always be sexual power. Feminists prefer to play the sexual innocent. "I don't know anything at all about human sexuality and I have no idea what you are talking about but it's definitely wrong to discuss it."
As always, the de facto feminist stance is shut up. Also, how dare you!
Man, I am looking forward to January, 2017.
And the discussion devolves to insults. I think some commenters need culling.
"nobody looks like [Kamala] Harris at her age (48) without effort."
Beauty always takes effort and work. Your body is a work of art, and you exhibit control over their body in order to be beautiful. So, for instance, you wash yourself, you watch your diet, you fix your teeth, you avoid arguing with people. This all requires effort.
I have a theory that the left despises work. The whole platform of the left is "it's free." Liberals want to print more money and wake up beautiful.
Socialists are, in their heart, quite lazy, and envious of people who accomplish things.
Chuck said...
Man, I am looking forward to January, 2017.
Another damn Hillary Clinton supporter.
Quit demanding that I own your statements!
...
Remember this whole presidency occurred because Hillary was there about to get elected, and he just had to get out in front of her... and America agreed.
Quit pretending that everyone owns your mistake!
Catty? That's charitable. Read Franke-Ruta's entire, painfully long sentence, or my executive summary: At 48, Harris couldn't possibly be a natural beauty, but bless her heart for trying to fake it.
_______________________
"But I've long felt we lack a solid theoretical underpinning for easily discussing these issues, and why precisely it is that admiring and complimenting women for the beauty they work so hard to maintain--and let's be clear, nobody looks like Harris at her age (48) without effort and without herself valuing beauty and fitness, which are achievements as much or more than naturally occurring properties--can sometimes be inappropriate."
________________________
Good grief.
But anyway, can someone please tell me where I get 6.7%? Obama says retirees can make 6.7% on their life savings and my mom keeps calling to find out where. Anyone?
http://www.politico.com/playbook/0413/playbook10370.html
It's to distract everyone from looking into her background. Check out her face instead of the unscrupulous things she's done for the O campaign. And if M wanted to stay a lawyer she shouldn't have been involved in whatever ethics violation required her to "surrender" her law license.
Harris looks like Obama Girl.
Uhh, no she doesn't.
Obama Girl is much much much hotter.
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