"Legendary journalist Christiane Amanpour walks into the room trailed by the most impressive of clouds: a cumulonimbus of fortitude, pierced by solar flares of her signature erudition."

So begins Kevin Fallon in "Christiane Amanpour on Replacing Charlie Rose: ‘It Sends a Really Big Message’/The acclaimed journalist on her new show, defending the press against Trump’s attacks, and what it means to be the woman replacing the disgraced Charlie Rose" (Daily Beast).

We attempt a joke. “Nice to meet a fellow ‘enemy of the people,’” transforming President Trump’s controversial characterization of the free press from a scorching threat on democracy to an interview icebreaker.

“I refuse even to joke about it,” Amanpour says, grinning gamely but preparing to deliver the first in a series of manifestos that would score our conversation about the state of journalism-under-fire....

Fallon is a florid writer. What does "manifestos that would score our conversation" even mean? Doesn't a "manifesto" need to be something more than a one-liner? My dictionary, the OED, says it's "A public declaration or proclamation, written or spoken; esp. a printed declaration, explanation, or justification of policy..." and "In extended use: a book or other work by a private individual supporting a cause, propounding a theory or argument, or promoting a certain lifestyle." As for "score," I guess he means "To cut superficially; to make scores or cuts in; to mark with incisions, notches, or abrasions of the skin." Example from the OED: "The elephant,..deeply scores with its tusks the trunk of the tree" (Charles Darwin).

The conversation is covered with cut marks made by declarations of policy. Okay. It's actually quite common to speak for words as capable of making cut marks. We often say "cutting remarks." And a conversation is something that can be cut. We speak of cutting into the conversation and even of silence that feels like you could cut it with a knife. Or a manifesto.

Anyway. Back to late-night talk shows. Why were people watching Charlie Rose in the first place? Did he make them feel smart and sophisticated? Can Christiane Amanpour access the same streak of TV audience emotion? If there was a sexual element to the response, can Christiane do what Charlie did? By the way, was Ted Koppel in a different psycho-sexual niche? Who watched Ted and who watched Charlie? What was that late night consumption of men chewing the news all about?

IN THE COMMENTS: campy said:

“I refuse even to joke about it,” Amanpour says,...

THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!

"Russia had its own Pussy Riot moment. What do you think of Donald Trump’s pussy riot moment?"

Said CNN's Christiane Amanpour to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov is sober: "Well, I don't know what this would… English is not my mother tongue, I don't know if I would sound decent. There are so many pussies around the presidential campaign on both sides that I prefer not to comment on this."

Do you have to be careful when speaking a foreign language... or does it work as license to say something that you don't really need to take responsibility for?

Is "pussy" a word we can say? A all-female punk rock group can use it, but that doesn't clean up the word for general usage.

I love the way Lavrov uses self-deprecation to claim greater freedom: English is not my mother tongue. I wouldn't say "tongue" so close to "pussy," but I'm a native English speaker. Lavrov can't be thought to have intended any double meaning there.

And I love how Lavrov totally made a comment and then pretended he didn't by saying he prefers not to comment. The comment was: "There are so many pussies around the presidential campaign."

Christiane Amanpour giggled and claimed not to have expected that.

But what "pussies" did Lavrov mean? Was it a reference to women in general? Was it the women who have been thrust into the spotlight by sexualizing moves by Trump and Bill Clinton? Was it a reference to Hillary Clinton and the many women around her? Is it not the sex meaning at all by the idea of pusillanimousness — the timidity or weakness associated with kittens and women? Why would Lavrov say that?

It's hard to know what he means... other than perhaps: You Americans are so weak compared to us Russians.

ADDED: He says on both sides. That's key. I'm picturing him singing "Both Sides Now." Write your own parody....

Hillary Clinton says something quite like Mitt Romney's old 47% remark.

When I opened this blog at 7:15 a.m., I said I had 2 things I wanted to write about from the Hillary Town Hall transcript. I got the first thing out at 9:27 — it's not easy! — "Hillary Clinton cannot let you hold a viewpoint about guns that is terrorizing the vast majority of Americans."

Now, it's almost noon, and I've got to tell you the other thing, which is something I am going to connect to Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" remark. You remember the "SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters" that hurt him more than anything in the 2012 election. He said that there were "47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," who believe what they believe — "that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it" — and it was his "job... not to worry about those people," because he could "never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Hillary Clinton cannot let you hold a viewpoint about guns that is terrorizing the vast majority of Americans.

At yesterday's CNN Town Hall with Hillary Clinton, a Maryland teacher named Gail Santa Maria expressed concern about school shootings and asked whether "reinstating the ban on assault weapons and banning high capacity magazines would do any good?" Hillary broke in and said: "Yes, I do. I do." That got loud, sustained applause from the very friendly audience.

Gail Santa Maria had put one thing in question form, and that was enough to send Hillary Clinton into her "guns" riff. When Hillary got to the end of that riff, Gail Santa Maria said: "My question is, why does anyone..." And the moderator, Christiane Amanpour, cut her off with a stern "You just had a question. Sorry, ma'am" and moved on. That made me feel bad for the school teacher, who was an unusually timorous lady. And yet... the pacing cannot slow way down for humble little people like this.

But in fact, the school teacher was not too timorous to talk over Hillary and say "74 more" when Hillary said the line "the horrors of the shootings at Sandy Hook and now we've had more in the time since." Hillary's "more" triggered the teacher's "74 more," a repetition of the dubious factoid that is getting lodged in voters' brains. Hillary herself never uttered the dubious factoid, but her "more" made the timid schoolteacher say "74 more." No one is accountable for that heavily inflated number, but we heard it. We heard it as if we were hearing our own internal voice. Yes, we already know that. The number is 74.

Now, let's get into the substance of Hillary's "guns" riff, which contains the amazing assertion that I've put in the post title. She begins:

Adam Serwer doubles down on race after WaPo played its embarrassingly weak race card on Rick Perry.

From his perch at Mother Jones, Serwer says:

You might have anticipated that Perry would face a firestorm for being associated with the property, but it's Cain whose remarks are drawing the most criticism from the right. At RedState, Erick Erickson concluded, "It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place." Glenn Reynolds remarked that until now, Cain's "big appeal is that he's not just another black race-card-playing politician." Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis called Cain's remarks "a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him."...

[It's not] just because Cain is attacking a fellow Republican, but because he stepped out of the proper role of a black conservative, which is to reassure Republicans that their political problems with race are the inventions of a liberal conspiracy....

And the Democratic template is to reassure Democrats that the Republicans have a race problem. That's what the Washington Post was doing, and that's what Serwer is doing now.

[C]onservatives might rally around Perry's embattled campaign because a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South had the chutzpah to suggest that there was something "insensitive" about a place called "Niggerhead." Meanwhile, Cain, whose stock was rising prior to the controversy, may have harmed his own presidential ambitions with the mere suggestion that a white Republican had been "insensitive" on an issue of race. How's that for postracial?

Just to turn down the heat a notch, I think the problem in what Cain said was a mistake in the facts as he was perhaps surprised by a question about a story that had just appeared in the news. He seems to miss the point that the word was painted over and he seems to think that "Niggerhead" was the official name of the place:

AMANPOUR: ... And it's been -- it's been painted over. But the report raises questions about whether this rock, this stone, with that word on it, was still on display even quite recently in the last several years. What is your reaction to that?

CAIN: My reaction is that is very insensitive.... And since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just basically a case of insensitivity.

AMANPOUR: It was painted over.

CAIN: Yes. It was painted over. But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity.

Cain showed an insufficient concern about accuracy, to the point where Amanpour had to prompt him about the facts. He was helping WaPo propagate its meme about Perry, southerners, and racism. To give him a pass on that because he's "a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South" — as Serwer put it — is patronizing. I doubt very much that Herman Cain wants that kind of special treatment. But, of course, it isn't really any kind of caring concern for this man and his painful memories. It's one more application of the template: Republicans have a race problem. Serwer is happy to perform that service. How's that for postracial?

Or is "How's that for postracial?" — Serwer's question, above — a taunt only to be aimed at Republicans? Democrats want to keep playing the race card game, right? Oh, I don't know. I seem to remember a presidential candidate back in 2008 making us feel that we were about to move into the postracial era. Was I only dreaming?

Arrested at a town hall meeting led by ABC News Anchor Christiane Amanpour: Eric Fuller, the survivor of the Tucson massacre who said "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target."

We talked about him here, yesterday. Now, KGUN9 reports:

The theme of the event was "An American Conversation Continued"... When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated. Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, "You're dead."...

The event wrapped up a short time later. Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room. As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large. Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, "You're all whores!"

Fuller, age 63, is a political operative who specializes in gathering petitions for ballot initiatives. Before the program began, he passed out business cards to people sitting around him that read:

"Signatures
"Expediting Initiatives since 2006
"J. Eric Fuller
"Political Circulator."

Fuller has been charged with one count of threats and intimidation.