"One day I saw this camera room, and nobody was in there, and I took one and tested it, walked ou,t and they never noticed that a camera was missing."

Said Werner Herzog to Anderson Cooper, who injected flatly: "That's a stolen camera."

Herzog: "It was more expropriation than theft. You have to have a certain amount of, I say, good criminal energy to make a film. Sometimes, yes, you have to go outside of what the norm is."

And I like this, about Klaus Kinski: "I had a a mad man as a leading character. He had a temper as demented as it gets. You had to contain him, and I made his madness — his explosive destructiveness —productive for the screen.... Every gray hair on my head I call Kinsky."

The men of CNN charmingly circle the drain.

Anderson Cooper struggles to consume a shot:

They’re letting Anderson Cooper drink on TV again for New Year’s Eve.

CNN is getting desperate for ratings.

pic.twitter.com/hbZNY8ODUt

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) January 1, 2025

And Diplo — who's somebody, but I don't need to know who — calmly asserts that he's on LSD:

Diplo trips on LSD while appearing on CNN’s New Year’s Eve special.

pic.twitter.com/V9iauqF86B

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 1, 2025

How are men these days supposed to enact the meaning of New Year's Eve? It's traditionally about drinking a lot of alcohol, but they don't want to do that, so they put on a little show of finding it hard to drink just one shot, and then they talk to a guy who calmly and humorously says he's on LSD and he's "not even lying." This stuff has gone viral, so credit to CNN. Do what you must. It's not the news.

Meanwhile, CNN brings out a representative of the opposite sex: Whitney Cummings woodenly delivers some jokes that have — predictably — gone viral because they mock Democrats: 

NEW: Anderson Cooper stands completely speechless after Whitney Cummings says Dems couldn’t hold a primary because they were too busy holding up a dead body.

“It was amazing that the Pro-Choice Party didn't give their voters one…”pic.twitter.com/EtxIcMKRXZ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 1, 2025

Kamala Harris, asked if she's made a mistake that she's learned from, could have nailed it by ending her painful fumbling by saying...

Oh. My. God.

That Kamala town hall is it

Holy fuck

Listen and SHARE THIS pic.twitter.com/r7sq3lfWR8

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 24, 2024

... after "It's a mistake not to be well-versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question" — she just needed to add: And that's exactly what I'm in the middle of doing right now, so here I am, learning from a mistake in real time, and that's the end of my terrible answer. Learning!

Everyone's talking about whether Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," after John Kelly "read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online."

I saw that Kamala Harris, doing a town hall on CNN last night, "agreed" that Trump meets "the definition of a fascist," but she did not, herself, define "fascist," so I wondered what she was doing, embracing a conclusion, calling names. I live in a city where you can get called a "fascist" for venturing that Justice Scalia wrote a well-reasoned opinion. Among left-wingers, the definition of "fascist" is: right-wing. It's a shibboleth. To call someone a "fascist" is to identify yourself as on the left.

So it's a good thing to interpose the idea that a definition is needed, and it's interesting to see that Anderson Cooper did not ask Harris is Trump a fascist. But he did not task her with providing a definition. He just asked her whether Trump met the definition of a fascist. What's a home viewer to do? 

I didn't watch the town hall live. Frankly, I didn't know it was on. Which is odd considering that I read the news all day yesterday and it was a 90-minute CNN extravaganza. Hard to hide, one would think. And yet it was hidden from me.

The first headline I saw this morning was "Harris says in CNN town hall she agrees Trump is a fascist" (WaPo). Agrees? Who is she agreeing with? It was confusing, because the article only says that the moderator, Anderson Cooper, asked her if she believed Trump is a fascist. Who is she supposedly agreeing with? I don't think Cooper expressed an opinion. (That would be wrong. He was the moderator. Whatever he may think, he can't properly say it.)

I quickly figure out that this traces back to an October 22 article in the NYT, by Michael S. Schmidt: "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator/John Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist." Boldface added.

In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online.

Good for Kelly for sensing that a definition is required. Bad for Kelly for just finding something on line and reading it out loud... 

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.

... and quickly concluding that the definition is met:

Mr. Kelly said that definition accurately described Mr. Trump.

“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Mr. Kelly said.

He thinks... but didn't do in 4 years in office? When did Trump ever say that the better way to run America is through "centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition [and] belief in a natural social hierarchy"? 

Are you wondering where on line Kelly found his definition? Make the most obvious guess and you will be right:

"The man you were so disturbed to hear from last night, that man is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president."

"And according to polling, no other Republican is even close. That man you were so upset to hear from last night, he may be president of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you, that's a sampling of about half the country. They are your family member, your neighbors, and they are voting.... Maybe you've been enjoying not hearing from him thinking it can't happen again. Some investigation is going to stop him. Well, it hasn't so far. So if last night showed anything, it showed it can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn't changed, and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?"

Said Anderson Cooper last night (transcript and video at RCP).

ADDED: And here's what Trump saw fit to post at Truth Social:

AND: Just after he passed along that humor, he put up this very serious ad, which makes it crushingly clear how vulnerable Biden is to Trump:

"She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until the commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be raped."

Said Donald Trump, in his deposition, quoted in "Trump claimed woman who accused him of sexual assault in a luxury department store said 'rape was sexy' and 'indicated that she loved it'" (Insider). The deposition was made public on Friday.

Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan then asked the former president: "So, sir, I just want to confirm: It's your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?"

That gave Trump the opportunity to clarify that he was just talking about something he heard her say in an interview she did on television:

"First of all, kids don't get the vaccine —get COVID very often... so you're the safest group of people in the whole world, number one."

"Number two, you're not likely to be able to be exposed to something and spread it to mommy or daddy. And it's not likely mommy and daddy are able to spread it to you either. So I wouldn't worry about it, baby. I promise you. But I know it's kind of worrisome. Wait, are you in first grade? Second grade? Oh, you're getting old. Second grade. Well, has your school — have you been in school, honey? No? See, that's — that's kind of a scary thing, too. You don't get to go to school. You don't get to see your friends. And so what a lot of kids and, I mean, and big people, too, older people, they just — their whole lives have sort of changed like when it used to be. It used to be you just go outside and play with your friends and get in the school bus and go to school, and everything was normal. And now, when things change, people get really worried and scared. But don't be scared, honey. Don't be scared. You're going to be fine. And we're going to make sure mommy is fine, too."

Joe Biden talks to an 8-year-old at the CNN Presidential Town Hall With Joe Biden. 

I thought that was interesting, Biden interacting with a child, verbally, from a distance, calling her "baby" and "honey."

I was also interested in this bit about schoolkids:

Did Scott Walker hang up on Anderson Cooper?

Scott Walker, whose 2016 campaign autobiography was titled Unintimidated, gets a tough question from @CNN’s Anderson Cooper and... appears to turn off the video link.pic.twitter.com/Q2KQKV64Ic

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) August 28, 2020

"If you can’t keep a Fox News correspondent from getting attacked directly across from your house, how can you protect my family? How are you going to protect the country? How hard are you trying?"

Said Tucker Carlson, quoted in "Tucker Carlson of Fox News Accuses Trump of Being Too Lenient on Protests/In a sign of partisan divide, his monologue came as Anderson Cooper of CNN criticized Mr. Trump for calling protesters 'thugs'" (NYT).

More Tucker: "[I]f you don’t protect them — or, worse, if you seem like you can’t be bothered to protect them — then you’re done. It’s over. People will not forgive weakness." That was after Trump's little speech yesterday about dominating the streets and sending in the military even if state and local government don't want it.

Over on CNN, Anderson Cooper said: "The president seems to think dominating black people, dominating peaceful protesters, is law and order. He calls them ‘thugs.’ Who is the thug here? Hiding in a bunker, hiding behind a suit. Who is the thug?"

Joe Biden did a town hall about coronavirus last night on CNN, and I don't think there is a single news article about it...

... other than on CNN itself, which doesn't seem to have a transcript, only "5 takeaways from Joe Biden's CNN town hall on the coronavirus response."

We watched most of it, and I was going to do a substantial blog post about it — if I had a transcript. But I've just go this stupid "5 takeaways" format, which is highly protective of Joe Biden. I watched to see what kind of shape he was in, because I didn't think he had the ability to string cogent sentences together. I can report that when I switched it off somewhere after the midpoint, I said, "He wasn't that bad." Nevertheless, he was not challenged by any of the questions — from Anderson Cooper and various citizens — and he never said anything clear that distinguished himself from Trump or that hit Trump in any serious way.

Biden relied on a rhetorical device that has been driving me crazy throughout the campaign season. It's the phrase "make sure." There's a question about how some desired goal can be reached, and the answer is: We need to make sure that we reach that goal. That's no answer! If I had the transcript, I'd pick out the examples. But — just hypothetically — assume the question is "What would you do about the shortage of ventilators?" The "make sure" answer is — with verbiage to pad the nonanswer — "I would make sure that we have plenty of ventilators." Start looking for it. It's everywhere!

But there's no "make sure" in the few snippets in the pathetical little "5 takeaways" article. We used to scoff at junky little articles like that and call them "listicles." They were the stuff of Buzzfeed. But now it's all we get when the major-party opponent to the President goes on TV for an hour (or was it 2 hours?) to enlighten us about his positions on a mind-crushing crisis.

CNN tells us he offered "an uplifting message — one in tune with his campaign's core theme — about the soul of the nation being on display in Americans' reaction to the crisis." That's a paraphrase of this quote from Biden:

Anderson Cooper pays tribute to his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, who has died at the age of 95.

The follow-up question Anderson Cooper should have asked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she said "Yeah" to his "Do you believe President Trump is a racist?"

I don't think I'm seeing a full transcript to last night's "60 Minutes" (at the "60 Minutes" website), but here's the section of the interview that I'm seeing and reacting to:

Anderson Cooper: You don't talk about President Trump very much.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: No.

Anderson Cooper: Why?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: No. Because I think he's a symptom of a problem.

Anderson Cooper: What do you mean?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The president certainly didn't invent racism. But he's certainly given a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things.

Anderson Cooper: Do you believe President Trump is a racist?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah. Yeah. No question.

Anderson Cooper: How can you say that?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: (CHUCKLE) When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy. When you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident, where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it's— it's night and day.

"How can you say that?" is open-ended and dull, and she heard it as an invitation to serve up something that seems sort of factual.

Amusingly enough, she talked like Trump, with sentences that began with "When you look at...". When you look at X... what? She (like Trump) is gesturing at something and instead of detailing what's in her head, she involves us. Just look! If we look, we will connect the dots the way she does... however that it.

She referred to one occasion when Trump uttered some words, but she doesn't quote the words. We have to remember them or look them up, and she's performing the assumption that if we do that, we will understand that Trump is a racist. (For the record, what Trump said was: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.")

But what I wish Cooper had asked her about is: Do you believe that racism is pervasive in America — and in human beings — and that everyone is, to some extent, racist? And: Do you think that some of the people who — unlike you — talk about Trump a lot and call him a racist are failing to face up to their own racism?

I would assume her answer would be yes. If everyone is racist, the question whether Trump is a racist is easy.

Speaking of white men not "reflecting the gender and racial diversity" we've come to expect in liberal America — see previous post — look at what just came in the email from CNN?

No Kathy?! I knew that was happening, but they're not replacing her with a woman? There was a rumor that the replacement was going to be Leslie Jones (a black woman):

Griffin says she heard from a few different people a hosting rumor. “The hilarious @Lesdoggg (Leslie Jones) was in talks to co-host CNN’s New Year’s telecast with Anderson Cooper this year,” Griffin wrote. “I was elated when I heard this news. If I can’t get the gig, I will cheer for Leslie.”... But then Griffin says Jones was iced out of the hosting position...

So we have Andy Cohen, gleefully smiling as he grips his phallic-symbol bottle of popping champagne. I actually don't even know who Andy Cohen is, but that laughing face just makes me feel really bad about the ousting of Kathy. That picture looks like something from the days of Rowan and Martin. Smirking, self-pleased white men in tuxedos.

Trump motormouthing on "Fox and Friends" this morning.

My notes, jotted down in real time, listening to this after posting the video:

The question Anderson Cooper failed to ask Stormy Daniels.

This is so obvious to me that it's weird to point out. From the transcript, here's a key interchange after which Cooper moves on to another topic:

Anderson Cooper: And you had sex with him.

Stormy Daniels: Yes.

Anderson Cooper: You were 27, he was 60. Were you physically attracted to him?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Not at all?

Stormy Daniels: No.

Anderson Cooper: Did you want to have sex with him?

Stormy Daniels: No. But I didn't-- I didn't say no. I'm not a victim, I'm not--

Anderson Cooper: It was entirely consensual.

Stormy Daniels: Oh, yes, yes.

The obvious next question is: If you weren't attracted to him and you didn't want to have sex with him and it was entirely consensual, why did you have sex with him?

Don't tell me the answer is so obvious that the question shouldn't have been asked. She should have been required to state explicitly why she had sex with him if she didn't want to have sex with him. Personally I believe that sex should be an even exchange — sex for sex. If one party to the sex needs an extra sweetener to close the deal, that's not good sex, and neither party should want it. You should give sexual access to your body because you want sex, not because someone who wants sexual access to your body has something else you want. And you shouldn't want to gain sexual access to the body of a person who doesn't want sexual access to your body but is only putting up with your body because you've got something else they want.

I think it's bad behavior to give or accept sex under the conditions described by Stormy Daniels and it should have been part of the interview. It's awful to hear a woman scoff at the idea that she could have wanted to have sex with a 60-year-old man as if of course it's utterly gross, what do you think?!! Why is she on TV just laughing at an older man having sexual interests? Flesh out the whole story! If she didn't want him for sex, what was her motivation? Was it straightforward prostitution or something somewhere on the prostitution spectrum — some kind of Harvey Weinstein dangling of career opportunity having to do with "Celebrity Apprentice"?

ADDED: If I go a little further back in the colloquy above, we can get to some material that suggests Daniels was a "Cat Person" sort of individual who went from one thing to the next and found it harder to extract herself than to just go through the motions. She'd been in Trump's hotel room, having dinner, and she excused herself to go to the bathroom, and when she emerged, he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Prompted by Anderson Cooper to describe her thoughts...

Stormy Daniels: I realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into. And I was like, "Ugh, here we go." (LAUGH) And I just felt like maybe-- (LAUGH) it was sort of-- I had it coming for making a bad decision for going to someone's room alone and I just heard the voice in my head, "well, you put yourself in a bad situation and bad things happen, so you deserve this."

Where sex is not an even sex-for-sex exchange, it's either on the prostitution spectrum or the rape spectrum. This passage makes it sound like the rape spectrum, and I don't mean rape in the criminal sense, but something that can be called self-rape. But Daniels strenuously distances herself from that idea as the interview continues.

I watched the Stormy Daniels show on "60 Minutes." Did you?

Video and transcript here, in case you need to catch up.

Anderson Cooper: He was showing you his own picture on the cover of a magazine.

Stormy Daniels: Right, right. And so I was like, "Does this-- does this normally work for you?" And he looked very taken-- taken back, like, he didn't really understand what I was saying. Like, I was-- does, just, you know, talking about yourself normally work?" And I was like, "Someone should take that magazine and spank you with it." (LAUGH) And I'll never forget the look on his face. He was like--

Anderson Cooper: What-- what was his look?

Stormy Daniels: Just, I don't think anyone's ever spoken to him like that, especially, you know, a young woman who looked like me. And I said, you know, "Give me that," and I just remember him going, "You wouldn't." "Hand it over." And-- so he did, and I was like, turn around, drop 'em."

Anderson Cooper: You-- you told Donald Trump to turn around and take off his pants.

Stormy Daniels: Yes.

Anderson Cooper: And did he?

Stormy Daniels: Yes. So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little -- you know had underwear on and stuff and I just gave him a couple swats.

Anderson Cooper: This was done in a joking manner....

"It was kind of obvious that there was an attraction — from his part to me."

I haven't watched the whole thing. That quote happens in the first 2 minutes. We had to pause to laugh a lot. Meade went into an extended comic rant in which Trump's penis was likened to a divining rod...



ADDED: I really don't have the patience to sit through the whole video, so let me snag a few quotes from the NPR article, because there is something I want to say if I can find my way to it:

Once, she said, he even took her to the apartment in Trump Tower that he lived in with his wife and their young son, Barron. "Aren't you afraid to bring me here?"

"They won't say anything," Trump supposedly said. He showed her around the "very gold" apartment and pointed out Melania's room saying, "she likes to get away to read."... "Doing something wrong is bad enough and when you're doing something wrong and you're in the middle of somebody else's home or bed or whatever, that just puts a little stab in your heart," she said.

Instapundit rewrites "Cat Person" from the man's point of view.

Part of it anyway, with some good sideways snark at Anderson Cooper.

Did Anderson Cooper call Trump a "tool" and a "pathetic loser"?

Or did "someone gain[] access to [his] twitter account," which is what somebody with access to Anderson Cooper's Twitter account is saying now?

Link goes to Breitbart, which calls this "yet another catastrophic blow to CNN’s credibility, a news outlet that indentifies as objective."

ADDED: Breitbart can snark "a news outlet that indentifies as objective," I presume, because Breitbart does not "identify as objective."

That reminds me... yesterday Fox News had an article "CNN mocked for airing segment on Trump's soda consumption while NYC faced terror attack," and it has this:

While viewers scrambled to hear the latest news, several people took to Twitter to mock CNN’s programming’s decision. Blogger Ann Althouse noted that the New York Times article that first mentioned Trump’s soda habit came out a few days ago and added, “CNN is hopeless,” after expressing frustration that CNN didn’t offer the live report on the attempted terror attack.

Would it kill them to link? Here.

"I encourage you to take a stand for our core principles and for what is right. These critical times require us to come together..."

"... to reject bigotry, sexism, and intolerance," said Condoleezza Rice, speaking as "a native daughter" who "at heart, remain[s] an Alabaman who loves our state and its devotion to faith, family, and country."

Which side is she on?

It is imperative for Americans to remain focused on our priorities and not give way to side shows and antics. 

Now, she's saying "Americans," not "Alabamans," and she's using the word "imperative." That sounds like an elite outsider, lecturing. And she is an elite outsider, having got out. But she was speaking in Alabama, at the Invest in a Girl Celebration at the Von Braun Center, in Huntsville.

It's hard to tell which direction her abstraction points. It's the anti-Moore forces that have put on the "side show and antics," right? Or is Roy Moore's whole public persona a "side show" with "antics"? (I'm thinking of his 10 Commandments routine and pandering about sexual "perversion.") Maybe Rice means that both sides are distracting voters with side issues. She says "focus[] on priorities." Does that mean focus on what legislation you want Congress to pass? Or does she mean personal morality?

She continues:

I know that Alabamans need an independent voice in Washington. But we must also insist that our representatives are dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear.

Which candidate is the "independent voice"? And does that "But" mean that the one who's not the independent voice is the one who's "dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear" or is she just saying we want both things? And what are "the values we hold dear" — not dating and kissing underage girls or not aborting babies? Is Rice trying to be the master of ambiguity?

She switches to the bland value of just voting:

Please exercise your right to vote - a privilege won by the sacrifices of our ancestors. 

There's also a right not to vote. And a privilege not to vote. Many very sensible and good people believe in not voting. Some people have a religious scruple against voting,* some have the comic/distanced attitude expressed in the old line "I don't want to encourage them,"**  and some are  maintaining neutrality so that they can analyze everything better.***

Condi concludes:

Sustain the central ideals and values that make our country a beacon for freedom and justice for the sake of Alabama and for the good of the United States of America.

I think she's trying to say something without saying anything — trying to be appropriate in an elevated setting in the strange, specific state where she grew up (and Denise McNair did not).
____________________

* Wikipedia on "Religious rejection of politics":

Many Taoists have rejected political involvement on the grounds that it is insincere or artificial and a life of contemplation in nature is more preferable, while some ascetic schools of Hinduism or Buddhism also reject political involvement for similar reasons. In Christianity, some groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, the Amish, Hutterites, and the Exclusive Brethren may reject politics on the grounds that they believe Christ's statements about the kingdom not being of the world mean that earthly politics can or should be rejected.

In other religious systems it can relate to a rejection of nationalism or even the concept of nations. In certain schools of Islamic thinking nations are a creation of Western imperialism and ultimately all Muslims should be united religiously in the umma.... Likewise various Christian denominations reject any involvement in national issues considering it to be a kind of idolatry called statolatry. Most Christians who rejected the idea of nations have associated with the Christian Left.

** Some of the best comedians take this position, often with better lines than the old joke I quoted above. For example, George Carlin:

"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote -- who did not even leave the house on Election Day -- am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created."

I know: the joke there probably is that he does vote, and you're an idiot if you don't.

*** Scott Adams has an April 2016 post on "The Value of Not Voting":

Anderson Cooper of CNN says he probably won’t vote in the coming election. He says voting would bias him when he covers political news. I agree.

I call it the joiner problem. The minute you take a side, you start acquiring confirmation bias to bolster your sense of rightness. Objectivity is nearly impossible once you commit to a team.

The way confirmation bias works is that you can’t see it when you’re in it. Other people might be able to observe the bias in you, but by definition you can’t see it in yourself. The act of voting causes a sort of psychological blindness.

I would be in this group if I weren't a longtime devotee of the ritual of voting (and maybe if, like Cooper and Adams, I didn't live in a swing state) but I do decline to decide until the time to vote arrives, and I have at least twice picked my presidential candidate as I walked to my polling place.