We'll forget how to agonize about money in politics if it keeps getting spent with such ineffective and hilarious profligacy.

"The Harris campaign paid Oprah $1 million to do that interview, and she spent $100,000 building the set of the Call Her Daddy podcast so Kamala Harris wouldn’t have to fly out to LA to film it."

The Harris campaign paid Oprah $1 million to do that interview, and she spent $100,000 building the set of the Call Her Daddy podcast so Kamala Harris wouldn’t have to fly out to LA to film it. pic.twitter.com/rg0dthCR7c

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) November 9, 2024

ADDED: "How Kamala Harris plowed through $1 billion" (Washington Examiner).

The delightful subjectivity of money in politics.

Funny that she has never said a word about Soros, who has cumulatively put a hundred times more money into elections than I have 🤔

If I can figure out 🚀science with SpaceX and 🧠 surgery with Neuralink, then maybe I can figure out politics too 🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/cW9sKHGgs3

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2024

What was "deeply good" about Harry Reid?

"Few people have done more for this state and this country than this driven, brilliant, sometimes irascible, deeply good man from Searchlight, Nevada."

Said Barack Obama, quoted in the Washington Post account of yesterday's memorial service for Reid.

It's the "deeply" that gets you. It draws so much attention to "good." We might have let it go — was Harry Reid good? — if "deeply" hadn't forced us to stop and stare.

I haven't used my "deeply (the word!)" tag since last May.

Here's the original post — in 2014 — where I created the tag.

There are so many trite usages — deeply in love, deeply disappointed, deeply religious, thinking deeply, deeply troubled, deeply concerned, deeply offended, deeply regret — and "deeply" is deeply embedded in constitutional law doctrine with the phrase "deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition."

I went back into my own archive to see how I had used it over the years and, funnily enough, the first thing on my list was about something Obama famously said about Kamala Harris:

1. "Beauty is a system of power, deeply rooted, preceding all others, richly rewarded," wrote Garace Franke-Ruta, explaining "Why Obama's 'Best-Looking Attorney General' Comment Was a Gaffe."...

Oh, what's not a gaffe these days? 

But back to the memorial service. Biden and Pelosi spoke too, and both of them told a joke premised on the reputation Reid had for being untalkative. 

Here's Biden joke : "Harry and I both liked to talk a lot... I’m just testing whether you’re asleep yet."

Here's Pelosi's: "He was a man of few words — and he wanted everyone else to be a person of few words."

They kept it light. There was an opportunity to go much lighter on the man-of-few-words theme — man of even fewer words now, ha ha — or to go much more deeply....

But I won't end with the end of Hamlet. I will lighten up and give Chuck Schumer the last word, because who doesn't love kissing and because I have a "saliva" tag that I get a kick out of using:

It was election night 2006, when Democrat Claire McCaskill won her race in Missouri, a victory that gave control of the Senate to Democrats, and Reid rushed over and kissed McCaskill through the television screen.

“His lips remained attached to the TV screen for a full 10 seconds,” Schumer said. “I had to get up and wipe the copious spittle off the TV screen.”

"[Mike Pence is] a good debater. So, I’m so concerned, like I can only disappoint."

Said Kamala Harris, speaking at a fundraiser, quoted in "Kamala Harris Downplays Debate Skills as Buttigieg Stands In for Pence" (Bloomberg). I hope I'm detecting sarcasm in that "I’m so concerned, like I can only disappoint."

The article also quotes Senator Claire McCaskill: "I think Kamala is suffering from too high of expectations in terms of her debate performance with Pence.... I think we all like need to take a deep breath and quit saying, ‘I can’t wait for Kamala to debate Pence.’ It won’t be like that. It won’t be that Pence will be laying bleeding on the floor when Kamala is done. So, we’ve got to lower expectations for Kamala and keep the expectations for Biden low."

Is this elite? Or is this what elite people scoff at?

Attention Trump supporters:
Does this make you not want to vote for Trump?
Do Trump's enemies understand why you're voting for him? https://t.co/a4sBhPcSvC

— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️‍♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) September 20, 2020

ADDED: As noted on this blog back in 2017, there's a difference between elite and elitist: "I'm not elitist. I'm elite. There's a difference." I would suggest to McCaskill that Trump is elite but he is not elitist.

Is it sexist to tell a woman to smile?

Dem. Sen. Claire McCaskill says HRC should smile a lot during debate. When I said that, I was called a sexist. https://t.co/U9T5GnZJe1

— Brit Hume (@brithume) September 16, 2016

It depends on how you say it. And in this case, it depends on whether we think you're actually trying to help or just criticizing her — and whether criticizing you seems like a way to stir up energy in support of the woman.

But in general, it seems that people expect more sociability and openness from a woman and are more likely to feel uneasy it she keeps a stern or grim face. The relaxed female face gets the jocose description "resting bitch face." So serious women can have trouble being serious as people express what might only be a simple desire to overcome their own uneasiness but might also be a more virulent urge to exclude women from serious enterprises. So it's naive to become another one of those people who tell women to smile.

But smiling is still a great facial expression that most people ought to want to know how to use to their advantage, and some advice to smile is good and not always sexist. Other people are absurdly responsive to smiling.

Here's my experience. I do a lot of walking around town, an average of 4 miles a day (according to an app in my iPhone), and I'm nearly always listening to audiobooks, and I tend to listen to serious things. There was the summer I listened to "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and all the many months it took to get through the 4 volumes of Robert A. Caro's biography of LBJ.

I don't look at my face when I'm walking, but I assume I look fairly grim when listening to that sort of thing. But sometimes I put iTunes with a shuffled playlist of songs I'm pretty sure I'm going to like to hear if they pop up — The Monkees "I Wanna Be Free," Herman's Hermits "Dandy," Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives," Cher "All I Really Wanna Do," etc. etc. Again, I'm not looking at my face. But I know I must be smiling, because suddenly, on my usual walk, everyone I pass looks at me and smiles, like they're seeing an old friend.

"It is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters..."

Writes Mitt Romney at Facebook.

Have you noticed the overuse of the notion of "qualification" in this election cycle? It irritates me. It sounds so high-handed to declare the other person "disqualified."

Bernie Sanders asserted that Hillary had said that he's "not qualified to be president," and he took off on her:

"I don't believe that she is qualified if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don't think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your Super PAC. I don't think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think you are qualified if you've supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs." 

In fact, Bernie's assertion about Hillary was rated "mostly false" by Politifact. She avoided — even when pushed — using that word against him. She was cagey enough to respond to "Is he qualified?" with a list of his supposed shortcomings and "that does raise a lot of questions." Bernie's assertion that Hillary is unqualified brought out the indignant supporters:

Prominent surrogates for Mrs. Clinton such as Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri vouched for her qualifications and warned that Mr. Sanders was crossing the line.

“Calling Hillary Clinton not qualified is like fingernails on a black board to many women across this country, and I think Bernie probably knows that,” Ms. McCaskill told MSNBC on Thursday.

Having lived through the Bernie-and-Hillary back-and-forth over who's "qualified," I was annoyed by Romney's approach. We already knew how much Romney opposes Trump. It might be desirable that presidential candidates release their tax returns, but it's not on the level of being 35 years old and a natural-born citizen.

Spare me the q-word.

"Do people even know who he is? Wow. He will do anything to show his body."

Said Claire McCaskill about Scott Brown.

"It was so surreal, all of the women in the Senate used to talk about how he would figure out some way, every time he had a conversation, to work in something about his body. Like, 'I was on the treadmill in the gym this morning and I saw you on MSNBC,' or 'You know, I was running at lunch today and' — and he did it to all of us! We all compared notes."

When is it okay to say "I know you feel that you’re a victim... If you would be more careful, maybe you wouldn’t be victimized as frequently"?

Will we ever get back to old-school victim-blaming?

The quote is from Claire McCaskill.

The context is of course nothing anywhere near advising women to take precautions and learn how to defend against sexual assaults, which is why I stripped out the context to expose the abstract concept of demanding that people activate themselves to deflect the offenses of others.

The actual context is Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has talked about products on his TV show but doesn't (he says) authorize the use of his name, his image, or his quotes as these products are marketed. He testified this week at a Senate hearing on weight-loss scams, like green coffee extract, which Dr. Oz called "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat." Asked "why you need to say this stuff [when] you know it’s not true," Dr. Oz said something inane about challenging the "orthodoxy" of scientifically tested medicine with "alternative medical therapies," which he likened to "the power of prayer." He offered people hope, he insisted, and he said he doesn't make money on the sale of these products:

"I do not endorse any products or receive any money from any products that are sold... I have never allowed my image to be used in any ad."

Claire McCaskill, the Democratic Missouri senator who chaired the hearing, was not having any of that. “I know you feel that you’re a victim,” she said. “If you would be more careful, maybe you wouldn’t be victimized as frequently.”

This hardcore resistance to the plea of victimhood is context-specific for McCaskill, who has vigilantly policed statements about women and rape. Remember, she won reelection in Missouri by demolishing Todd Akin over something inept he said about rape.

Rand Paul thinks anyone who raised money through Bill Clinton ought to give the money back.

Or they really shouldn't be pushing their bona fides on women’s rights. Because Bill Clinton is a "guy who was using his position of authority to take advantage of young women in the workplace.” Paul cites the figure $850,000 as the amount paid to Paula Jones to settle her sexual harassment complaint.

And Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri said "I don’t want my daughter near [Bill Clinton]." But that was back in 2006.

"'Hate' is too weak a word to describe the feelings that Hillary’s core loyalists still have for McCaskill," according to a new book, "HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton."

McCaskill supported Obama in '08, but she needs to get right with the Clintons. Here she is, stepping up to defend them now, against the righteous gender politics of Rand Paul. She says: "I think most women understand that they should not be held accountable for the behaviors of their husbands. And you know, frankly, it was a long time ago, and our country did very well under the leadership of Bill Clinton."

I don't get the applicability of the general proposition that "women... should not be held accountable for the behaviors of their husbands." When a woman allies with a man and remain allied with him as she seeks vast political power, how can she disaggregate herself from him? She actively facilitated him, and she did it in a way that was also about furthering her own career:



Surely, she's accountable for that! This isn't about some little woman who stayed home and baked cookies and had teas. This is Hillary Clinton, who was there actively fighting right alongside her husband, and who went on to leverage her experience in that role in a climb to immense power.

I think Republicans mostly get into trouble trying to play the gender politics game against the Democrats, but Rand Paul seems to have some special power and will to step up and play. It's quite helpful, healthy, and refreshing. I will take a front-row seat as an avid spectator on days when Rand Paul is playing.

Congressional Democrats whine that their boyfriend never calls them.

Politico reports.

Interviews with dozens of members of Congress and senior aides reveal frustration and in some cases exasperation.... These Democrats say they almost never hear from Obama personally... [T]he president evidences no interest in getting to know them or their political circumstances....

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), an early Obama supporter in 2008 and top surrogate in that race, put it this way: “Everyone loves a touch. It’s not his favorite part of the job. But it’s a necessary part of the job.”

Everyone loves a touch....

McCaskill 48%, Akin 38%.

Rasmussen, today.

"The president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General."

She = Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.