Am I the only one who is noticing that the TV talking-heads news shows are shifting their approach to...

... makeup? A month or so ago, I couldn't listen to what they were saying because I was exclaiming that they looked like they were wearing rubber masks. It was freaky. The skin did not look like skin. How did I know these were human beings at all rather than simulacra? But something seems to have changed in this past week. Maybe it's the summer heat and air conditioning doesn't work right anymore, but I've seen at least 2 shows with panelists gleaming as if they were sweating. Is this a deliberate reenvisioning of the best way to do makeup for high-definition television? The panelists convey reality more convincingly, and now I can't hear what they're saying because I'm talking over them about how they're all sweating, they're glowing, as if they are live, breathing, feeling human beings.

From the Wikipedia article "Simulacrum":

Simulacra have long been of interest to philosophers. In his Sophist, Plato speaks of two kinds of image making. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives the example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed....

If we could see Jake Tapper eye-to-eye, we would realize... what?!

Postmodernist French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. According to Baudrillard, what the simulacrum copies either had no original or no longer has an original (think a copy of a copy without an original). Where Plato saw two types of representation—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard sees four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever."...  

A great topic! To be continued! New tag: "simulacra."

ADDED: Another makeup anomaly I've been seeing is what looks like painted-on lower eyelashes on men — something like what Twiggy did in the 1960s:



I don't think this is drawn on with eyeliner, Twiggy-style. I think it is added on within the computer. Look for these eyelashes, please, and let me know when you see them. They're freaky! I suspect the rubberized look I was seeing was also a computer manipulation.

If you had to remember one thing from the debate last night, what would it be?

I ask out loud. Meade answers: "He's an okay doctor." That was Ben Carson, repurposing something Trump had recently said about him and using it about Trump.

And then: "Trump was so handsy with everyone." Yeah, Trump kept reaching out and touching Ben Carson — who reconfigured a Trump attempt at a high 5 into something approaching a normal handshake. At a later point, Trump got the man on his other side — Jeb Bush — to give him an enthusiastic handslap.

Me, if I had to remember one thing, it would be how everyone was sweating profusely at the beginning. Everyone except Carly Fiorina, and I attributed her lack of sweat to the heavier layer of makeup that, as a woman, she was able to slather on to shield her from our nosy HDTV-enabled eyes.

ADDED: Typo corrected: I had written "a high 4." I've always been bad at touch-typing numbers. Or maybe it had to do with just having watched those clips of Jimmy Fallon interviewing Hillary Clinton on his show last night. Jimmy has that trademark white bandage taking one of his fingers out of the running, out of the fingering. Here's the part where she invites Jimmy to grab her hair (to prove that it, unlike Trump's is real):



She also does a Trump impersonation. Earlier on the show, as you've perhaps already seen, Fallon does his amusing Trump impersonation, in a sketch with "Trump" talking to Hillary on the phone:



They both did a pretty good job with that, and you've got to give the Hillary people some credit for coming up with a sure-fire way for her to drag media attention away from the big GOP debate.

Purchase of the day.

Yesterday, Sunday February 11. Head & Shoulders Clinical Strength Anti Dandruff Shampoo 14.2 Fl Oz (Pack of 2) (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $0.97)

Honorable mentions:

VIZIO E701i-A3 70-inch 1080p 120Hz Razor LED Smart HDTV (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $64.00)

"Coolidge" [Hardcover] Amity Shlaes (Author) (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.53)

Rheem Ruud Weatherking Factory OEM Protech Parts 62-22868-93 Furnace Hot Surface Ignitor (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.86)

Plus 32 other purchases. Thanks to all who used the portal.

"Snigdha Nandipati is up first. Her word is 'meridienne' and she gets it right!"

"She likes collecting coins and reading mystery novels. I love her geeky cheer."

It's time for the National Spelling Bee again, and that means the best place to hang out — other than in front of ESPN — is at Throwing Things, where they are bursting with knowledge... and geeky cheer.

I appreciated the prompt to go set the DVR. I hate when I find out from the news that the spelling bee was on because so-and-so spelled some word. The whole point is to live through the dramatic emotions of young kids who really care about doing something difficult really, really well. I'll watch it on HDTV, pores and all. Are the kids self-conscious about the close inspection they're getting? They never seem like they are, which is cool.

Please don't tell me I should watch one of those movies about the spelling bee. I've seen them and find them tedious, in part because they skip over the tedium that you need to live through to feel the highs.

"Porexia."

A newly coined word for people who've gone all obsessive about the size of their pores.  And speaking of words...

High-definition television has arguably upped the ante. Consider the celebrity with glistening teeth and yogic arms, but a jarringly pock-marked nose in close-ups. Viewers think, “If her pores look like that, what do mine look like?” said Dr. Mary Lupo, a clinical professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine.

... somebody needs to tell the New York Times that pock marks are not pores.

And maybe somebody needs to show these porexic whiners what real skin damage looks like.

Margaret Carlson says that Sarah Palin is "becoming old, aging in dog years."

And she needs to watch out for Christine O'Donnell...

Although with soft lighting, the pair look like they were separated at birth, in fact, the baby-faced O'Donnell looks less like a twin than a daughter. Time is cruel to women, especially on HDTV. Your older man becomes a distinguished Old Lion and a woman just becomes old, aging in dog years. O'Donnell at 41 is five years younger than the 46-year-old Palin, who is a grandmother after all.

Dogs, eh? Sounds more like cats!



Meow!

Help me understand baseball uniforms.

Years ago -- in the 1970s -- I used to watch baseball on a little TV, and I thought the players looked great. Last night, I checked out a little of game 1 of the World Series. I don't think it was just the extra sharpness of HDTV:

The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas. I remember tight pants. These are all baggy. What a bunch of slobs! And look at all that litter in the dugout. And all the nutshells in front of the dugout. Ugh! The aesthetics!

In the comments, Bart Hall wrote:

One reason for "baggy" pants is that any pitch brushing the uniform in any way is called as a hit batter, and most of the strike zone is down in the pants region. Even an ankle-high pitch brushing the pants gets a trip to first base.

Well, fine then. How about adapting this look for the ball park?

It's too cold for people to sit outside at State Street Brats.

But it was very pretty passing by just as the Backstreet Boys were singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to open the World Series.



Sorry for the wind (and bus) noise, but I love when you can hear girls exclaiming "Sounds like the Backstreet Boys," "Yeah, it is!"

ADDED: When I got home, I watched a bit of the game on HDTV, and I was shocked. Is it just the HD? The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas. I remember tight pants. These are all baggy. What a bunch of slobs! And look at all that litter in the dugout. And all the nutshells in front of the dugout. Ugh! The aesthetics!

Live-blogging the VP debate.

7:31, Central Time: I'm here, eating strozzapreti with burned tomato sauce, counting the last few minutes before the grand showdown.

7:39: Strozzapreti? "Priest choker"!

7:55: Are you going to watch on CNN, with the uncommitted viewers' reaction lines undulating at the bottom of the screen? Wow. That's crazy! I can't tolerate that distraction, and the "persuadable" voters they've assembled are... not people I feel like monitoring on a real-time basis.

7:58: What are you looking for, mainly? Honestly, I'm mainly looking to see if Sarah Palin can sound reasonably competent.

8:02: The 2 candidates stride out, both dressed in black. "Hey, can I call you Joe?" we hear Sarah say. Palin looks tiny behind her lectern. She's behind her lectern there, and here's where I am, chez Althouse:



8:06: Palin's flag pin is way bigger than Biden's. Biden has a brown dot on his forehead. Palin refers to "the fundamental" of our economy. She's speaking too quickly, sounding nervous.

8:09: Whose fault is the sub-prime mortgage meltdown? Palin says the moneylenders have taken advantage of people, and she mentions "hockey moms" a second time. Biden blames Republican deregulation. Biden's forehead wrinkles only way over on the side, while the whole center is smooth and flat. What do you think? Botox?

8:13: Palin says she might not answer the questions the way the monitor wants, but she's going to talk straight to the American people. She reveals her overarching strategy. And I note that she's speaking clearly and confidently. There is no stumbling or fear, as far as I can see.

8:19: Joe Biden is going to "eliminate those wasteful spending."

8:27: I'll bet a lot of people are tuning out about now, satisfied that Palin is competent and smart, but pretty bored.

8:29: I'm reading Andrew Sullivan: "Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one's ability to even quite absorb what she's saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It's Biden who seems over-crammed." It seems to me that both of them are spewing policy (and it's getting tiresome). "Chirpiness"... I don't know, Andrew... that reads as sexist to me. Why is she overwhelming your ability to absorb what she's saying? Is she working some voodoo on you... and on Biden?

8:34: Palin said "Senator O'Biden."

8:35: Palin razzes Biden on clean coal. Is he for it or not? Biden says he's for it, and his rope-line comment was about his support for exporting clean coal technology to China. That doesn't seem to fit the text of his remark (which he claims was "taken out of context").

8:37: Biden passionately expresses support for equal treatment for same-sex couples, and Palin opposes same-sex marriage, but says that in all other ways she's completely tolerant of adults forming their own relationships. Biden then is given the opportunity to disavow gay marriage, which he eagerly does. Okaaaay.

8:40: Palin is praising the surge and insisting on victory in Iraq. "It would be a travesty if we quit now." Biden complains that she didn't state a plan. On the split screen, when Biden is speaking, Palin looks like she's brimming with ideas she's just waiting to express. When she gets her turn, she says Biden's plan is a "white flag of surrender." She reminds Biden of how much he supported McCain and how he said Obama was not ready to be President.

8:49: Biden is mugging and scratching his neck in an exaggerated way. I think he was trying to signal his objection to the things Palin was saying about Obama's willingness to sit down with Ahmadinejad.

8:51: Biden's heating up! Is he losing his temper?

8:55: At Drudge:



8:57: Well, let me ask:

Who's winning?
	Palin.
	Biden.
	It's not about winning and losing in the debate.
	Shut up! It's not over.
pollcode.com free polls

9:03: Palin enthuses over her Washington outsider status as she claims to hear Biden saying, essentially, I was for it before I was against it.

9:09: "Palin: 'Oh, man, it's so obvious that I'm a Washington outsider and just not used to the way you guys operate!' And then, Biden pats down his brow. On sheer theatrics, Palin definitely won that moment." LOL. That's Jac (my son), who's also live-blogging.

9:11: "There you go again. Say it ain't so, Joe." Palin was waiting to say that. Biden's error? Linking McCain to Bush. Palin seems supercharged. The question is education, and she's praising teachers and winking at her dad in the audience.

9:13: Palin gets a big laugh saying that she and Biden made "lame jokes" back in the beginning of the debate when they avoided answering the question what they wanted to do as VP. Clearly, she's really relaxed. The end is in sight, and she knows she's done well. She's stood her ground next to Biden. She hasn't stumbled, and he's seemed a bit boring.

9:25: Asked what he's changed his opinion about, Biden says he came to realize that judicial ideology matters. (Which is why he opposed Bork.) Palin says she's never had to compromise.

9:29: We've reached the prepared closing statements. So Palin has survived... more than survived. She won, I think most people will say. Now, she's able to say she likes to do these unscripted things. She quotes Ronald Reagan (again) and mentions "freedom" (again and again).

9:31: Biden gives his closing statement. He seems like a nice man. Did he ever attack her?

9:34: Huge crowd of family on the stage.

9:36: The final poll:

It's over now, so who won?
	Biden
	Palin
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

POST-DEBATE: Let me highlight some comments. Stupe said...

Althouse can't just eat normal foods, she needs trendy.

She doesn't go to chain restaurants, and her cuisine needs to reflect her offbeat, edgy, urbane, t[r]endy life.

Is burning the sauce now a trend? Or do I create the trend? If so, I can't help but be trendy. Is there a strozzapreti trend? I just picked the pasta that had a shape that appealed to me. So just be yourself, Stupe, and believe it's all very trendy, and that might make you happy. Don't think about me. Or, hell, think about me until it drives you crazy.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

The hair in [Sarah Palin's] eye is bothering my husband.

Ha ha. That was bugging me too. I was distracted thinking about whether she was distracted thinking about whether it would be more distracting to disentangle her bangs from her (false?) eyelashes than to allow the bangs-eye combo to continue as a single unit.

Lisa said...

So far, she sounds smart, sane and Republican.

The left will hate her. The right will agree with her.

(Lisa said baby on a night like this...)

vbspurs said...

Does Palin have ice water in her bloodstream or is it me?

She's almost too un-nervous. It's making me nervous!

LoafingOaf said...

What a twitchy, nervous wreck Palin is!

Palladian said...

Sarah Palin's pussy is gnawing at LoafingOaf's brain again.

vbspurs said...

OOOOOOH. A little lesbian tension between Palin and Ifill just now. HAWT.

(It's late-night Althouse.)

Michael_H said...

I don't want to channel surf--anyone know the Brewers/Phillies score?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Gwen's questions SUCK! Too complex. Easily ignored.

Trooper York said...

Phillies won 5 to 2.

Go 2 up on the series.

Michael_H said...

Ifill keeps cutting Palin off, then letting Joey Plugs run as long as he wants.

Really?

vbspurs said...

The 'Mos are getting their questions now. Surprising nod to Palin by Ifill.

I smell a skunk. Or a fish taco.

!!!

ex-prosecutor said...

If these were two lawyers, arguing, to a jury, she'd be killing him.

palladian said...

God, the only thing more boring than a Vice Presidential debate is baseball. I'd rather listen to Joseph Biden filibuster than listen to people talk about baseball. I'd rather watch "An Inconvenient Truth" 100 times than listen to people talk about baseball. SHUT UP ABOUT BASEBALL.

vbspurs said...

Nice! "Not sane or stable" about Dinner Jacket.

THE CASTRO BROTHERS. She just won Florida, que rico!!!

lem said...

Gwen went off the script to help Joe!

michael_h said...

Love the way Palin smiles as she's making notes while Joey Plugs speaks.

chip ahoy said...

No fair! They televise the back of Biden's head to show all the work was done in the front.

lawgiver said...

Cuda is landing some major body shots now. Joe's eyes are glazed, he's going downnnnnn!

john stodder said...

Palin is just so damn normal.

On TV it looks weird to be normal.

goesh said...

500+ comments - holy wow

Palin's faster pace makes her come across as very competent/intelligent, a bit smarter than Biden - she sure the heck exudes confidence - what happened to the dummy from up north???? gone, gone, gone

palladian said...

I love the milling around parts of C-SPAN broadcasts. So much better than listening to talking heads blabber.

ricpic said...

Sarah's happy.

Lefty freaks can't stand happy.

But normal human beings love happy and love Sarah.

joan said...

Karl Rove just ticked off 10 major gaffes by Joe Biden. It was hysterical.

schorsch said...

Regardless of who won, Biden's tactic failed. He was there to debate Bush and McCain, and to ignore Palin as if she wasn't worthy of his attention. She engaged him, specifically, and was therefore the only person in the debate that was actually occurring.

MORE FROM THE COMMENTS: patca said...

I am soooo relieved--and very happy. She was fabulous.

I feel like smoking a cigarette.

Live-blogging the big debate.

7:22 Central Time: Yes, I'm here, ready to go. Eager. This is big!

7:58: In the comments, we're setting the terms for the drinking game: I said:

Take a sip if McCain says "my friends" or if Obama says "uh."

Palladian said:

Dear God, woman, are you trying to kill people? Alcohol is poisonous in large quantities!

8:03: May the best man win. Jim Lehrer sounds stern! First question: take a position on the finance crisis.

8:04: Obama: "Move swiftly... and wisely... have oversight...." Don't pad the bank accounts of the rich. The whole problem is the fault of the other party. McCain: He begins with "thoughts and prayers" for "the lion of the Senate," Ted Kennedy, who's in the hospital now. He emphasizes that Republicans and Democrats are working together in dealing with the crisis.

8:08: Lehrer pushes them to take a position on the plan. Obama says he hasn't seen it. Ooh, I just saw Jon Stewart savage McCain last night for saying he hadn't read it. Obama's not taking a position. Come on! Take a position! He doesn't. McCain says "sure," he'll vote for it but immediately veers into an anecdote about Eisenhower and railing against greed. "Greed is rewarded." Both candidates look fresh and sharply outlined on the HDTV.

8:13: Lehrer wants them to talk to each other, but they don't much seem to want to. Next question: Are there fundamental differences between what McCain and Obama would do about the economy? McCain says we need to get spending under control... "earmarking as a gateway drug." Obama's a big spender. Obama said earmarks are abused, but earmarks are only $18 billion of the budget and McCain wants $300 billion in tax cuts. So the difference (in what they promise) is clear: McCain would cut spending and Obama would collect more taxes. McCain says those earmarks corrupt people, and Obama is proposing $800 million in new spending. Obama looks annoyed. He doesn't know where that number comes from. McCain looks a little pleased, I think, because he knows he's gotten to Obama.

8:20: McCain says pork-barrel spending is "rife," it's appalling. We see Obama raising a finger. He wants to be called on. Lots of arguing back and forth about who supported what.

8:26: Lehrer asks what sacrifices will be required. Obama mainly talks about things he wants to spend on. McCain says we've let government get out of control. He'd cut ethanol subsidies. (Good!) He'd eliminate cost-plus contracts. He speaks of saving $6 billion on one deal. Lehrer presses them, and Obama starts talking about spending again. (By the way, he is not saying "uh.") Lehrer gets excited about doing something different to deal with the current crises. McCain mentions a spending freeze. Obama objects and mentions another thing he'd like to spend on (early childhood education). Lehrer reasks the question: What difference will the crisis make? Obama talks about values. McCain talks about spending cuts. Obama questions McCain's record. McCain says, for a second time, that he wasn't elected Miss Congeniality in the Senate. (Should have put that in the drinking game.)

8:39: What have they learned from Iraq? McCain says we've learned how to fight the right way and to avoid defeat. Obama thinks we've learned we shouldn't have started the war in the first place.

Whoops. I've been calling Lehrer MacNeil... corrected.

8:44: McCain excoriates Obama for failing to support victory and for not acknowledging victory. Obama says the difference in opinion was only about whether there was a timetable or not. There's a hot dispute here. McCain gesticulates and smiles. Obama looks a little pissed off and interrupts a few times with the muttered phrase "That's not true."

8:51: Obama calls Pakistan "Pah-ki-stahn." Repeatedly.

8:52: McCain is not prepared to threaten Pakistan. You don't aim a gun if you aren't prepared to pull the trigger.

8:54: Obama denies that he talked about attacking Pahkistahn. He's just ready to "take out" al Qaeda if we know they are in there. He teases McCain about singing "bomb bomb Iran."

9:00: McCain stresses his empathy for soldiers. He's got a bracelet. Obama's got a bracelet too. He cares too. Jac writes (he's live-blogging too):

"I've got a bracelet." "I've got a bracelet too!" Are these serious adults running for president, or is this summer camp?

9:04: McCain gets fired up talking about Obama's willingness to talk without precondition with Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is talking about exterminating Israel, he exclaims. McCain stumbles over the name Ahmadinejad a bit, and I'm not sure if he's expressing genuine hatred for the man or is just getting fired up about a strong line of attack against Obama. Obama doesn't seem that irritated. He laughs a little. When he gets his turn, Obama needles him about, among other things, Spain. McCain inserts what must be a prepared barb: "I don't even have a seal yet."

9:15: We get a "my friend" out of McCain as he says Obama is "parsing words" about "preconditions, and he emphasizes how long he's been friends with Henry Kissinger. (Obama had cited Kissinger for the proposition that we ought to speak to everyone.)

9:18: The subject is Russia. McCain accuses Obama of naivete. He says: "I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw three letters, a K, a G, and a B." McCain is reeling off names of people and places in Georgia and Ukraine. He's got a strategy of displaying experience and making Obama seem green. Obama's given a chance and he mainly says he agrees.

9:25: Much crossfire over nuclear waste.

9:26: The last question is about terrorism. The main distinction here is that Obama views Iraq as a distraction and McCain thinks it's central.

9:31: Both men have been sharp and clear, and I haven't noticed mistakes. As expected, McCain is more passionate, but he never crossed the line into irascibility. Obama is cooler, but he never fell into that professorial mode that he uses sometimes. He certainly didn't stumble and babble incoherently, which is what his opponents say he does.

9:48: They didn't much go for that idea of talking directly to each other, did they? I mean, other than Obama's frequent assertion that McCain was getting something wrong.

9:54: In the end, I'd say, McCain made more good points and got in more punches, but Obama stood his ground and maintained his stature on stage next to McCain, even as McCain repeatedly tried to portray him as a lightweight. I should add that McCain never seemed too old, short, or lacking in vigor, even on HDTV. Obama looked fine too, and I never saw that upturned face, with the eyes gazing downward, that made him seem supercilious in those old debates with Hillary Clinton.

"And I gotta say Survivor in HD is awesome. Except for the bug bites and whatever is all over Danny's back."

"My husband said they looked like stab wounds but pausing the DVR didn't offer many clues."

So are you watching "Survivor: Gabon"? In HDTV? Bug-bitten, everyone looks like they have acne. All these young people who, in their regular lives, are unusually attractive, are now seeing how gruesome they look in the wild. And this was only the first episode.

ADDED: There are some older people too, but they can't be vain, can they?

Mouth-corner spittle, in HDTV.

Amanda Hess (via Instapundit) was watching Obama looking nice and "crispy" on HDTV and then, suddenly, there was "a small collection of saliva in the left crease of the candidate’s mouth."

The development nearly incapacitated my housemate; he spent the remainder of the speech in a nervous fit, wishing aloud that one polite delegate would flag down the candidate and discretely wipe his own mouth, the telltale indication that Obama “has got something … right over … no … a little to the left … there, you’ve got it.”...

Near the speech’s end, Obama did move to wipe the corner of his mouth, causing a grand celebration among the party. However, the move only displaced the spittle, helping it to migrate lower down the lip.

Ha ha. This brings back fond memories of blogging for me. From October 13, 2004, live-blogging the last Bush-Kerry debate:

Bush is smiling a lot, and the left side of his mouth nevertheless turns down oddly. A glob of foam forms on the right side of his mouth! Yikes! That's really going to lose the women's vote. [UPDATE: the NYT and the WaPo take note of this, and only this, observation and I react to that attention here....]

And that was without HDTV. That was the first time this blog got quoted in the NYT, so I'm pretty nostalgic about Bush's spittle. But I'm looking back on the vague, fuzzy past. We've got a new crisp guy now and a wrinkly old geezer and, with HDTV, we'll be able to inspect the individual bubbles of any mouth foam.

Think too of the skin blemishes. Everyone's skin will look bad in closeup on HDTV, which brings more clarity than seeing the person in person. It's hyperrealism. And unlike in person, you can get right up close and stare at it and talk to other people in the room about it. And blog about it.

Now, it's going to be important for politicians to wear makeup, strong makeup. Not just a little powder. And then how are they going to look to the people who are around to see them in person? In fact, how are they going to look on HDTV when we can see that they've got on makeup. Garish! Crazy!

Unless....



... they are female.

Ah, finally! A real advantage for women.

Thanks for the technology, guys. We will now use it to rule the world.

ADDED: But Chip Ahoy got out his magnifying glass:

Did you watch "Recount," that HBO movie about the 2000 Florida recount?

I thought it was quite good. Though the story was mainly told from the Gore side, the Bush point of view was represented fairly, and there was a good overall balance to it. Complicated legal issues were explained surprising well without belaboring through through the use of various actors playing characters shown working out their next moves and real TV reporters seen in old video clips, telling us the news as it happened 8 years ago. It was especially exciting to see those old news clips, because, perfectly edited in, they stirred up the emotion that I felt when I saw them the first time. And the acted-out material really worked on me — as I was yelling at Al Gore not to concede and laughing at you don’t have to be snippy about it.

Kevin Spacey was the main character, Ron Klain. You either like Spacey or you don't. He seems to use dullness as his technique, and at this point, for me, it seems hammy. But his fleshy face was kind of subtly fascinating on the HDTV screen and I enjoyed him well enough.

We loved Laura Dern as Katherine Harris. It's so easy to mock the vain and exaggerated Harris, but Dern did a good job of getting inside the character. I could laugh and feel some reasonable sympathy for her.

The best actor was Tom Wilkinson, who, playing James Baker, mainly had to state legal positions and strategies. One thing I really love to get from an actor is the feeling that this person is thinking of the words he is saying — I want to lose the sense that there was a script — and Wilkinson really hit that spot for me with lines that must have looked dull on paper. After all, Baker was mainly about standing his ground, while the other side was scrappily fighting for every vote. But Wilkinson made this stolid intransigence damned exciting.

Of course, I got a kick out of seeing actors play the Supreme Court Justices. The Stevens and O'Connor were particularly good. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't speak — maybe she wasn't even an actress — but she looked the part — amusingly.

That's my opinion. Take into account that: 1. I voted for Gore and rooted for Gore throughout the recount, 2. I accepted the Supreme Court's determination from the beginning (and continue to accept it after writing about it in depth and teaching it in detail numerous times), and 3. I didn't want Bush to become President, but I never hated him, and I voted for him in 2004.

IN THE COMMENTS: Somefeller writes:

I saw the film at a premiere last week at the Baker Institute at Rice. It was a lot of fun, and watching James Baker and Kevin Spacey elbowing each other every now and then when a good line in the film came on certainly added to the atmosphere. At one point, the sound went out on the film in a point when Spacey's character was having a big scene, to the horror of the Baker Institute staff, but it turned out great because Kevin Spacey jumped up and said his lines live, to the enjoyment of the audience, who basically got a free one minute live performance from Spacey. I spoke with Laura Dern at the reception after the film and asked her about her portrayal of Harris. She said the lines that Harris spoke in the film came from Harris's own book and from interviews with other GOP people involved in the Florida recount, so they weren't just created by the writers. She also said she tried to portray Harris (who she thought was basically someone in over her head and in many ways used cynically by other Republicans) sympathetically and not just as a cartoon character or villain, and she hoped that came through to the audience.

Did you watch that Democratic debate, you know, the rich-folks-only debate?

Eric Scheie agrees to cover a debate for Pajamas Media only to discover that it's not going to be so easy to watch it:

Thinking I must be crazy or just stupid (for the Democrats would never hold a debate on a channel that wasn’t generally available to the public, would they?) I spent quite a bit of time fiddling with the controls looking for [HDNet]....

As it turns out, the only way to get this channel is to upgrade my monthly service to “HD TV,” (plus pay an extra charge for “special” channels like HDNet), but that even then my existing equipment (which I paid for and had installed) would not work. To actually receive the new signal, I would have to buy a new receiver, and on top of that I’d have to buy a new satellite dish, have old one yanked off the wall and the new one installed!

Ha ha. You know I have an HD TV, and I pay for cable plus extra for HD service, but I still don't get HDNet, because it's extra extra. So I was 2 steps closer than Eric to being able to watch it, but I still couldn't watch it.

So, the Democratic Party — the party of the working class — is broadcasting tonight’s debate from an elitist network run by billionaire Mark Cuban that requires expensive equipment and high monthly charges to access.

What’s up with that? Is this a signal that despite the egalitarian rhetoric, that they’re actually the party of the rich and famous? Imagine the outcry if the GOP broadcast its debate from fancy network that ordinary people couldn’t access. There’d be cries that the Republicans were in a “gated community.”

And, amusingly enough, it's where you have to go to watch Dan Rather.

Eric decides to "blind-blog" the debate:

I couldn’t watch it, and so I can’t tell you what the questions or the answers were. But here’s what I think probably happened.

Hillary won, hands down....

HDTV and the female candidate.

My son Christopher writes that he watched last night's debate on high definition TV, and:

Hillary Clinton's lipstick looked different in HD. It was kind of weird. Her lipstick looked overly glossy and stuck out, almost a little garish. You can tell it's sort of like stage makeup. When she first came on her lipstick actually popped out in a Rocky Horror-ish way. That was my first impression when she was in close-up. I mean, and it looked good on regular TV but looked way overdone on HD.

He likes Hillary Clinton, by the way.

It seems that there is a problem with doing a woman's makeup so that it works on both regular TV and HDTV.

Actually, I would have thought HDTV would be a bigger problem for the men, because you don't want to think of them as wearing any makeup at all. Remember when we noticed Al Gore's makeup?

In his first debate with George W. Bush, Gore appeared in orange makeup applied thickly to cover a sunburn. He looked awful. Commentators compared him to Lurch from The Addams Family, "Herman Munster doing a bad Ronald Reagan impression," and "a big, orange, waxy, wickless candle." One columnist wrote that "it looked like he melted down orange circus peanuts and then asked Tammy Faye for a 'light' dusting." San Francisco Examiner television critic Tim Goodman landed one of the most quoted blows: "If you'd stuck him in a push-up bra and a sequin dress and had him sing show tunes, he'd have carried San Francisco in a landslide."

The vice president became The Man Who Wears Too Much Makeup. The label has endured as a trope of late-night comedians - "If Al Gore took off half his makeup and gave it to Warren Christopher, they'd both look a lot better," said Jay Leno... - and as color for political journalists. This isn't just fun at the vice president's expense. Commentators treat Gore's pancake problem as if it has deeper significance. It makes him seem bumbling, unmanly, and, most of all, phony.

Poor Al Gore. So it was a sunburn that led to his losing the election? Is that why he's so angry about global warming?

Just kidding, anti-Althousians. Stand clear of the vortex.

The subject is here is: makeup, HDTV, and the possible disparate impact on the female candidate. And Al Gore. You can kick him around a little if you must. About makeup. Or... whatever.

"The doddering American Film Institute has finally updated its list of the best 100 films..."

"... (i.e., best big-studio fiction blockbusters made with white marquee stars and male directors in the good ol' days of Kabuki pomposity like Ben Hur)," writes New York magazine:

For New Yorkers, the Los Angeles–based list is predictably awful, but still worse than the last: Do The Right Thing's token inclusion at pitiful No. 94 stings worse than its omission in 1997 and many of the city's great filmmakers are still missing (Cassavetes, for starters). We never expected to see some of our personal faves (David Edelstein respects no list without Larry Cohen's Q, for instance), but we began fuming when we noticed that mainstream picks like Sweet Smell of Success and Scarlett Street didn't even make the 400-film ballot. Then we noticed Mean Streets was off the list and grew angrier. Our pique peaked when we noticed that Toy Story had been added — and Woody Allen's Manhattan had not.

I love the New York perspective that it's all a big struggle between the two giant coastal cities. It's so Woody Allenish. And the Woody Allen film they put on the list -- "Annie Hall" -- is itself about the struggle between the two cities. One character is deeply, neurotically bonded to New York (and a basket case on his trip to L.A. ) and the other blooms in L.A. By contrast, "Manhattan" fixates on Manhattan. Nowhere else matters.

The AFI's list is obviously not the 100 best films, but a collection of best films fiitting various categories that seem significant enough to include. Although a few directors -- Hitchcock, Scorsese, Chaplin -- are given more than one slot, it's pretty obvious that there is a second level category that the AFI deemed worthy of one slot. Thus, we have one, but only one D.W. Griffith film on the list (and it's not "Birth of a Nation"), and one but only one Woody Allen film. It's not a question, then, of whether "Manhattan" is better than "Ben-Hur," but only which Woody Allen film should get the Woody Allen slot.

***

This is my second post on the AFI list, and in the first, I said I'd tell you the films on the list I haven't seen, so let me do that now:

30. "Apocalypse Now," 1979.
45. "Shane," 1953.
59. "Nashville," 1975.
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.
72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.
81. "Spartacus," 1960.
82. "Sunrise," 1927.
90. "Swing Time," 1936.
95. "The Last Picture Show," 1971.
100. "Ben-Hur," 1959.

Four of those movies I've had in my DVD collection for years and keep meaning to watch. I'm not able to admit that I never want to watch them. Three of them have made it into the DVD player. Two of those I tried to watch, maybe for an hour, then paused. I still half think -- months or years later -- that I'm going to finish. The third is the DVD I chose to test out my HDTV when I first set it up. I watched 5 minutes and thought -- brilliant! -- why have I gone all these years without seeing this movie?

One of those movies -- "Sunrise" -- is something I would have seen long ago if it were around and playing in the revival houses back in the 1970s when I did most of my catching up with movies that were made before my time. It's not on DVD either. So my failure to see that says nothing about my preferences.

The rest of them... it just doesn't matter. I've had enough Fred and Ginger in various clips of their dancing and don't need to sit through "Swing Time." And a few of those movies I actively snubbed when they first ran, and I don't feel any more warmly toward them because they made this list.

As for "Shane," well, I used to love the old TV show "Shane," with David Carradine. That's the original for me personally.

Let's watch the Democratic debate in New Hampshire.

Okay, we're off. Wolf Blitzer invites the candidates to introduce themselves with a quick one liner. John Edwards wins this round by saying "I'm John Edwards." The others are all tagging on the fact that they are "running for President." Yeah, it would be weird if you weren't. Bill Richardson is "the proud governor of the state of New Mexico."

1. 14 minutes into this, I think John Edwards is making the strongest showing. Obama seems nervous and rushed, and Hillary Clinton seems flat. Obviously, this is a subjective opinion, but Edwards seems to have put the others on the defensive.

2. Bill Richardson bumbles the question about genocide in Iraq. [ADDED: That is, he evades the question with one desperate move after another. Anyone paying attention must conclude: He is prepared to accept genocide in Iraq. I wish all the candidates were pinned down with this question.]

3. Kucinich is asked whether the entire war was a complete waste, and instead of harshly saying yes, he uses the occasion to say -- quite rousingly -- that this war is the Democrats' war too, and he's not buying Hillary Clinton's repeated (already!) refrain that this is George Bush's war. The Democrats have the majority: cut off funding!

4. Biden keeps yelling. Hillary Clinton tries to deflect the question about her failure to read the National Intelligence Estimate before the original Iraq war vote. Edwards compliments Obama: "He was right. I was wrong." Obama is settling down now, and he magnanimously says that voting for the war shouldn't be seen as "a disqualifier." We see Hillary in the background as he's speaking and she looks intense, determined, and scared. When she gets a chance to speak, it's back to her refrain: It's all Bush's fault.

5. Immigration. I have to admit that I have no patience for the posturing on this issue. Blitzer does a show-of-hands for the question whether English should be the official language of the U.S. Only Gravel raises his hand. There's a lot of blather about the importance of English and of other languages.

6. Health care. They all seem to have plans to cover everyone with quality health care.

7. Hillary Clinton is asked whether Bill Clinton's "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy was a mistake. It was a transition, she says. And she asserts that it's been applied in a discriminatory way -- which is odd, since the whole idea is discriminatory. But she opposes the policy in the end, even as she won't say Bill made a mistake. It was a "first step."

8. Blitzer is going through the list of issues. They are on energy now. I don't think this is an effective way to do a debate, because each candidate just lays out his or her official policy, which we could see by looking at their websites and which is always a bit unreal, given that a President will have to work with Congress. But just as I'm sick of it, Wolf says we're going into "Part 2" of the debate. Questions from citizens. Okay. Good. Anything for a change. There's 3 minute break. I fast-forward. Looks like hands are being shaken. And those weird lecterns are carted off and replaced by modernistic swivel chairs of that seem to have time traveled in from a 1970s talk show.

9. The first 2 audience questions are from women with family members involved in the military. The responses here are nondescript, and I'm sorry to say, my attention wanes.

10. At about 1:20, Hillary Clinton heats up, talking about diplomacy and Iran. It's still the same theme that it's all Bush's fault: "We've had an administration that doesn't believe in diplomacy." But there's some style here as she talks about how "every so often" Condi Rice shows up somewhere and "occasionally they even send Dick Cheney, which is hardly diplomatic, in my view." She sounds very strong at this point. I just wish she'd shown this spirit in the first half hour. Is anyone watching as she catches fire?

11. Confession: I'm in a bit of a TiVo lag, and "The Sopranos" is about to start. So... I'm bailing! Keep talking. I'll get back to this. But I don't TiVo "The Sopranos." I'm on HDTV here. Sorry!

12. Blah! I'm trying to get back to this after watching "The Sopranos." Is anyone watching now? Does this matter? They all look like they want to leave. Edwards is shaking his foot impatiently. Various issues come up in the end, but nothing impresses me to the point where I feel like writing. Sorry.

Did you enjoy the sturgeon while I was at the surgeon?

I haven't been posting today, because I've been unconscious, which I consider an ironclad excuse for failure to blog. But after my visit to the oral surgeon today, I've slept off all the anaesthesia and eschewed the prescription painkiller, and I'm back in the world of full human awareness, including the awareness of unkilled pain, which is kind of the way I like to think of life itself.

One reason to eschew prescription painkiller is to be able to have a nice glass of soothing cognac, which I'm thinking will go very well with my favorite hour of weekly television: "Survivor," in high definition. Another is that I need to bone up on the news of the week for tomorrow morning's "Week In Review." (At 8 Central Time, Wisconsin Public Radio fans!) All those state legislature stories I've been ignoring... I can't be hearing about them for the first time on the show. Example: "Replacement to Seniorcare drug program touted as improvement." I get an email full of wire stories like that the day before the show, not that the show is likely to cover the uninteresting sounding ones.

Still, I'll do some reading to catch up with the news stories I've let slip throught the cracks in my consciousness. Some reading, some cognac sipping, some HDTV gazing, and then a good night's sleep, and I intend to be radio-ready at 8 a.m.

ADDED: Here's a good evidence for the theory that there's always something interesting inside the boring.

U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today announced the successful inclusion of a two-and-a-half year extension of SeniorCare, Wisconsin’s popular senior drug coverage program, in the Iraq Supplemental Conference Report, a bill that also includes funding for disaster aid, veterans’ health, agricultural disasters, and other emergency funding.

What -- I ask you! -- has more to do with funding the war in Iraq than the interest that old Wisconsinites have in the government paying their expenses that happen to fall into the drug category? But don't be so hard on Feingold and Kohl, because the war funding bill also includes funding for disaster aid, veterans’ health, agricultural disasters, and other emergency funding. You know how the fact that old people use drugs is an emergency.

Prince!

I've just been reminded to watch Prince at the Superbowl. Here I am trying to finish up the podcast -- where I talk about not watching the Superbowl -- but finishing up the technical things, I put the TV on with the sound off and had stopped at the Superbowl, which does look snazzy in HDTV, even seen through pouring rain. So, let's watch and blog Prince. [Horrible too-much-law typo: Printz.]

***

With all this rain, I'm thinking: Keith Relf.

"All along the watchtower, princes kept the view..."

***

Well, it's purple rain.

***

Excellent. Nice of him to do hits we know. "Purple Rain" in the pouring rain. That was nice. And he escaped electrocution. Had to wear that scarf on his head though. I wonder how he felt about having to play in the rain. I only wanted 2 see him laughing in it.

You know from today's John Edwards post that I have the camera ready by the TV, and I did take some shots. I took 98 pictures! These should be better than the one from the paused TiVo of John Edwards (and that kissy shot really was just some place I chanced to pause). So wait a minute and I'll have some Prince photos (and a podcast).

***

"Mehlman looks worn out."

"Mehlman's a mess!" I exclaim at 11:34.

Man, that high definition TV is merciless.