If you missed the Book Salon with Susan Faludi (whose book, The Terror Dream, I highly recommend), Christy posed the question:
Susan — I’m curious about the section that you have on the “9/11 widow status” and how that narrative has become shorthand for so many of the folks left behind in the wake of the tragedy. We have seen how several of the widows and widowers have been vilified when they have spoken up to correct the narrative where they think it has gone awry. The Coulter attacks on “The Jersey Girls” spring to mind here.
So many of the media myths build up, at least from what I have seen, due to the sort of herd mentality and in-crowd shorthand that far too many in the media use — due to laziness? Ease? Fitting into what Digby calls “The Heathers”? I dunno. But how do we break through that and get back to critical thinking…and soon.
To which Susan Faludi responded:
Part of the problem is the long-term shift from a working press that gives us the information we need to be educated citizens (the whole point of the founders wanting to guarantee protections to the press)to a “media” that mainly wants and needs to entertain us to attract the maximum number of consumers (who used to be called readers).
I happened to have just finished reading Maureen Dowd’s bitchy, substance-free column on the last debate that did nothing but re-poison the political waters with a fresh batch of Hillary hatred, and compared it to eRiposte’s factual analysis of Russert’s distortions regarding declassification of documents during that same event. No matter what one may think of Hillary Clinton as a potential leader, nothing gets served by this kind of fraudulent, vicious garbage being perpetuated as “reporting.”
Maybe the New York Times and NBC ought to think about paying eRiposte, who is obviously the only one of the three capable of doing an honest day’s work, and stop degrading the political process by giving Russert and Dowd little more than a platform for a high-profile hatchet job?
Just a thought.
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Zed
zed also
Surely some of these people (or their assistants) read FDL. Shouldn’t these posts be sort of a challenge to them if nothing else?
Shorter MoDo: “Meeeeoooowww.”
Who wants to read hate all the time?
SnarKassandra @ 5
Ooh! Ooh! ME! Pick me!!
Oh, wait, was that a rhetorical question?
It does seem to me that the FoxNewsification of America has had the deleterious effect of reducing our national discourse to a level that caters to people who read Perez Hilton.
It’s all “Mean Girls” all the time. Hope you kids like swill. It’s what’s for dinner.
I wager that MoDo has no friends of either sex. She writes like a lonely brittle woman. I truly believe that she does not know how to be friendly or happy.
One thing I can’t argue with is that President HRC would be better than a Republican prez. And who knows, she might do a good job in the WH. If Clinton gets the nod, we will vote for her in the general.
As I said on the earlier thread, MoDo is a Queen Bee. And then, someone asked what does that mean?
trifecta gave a great definition:
~~~A queen bee (my translation) is a woman who has become successful, but then fears and loathes any other woman who might supplant her place at the top of the pecking order.
See MoDowd. It’s not about sisterhood, it’s all about I got mine.~~~
link
TRex! How are you?
I wrote the snarkiest paragraph of my LIFE in my post last night.
Valley Girl @ 9
Yep, I think that pretty much says it all, VG.
I dislike Reid and I don’t like Pelosi. And it doesn’t have a thing to do with gender.
2008 will be 2000 all over again. Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, Joe Klein et al will be in fine form.
Giuliani could declare that he is emperor of the Universe, because the people from Alpha Centauri remembered 9/11 and voted him in and they will still be talking about Hillary’s pantsuits, Edwards’ hair, or Obama’s middle name.
We have to take the fight to them this time.
Oh, and Frank Rich deserves special mention as well. His column was obnoxious today. Let’s not forget what he did to Gore in 2000. He has been “good” since then, but today is an indication that he is ready to jump back into bullcrap land with the rest of them.
SnarKassandra @ 10
I’m good. I’ve had the laziest day known to man. I’m still in my pajamas.
I have brushed and flossed my teeth, however.
trifecta @ 13
Whad did Rich do to Gore?
TRex @ 14
How many meals did you eat in bed? That is the true laziness act.
Freudian slip…?
On Saturday night live, Brian Williams jokes media has already chosen Clinton
“Gentlemen, I’m going to have to run; I have a 15-minute pre-debate interview with Senator Clinton, we’re going to ask her about her first 100 days in office,” Williams says in the sketch. “I wish you all good luck tonight, though we, again, in the media have pretty much made up our minds to go with Senator Clinton. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._1104.html
Well, I’ll disagree with Ms. Hamsher. (so what else is new…chuckle)
I actually understood the “point” Russert was going after…but he just maybe didn’t make it very well. AND, yes, Timmy’s motives may be askew. Never-the-less:
Hillary has run all around the countryside for quite some time now, just running her mouth about how “smart she is”, and how she is sooooo experienced due to her time as a First Lady. She intimates that she truly did NOT spend her time in the WH “just baking cookies”, and that she was “in” on all sorts of major decisions made by Hubby.
And so, members of the media basically say: Prove It. Hillary, if you actually were soooooo involved in major decision-making (as you keep running your mouth that you were)then….let’s see the records to back up what you keep running your mouth over. Well, Hillary???
And so far, all Hillary does is continue to dodge and weave, play female coy, and lie and hide.
I don’t like Russert, but on this subject I understand what the point is. It’s actually quite simple. Hillary keeps running her mouth, and some in the media simply say “Hillary, put up or shut up.” Hillary keeps dodging.
Ghostman
SnarKassandra @ 15
RICH (12/16/97): Mr. Gore is beginning to seem less an heir to Mr. Clinton than to his White House predecessor. Like George Bush, Al Gore Jr. is the son of a senator, born to privilege—with St. Alban’s and Harvard substituting for Phillips Academy and Yale. Instead of formative years in Greenwich, Mr. Gore was raised in Washington’s ritzy Fairfax Hotel—unhumble beginnings both men have tried to play down, not always successfully. Where Mr. Bush at his most supercilious addressed the nation as if we were peons who couldn’t get into his country club, Mr. Gore condescends to us as if we were idiots who couldn’t get into the Ivy League. Such is the main distinction between Republican and Democratic noblesse oblige.
(He also pushed the Gore is a liar theme, the Love Story angle, etc, throughout the run up to 2000).
Shouldn’t Timmah be asking his lord and master Dick Cheney about the subject of secrets?
Who in the press is NOT mean?
Today, I’ve been scouring the internet for information about Pakistan. That’s a really bad situation going down. Basically General Musharraf has done exactly what the government of Burma did in the latest uprising, suspension the constitution, declaration of martial law, etc. etc.
This puts the Bush administration in a bad position. They’ve been giving billions of dollars every year to the Pakistani military as part of The War of Terra. Thing is, Musharraf seized power in 1999 in a military coup. Now he’s suspending elections and censoring the press and doing, well, all the things the Bush administration would like to do, but can’t (yet).
It’s interesting, in terms of that old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
Do therapods require special floss, what with the jumbo dentrifice?
Do you use those steel fishing leads they use to catch sharks on a hook and line?
Maureen Dowd is a real piece of work. She was a cheerleader for decider guy against Al Gore, and against John Kerry, cheering for the kind of false masculinity of Rumsfeld and Cheney to rescue her poor baby self from the horrid terrorists, and then turns against them. Now she is back to her old self. That kind of hyper-arch cynicism and urban hipster lost its charm when President Petulant started the Iraq war.
No matter what one may think of Hillary Clinton as a potential leader, nothing gets served by this kind of fraudulent, vicious garbage being perpetuated as “reporting.”
as a Hillary ‘unsupporter and ultra unfan’ I must say, “totally agree with that.”
and I wonder, did Maureen Dowd win some kind of cheerleader’s ‘pom pom’ contest to get this coveted ‘journullist’ job she has? She is clearly in love with her ‘cuteness’ while being so utterly vacuous. But maybe I am unfair to cheerleaders.
TRex are these your pajamas?
masaccio @ 24
Well put.
I do not like Maureen Dowd.
However, when she said of Hillary: “There is nowhere she won’t go, so long as it gets her where she wants to be,” she was right on the money, bitchy or not.
Jane, I am glad that you linked to eriposte at The left Coaster. The Hillary series of posts is well worth reading..there is an obvious pro-Hillary bias but based on voting records and real positions on issues. The one line anti-Hillary posts repeating the “we all know..common wisdom” is getting old.
In my house, no food or drink (or cigarettes) are allowed within a hundred feet of the bed. Beds are for one thing, sleeping.
Well, maybe two things.
Eating, drinking, and smoking in bed are messy and smelly and absolutely forbidden at Casa del Rex.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, crumbs and coffee stains and cigarette smell in the bed. BLECH!!!
Ghostman @ 18
Ghostman- it’s about “style versus substance”, so to say. MoDo took cheap shots. And Russert was not asking about anything substantial for the future of the country. Another cheap shot. They were stylin’ it.
I am not a Clinton supporter but I would much rather have questions of substance from the MSM, rather than cheap shots.
trifecta @ 13
Actually this is what I was thinking during Naomi Wolf’s post earlier today is that the more subtle thing to do would simply be to steal the election for Guiliani. No need to do it Musharraf style.
SnarKassandra @ 26
*blushing*
Yes.
And until, and if, she gets the nomination I will be on Hillary’s case.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, crumbs and coffee stains and cigarette smell in the bed. BLECH!!!
isn’t that the theme of this year’s Charles Bukowski Poetry Festival?
MoDo is an insecure female who wanted to get a male and will end up a bitter old maid and she knows it. So all she does is attack and belittle everyone and everything, especially those who have achieved some success.
She can be funny, but she is totally irrelevant as so many of the columnists are. She doesn’t do facts. She does opinions.
I don’t know why the press savaged Gore last time around, but I suppose he’s getting the last laugh because unlike his critics he is doing something and getting acknowledged for it. Good on him.
I’m sure he knows that if he steps up he will be savaged even more than the last go round.
Modo, HoJo, BoBo in the league of JLo.
randy evans @ 28
I do not like her in a crowd,
I like her not in the House of Saud.
Let me say it long and loud,
I do NOT like that Maureen Dowd.
Ahem.
masaccio @ 24
Does wearing limburger cheese to bed really erase wrinkles? All the MoDo fans really want to know.
are there still ‘old maids?’
As for Dowd. I have a sure fire way of dealing with her. I simply don’t read her stuff. Or listen to her.
Pachacutec @ 23
Old bits of hoof.
TRex @ 37
Do you like her in a box?
Do you like her mauled by FOX?
and btw exactly what did Dowd say about Hillary that is “fraudulent?”
TRex @ 37
I do not like green eggs and ham…
As for the Clinton archives and released documents, according to this post, under Bush rules there is only one person reading each page before they are released.
to paraphrase John Lennon (who I still miss):
Fraudulent is a concept by which we measure Maureen Dowd
SnarKassandra @ 42
You both are so…. cool….
There are two million more females than males at US universities.
The term ‘politically correct” originated in the
Communist Party of the USSR in the 1920’s.
Wake up people. Socio-Fascism is not the Promised Land.
Not even with cream cheese and lox.
I do not like her,
Make her stop!
trifecta @ 13
I predict it will get pretty ugly over at Swampland. At least it is easy to call out Joe Klein’s bullshit.
MoDon’t is the bitch queen of high school snark.
She musn’t be taken seriously.
Dowd and Tweety should get together and talk about their “issues”.
Just don’t make me listen.
Okie,
That’s what happens. You read these people and soon realize what vacuous jerks they are and stop reading them. And soon you realize that there’s nothing of interest in the paper and stop buying it.
Too many egos and too little time.
Okay, time to take a shower and get some dinner.
I am craving mole chicken. Mmmm.
I love that now I can move chocolate all the way into my main course. Why stop at dessert?
Is it catty of me to point out that Michael Douglas dumped Maureen Dowd and married somebody else, and is now a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and this may have something to do with MoDo’s juvenile columns about Hillary?
SnarKassandra @ 21
Eugene Robinson and Leonard Pitts. Two columnists with souls and consciences.
There are millions of people who will vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, and who do not even know MoDo exists.
marymccurnin @ 7
She has also done everything that she accuses Mrs. Clinton of doing (I’ve decided not to refer to the candidate as “Hillary” – since all of the boys get a more respectful full name title!) in terms of her gender. MoDo became popular because she played the sex card – and has shown herself to be an empty dress, IMHO.
randy evans @ 28
That statement could apply to a number of people who have ambition not just Hillary.
Laura Doty @ 54
Krugman, Ellen Goodman, Marianne Means…
Valley Girl @ 31
If that is what Russert is after, why doesn’t he just ask it? Ask Hillary: “How does being First Lady qualify you as being president”? Also ask her, if being First Lady qualifies you, would it also qualify Laura Bush? Or does she need 7 years in the Senate as well? None of the clowns in the media ask questions of substance. Frankly, I don’t give a monkey’s balls what Hillary nor anyone else has on their iPod. I care more about why they let a petulant child steam roll them every time.
I find Modo and Hillary to be a lot alike, they talk a lot without actually saying anything.
PLovering @ 48
hey a Trotskyite once asked me if ‘people should be able to ‘do their own thing.’
I said ‘yes.’
He threw a can of pop at my head.
(okay the can was empty and he missed but still…you get the point)- doing one’s ‘own thing’ certainly wasn’t ‘politically correct’ for him-
CTuttle @ 58
Trudy Rubin. Hannah Allem. Leila Fadel.
and let’s not forget, there’s an international press. (Snarky, check out Peta Thornycroft of Zimbabwe, if you want to know someone worthy of emulation!)
Laura Doty @ 54
The NYT could regain some credibility by firing Bobo Brooks, Friedman and MoDo and hiring Pitts. How he’s writing for the Miami Herald and not the NYT or WaPo at this point, I’ll never know.
randy evans @ 28
Can’t you say that of all the candidates, though? Seems specious.
Mabel’s Wig Shack @ 61
Trotskyite? You’ve been hanging out with Christopher Hitchens?
Laura Doty @ 62
*gasp* How could we forget Helen Thomas?
bobo brooks and modo ELECTRIFY the N.Y.Times readership with a romantic relationship and report on when they have sex while sleeping in their respective refrigerated units.
Another I’m shocked OT:
AP
Steve AR, I’ll see your shocked and raise you this:
State Dept. happy that Pakistan is distracting the public.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s decision to suspend the constitution, seize emergency power, and round up leading opposition figures is bringing quiet joy to the State Department. “Thank heavens for small favors,” an aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, referring to Musharraf’s actions. Compared to Pakistan, “Iraq looks pretty good.”
(from Think Progress)
Joe Klein’s conscience:
Trotskyite? You’ve been hanging out with Christopher Hitchens?
heh.
Molly Ivins. I miss her.
Steve-AR @ 68
But won’t Bush veto that law or just ignore it?
If W can be president, Hillary certainly can. The bar for being president is pretty low with frat boy having survived 2 terms.
So all the BS about experience and qualifications are now moot.
Steve-AR @ 68
Never mind that. That is Arlen’s gig. He pretends to give a crap about the constitution and the rule of law, then votes with the Busheviks in the end.
Arlen is all about talking a good game, and caving in the end. He will vote to confirm.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 71
Me too! She is my hero. And Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards and Helen Thomas and Jane!
Eureka Springs @ 60
Getting into dangerous territory with that one, ES. I don’t even put them in the same category.
However, Hillary often says “when I am President I will… do such and such”. And, my substantive question is so, why aren’t you doing that now, in the Senate?
SnarKassandra @ 21
Back, I was just over reading your review of the Susan book …
How about Glenn Greenwald? He had an epiphany, and now might be called ‘critical but fair’ ?
Just finished “How Would A PATRIOT ACT?” as an example. Maybe I’ll get into 2007 before the year is ended. :-)
Has anyone heard whether Hillary’s consultants have decided to vote for, or against Mukasey?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 79
I believe she is voting against…
I was not impressed when I met Dowd at Yearlykos #1 and it was a funny experience.
Was in the first session of the first day…. a media course to learn how to be presentable when on the TeeVee being interviewed, how to sit, hold your body and even did practice sessions. About 20 minutes into the session someone slid into the seat next to me….. I peaked over to see who and gasped….. surprised who it was. Dowd did not seem happy that some bumpkin from Phoenix recognized her.
She also has the weakest fish hand shake …..made me feel that she was going out in a second to wash from touching me. Gave me the impression that showing with her hair up on a pony tail, no makeup, t-shirt & jeans she thought no one would recognize her. HA
CTuttle @ 67
Laura Rozen of War and Piece writes for Mother Jones and other publications.
Also Larisa Alexandrovna of At Largely .
Almost forgot Jim Hightower of Texas!
OldCoastie @ 80
Good deal.
I’m not sure, OKK… seems to me I read that somewhere…
Steve-AR @ 68
Ironically, nobody on the SJC seems to recall…
“…what of 18 USC section 2340A, which Congress enacted in 1994 to enforce the Convention Against Torture?
(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
What does it say about our elected representatives that Senators simultaneously believe that waterboarding is torture but also believe that CIA interrogations using waterboarding are currently legal? Does Senator Feinstein really believe that torture is currently legal in America? Or does she just not care?”
http://balkin.blogspot.com/200…..-read.html
Maybe we can hire a skywriter to write “Michael Douglas Says Mo Dowd is a Lousey Lay!” over the skies of New York.
Valley Girl @ 77
Maybe dangerous for some. Modo’s article meant nothing to me.. after reading it once I couldn’t even tell you what the heck she was driving towards. As for Hillary I can say the same thing after listening to her for over thirty years. Except for her political aspirations I don’t think she has agenda beyond just playing the game.
OKK – here it is…
SnarKassandra @ 73
I had exactly the same thought when I read that. Even talking about passing a law against torture shows how far our country has fallen. I am 63 yo and I never thought I would hear talk about the right and wrong of torture.
this is what the Dowdragon said:
“If she wants to run on her record as first lady while keeping the lid on her first lady record, that’s only fair for the fairer sex. And if she wants to have it both ways on illegal immigrants getting driver’s licenses, then she should, especially if those illegal immigrants are men, or if Lou Dobbs is ranting on the issue, because he’s not only a man, he’s a grumpy, cranky, border-crazed man.
She should certainly be allowed to play the gender card two ways, or even triangulate it. As her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said after the debate, she is “one strong woman,” who has dwarfed male rivals and shown she’s tough enough to deal with terrorism and play on the world stage. But she can break, just like a little girl, when male chauvinists are rude enough to catch her red-handed being slippery and opportunistic.”
Snark aside, there is nothing “fraudulent” about this account of what the Clinton campaign and others — including here — were essentially suggesting in the anti-pile on campaign last week. Nor in any of the actual facts the Dowdster cited, for example, that the Clinton parlayed that whole “cleavage” nonsense into a fundraising measure.
Hell, maybe it’s just a case of it taking one to know one.
Maybe instead of MoDo it should be MorDor … the LOTR reference would say much of her character …
Margot @ 82
AND AMY GOODMAN!!
Mabel’s Wig Shack @ 39
Sure there are. If you don’t care what you say.
Steve-AR @ 88
Steve, we’ve already passed such laws… Read my 84!
Another shocker:
link
And Laura Flaunders
OldCoastie @ 88
Thanks. And good for her!
I hope Hillary gets the nomination.
What’s weird is the way my sexism shows itself: I’m angrier at Dowd than Russert. But that’s partly because part of her enthusiastic monkey girl dance for the men who hired her is the cynical pretense that she’s a fine example of a woman who’s made it in this man’s world.
Russert’s hypocrisy is more garden variety.
Yet Another Poll
I think she’s a talented writer and deserves her gig, but I feel sorry for her because she’s a full-fledged, card-carrying member of what has turned out to be an extraordinarily fraud.
Very late to this post.
Thank you, Jane, for this. I saw the headline on Maureen Dowd(y)’s column and decided my cortisol levels were already too high so I forebore to read.
BTW, her voice completely matches her persona.
CTuttle @ 94
I am aware of 18 2340..and have said that “to the Hague” is just magical thinking. The right wing wackos pushed 18 2340 re:Vietnam and included the death penalty: well hoist the MF’s by their own petard.
My comment was more in line with this country even needing to talk about anti=torture laws.
larry birnbaum @ 99
to me there’s no comparison. Russert’s a pig dog. MoDo needs work but Russsert’s in a position that he uses for his own benefit, and that blatantly includes cash money.
I fell asleep and when I woke up the Patriots had won. Hurray!
neil @ 105
:P
Eureka Springs @ 86
ES- let me do the best I can to address this.
First, fair enough about your reaction. Maureen Dowd doesn’t impact me. I don’t read her. But, she seems to be part of a growing bitch fest against Hillary. This is likely only to impact female voters, who might decide after all, that “Hillary is getting dissed only because she is a woman”, and thus come to her defense by voting for her in a primary, on totally emotional grounds. That is the part of the narrative that alarms me.
And, what I was trying to say, vis a vis Hillary is that “she talks alot but doesn’t actually DO anything”, a slight revision of your original statement.
Y’know, I’ve been as critical as anybody of Dowd’s work – but I think you’re off the mark here. That was a decent column. Hillary’s trying to have it both ways on the gender issue, which is also a nice shorthand for the main problem with her candidacy – the DLC triangulation bullshit. I, for one, am glad to see the MSM calling her out on it.
I just wish they weren’t doing it for no reason other than her last name.
neil @ 105
Really ?!! Bush/Cheney have been impeached ? *g*
(Bold mine)
Steve-AR @ 95
Given that Fletcher is down by twenty plus points in most of the polling leading in to the weekend, my guess is this won’t have much affect. The vote is about Fletcher as a crook no matter how many bait and switch tactics he’s tried to use.
Ghostman @ 18
With all due respect Ghostman you sound like a textbook misogynist on several levels, unintended or not.
Fuck Pat Boone and his white buck shoes.
Another Jeebus shilling fraud.
-GSD
Petrocelli @ 109
True meaning, Petrocelli! Jane is a true Patriot, as are the other FDL front pagers and most commenters!
It’s becoming painfully clear that many on what I thought was the left are De Facto neocons.
Speaking of hatchet jobs, did anyone see the 60 minutes piece on Curveball. Apparently the Iraq war is George Tenants fault for relying on Curveball. Tenant was by no means an innocent bystander but this just let BushCo so off the hook.
Loo Hoo. @ 113
Yep, impeaching Cheney, then Bush is the way to take back America !
GSD @ 111
Uh, GSD? are you on the correct thread? If not, that is way too subtle for me, given the context of the thread. I hope this is not a result of a recent wrist injury. ;)
GSD @ 112
HEY! nothing wrong with white bucks.
*looking cross at you for picking on my father’s footwear*
Petrocelli @ 109
heh…
er – Pat Boone was the one doing the robo-call for the Kentucky governor guy who is trying to get out the homophobe vote…
Thanks for that and we do agree for the most part. I also appreciate Jane calling out such tactics no matter their origin. Obviously I am not in the Clinton camp after decades of being so.. I just want to savor good candidates and press for the alternative (any alternative at this point) through the last sixty days of the primary season. Hopefully beyond the primary’s.
To Larry somewhere above: Talk about sexist. I think Michael Douglas could say he just didn’t like her very much. Or, to be fair, ask Mo what she thought of stud Michael. Come on, here.
Sorry for stepping in the middle of all this, I have spent the day in the influence of someone who suffered much and in a quite way did a great service to so many. As I scanned what has been posted I have had too turn my eyes from the under laying ideas. To me its like 1830’s California or 1850’s mid-west. Sorry I guess I’m not fit for the rough and tumble of 1990’s news group flame wars. I stop by for my own reasons. And now back to the shadows.
Valley Girl @ 117
VG, this was about Pat Boone’s robo calls upthread. I forgot all about Pat Boone, myself.
Petrocelli @ 116
Dennis agrees with ya…
However, I believe Steny, Rahm, and Nancy have other thoughts, tho…
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._1102.html
Valley Girl @ 117
My fault @ 95
CTuttle @ 125
I am dismayed that the progressive blogs are not beating the drums for something we all talked so much about not so long ago … this could be the last chance to impeach Cheney & Bush …
I understand women like Hillary, and some of my friends are like Hillary.
But people in this country will never elected women like us to be President. We’re too old, too undeferential, we seem like their “lady boss.” Our voices are sharp, our opinions are blunt. We live in a deeply misogynistic country, and Hillary is misguided to think SHE’s the one to dispel that.
You, Jane, on the other hand…
Steve-AR @ 126
Steve and Loo Hoo, thanks for pointing that out. Obviously I missed your comment, Steve. My bad.
Petrocelli @ 127
I agree! The process alone will shred many of the Unitary Executive claims, finally, much of the dirt would be aired….
Petrocelli @ 127
But war crimes convictions still loom.
Valley Girl,
Sorry about the mix-up.
I’m not having a Freddie Thomspon moment, I was just railing at that hacky Boone-loser trotting out the gay boogey-man in the final throes of the Kentucky elections.
Today’s GOP, we’ll deal with Al Qaeda after we deal with teh gays.
-GSD
Petrocelli @ 127
… or is it consensus that the time is past … (this part did not show up in the previous comment)
um…..why is calling Dowd “bitchy” and her attack “unsubstantiated” and “fraudulent” — without any specifics as to what she said that isn’t true — praised as some kind of righteous “calling out”? No doubt I’m missing something here.
better a free lecture (all dobro tune-y)
than a pre-electoral robo to me
Loo Hoo. @ 131
Bush will blanket pardon everyone. Congress is caving on FISA and every one of Bush’s transgressions,
therefore charging BushCo with crimes means that Congress is also party to them, no?
randy evans @ 134
Interestingly, Jane had mentioned on the last thread that it’s hard to debunk her column this time…
Ok you will not write I will, its a story of a man born as property, lost his family early, but a kindness that is rare now smiled on him and his love of the natural world, science and art took him from a dirt scratch farm to a respected teacher. Now my fine friends born to better fates say such things that below your talents, reason and logic are a good base, mixed with passion a fine thing. leave the lower things to the lower creatures, and hit them with an old shoe when needed.
randy evans @ 134
Second sentence in the article:
First Hillary got brushed back by the boys in the debate.
They tried, they failed.
GSD @ 132
GSD- the fault was all mine. Fletcher is in big big trouble, and has been for a long long time, from my earlier reading of the Kentucky blogs. A shameless low class maneuver, to be polite about it.
Valley Girl @ 140
As a native Kentuckian, I’m pretty sure that no matter how much the name of Dan’l Boone may resonate with the home folks, they also can recognize that Pat Boone is pretty much full of sh*t and not a Kentuckian. Fletcher is grasping a some pretty flimsy straws.
Petrocelli @ 136
Pollyanna, me? I’m hoping that after this administration, when we have a justice department and majority congress back, they will be charged. And stand trial. I claim no expertise at all, but it seems like people need to be charged after Bush has the power to pardon.
new post
Puzzling over that Israeli Attack on Syria … Again
kinda cool screencast on opensocial
trifecta @ 54
Actually, this rings — it’s resonant, made my crown chakra perk up and take notice.
Why is MoDo such a fucking bitch about Hillary, in such a singular fashion?
Russert’s a bitch with anybody on the left, period. We know he’s easy if not cheap.
But what the fuck is MoDo’s problem? Why is she such an ugly obsessive-compulsive about this one person?
The romantic angle makes sense when one looks at MoDo’s love life; she’s not just angry, she’s wretchedly bitter in a completely irrational fashion. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is irrational, isn’t it?
randy evans @ 134
Yes I believe so.
It was Russert’s claims — quite well debunked by eriposte’s work — that were “unsubstantiated” and “fraudulent.”
I realize it required someone to actually click through and read them, but that is the challenge of the internets.
“substance free?” I think not.
Did we read the same article by Dowd?
I thought she nailed it. Just effing nailed it.
The Clinton supporters and defenders are upset because people; MEN! Are asking Hillary the tough questions that she damn well should be asked.
With all due respect, Jane, Dowd’s criticism of Clinton had more substance, and she addressed the issue of Clinton’s positions, or lack of them, better than did your screed against the article.
The moderators at the debate did a pretty good job of defining how she waffles and jelly-fishes from one position to another.
For me, speaking as a FORMER Clinton admirer and supporter; now, even that’s not good enough. They need to be asking how in the plu-perfect hell ANY democratic candidate can win the general, if they can’t tie bush and the GOP up together, like a Pinata, and then beat them cross-eyed with the Iraq stick.
And the obvious truth is that, with her positions on the war, Clinton has neither the desire nor the capability to do it.
I say to her supporters and her defenders on here:
Why are you joining this MSM-Beltway marketing campaign to foist her off on us by ignoring her longstanding support for the war, and by ignoring her connections with the war lobby?
Until the mid-terms showed her what was what with the changing attitudes of so many voters, she parroted bushCo talking points with regularity and enthusiasm. Only when those polls started to show how much trouble the GOP was in relative to Iraq, did she, like so many republicans, start edging toward the gangplank.
It’s as if you want to award her the nomination as some kind of consolation prize for the bashing she’s taken from the republicans over the years. Why should we do anything LIKE that, when she figuratively crawled into bed with the very people who have been savaging she and her family ever since Bill ran for the presidency?
The question I would ask her is not complex. Not in the least; but it is direct:
“Sen. Clinton: With Iraq the most important issue in this election, how can you campaign on the insanity that bush and the warbots have brought us to, when you won’t even state flatly that invading Iraq was a mistake?”
And, how can the people on here who worked so hard to try to elect Ned Lamont, a good antiwar candidate, and to defeat Joe Lieberman, a chickenhawk of nearly psychotic proportions, slide Clinton’s support of Lieberman, as well as her close ties to AIPAC and it’s “You have to “do” Iran NOW!” policies?
Here:
Two days ago, the Myrtle Beach Sun News put out the results of it’s poll on the candidates for both parties. The poll showed Clinton with a double digit lead over Obama, and with Edwards with only about 9.6% of the democratic votes. The problem is, it was a telephone poll, and the poll involved that same 520-odd number of people. They can call it a random sample, but just like the poll quoted on another thread that showed Clinton running slightly ahead of Giuliani in an area of Kentucky, using such a small number of people makes it VERY easy for the pollers to skew it in one direction or another.
The poll was another “random sample” sponsored by the Sun News, and nowhere was there information about who TOOK the poll, and how they selected the random voters to call.
Nor, at what time of the day it was taken. For example, if they called during working hours, these little polls are directly kicked toward people who obviously are at home to ANSWER the call, which means people whom, generally speaking, are ABLE to be at home, and people whom are not blue-collar or what might be called working-class people of modest means. And there are a lot more of them than there are of well-to-do retirees living in gated golf communities down here, who would be at home at, say, 10AM, and whom would be MUCH more likely to view Clinton favorably than would working class South Carolinians.
But there was one thing in the Sun News article which I found most interesting. And it had nothing to do with opinions, skewed or not. It stated that in 2004, nearly 15 percent of S.C. democrats who voted, voted for george bush. If that’s true, it’s one hell of a heads-up for how Clinton will run in red-state South Carolina.
John Kerry was, relatively speaking, a political unknown when he ran for president. The GOP had to work like navvies to successfully Swiftboat him. He was, as a matter of hard, fast, record, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran whom indisputably volunteered for Vietnam and then asked for and received a transfer from safe offshore duty to duty in the Swiftboat, where he knew he was likely to see action and to be at some risk.
Initially, he had practically none of the negatives of Clinton. As I said, they had to expend enormous amounts of time and money to try to discredit him and to portray him as some kind of wild-eyed “librul” who happened to be married to a very wealthy and also “librul” lady.
If we nominate Hillary Clinton, the moment she stands up there and accepts, the GOP will be on third base and headed for home. The phenomenon of watching the republicans successfully spread lies and bullshit about John Kerry, helped by a quiescent media, will will be as nothing compared to what they can do to Clinton. In fact, they won’t need to spread lies against her at all; all they’ll need to do is remind the base of what they already know; that she’s Bill Clinton’s wife.
In the election, her support for the war will mean nothing to republican voters, just like it means nothing to them now.
If she gets the democratic nomination, I would bet good money that she will lose a quarter of more of the democrats who vote in South Carolina, and to varying degrees, the same thing will happen in the other conservative states. She is a built-in safety net for the republicans. A lifeboat, as their ship sinks. More: with the GOP as the “Titanic”, two miles down in the north Atlantic, and broken in two pieces, she can singlehandedly raise it.
We can’t say it too many times: if she were a man named Smith, the people who are supporting and defending her would never have started to do it. She would be at the top of our yellow-dog-democrat shit-list, and rightly so.
It’s no accident that the staff here, so thorough and so meticulous, and justifiably so, in going after the asshats, both repubs and dems, who are helping to perpetuate the shit that the bush administration is pulling, have seldom directed that hard, glaring, light at Clinton and her record.
I DO wish we could get into the archives here and read some of the posts and comments about her when she was campaigning for Lieberman. I don’t think THEY spared the rod much. :o)
As for Jane’s question:
“Do we really want a bitch fest?”
We sure do; particulary since the alternative is to see a candidate annointed for our nominee who is only STARTING to be held to account for her conduct and her views on what the bush administration, with her help, has done over the past 5 and 1/2 years.
When anyone talks bout the FDL “we”, I only hope that they remember that “we” voted, 998 to 236, for John Edwards over Hillary Clinton, and THAT, along with the great tradition of no-holds-barred democratic primaries, is reason enough for a bitch fest. :o)
The links relate only to the issue of the presidential papers; and I would not characterize them as “debunking” anything. All they provide is a quote from Bill Clinton, hardly an objective source.
The essence of Dowdragon’s argument is very far from debunked: that Hillary’s campaign did in fact exploit the “gender card” in response to the so-called “piling on” at last Tuesday’s debate. Whether uttered by Dowd or anyone else, that is a proverbial “inconvenient truth.”
BTW, I hold no particular brief for Dowd, but she has written some columns on bush and his coterie that make her piece on Clinton look like a reference.
And I suspect the people complaining about Dowd’s, to me, welcome criticism of Clinton for her…liquidity, and her lack of convictions, know that full well.
CTuttle @ 130
many ‘progressives’ would have been (correctly) called ‘right wingers’ 30 years ago
OldCoastie @ 120
getting a fly on pat boone’s wall with a camera stuck in its belly would certainly reveal some ‘interesting’ ***faith based*** activities I’d venture
MoDo’s self-image has plummeted to depths known only to aged Manhattanites. Her former creativity is as limp as an overage, oversexed and over-alcoholed Hemingway. Only vitriol dulls her sadness, as when she described a still sparkling Catherine Deneuve and friends having tea at a Parisian hotel as a Chanel bag surrounded by Chanel bags.
As for MoDo’s writing about American politics, it comes from the screeching cat evading the nightly shoe, the neutered feline screaming at the moon over her lost opportunities.
The NYT has more house clearing to do than it has ever done. If it does it, they may take us to a far, far better place than we have ever been. ModDo, meanwhile, seems intent on knitting while the traditional media turns into a guillotine. Shut her door and turn out the lights.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 83
Both Obama and Clinton are voting against the nomination. Odd that Schumer would use the excuse that “I support a NY nominee” when the other NY Senator doesn’t think it’s imperative. I think that Biden, Dodd, and all the other Senators running for the Democratic Presidential nomination are voting against confirmation.
http://www.boston.com/news/nat…..pposition/
So what the hey are DiFi and Schumer doing? Don’t they believe that they should support the Democratic Presidential nominees on this?
Maureen Dowd makes me think of the Ricky Gervais character in “Extras” who (when panicked) repeats the cheap catchphrase “are you having a laugh?” that he despises and is ashamed of. It seems like Ms. Dowd observes events only in order to find some way to shoehorn them into her “trademarked” style. She has employed this technique so many times that now it comes off as hackneyed and cliched. It seems to me that she is petrified to step away from the “witty/jaundiced” formula that won her a gig on the Times editorial page. There really seems little point in reading her columns past the first sentence or two. She can be counted on to cough up a variation on the same column that she has already written 50 times before. It’s sad and cowardly.
“If it does it, they may take us to a far, far better place than we have ever been. ModDo, meanwhile, seems intent on knitting while the traditional media turns into a guillotine.”
What the Dickens…?
I get it. You hate Hillary, you hate everything about her, and if you don’t have anything to hate about her you’ll find something to hate about her.
It’s rank sexism, it always has been, it’s completely blind irrational misogyny but you’re entitled to it. If it starts to get too disruptive over time you’ll get the boot, I’m just warning you now. There’s only so much of it I’m going to tolerate.
“It’s rank sexism, it always has been, it’s completely blind irrational misogyny but you’re entitled to it.”
Wow. That is so wrong I am just speechless.
“If it starts to get too disruptive over time you’ll get the boot, I’m just warning you now. There’s only so much of it I’m going to tolerate.”
What have I “disrupted”?
But hell, boot away. If rational disagreement about Hillary Clinton equals misogyny to you, Ms. Hamsher, you’ll be doing a lot of booting over the next 12 months.
Can someone explain to me how everything has gotten to the point that it is a gender issue/ It is almost pathological with the Clinton thing.Everyone knows what Dowd is about but if she is writing about anyone else including other females that is just shrugged off. Of course she is who she is and has been after Bush et al for years-whoever is in office..
I have spent my entire adult life in a male dominated career and now after all these have to get on the blogs I enjoy and see all the crap about Clinton and how we must now all bond together because this candidate is being picked on from all corners.and she is a woman so of course we must sstick together ad nauseum. it is a sad day ladies and it a sad commentary from this great site. It is far past time for Clinton to start answering questions and be treated equally with the others. Last I checked this is still not a monarachy ,nor a coronation yet.
What Katie said.
I was a communications major in the mid ’90’s, and I’m here to tell you that the news media does not work that way anymore. If it did, KO’s Countdown would not be the ONLY news show around that tells our side of the argument.
No, the news in the US is a very partisan affair, since to decline the Kool Aid is to loose one’s job. We have deregulation to thank for that.
Tanbark like a great white shark, your input suddenly rendered the “seals for Hillary” mute.
Joe ‘f*ck the progressives” Leiberman people!!! That is whom she supported!! She supported Joe “Bush lover” Leibermann and campaigned for Joe “The kiss” Leibermann. After the Ned Lamont gig and the glorious “F.U” she gave us by her vote on “Kyl-Liebermann” how can anyone on this blog support her?
It’s not just sexism towards one candidate. It’s the “weak” on national security and the general values that are called “bread and butter” issues is how the right has always emasculated the democrat. Even through Bush’s results have been weak he’s made quite a spectacle utilizing traditional symbols of strength (military, tough talk etc.)
Now that a women is running on the Dem side the attack is the same but different. You are not the kind of WASP the hard right likes. The media is complicit in this with Matthews constantly calling the dems the Mommy party while bestowing the manly man virtures of the repub.
It’s all kind of sick and really disappointing that Modo, whose latest bookcover, looks as it does…has the audacity to be self-riteous about women’s gender issues with Hillary.
Remember her front page picture on the rolling stones. Hardly the picture of serious journalist.
Petrocelli @ 127
I think there are a lot of competing issues and the Mukasey hearing/trial is a big one right now.
I’d like to also think there’s a patience with Congress just now, while they sort out spending bills and how to get them passed without Senate Repubs just blocking them all.
Plus, there is the Kucinich bill to impeach — headed your way!
The impeachment of Deadeye Dick isn’t dead, just slightly delayed.