Sitting here looking for something to watch, and I have this sort of morbid curiosity about John Carter. I kind of want to see it because the premise is interesting, but I know it bombed. Did any of you see it? Was it really that bad, and is the Ishtar of 2012? Or did it just not catch on?
Archives for July 2012
If you love him, be proud of him
I know we write this type of post over and over again here, but I can’t stop myself…
I don’t want to make this another Firebaggers versus Obot post. I’m an Obot but I agree with some of the Firebagger criticism about Obama’s handling of the economy and mortgage issues.
I was at a party Friday night with a bunch of other liberal people. We talked about politics, and they all agreed everything was worse, all sad panda type stuff, no progress. I brought up ACA, which they kind of pooh-poohed, and I brought up that I didn’t think I’d see a black president in my lifetime, and now I have. They said he was bi-racial, so not such a big thing. I said you think that matters to the fringe, look at how they talk about him.
Then they got going on how awesome Clinton was relative to Obama. I countered that he didn’t pass anything as big as ACA. They couldn’t argue with that, but had some other stuff about how great the economy was and it was all his doing.
Why can’t Democrats just get behind Obama, admit ACA is a big win, admit Obama’s election was a big win? I’m a mopey, pessimistic, anxious, depressive person, but I still can’t understand it.
Look, we’re going to win in the end, make this country more inclusive, beat back the corporatocracy. It’s going to be a long hard slog, but we’re lucky to have some of the people we do on our side, including Obama.
It’s time to cheer up.
Wow- Nick Denton Really Is an Asshole
Here’s Denton whining about the manner by which Anderson Cooper came out:
It’s awesome that the calculation has changed this much: that it’s now more embarrassing to remain in the closet than it is to come out.
But here’s one quibble. The method of revelation was so obviously designed to minimize the story. It’s part of the Independence Day news dump, along with the Cruise-Holmes separation, timed to be overwhelmed by fireworks and the smell of barbeque.
If Anderson Cooper is going to compromise his personal privacy for “visibility”, this is a particularly hesitant way to go about it.
Here’s what I don’t understand. The choreographed publication of a private letter from Anderson to Andrew Sullivan has so much in common with Obama’s mealy-mouthed statement of personal belief on afternoon TV: both are missed opportunities.
Hey Nick- it’s none of your fucking business when or how any gay person comes out of the closet. Earlier today, OTB’s headline on this issue was “Anderson Cooper Is Gay, Almost Nobody Cares, And That’s A Good Thing.”
Nick Denton. Almost a nobody, but a jerk nonetheless.
If Halperin Whines, It’s Working
More proof that anytime the beltway hacks and blue dogs whine about something being unfair, it’s because the attack is working:
Propelled by a torrent of blistering television advertisements, President Obama is successfully invoking Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital to raise questions about his commitment to the middle class, strategists in both parties say, as the candidates engage in a critical summer duel to set the terms for this fall.
Despite doubts among some Democrats about the wisdom of attacking Mr. Romney’s business career, Obama commercials painting him as a ruthless executive who pursued profits at the expense of jobs are starting to make an impact on some undecided voters, according to strategists from both sides, who differ on whether they are causing any substantial damage.
I hope Cory Booker missed this news, because I would hate for him to become nauseous.
Monday Evening Open Thread: Rachel Maddow, Thinking Person
Via Charlie Pierce, Ben Wallace-Wells at Rolling Stone has a good read on “Rachel Maddow’s Quiet War“:
[My emphasis.] Apart from the never-ending battle, what’s on the agenda for the evening?… The morning after the correspondents dinner, with most of the capital hungover, Maddow shows up to work, as a panelist on Meet the Press. Appearing alongside her is Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant who served both George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, an embodiment of the clubby, insider pundit culture that Maddow abhors. When she begins to talk about gender disparity in pay – “Women in this country still make 77 cents on the dollar for what men make” – the genteel Castellanos, a master of the form, simply denies that this is true. Women in the workforce, he insists, make just as much as men; liberals are just “manufacturing a political crisis.”
Maddow knows immediately that Castellanos is lying to the audience… “This hasn’t just been sold to Alex by someone briefing him on the subject,” she thinks to herself. “This is something that has actually been sold to Republicans – this is a vision of Republican World.”
The tricky part is knowing what to do about the lie. Chris Matthews would erupt in thunderous outrage; Keith Olbermann would dissolve into a knowing sneer. But Maddow’s skills are different: She strives not for the expression of political anger but for its suppression, to distance herself from the partisan debate rather than engage it, to steward progressive fury into a world of certainty, of charts, graphs, statistics, a real world that matters and that the political debate can’t corrupt. Maddow’s producers say, unexpectedly, that the closest analog for her style as a broadcaster is Glenn Beck, whose abilities as a performer she very much admires. Though their worldviews could not be more different, Maddow and Beck both attempt to pull off a similar trick: to reflect and redirect their audience’s rage at politics without succumbing to it. What Maddow is trying to build is a different channel for liberal anger, an outsider’s channel, one that steers the viewer’s attention away from the theater of politics and toward the exercise of power, which is to say toward policy. On-air, like Beck, she is almost relentlessly cheerful. “Anger is like sugar in a cocktail,” Maddow tells me. “I’d rather have none at all than a grain too much.”
But this time, apparently, she lets a grain too much show. “Rachel, I love how passionate you are,” Castellanos says, coolly pivoting the argument from the facts to her barely contained fury.
“That’s really condescending,” Maddow replies.
This is Maddow’s battle with television: to try to bring a different, more objective model of inquiry to a world of political talking points. Later that week, conferring with her staff, Maddow recounts what had actually flickered across her mind in that instant with Castellanos. “I wanted to say, ‘Are you saying I’m cute when I’m angry?'” she recalls. “But I didn’t, because when you’re a woman on television, you can’t even say the word angry.”
Monday Evening Open Thread: Rachel Maddow, Thinking PersonPost + Comments (59)
Make it rain
The thermometers not going to fill itself.
This is for metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.
24 Hour Party People
There’s been a bit of an argument here between the lay people who typically thought the SCOTUS ruling would go 5-4 against ACA and the lawyers who thought it would go 6-3 or 7-2 in favor. Can we at least agree on this: that the level of partisanship the right is displaying is stung striking here, both from judges like Scalia who literally changed his mind about principle in order too oppose it, and from conservative activists who now brand Roberts a traitor.
The bill was based on a plan drawn up by the Heritage Foundation. And then 80% of conservative justices branded it unconstitutional.
If a Republican Congress had the bill, and a Republican president had signed it, how would the vote have gone, in your opinion? I’d especially like to hear from the lawyers.