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First Lena Dunham, the Joyce Maynard of a new generation, does a YouTube ad for the Obama campaign, and Foreign Policy asks “Is the Obama campaign taking commercial ideas from Vladimir Putin?” Not just commercial ideas, the commentors assure each other! Garance Frank-Ruta (perhaps ironically) also brings out the Cavuto Mark — “Lena Dunham’s New Obama Ad—As Controversial As Everything She Does?” — linking to the well-known moralists at Breitbart.com and RightScoop, who are appalled by the filthy sluttiness of it all. (I suppose I should look for Ross Doubthat’s opinion, but there’s only so much I’m willing to withstand for you guys.) Of course, as GQ‘s Reid Cherlin helpfully points out, “People who see this video and are outraged were going to vote for Romney anyway. “
Then Douglas Brinkley, sercon historian guy, does a Rolling Stone cover interview with President Obama (which you should definitely read if you haven’t already), and includes a throwaway line:
… As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. After a thoughtful pause, she said, “Tell him: You can do it.”
Obama grinned. “That’s the only advice I need,” he said. “I do very well, by the way, in that demographic. Ages six to 12? I’m a killer.”
“Thought about lowering the voting age?” Bates joked.
“You know, kids have good instincts,” Obama offered. “They look at the other guy and say, ‘Well, that’s a bullshitter, I can tell.'”…
Worse things have been said about Willard Mitt Romney, of course, but the President used a naughty word, on the record! eleventy-one! The Latino Rebels blog has a pretty good collection of links to the various MSM reactions. The Daily Mail points out that noted Christianist and prominent moral scold Rick Santorum has also used the bs-word in public, as recently as last March. Dave Weigel at Slate has the best capper:
… The late-game presidential cuss word is a factor with some precedent. In the last week of the 1968 campaign, Richard Nixon slipped and said that the campaign was “getting down to the nut-cutting.” In 2000, most famously, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were unaware that a mic was picking up their conversation about New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. “Major league asshole,” said Bush. “Big time,” said Cheney. And Politifact wasn’t even around to discuss whether this was true.
And, hey, look! Both Nixon and Bush won close elections.
Incidentally, one of the earliest political anecdotes I can remember hearing as a small child involved another Democratic president, the then recently-retired Harry Truman, who was said to have offended some ladies at his wife’s tea party with a reference to “manuring the lawn”.
“My dear,” said one of them to Bess, after Harry left, “Couldn’t you get him to say… fertilizer?”
To which Bess replied, “It’s taken me forty years to train him to use ‘manure’.”
Hill Dweller
I have a feeling the new shiny object for the cable hacks will be the disastrous rendition of “America the Beautiful” at Willard’s rally Thursday night. Meatloaf and the lead singer of Alabama are obviously drunk. Calling it a train wreck is an understatement.
ETA: I suspect the Obama campaign are more than happy to have the media parrot his remarks. Willard is a bullshitter.
Spaghetti Lee
“My dear,” said one of them to Bess, after Harry left, “Couldn’t you get him to say… fertilizer?”
To which Bess replied, “It’s taken me forty years to train him to use ‘manure’.”
Oh my, that is hilarious, even if it is apocryphal.
Nemo_N
Even Romney supporters know he is a bullshitter.
Hell, they are going to vote for him because he is a bullshitter.
Spatula
Lena Dunham’s existence and celebrity is yet another sure sign that this nation is doomed.
James E. Powell
@Nemo_N:
I don’t know about voters, but the Village Courtiers certainly admire Romney’s ability to lie right to their faces.
amk
To
paraphrasequote darth, they can go fuck themselves.And as hill dweller points out, way to spread the meme, you assholes.
Hill Dweller
@amk: Can you post the link to the Meatloaf/Willard meltdown on this thread? That thing needs to go viral.
What were Willard’s handlers doing? Meatloaf and the lead singer of Alabama are obviously hammered. Why did they let them go onstage?
Spatula
@Hill Dweller:
Kind of bums me out.
Meatloaf has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for many years and was clean for quite a while and looking good at one point.
He’s not young anymore; this is a bad sign.
Eric the infrequent
No idea who Lena is but the ad made me giggle.
amk
@Hill Dweller: Here ya go.
Anne Laurie
@Spatula: In all fairness, neither you nor I are in her target demographic, are we?
SectionH
Little girl calls her brother “penis breath” in a Spielberg film from the ’80s, and these clowns are pretending to faint over small beer like this? Well, fuck, of course they are.
Joseph Nobles
@SectionH: No, it was Elliot calling his older brother “penis breath.”
bad Jim
Truman was the kind of guy who would call a spade a goddamn shovel.
Romney’s the sort of guy who would actually say “gosh” at home.
Groucho48
Nice that the right is melting down over the video, but, to be honest, I didn’t like it much. Smarmy, precious and too prolix.
SectionH
@Joseph Nobles: I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it.
tjmn
President Obama is right about the very young having very good BS radars. Added bonus they don’t have the filters and blinders in place needed to refrain from telling it like it is.
arguingwithsignposts
ITT: Everyone out on the lawns chasing the kids off of them.
TR
Go ahead and freak out over the “bullshitter” line, teatards. It just means everyone will be talking about whether or not Romney is in fact a bullshitter.
Comrade Javamanphil
You have to love the symmetry of the GOP touting the presidential endorsement of a singer most famous for a song about premarital sex in a car while simultaneously complaining about this ad.
Marty
The ad is cute. It sort of takes “Who would you rather have a beer with?” to the next level.
Aimai
God I think she’s adorable. but then I have teenage daughters who are upset they are too young to vote for Barack. I think this is a great ad for a crucial voting block which is never going to go back and start voting republican.
Lurking Canadian
@Joseph Nobles: Just a man in a raincoat, honey.
Princess
The right hates the Lena Dunham ad? Wow, it must be more effective than I thought.
Omnes Omnibus
People find this upsetting? Have they seen the Sarah Siverman stuff?
Ash Can
When I was a young teenager in the early 70s, my friends and I listened to recordings of George Carlin and Cheech and Chong (we were just young enough to have missed out on the Lenny Bruce craze). I remember how many grownups were shocked at these off-color comics. The people who are shocked now by the Lena Dunham ad and Obama’s bs-word must all be in their eighties and using walkers.
And BTW, the prez is right — kids really are like that, and he really does know them well. :)
And fInally, @SectionH: Hats off for a reference to a true classic!
Uncle Cosmo
Anyone who is offended by that clip is a fucking waste of C, H, O, N, trace elements & ambient [email protected]Princess:
Ayup.
@Omnes Omnibus:
We need to send them links to Sarah’s clips–probably induce enough incapacitating strokes in the Romnoid base to turn the election into a landslide.
shpx.ohfu
Let’s see…which party was just fine with the vice president telling (on the floor of the United States Senate) a member of the opposing party to go eff himself?
Linda Featheringill
I’m an old fogey and I thought the ad was cute.
The speaker is a cute young lady, too. Hope she has a good career.
RedKitten
Seriously? Right-wingers are upset about that ad? Maybe I’m just desensitized, but I thought it was cute and tongue-in-cheek. She hit a few too many points in a short time for it to really resonate, in my opinion, but really…scandalous and immoral? Really? From the party that touts family values while making an absolute mockery of them?
MrSnrub
Was listening to Right Wing radio this morning. Apparently this ad shows Obama’s contempt for women. This is what he thinks of your daughters.
The faux outrage was pretty solid this morning.
Marty
Commenter at RedState:
“Denigrated”. Get it?
arguingwithsignposts
@Marty:
Wow. Just wow.
Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts: Ohhh so close!
pseudonymous in nc
@Marty:
There’s a medical condition found among wingnut fathers-of-daughters; it’s known as “Purity Balls”.
pk
Well I don’t like the ad. Outraged is too strong a word, but it’s annoying. It shows a certain contempt for women and that’s not what I expect from Democrats. Smart women are fully capable of understanding the issues without reducing it to a choice about finding the right man. How would it sound if it was addressed to men and insinuated that voting was about getting laid. And I don’t know who Lena Dunham so maybe makes a difference.
Villago Delenda Est
@bad Jim:
No wonder Rmoney avoided military service.
Apart from the possibility of getting his ass shot off, he’d be exposed on a daily basis to all sorts of language that would cause his precious ears to fall off.
This also explains the shocked fuckwits of the Village.
RedKitten
@Marty: Um…wut? Does this imbecile actually think that Lena Dunham’s ad is saying that she SLEPT with Obama? Srsly?
Villago Delenda Est
@pk:
So, a woman says it, and does it in what I consider to be a charming manner, and it shows “contempt for women”?
Meanwhile, Rethuglicans are openly saying that rape is the will of God and you’re concerned about this ad?
Someone get the clue by four. It’s needed to school pk here.
divF
I think that the best part of the ad was the pivot, where she explicitly referred to the first time she voted. She went into the voting booth a girl, came out a woman. It came across to me not as sexual innuendo, but a genuine expression of a rite of passage to adulthood (try replacing “girl” and “woman” with “boy” and “man”).
My first election was 1972 – I was 20, it was the first election after the voting age had been lowered to 18, and it was at a time when the country was as bitterly divided as it is today. I remember the feeling of responsibility, of adulthood, in that first vote (well, voting for McGovern for President, and Ron Dellums for Congress helped.).
pk
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, I am not concerned by the ad. It’s annoying, that’s all. I can be pissed off and outraged by republicans and annoyed by a democratic ad. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
Corner Stone
@pk:
I’m confused. Would the ad be Lena insinuating she’d bang me if I voted for Obama? Or would it have a couple young studs doing a kind of Penthouse Forum about how their first time went, when they pulled on that big lever and “punched” the ticket?
Joel
@Spatula: Worse things have been said about Jerry Garcia.
Liberty60
This is all just Cleek’s Law in action- they are outraged over whatever Obama does, updated daily.
Maude
@arguingwithsignposts:
34
He doesn’t remember Reagan, obviously.
Tim I
@Linda Featheringill: Lena is doing just fine. She’s 26 and has already produced a movie and a hot TV series. I believe shes won 4 Emmy Awards for the TV show. I think she’ll do just fine.
danimal
I’d believe they were really upset if I didn’t hear, every time one of these mofos repeats a racist/sexist/obnoxious joke, that liberals “don’t have a sense of humor.”
Let’s turn their crocodile tears into actual tears; two weeks to go before their four-year project to destroy Obama (and the American people, if necessary) goes up in smoke!
YellowJournalism
What’s funny is that the conservative parody responses to the ad have more innuendo and some nastier insinuations than Dunham’s (President as a one-night stand), yet they keep getting linked to and lauded by the same people who are OUTRAGED! at the original ad. (See Erik, Son of Erik. And does he know his Twitter handle fittingly starts with “EW?”)
MKS
Not outraged, just sad. Many young 2008 contracted the Socialistic Transmitted Disease of unemployment and malaise from the Obama administration, and it’s sad that another crop of innocents may be vulnerable.
Jay in Oregon
@RedKitten:
As I said over at TBogg’s joint, I wonder how many of these moral scolds have retreated to the fainting couches over the GOP’s willingness to have a national conversation regarding which types of rape are acceptable and/or God’s will.
Because that is far more vulgar.
Mike G
Repukes love bullies, assholes and liars. The non-rich Repuke voters are just stupid enough to think that they’re in the club, that it’s this rich Mormon vulture capitalist and them against all the heathens/darkies/broads/furriners, his aggression benefits them and that he’ll make sure they get special privileges as they rejoice at the punishment unleashed on people they don’t like.
It never seems to penetrate their skulls that to the Repuke powerful they aren’t pets, they are livestock like the rest of us.
shortstop
@Jay in Oregon: Sex is only vulgar when women consent to and are enjoying it. Otherwise, it’s just god’s will.