That is the only thing that should be said to these guys when they come on tv.
Well Done, Katrina
This post is in: Excellent Links, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Well Done, Katrina
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ulee
“cute line”? How cute is 4500 american service members killed for a neocon wetdream? And yet this fucker gets airtime and lots and lots of money. Sickening.
SuperHrefna
@ulee: Everything is just a line to him, it is all theoretical. Nothing to do with the real world. I cannot overstate how much I despise that man.
Betty Cracker
Yep. It’s bad enough that the programs ask these clusterfuck artists on — if they won’t stop, it’s up to their fellow panelists to call the pricks out to their faces. Kudos to KVH. I long for a world in which Kristol, Feith, et al, never leave their homes without a disguise for fear of being spat upon by random strangers.
Corner Stone
I just don’t think KVH is an effective speaker or able to successfully push these neocons off.
She didn’t score any points there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Aside from the Iraq War, this man’s chief contribution to our political life are Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, and the memo advising Republicans that health care reform, the Clinton version, would be too popular and thus bad for the Republican Paty. Comedy, farce, tragedy and rat-fuckery, so of course ABC had to hire him back.
Somewhat along those lines, George Stephanpolous presented a category on Jeopardy this past week, and pretty much came across as a smarmy Broderist prick. Also, too, Jonathan Karl.
Mr Stagger Lee
@ulee: If there is a Hell, I hope spends it in a room full of images of the faces of those servicemen who died in his war, as well as those of the innocent Iraqis, plus to hear the wails of the grieving…Forever. Shame on those news executives who put him on also.
TaMara (BHF)
It’s about F-ing time someone called him on his bullshit. Well done, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Corner Stone
@Mr Stagger Lee: There is no Hell after this one. He lives a comfortable life 99.90% of us will never know. Untroubled and unconcerned about anyone or anything that is not him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: Huh. I don’t watch the Gasbags anymore, but I’ve always thought KVH was pretty good on TV. I figured George Will took his toupee and ran away to Fox because arguing with KVH and Krugman wasn’t as easy or amusing as condescending to the clueless dingbats Cokie and Sam.
Pogonip
Did Lily ever get any tuna? She was asking so politely while Steve was yelling “TUNA! TUNA! DAMN YOU, FAT BOY, TUNA!”. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but I hope the polite dog also got some tuna.
MattF
I think what Matthew Dowd said was pretty remarkable for a long-term Republican operative. No one agrees with Cheney/Kristol. Period.
Violet
Every single fucking time people like Bill Kristol need to be asked when they served in the military and if they didn’t, why not. Every single time. Make them repeat it. “Why didn’t you volunteer anyway?” “Why did you choose not to join the military since it’s so important to you?” Make them answer.
Glad she called him on it but she didn’t also press him on why he didn’t serve. Make it clear so these idiots are happy to send other people and other people’s kids into war but won’t dream of going themselves and don’t want their kids to go.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As I said in a previous thread, I disagree with KVH being any good on air.
She has a very poor on air speaking style, IMO.
SuperHrefna
@Corner Stone: I think she did. She stated the truth, clearly and simply. The fact that that smarmy prick smugly rolled along isn’t on her. If she’d bullied him back she would have just been sinking to his level. He thinks all of this is a game, just an abstract exercise in scoring points, he is a lost cause. But if she can reach out to thoughtful people, that is a win for us.
Corner Stone
@MattF: Unfortunately, I agree with you in that I also thought Dowd was more effective in that segment.
I’m not a big fan of Matthew Dowd.
Corner Stone
@SuperHrefna: He said the only talking point he had to say, that Obama said Iraq was at a peaceful transition point.
That is all that will come out of that exchange for a majority of viewers.
Asking a bloated old ass fool why he doesn’t sign up to go fight in Iraq isn’t going to resonate with anyone except for those who already hate him.
srv
We should have just kept sanctioning and courtesy bombing them, would have been a lot fewer Iraqis to worry about.
You can’t win by surrendering.
ulee
Note to the US government courtesy of Glengarry Glen Ross. “You are here to help us. Not fuck us up.”
Mr Stagger Lee
@Corner Stone: Very true, then again I liked how Bill Maher owned him on his show. I think that is the way to get at people like him, mock him.
Mustang Bobby
I am a good Quaker and believe in peace, but I still want to punch Bill Kristol in his fat face, ship him off to Gitmo with his hands tied to his ankles and raffle him off to the guy with the worst case of the clap.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She was just fine.
srv
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/14/remarks-president-and-first-lady-end-war-iraq
raven
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Pogonip: Yes, Lily got tuna.
polyorchnid octopunch
The thing that I find amazing is that the tacit assumption of all of these speakers is that it’s still up to the US to decide what happens there. ‘This guy’s a problem, those people are a problem’ (paraphrasing); the truth is that in the final analysis it’ll be up to the people that live there to work all those things out. There’s a real problem among our elites wrt accepting the political and moral agency of the people that, you know, live there.
Not to mention understanding that there are actual limits to what the US (along with the rest of the West) can or even should do.
raven
That picture mistermix has on his post needs to go. It’s as bad as Hamsher’s blackface and serves less purpose.
MattF
@polyorchnid octopunch: Well, yes. Considering, in particular, how the Iraqi army has responded to the ISIS attacks seems to me to answer all the questions that even your inquiring warmonger would ask about additional American participation in this fiasco.
gogol's wife
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
Whew.
gogol's wife
@raven:
Co-sign.
Patrick
People, especially on the right, keep claiming we should run our country’s budget like we run our family’s budget. If that’s the case, then why are people like McCain, Cheney and Kristol still on the air as if their “expertise” is worth anything.
If I hired a plumber and he did a poor job, I would never hire him again. Heck, I may even write a bad review on him on Angi’s list, Yelp or whatever. He may soon be out of business if he is not competent.
Yet, here, our country’s MSM keep “hiring” these imbecilles as if their opinions was worth anything. They showed back in 2003 that they literally know absolutely nothing about Iraq, about Sunnis or Shiites etc etc. The cost because of these idiots have so far been about 4500 US soldiers, perhaps over 100,000 Iraqi casualties, countless Iragi refugees, an empowered Iran, over a trillion dollars added to our country’s deficit etc etc.
Yet, here they are once again to advice the rest of us based on their “expertise”. I want to puke…
The Dangerman
Who really gives two shits over Billy Kristol? It’s Bush and/or Cheney that should have been frog marched. Kristol is just a puppet with someone else’s hand up his ass.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yep, the Iraq war was Bill Kristol’s Katrina.
I mean er..
Yep, the Iraq war was Bill Kristol’s, Katrina.
Well either way really.
ulee
@gogol’s wife: I relayed this information to my dogs. There all–goddamn right she got the tuna–.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: I thought KVH was fine too. And I love that Dowd pretty much summed up how most Americans feel about sending additional American troops into a failed military experiment. Hell to the no!
Cheney’s side has lost their latest effort at warmongering, which is a good thing for the world.
gogol's wife
@ulee:
It’s hilarious — much as I know John Cole adores that dog and would deny her nothing, it’s been nagging at me all day — did she get some tuna?
gogol's wife
@Bill E Pilgrim:
LOL
I was trying to think of a parallel joke, but this is much better than anything I came up with.
SuperHrefna
@ulee: I never for one minute believed that Princess Lily Cole wouldn’t get everything she wanted.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Katrina was a great front person though. I wonder how much Dowd would have said, had it not been for her smack down.
JPL
@raven: What post? The Russell Brand video is all I could find.
Corner Stone
@JPL: Probably about as much as he said there.
I’m actually agreeing with some others here, KVH was “just fine”. Nothing extraordinary about what she said or did. It certainly wasn’t epic, and it was not a smackdown. It was about expected.
raven
@JPL: Fanatics. I mean I posted something that I probably shouldn’t have, apologized, Ann Laurie deleted it and moved on. This is really awful.
Anoniminous
@Patricia Kayden:
They are a big O for their last 3. Kristol, et. al., wanted to bomb Syria and then move on Iran.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but for anyone who was a Designing Women fan, Meshach Taylor has died.
RIP, Anthony.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, I’m sorry. We were just talking about that show recently. He was very funny.
D58826
Same church but different pew, on Cnn Candy Crowley interviewed the Artless Dodger Darrel on the IRS ‘scandal’. She kept asking the same simple question – do you have a document/e-mail meeting notes/etc where Lois Lerner discussed going after conservative non-profits for political reasons. Well as to be expected the Artless Dodger bobbed and weaved but never answered the question.
He did repeat something that he said yesterday and that is Lerner, or maybe the IRS, has turned over 1million documents to the DOJ. He provide no context, no surprise, but he is outraged just outraged, again no surprise. Any one know what these 1 million documents refers to? If DOJ is conducting their own investigation of the ‘scandal’ then it would seem reasonable that the IRS would be providing documents.
Mnemosyne
Pet peeve: when you forget your password for a website and request that they email it to you, and it takes them OVER AN HOUR to do it. Dumbasses, why did you think I was asking for my password if I was not planning to use it, like, right now?
(Actually, I still haven’t gotten the email. Because, again, apparently they think people just idly request their password without any plans to use it in the near future.)
Gator90
The glorious Surge, according to Kristol, “made up for” Bush’s previous mistakes in Iraq. Really, Bill? Did it unkill all the dead people? F—ing sociopath.
Patrick
@Gator90:
Exactly. Did the surge enable us to get the trillions of dollars back that the war of choice cost us? Did the lives of the refugees get back to normal the way it was prior to March 2003? Sickening…And these are same hypocrites who complain about the deficit.
gnomedad
@Gator90:
“The Surge” should have been called “Oh Shit, Shinseki Was Right, How Many More Troops Do I Need So This Won’t Look Like A Total Clusterfuck?”
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Are you sure the reminder email didn’t wind up in your spam filter? It happens sometimes.
MattF
@gnomedad: Or “How many lives will it cost to make this look like Obama’s fault?”
raven
@gnomedad: BTW, new VA head named. Robert Mc Donald from Procter and Gamble.
ulee
freedy johnston’s Bad Reputation song and video will bring on the tears, for me at least. “Don’t you think I’ve heard the talk? Nobody’s gonna tell me who to love.”
Amir Khalid
@raven:
Isn’t that the company with the Satanic corporate logo?
raven
@Amir Khalid: Pretty funny snopes on that!
Baud
@raven:
So what you’re saying is that at least one Senate Republican will bring it up during the confirmation hearing.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: uhoh, What will the Fox say?
raven
@Baud: ding
Patricia Kayden
@MattF: Actually President Obama has handled the Iraq disaster pretty well. But since everything in Rightwing World is Obama’s fault, the Iraq disaster was his fault from the beginning of Shock and Awe.
MattF
@Patricia Kayden: Also, President While Black is an impeachable offense.
Aunt Kathy
Came across this kids book the other day, and thought, “HA! There you are, Dick Cheney (et al)!”
The grumpy little king was a little guy who wanted to be a big guy, so he decided to start a war and send people out to fight his fights for him. The men on the battlefield looked around and realized their kings were nowhere to be found, so they took their kings out to the battlefield to slug it out.
But the kings were chickenhawks and didn’t want to do their own fighting, so the soldiers decided they wouldn’t fight either. So the king is still little and grumpy, but nobody cares.
A copy of this needs to be sent to every damn neocon in the land.
http://www.amazon.com/Grumpy-Little-King-Michel-Streich/dp/1742375723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404078856&sr=8-1&keywords=grumpy+little+king
PurpleGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s a shame. I liked his portrayal of Anthony. He recently had a role on two episodes of Criminal Minds. It seemed like they might use him and the character again. RIP Meshach.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: I recently had to ask PayPal to send an e-mail to reset my password. I requested the e-mail link something like 6 or 7 times. E-mail never did come in; at the same time they sent me a promotional message. I ended up asking for a phone call to give me the rest link.
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Not a fan of the show, but a big fan of Meshach Taylor.
RIP
Cervantes
@MattF:
Yes, although until 1999 he was a Democrat and worked to elect Democrats.
shelley
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, no.
I remember his character saying his job description as ‘Delivery man and dating consultant.’
Pogonip
@Violet: I don’t think that would help with people who have no morals and no shame.
Howard Beale IV
@JPL: “”Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
Wait — are you saying (1) any other guest would have done what Katrina did, or (2) what she did is pretty much what you expected she would do, or (3) her question had just about the effect on the discussion that you thought it would, or (4) something else?
debbie
@MattF:
I agree. He usually tries to stay in the safe middle zone, but not today.
I still think the way to end all wars is to put the generals and the proponents at the front of the line…always.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
@raven:
@Baud:
I would not put it past President Obama to have had this in mind* and be fucking with their heads just a leetle bit with the P&G nomination.
*(Not as his primary reason for nominating Bob McDonald, of course, but as gravy.)
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: No, not “any” other guest. Cokie would never have said that. KVH did exactly what I expected her to, and something she has done many, many times before when she has been on air. Her reply or jab at Bill had exactly as much impact on the conversation as I would have expected if someone had just described it to me. Which is to say, none. I don’t know what the “something else” may or may not be. But to get to the heart of the matter, Kristol is a paid shill for interests that benefit when the commonweal is misused. As such, he gets a cushy seat at the table to display his bloated toad-like countenance. And there’s nothing KVH or anyone can say to him or about him that has any actual impact as long as that continues.
KVH is a very poor on air speaker. This wasn’t startling, or impactful or epic or anything else. Bill Kristol laughed her off, she shut up, and the segment continued.
He’ll be back on next week, or the week after that.
Corner Stone
Where was Donna Brazile in that segment? Why didn’t the wise woman of D party advocacy dubstep on KVH’s comments and beat Kristol into the dirt?
Why was Matthew Dowd the most succinct and powerful speaker in that segment?
WaterGirl
@raven: I completely agree, and I said so in that thread. Either mistermix didn’t see the comments or he didn’t care.
raven
@WaterGirl: It got moved below the fold.
RSA
Kristol:
Indeed, isn’t that enough punishment for his crimes?
Liberty60
I can never see Bill Kristol without thinking ot this scene in Serenity, where the villian tells some hapless bureaucrat-
“In certain older civilized cultures, when a man has failed so completely as you have, he would throw himself on his sword”…
WaterGirl
@raven: I guess that’s something. But not enough. It’s so cavalier; it really angers me. He needs to take it down.
And for anyone who uses an RSS reader, it’s still front and center, right at the top, no warning.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
For me, it was because Dowd actually rebutted Kristol. Kristol’s (Cheney’s) line is that the surge created a unified and peaceful Iraq and Obama pulled out and that caused the current disaster.
Dowd contradicted that. He said soldiers and others who have been there say the US could stay there for years and years and years and it wouldn’t matter.
In terms of punchy lines, though, Katrina wins. I just googled Kristol and Katrina and her line is what they all picked up and repeated.
Kay
I love what a chicken-shit Kristol is.
“President Bush” made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. President Bush isn’t attacking Obama on Iraq. His credibility on criticism of Obama Iraq policy isn’t at issue here, because he didn’t put it into play.
What’s at issue is whether Bill Kristol and Dick Cheney have any credibility on Iraq.
Nice deflection there. I love his unique combination of smarmy suck-up and personal coward, and in one sentence! That’s genius, right there.
LT
Your right to congratulate Van Huevel for her righteous words. But that pat on her back is also a sad indictment on those in democratic party who lack the brains to emulate her plain speaking. Her performance was tantamount to shooting a fat, discredited, slow witted fish in a very small barrel (with a sawed-off shotgun). As she proved, it’s so friggin’ easy to do there is no excuse why it’s not reflexively practiced by those who claim to represent the best interests of the democratic rank and file.
Corner Stone
@Kay:
Ok. Let us count the days until he’s back in the nationally syndicated pundit chair.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: What sort of blow could anyone have landed that would keep Kristol off the air?
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I checked again when I came back from errands and the second email was in the spam filter … but it was still an hour+ after I had replied to the first “reset your password” email. Grrr.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: One inch death punch, bitchez.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: I’m not sure if we’re disagreeing or not.
I’m a fan of what KVH said, and her saying it on national TV. I just think it was rather pedestrian, and not that big of a deal.
pseudonymous in nc
“Go eat a bag of salted dicks” is an even cuter line, Katrina. I think TBogg will let you off a royalty payment if you use it next time.
jheartney
These pundit shows are essentially bloodless gladiatorial contests. The point for the participants is not to knock your opponent off the air. It’s to say something provocative enough to get yourself invited back the next time.
Kristol is in no danger of being left out of the conversation no matter what anyone else says about him. In fact landing strong rhetorical blows only makes him more valuable; viewers will tune in to see if he gives as good as he gets.
It’s a bit like the line from WarGames: the only way to win the game is not to play. I long ago stopped watching the Sunday Gasbags. If everyone else did too it would make the world a better place.
Cervantes
@jheartney: Could not agree more.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl:
What really angers me is what precipitated that act of protest (I assume it is one).
WaterGirl
@Cervantes: You’re referring to the catholic church & pedophile priests, I presume?
I feel like the use of that image is a huge kick in the gut to any of the kids who were abused by priests and any kids who were abused by any adult.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: I think we agree, more or less.
For Katrina’s line to have had any impact on Kristol, he’d have to be capable of shame — a proposition for which there is approximately zero evidence.
The same goes for everyone at ABC who books Kristol.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl:
Is there some other way of looking at that image?
I suppose that’s possible. But when people use photographs of lynchings in order to shame, or to educate, or to remind, or to remember, or to take back their history, or just to cry out in pain, how do you feel about that?
Kay
@jheartney:
I get the urge for clarity, though. For example. It isn’t really necessary to go into the agreement with Iraqis on whether troops could stay, as Katrina did. It’s defensive and also wholly unnecessary.
Obama ran on withdrawing from Iraq. He won the election. Liberals don’t really need to explain how he might have stayed in, had negotiations gone “better”, or whatever. If our point is “winning the peace” can’t be accomplished with a continued troop presence, we should try not to apologize for taking the troops out. I’m not apologizing for it.
Kay
This is great:
What a fun underdog race that’s turning out to be. I love upsets.
WaterGirl
@Cervantes:
I take your point. But nobody goes to a halloween costume dressed as someone who has been lynched. That photo of the priest was someone’s halloween costume, like it’s supposed to be funny.
Also. the connection between the priest/abused child photo and the abortion protests is a little oblique. I think there are a lot of negatives about using the priest/abused child photo, and there’s not that much to be gained.
Photos of lynchings evoke the horror of that time, but they aren’t used as analogies for other things.
I am reminded yet again of john cole’s famous comment to a troll: “You know what’s like rape? Rape, you stupid fuck!!” You know what’s like sexual abuse of a child by a priest? Sexual abuse of a child by a priest.
Using this image feels gratuitous to me, and it adds nothing to the discourse about the anti-abortion crazies. It’s a distraction, and that makes the use of it that image just that much worse, in my opinion.
Kay
And Nebraska and Kansas have competitive governors races! It’s just crazy out there.
Brownback seems to be loathed even by Republicans, so that’s good. He’s horrible.
I think it’s going to be an extremely weird year.
Cervantes
@Kay: 48% to 46% looks better than the reverse but the margin of error was nearly 4%.
That 26-point margin among “independents,” however, does seem unequivocal, as long as it lasts.
Thanks.
Morzer
@Kay:
Optimus Grimes is ready to roll!
Cervantes
@WaterGirl: In my day, Halloween costumes were supposed to be scary, not funny.
Keith G
@WaterGirl:
“Feel” is the significant word and at least this time you are using it.
Abuse does not automatically strip away one’s ability to process parody even if, especially if, it hits close to home. Using humor to fight back, particularly dark humor, is an important way to contextualize the past. It sure has been for me. I do not have to feel it as my past allows me to know it.
MikeBoyScout
@Violet: yes. thank – you.
WaterGirl
@Cervantes: I think I’ve said everything I have to say on this subject, and it now feels like I am beating a dead horse. I appreciate the challenge in your original question to me, though, because it made me think about why I was so bothered by it.
Thanks for that, and have a nice evening.
Kay
@Cervantes:
I know she’s a longer shot but she’s doing something right.
The poll was by PPP but for the institute for tax fairness. It’s a poll on the plutocracy! I didn’t even know we had those. About time, I say.
I’m really more interested in Brownback. The issue there is public education. He’s tanking. Maybe public education was the key to Kansas all along and not “guns, God and gays” after all. Turns out they’re pretty fond of public education.
Cervantes
@WaterGirl: It was a horrible set of events, yet not surprising in the annals of power and hierarchy. There were many individuals who suffered, and still do. How to help them recover? To what degree are (faithful) by-standers innocent? Can the institution recover? Should it?
I have no idea — but for exactly this reason, I can’t really criticize anyone else’s reaction (provided it is non-violent).
WaterGirl
@Cervantes: I will say two quick things before heading off to make dinner.
I am happy to see the pope defrock the former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, who was accused of having sexually abused boys in Santo Domingo. So maybe there is hope yet for the catholic church.
I would not be upset to see that photo used in an article about sexual abuse in the catholic church, though I do believe it should contain a trigger warning and only be visible below the fold.
Villago Delenda Est
The filth that is Bill Kristol should be put to death.
Period.
Kay
@Cervantes:
It feels like things are in flux to me, like there could be really unusual results. It also feels like both Parties are casting around looking for some coherent message and (mostly) failing. That creates an opening, where individual candidates can almost freelance so those people with a strong sense of what they’re about will do well.
Good or bad, that could be, of course, depending on what their “strong sense” IS.
Cervantes
@Kay:
I saw that 1 in 4 Republican voters plans to vote for Davis, the Democrat.
On the other hand, both Roberts and Kobach are still winning state-wide. Wouldn’t it be something if Roberts lost?
Cervantes
@WaterGirl: Thank you.
Enjoy dinner!
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Look up Backpfeifengesicht and it’s usually his picture.
Kay
@Cervantes:
I loathe Kobach too. The problem with him is he’s taken seriously by the conservative legal brain trust. He’s a freaking voter fraud conspiracy theorist and a flat-out bigot. He has a prestigious legal pedigree though so we all have to pretend he’s some serious scholar on immigration and voting rights. It was amusing to watch Mitt Romney distance himself from Koback during the 2012 campaign. He probably just assumed he wasn’t completely insane because he’s taken seriously, then had to deny he was an advisor. He’s like an Ivy League Glenn Beck.
Groucho48
@Corner Stone:
It shouldn’t be a big deal if other pundits and commentators were saying the same thing every time they were on a show with Kristol. But, they don’t. So, since it is a very rare example of a neocon being called out, face to face, it is a big deal. And, what makes it an even bigger deal is that all the other pundits, as would have happened right up to a few months ago, would have defended Kristol and mocked KVH, but, today, they were more on the side of KVH. Sad that it took over a decade for that to happen and even sadder that it won’t likely recur nearly as often as it should, but, it will, hopefully, move the Overton Window a few millimeters to the left.
Cervantes
@Kay:
Yes, he went to some good schools, but his actual win-loss ratio in the court-room is not spectacular, at least with regard to his immigration-related cases.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
I’m sure you’re long gone Watergirl but Armando did an excellent piece on the decision that is different than everyone else.
He sees it as intruding in what is generally considered a very private realm, which is a visit to a physician or healthcare facility.
It’s here.
It’s just a good piece of work and a genuinely creative (and I think completely valid) way of looking at it.
I think the justices would have approached this differently if it hadn’t been 1. women and 2. abortion. Strangers approaching people who are seeking medical care and “counseling” them is bizarre and it never would have been framed the way it was outside of abortion.
I asked if Justice Roberts would be okay if I form a group and “counsel” him on substance abuse when he goes for his intake appointment to the rehab. How would that scenario go at the SCOTUS, do you think?
WaterGirl
@Kay: Actually, I refreshed this thread just now, assuming it would be dead and I would then close it, and here is your comment!
jumpinjezebel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Best reply here!!!!
WaterGirl
@Kay: As if these people’s right to perform “sidewalk counseling” is what matters here. Ick.
Nope, I was pretty much disabused of the notion that the supreme court is a neutral arbiter quite some time ago. Let’s see, when was that? The year 2000, perhaps?
I truly do not get how how this could have been a unanimous decision.
I completely agree with you: “Strangers approaching people who are seeking medical care and “counseling” them is bizarre and it never would have been framed the way it was outside of abortion.”
Like it would be okay for me to harass someone going into a cardiac care center and performing “sidewalk counseling” because they were thinking of getting the pig valve instead of the artificial one?
God help us, our country has really lost its way.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
I think people would be absolutely outraged if someone approached them as they went into a clinic and started to “discuss” their appointment. Roberts doesn’t see women as having any agency. He thinks all of our decisions are subject to second-guessing, by anyone.
Medical care is one of those areas where people feel really strongly about privacy. We have a big, fat federal law that covers medical records, for example, and health care providers take it seriously.
That doesn’t apply to women apparently.
Roberts sees our personal visit to a clinic as an “issue of the day” that is up for discussion.
He would never, ever accept that framing if it were him going into a clinic. No one on that court would. It’s depressing, because women are still in this special “childlike” category where weird shit applies that would apply to no other group of adults. I thought we were past at least that.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Everything you said is true, and it makes me very angry.
Women as children. “No agency” is exactly the issue. The only positive thing I can say is that at least pregnant women don’t have to dress like little girls anymore so as not to scare the men. At least there’s that.
joe conservative
@Corner Stone: It’s all a fucking game to Cornerstone. no wonder he creams his jeans dreaming of his mouth on Kristol’s balls.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill E Pilgrim: Katrina was Bush’s Obama’s Katrina.
Cervantes
@Kay: I disagree. Roberts voted with Ginsburg and others. Would you say Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted as she did because she secretly thinks women have no agency? I find this view … unpersuasive, to say the very least.
To begin with, I do agree with you here:
But the subsequent argument is backwards. The thing is, and thank goodness, we do not have organized groups of citizens who find, say, tonsillectomies immoral. Should such groups step up and assert their right to tell us so on public sidewalks, I’d fully expect Ginsburg and others to protect that right as far as possible.
And focusing on Roberts in order to criticize the recent decision misses the point:
That is the issue. (Excerpt is from David Savage in the LA Times.)
Put another way: in criticizing Roberts alone for this decision, in asserting that it stems from an inability to see the world as a woman does, are we not denying the agency of Justices Ginsburg and Kagan and Sotomayor?
Cervantes
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks, you’re making my head spin.
Cervantes
@joe conservative: Trenchant assertions, but do you have anything more?