Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The revolution will be supervised.

Second rate reporter says what?

I really should read my own blog.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: It’s An Election, Not A Ceremony

Open Thread: It’s An Election, Not A Ceremony

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Today, in the Washington Post:

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton broke a long drought to take a few questions from the traveling press here Tuesday, distancing herself from President Obama’s trade pact and defending the millions of dollars she and her husband have made from giving speeches.

At the end of an event focused on small-business issues at a bicycle shop, Clinton also said in response to a reporter’s question that she favors having the State Department release e-mails from her time as secretary of state as soon as possible: “I want those e-mails out.”…

“Bill and I have been blessed and we’re very grateful for the opportunities we had,” Clinton said. “But we’ve never forgotten where we came from and we’ve never forgotten the kind of country we want to see for our granddaughter, and that means that we’re going to fight to make sure that everybody has the same chances to live up to his or her own God-given potential.”

She also fielded a question on the Iraq war, a topic that has bedeviled Republican presidential candidates in recent days. Clinton, who voted to authorize the war in 2003 as a New York senator, reiterated that she now believes the decision was wrong.

“Look, I know that there have been a lot of questions about Iraq posted to candidates over the last week. I’ve made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple,” Clinton said. “And I have written about it in my book, I’ve talked about it in the past, and what we now see is a very different and very dangerous situation. The United States is doing what it can, but ultimately this has to be a struggle that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people are determined to win for themselves.”…

FOR THE RECORD — since she hasn’t given the same rote answers several dozen times already. The Media Village Idiots don’t want information, they want the candidates to properly reiterate this week’s ritual phrases — points off for stumbling over the exact arrangement of the subclauses, and bonuses all round if the speaker commits a “gaffe”. Jay Rosen, at PressThink:

So Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post — whose mission in life is to explain to us how things really work in politics — is rolling along in his “Hillary Clinton is shamefully avoiding the press” column when he cries out to us:

Do you not think it is of value to know how Hillary Clinton spent her time since leaving the State Department? And how the Clinton Foundation handled its business with various donors who would, undoubtedly, still be in the picture if she was elected president?… The role of the media in this process is to show voters who these people are, really, and to explain how these people would govern the country if elected. Like the media or not, that’s a very important role — and one that is essential to a functioning democracy.

The role of the media in this process? What on earth are you talking about, Chris?

You’re supposed to be our super-savvy guide to the way things are in the power game that is national politics. You are the least sentimental creature to walk that system’s halls… remember? No one can out-realism you! You’re Mister “let me tell you how it really works.” That’s your whole franchise. And yet here you are, bawling about “the role of the media” as if it had some sort of guaranteed status within what reporters (mindlessly) call the process...

Political reporters: You have no guaranteed “role.” That’s a fiction you and your colleagues created to keep the game the same every four years so you don’t have to go to school on how to be useful and powerful in the election system as it evolves. The fiction works if you can get the right people to believe it, but when they clearly don’t care about your “role in the process” how are you going to make ’em care? Got a plan for that?…

I have a better idea, journalists. Figure out what the voters want the candidates to talk about. (And when they’re ready to listen.) Persuade the voters that in your coverage you’re on their side— so many of them that the campaigns have to take notice. Then leverage your superior connection to the people the candidates want to reach. (That’s what Univision and Jorge Ramos plan to do, I’d bet.) It’s a power game, not a frozen process in which you are granted some role by the mighty hand of James Carville or Ed Rollins…

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  2. 2.

    Cacti

    Old media has a serious case of the vapors over how easy it is to sidestep them these days.

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    @Baud:

    I’ll truly miss Obama’s barely concealed contempt at all times for their sophomoric antics.

  4. 4.

    Tree With Water

    The paparazzi mentality of American journalism aside (which granted is a humungous aside), there are questions Hillary Clinton can and should answer, and that a decent respect for the rank and file demands of her. Here’s one of them:

    WASHINGTON — As the fight over a massive international trade agreement heats up on Capitol Hill, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Tuesday that she wants to see Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “weigh in on trade.”

  5. 5.

    jl

    I think HRC is trolling, which is fine with me.

    Probably real resentment is her lack of recent gaffes.

    The bothsidesdoit and theyareallthesame narratives will be hard to deliver if the comparison is between HRC and Sanders, and the GOP clown car.

  6. 6.

    Cacti

    @Tree With Water:

    Hmmm…

    Your “rank and file” sounds an awful lot like people who comment on political blogs.

    Senator Warren represents one state, same as every other Senator.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The vile, disgusting insects that are Ed Henry and Chris Cillizza need to be squashed like bugs.

  10. 10.

    Cacti

    @WereBear:

    I think the lapdogs of the press deserve to be ignored. They are obscurers of the facts, not conveyors of them.

    It cuts old media to the core that they no longer get to be the exclusive filter through which the public sees everything.

    They hate the internet so very much.

  11. 11.

    Turgidson

    @Baud:

    Me too.

    If only Hillary had responded to Ed Henry’s “why aren’t you answering questions” with “because you’re a fucking idiot” and walked off.

  12. 12.

    Botsplainer

    Fuuuuck. The nutbucket is winning the Kentucky GOP primary.

    He starts at 45% in the general, and would Brownback Kentucky.

  13. 13.

    danielx

    Inside the red van, a replay of a certain Bush/Cheney conversation….

    HRC: that Ed Henry, what an asshole.

    Respondent: Big time.

  14. 14.

    Keith G

    Hillary will soon be off the hook on this as another more serious political story rocks the headlines.

    Sen. Claire McCaskill has announced that she is through watching Game of Thrones due to this last Sunday’s “gratuitous rape scene” that she feels is “disgusting and unacceptable.”

  16. 16.

    Pogonip

    Stenographer: [Stupid question]

    candidate: I will not answer that question because it insults not only my intelligence but that of every person in the United States.

    [Candidate wins in a landslide]

    I can dream!

  18. 18.

    Tree With Water

    @Cacti: She wants to be president. That makes all the difference. She owes the rank and file an explanation because she claims fit to lead. That’s all Warren is asking of her- to lead, now.

  19. 19.

    JPL

    @Elizabelle: I suppose they could all have bleeding in their eyes, in order to determine that govmint ain’t so bad. Hopefully, that’s not the case though.

  20. 20.

    the Conster

    Like all high profile politicians, her test will come from some random person in a crowd – like just happened to JEB! with the student calling him out on his brother and ISIS, and the cat lady who screamed at McCain – “he’s a terrorist!”, and Mittbot caught talking about the 47%. I don’t have much faith in her because she’s not a natural. But, she’s not a sociopath either, so she’s got that going for her. And oh, Jay Rosen is right on – the press corps still hasn’t woken up to the fact that they’re not “part of the process” – they abdicated their role by being a bunch of useless hacks who don’t fool anybody anymore by their “savviness”. They’re back on equal footing with everyone who has an internet connection and a camera phone. Suck.On.That.Cilizza.

  21. 21.

    Fair Economist

    @Botsplainer: Conway is more likely to win against the nutbucket. Virtually any Republican is catastrophic these days, the not-too-bad ones are getting pretty rare.

  22. 22.

    Pogonip

    @Keith G: I don’t know about the show, but 90% of the books are disgusting and unacceptable. Rape, torture, murder, slavery, incest–and then things start to get ugly.

    Westeros is the only fantasy world I can think of that I would not tour if it were possible. It’s depressing.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    Bonnie and Clyde on TCM. Had forgotten what fiendishly bad drivers they were.

    Early scene with Clyde wooing Bonnie — she deserves better than a crappy small town existence — I am thinking “Don Draper!! If he was born earlier, and got into that line of work …”

  26. 26.

    srv

    When you add up all the things we don’t know about Hillary, you realize that we really don’t know anything about her.

    She’s the Chance Gardener of the modern era.

    It’s unfair that Republicans are held to a higher standard.

  27. 27.

    Redshift

    @Tree With Water: Personally, I’m perfectly happy for her to wait to weigh in on such issues until a time that isn’t insanely early to be called a presidential campaign. While I do care, I think keeping the White House in Democratic hands will matter a lot more to a whole host of issues I care about. I don’t think it’s helpful to that goal for candidates jump on every issue that becomes hot during the next year and a half.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @the Conster: That’s true. They degraded their own profession.

    Sh*t their own nest, and wonder why readers don’t find it minty fresh.

    The Republicans are so uninspiring. I do wonder if newspaper site clicks are down. I sure don’t read much about the (dis)loyal opposition. Don’t care, and don’t want to know.

  31. 31.

    singfoom

    I mean, I’m less than enthused for Hillary. I think she’s a corporatist and she’d govern like one. That said, she’ll get shit press coverage because the “LIBRUL MEDIUH” hates them some Clintons.

    @srv: But all will be well in the garden.

  37. 37.

    the Conster

    @Elizabelle:

    Jay Rosen called out Ruth Marcus for being Exhibit A – she actually believes that reporters have better and more pointed questions then us common ignorati. If only she would read his takedown, but that would require some self-awareness and reflection which is not what they’re paid for, and so it will never happen. Time for a change in the way campaigns are covered, and as much as I’m wary of Hillary’s ability to pivot, I think there’s no profit in it for her by playing along with them. What have they ever done for her?

  39. 39.

    Baud

    More evidence of our post-racial society

    The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that if you surf to Google Maps, focus it on a map of Washington, D.C. and type “n—— house” into the search bar, the map takes you to the White House. It also associates that search with Nairobi, Kenya.

    “Some inappropriate results are surfacing in Google Maps that should not be, and we apologize for any offense this may have caused,” a Google spokeswoman said. “Our teams are working to fix this issue quickly.” As of this writing, Google hasn’t removed the results from its service.

  40. 40.

    raven

    @efgoldman: So, as I was saying. I’m fishing! I did email the doc and ask if he’s take a look at a picture of my finger to see how it’s going.

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    You can’t spell Twitter without twit.

    Will never believe that working “granddaughter” and “God” into the same sentence wasn’t extensively rehearsed.

  43. 43.

    Mary G

    I am coming to like HRC more and more. This just feels like “talk to the hand, Ed Henry,” and I respect what she has said about criminal justice, immigration and other issues.

  44. 44.

    lamh36

    Catching up on interwebs.

    I’m reading along the #MalcolmX hashtag on twitter.

    Today would have been his 90th birthday.

    Its’ really interesting to read some of his quotes both known and obscure, and see how still today, the quotes are relevant.

    #MalcolmXDay: 20 Quotes Relevant To The Movement Today

    My fav that’s reference the media:

    The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

  46. 46.

    WereBear

    @the Conster: the cat lady who screamed at McCain – “he’s a terrorist!”

    Say WHAT? She had no cats. I scent a canard, sir or madam as the case may be. Pig’s bladders at dawn I say!

  47. 47.

    lamh36

    This one is def, how I’ve come to feel alot more in the “age of Obama” and the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

    “I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.”

    “Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

  48. 48.

    WereBear

    @Pogonip: Rape, torture, murder, slavery, incest–and then things start to get ugly.

    Mr WereBear, the amateur medieval historian, points out that this is simply historically accurate.

  49. 49.

    the Conster

    @WereBear:

    All I remember is someone – probably here on BJ – who, by her looks, said they could smell the cat piss from here. I lol’ed.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Had forgotten what fiendishly bad drivers they were.

    Learned early on to heist autos with V-8 engines so they could outrun the police, who had less powerful cars.

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    Pre-President Obama on Malcolm X

    Barack Obama Speaks on Malcolm X, 1995
    https://youtu.be/yeDuOR6vkLM

    a young Barack Obama reads from his memoir ‘Dreams from My Father’ and describes the influence that MALCOLM X had on his life.This speech took place on 20th September 1995 – just one month before Obama attended Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March on 16th October 1995.

  52. 52.

    Botsplainer

    @JPL:

    Hey some lazy bums are getting health care now and will lose it. What’s the problem?

    A law school classmate that dropped out is a dry drunk Jesus humping meritorious inheritor that is a close advisor to the nutbucket. If he wins, I’m probably going to start figuring out my exit strategy from this state – they’ll ruin the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville out of sheer spite.

    What conservatism comes down to is not a whimper about provision of service – it’s about the desirability of misery and pain for those who endure economic failure, whether it is their fault or not. They despise any safety net.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    @Botsplainer: So I heard today, we can’t use frogs in cold water anymore, because frogs are pretty smart and jump out. Tea Party folk wait until their eyes bleed.

  54. 54.

    waspuppet

    The Media Village Idiots don’t want information, they want the candidates to properly reiterate this week’s ritual phrases — points off for stumbling over the exact arrangement of the subclauses, and bonuses all round if the speaker commits a “gaffe”.

    It depends. If it’s a Democratic candidate, they don’t want information OR reiteration – they WANT the gaffes. If it’s a Republican, on the other hand, smooth recitation of the ritual phrases is met with a reaction similar that of a parent to a toddler’s first potty, and if they do gaffe, the reaction is more like a kindly coach chucking a strikeout victim under the chin and saying “That’s OK; you’ll get ’em next time.”

  55. 55.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @WereBear: No self-respecting cat would live with a woman like that.

    And I’ve never met a cat who didn’t respect itself.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Botsplainer:

    Latest tweet from AP

    BREAKING: GOP primary for governor in Kentucky too close to call; Bevin, Comer locked in virtual tie.

  57. 57.

    Peale

    @the Conster: well they’ve managed to make me like her more. I mean as the First Lady who presided over the introduction of bongs on the White House Christmas tree, who wouldn’t gush.

  58. 58.

    ThresherK

    @NotMax: It is either legend (or legendarily actual) that Clyde Barrow sent Henry Ford a fan letter. The Ford V8, starting in 1932, was Clyde’s tool of choice.

    We are in “Liberty Valance” territory with this: Without looking I can’t remember if it’s fact or legend.

  61. 61.

    raven

    As I was motivatin’ over the hill
    I saw Mabellene in a Coup de Ville
    A Cadillac arollin’ on the open road
    Nothin’ will outrun my V8 Ford
    The Cadillac doin’ about ninety-five
    She’s bumper to bumper, rollin’ side by side
    Maybellene
    Why can’t you be true
    Oh Maybellene, why can’t you be true
    You’ve started back doin’ the things you used to do
    The Cadillac pulled up ahead of the Ford
    The Ford got hot and wouldn’t do no more
    It then got cloudy and started to rain
    I tooted my horn for a passin’ lane
    The rainwater blowin’ all under my hood
    I know that I was doin’ my motor good
    Maybellene
    Why can’t you be true
    Oh Maybellene,

  63. 63.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @ThresherK:
    Not sure if it’s fact or legend either, but here’s what I found:

    Clyde was so thankful for these cars that he wrote Henry Ford a letter on April 10, 1934.

    The letter read:

    Tulsa, Okla
    10th April
    Mr. Henry Ford
    Detroit Mich.

    Dear Sir: —
    While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned and even if my business hasen’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8 —

    Yours truly
    Clyde Champion Barrow

    Over the years, many have questioned the authenticity of Clyde’s letter to Henry Ford, based on a discrepancy over handwriting. The letter is currently on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    Hmmm.

    Two unnamed students who were enrolled in Valencia College’s Medical Diagnostic Sonography program in 2013 are suing the Florida school, claiming they were forced to undergo invasive and sometimes painful transvaginal ultrasounds nearly every week.

    The school says it is “accepted practice” to use students as models in sonography training programs. Participating in the ultrasounds is voluntary, the school said.

    But the two female students who filed a lawsuit in federal court last week say their academic standing and career prospects were threatened if they didn’t agree to participate. The practice was “widespread” and “so permanent” that it more or less constituted a “custom” at the school, according to the lawsuit.

  66. 66.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @raven: Chuck Berry was one of the great lyricists. “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” is something Bob Dylan admired:

    Arrested on charges of unemployment
    he was sitting in the witness stand
    the judge’s wife called up the district attorney
    said free that brown eyed man
    you want your job you better free that brown eyed man

    Flying across the desert in a TWA
    I saw a woman walking across the sand
    she been a-walkin’ thirty miles en route to Bombay
    to reach a brown eyed handsome man
    her destination was a brown eyed handsome man

    Way back in history three thousand years
    back ever since the world began
    there’s been a whole lot of good women shedding tears
    for a brown eyed handsome man
    a lot of trouble – was a brown eyed handsome man

    The beautiful daughter couldn’t make up her mind
    between a doctor and a lawyer man
    her mother told her darling go out and find yourself
    a brown eyed handsome man
    that’s what your daddy is a brown eyed handsome man

    Milo Venus was a beautiful lass
    she had the world in the palm of her hand
    but she lost both her arms in a wrestling match
    to win a brown eyed handsome man
    she fought and won herself a brown eyed handsome man

    Well, two, three the count with nobody on
    he hit a high fly into the stand
    rounding third he was headed for home
    it was a brown eyed handsome man
    that won the game – it was a brown eyed handsome man

  67. 67.

    raven

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her daughter, Bristol, won’t marry Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer this month.

  68. 68.

    raven

    @Germy Shoemangler: Nuthin better than this

    Drop the coin right into the slot
    You’re gotta hear somethin’ that’s really hot
    With the one you love, you’re makin’ romance
    All day long you been wantin’ to dance,
    Feeling the music from head to toe
    Round and round and round we go

    unless it’s this

    They had a hi-fi phono, boy, did they let it blast
    Seven hundred little records,
    all rock, rhythm and jazz
    But when the sun went down,
    the rapid tempo of the music fell
    “C’est la vie”, say the old folks,
    it goes to show you never can tell

  69. 69.

    brendancalling

    Is it wrong to say that i’d gladly murder cilizza with my bare hands and feed his remains to my cats, just on the basis of his willful obtuseness?

    Because if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

  70. 70.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @raven: Chuck Berry is the one who got me into Charlie Christian. Chuck mentioned him as an influence during a radio interview, so I went out and bought a CD. Great early electric guitar.

  71. 71.

    lamh36

    Claire McCaskill was barely willing to take a stand on the NON-FICTIONAL bullshit in Ferguson (and when she did, it was pitiful to say the least, she was more willing to defend her “friend” McCullough), but GoT…well, that FICTIONAL ACCOUNT was a bridge to far for her so she had to take a stand.

    Claire McCaskill Dumps ‘Game Of Thrones’ Over ‘Gratuitous’ Rape Scene

    Eyeroll…I don’t even watch GoT. Either way, she can miss me with this grandstanding.

  72. 72.

    the Conster

    @raven:

    she’d be Bristol Meyer – maybe that’s why. I’m sure she’ll keep the grifts gifts though.

  75. 75.

    Elie

    Going back to my last comment a couple of posts back: who cares about these folks? Hillary jes don care either, which is fine. She is doing the right thing and managing THEM. That is what she has to be doing — esp right now. They just want to get a rise out of her and pick on shit. She seems to be doing what I think she needs to be doing right now: gathering intelligence on the Rs as well as the knuckleheads she may face, keeping her shit together and selecting and testing her team for this gonna be arduous slog to the arctic and then holing up with good friends and loved ones, eating fried chicken and working cross word puzzles. The circus will be there.

  76. 76.

    Tenar Darell

    @Anne Laurie: What douchbros! It’s funny, while I was watching I thought that those two look like they were stamped from the same mold.

    Why do reporters and pundits think they need to try to be funny? Perhaps because they know that comedians are doing their jobs better than they are, and they think that’s the secret of to success.

  77. 77.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: My pappy said “Son your gonna drive me to drinkin’
    If you don’t stop driving that hot rod Lincoln”

    Have you heard the story of the hot rod race
    Where the Fords and the Lincolns were setting the pace?
    Well that story is true cause I’m here to say
    I was driving that model A.

    It’s got Lincoln motor and its really souped up
    And that model A body makes it look like a pup
    It’s got eight cylinders, uses them all
    It’s got overdrive, just won’t stall

    It’s got a four barrel carb, and dual exhaust
    With four, eleven gears you can really get lost.
    It’s got safety tubes, but I ain’t scared
    Brakes are good, tires fair

    ….

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: “Rocket 88”

    You women have heard of jalopies
    You’ve heard the noise they make
    Let me introduce my new Rocket 88

    Yeah, she’s straight, just won’t wait
    Everybody likes my Rocket 88
    Babe we’ll ride in style movin’ all along

    A V8 motor baby, it’s modern design
    Black convertible top and the girls don’t mind
    Sportin’ with me riding all around town with joy

    ….

  79. 79.

    Eric S.

    @Pogonip: The books are an anti war story wrapped up in a fantasy story. Martin sets up and knocks down more stereotypical fantasy tropes than is easy to count.

    The last scene was vile but it fits the story. Believe it or not, the scene from the book is far far far worse. (Although is not Sansa which some people think relevant.)

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I was exposed to it by Commander Cody.

    As was I. My dad had the album when I was a kid – still does for that matter.

  82. 82.

    princess leia

    Some good news:

    ATHENS, Ga. — Authorities have dropped charges against a military veteran who broke a window to free a dog from a hot car.

    Michael Hammons, a 46-year-old veteran who says he fought in the first Iraq war, jumped into action when he saw a dog inside of a rapidly-heating Mustang at a Athens-area shopping center. He broke the window of the car with a piece of his wife’s wheelchair to free the dog.

  85. 85.

    Eric S.

    @raven: CTS-V in the garage here. In the view tie family. Although I’ll admit its lifetime there is limited. I’m looking to return to the fatherland’s autos.

  86. 86.

    Tenar Darell

    @efgoldman: One of my favorite older movies is the Front Page with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. I always thought reporters were like Walter Burns and Hildy Johnson, when I was growing up. Perhaps it is as simple as that – reporting changed when reporters started seeing themselves as an elite group, rather than part of the great unwashed.

  92. 92.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Tenar Darell:

    reporting changed when reporters started seeing themselves as an elite group, rather than part of the great unwashed

    I remember reading biographies of reporters and journalists of the early 20th century, and what struck me was how few of them had college degrees.

    Many of the great columnists and newspapermen (and women) bounced around doing a variety of jobs without being “credentialed” and they had more sympathy for working people.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    @Tenar Darell:

    Why do reporters and pundits think they need to try to be funny? Perhaps because they know that comedians are doing their jobs better than they are, and they think that’s the secret of to success.

    I actually think that’s part of what happened to Brian Williams.

    And why NBC and “serious” journalists turned on him so viciously. He exposed the con.

    One of the best perches in the business, and he wanted to succeed Leno. Damning.

  95. 95.

    Chris

    @Cacti:

    I’ll truly miss Obama’s barely concealed contempt at all times for their sophomoric antics.

    Hell, yes.

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    NYTimes reporting Happy Rockefeller has died.

    I thought she’d shuffled off this mortal coil a few years previously.

    Thinking about her during Mad Men, and thinking she might have liked the Henry Francis role. Who knows. Maybe she did see it ….

  97. 97.

    Eric S.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, in a money no object world I’d own a 250 and 288 GTO. Heck, in the money no object world I’d put a Pontiac in the garage with them.

  99. 99.

    Eric S.

    @efgoldman: Several, many, years back I visited a college roommate. He ownwd a late 50s Rambler wagon at the time. A previous owner had dropped a big old V8 and more modern transmission in it. The buttons for the original push button trans were still there though.

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman:My dad’s parents gave my parents a Rambler station wagon as a wedding present. Within a couple of months, they had traded it in for a ’59 Austin Healey 100-6. I was born later that year. Was it a practical decision? No. Do I approve? Yes. Image being driven to the hospital to be born in a Rambler. Quelle horreur.

  103. 103.

    Valdivia

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    amen. though someone pointed out to me today that this comparison is to the detriment of the poor insects who are probably offended to be grouped with such specimens such as our Village idiots.

    eta: apparently Biden’s son is in hospital.

  104. 104.

    Patrick

    The role of the media in this process is to show voters who these people are, really, and to explain how these people would govern the country if elected. Like the media or not, that’s a very important role — and one that is essential to a functioning democracy.

    OK – So where the hell was our media in the run-up to the Iraq war? Where were the critical questions? Hell, the foreign press were the only entities that asked questions. The US media was too busy acting as cheerleaders to the war. Until the media goes back and examines its own failures back in 2002-2003, they shouldn’t pretend they even know what the hell their role is today.

  108. 108.

    Valdivia

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    well I know nothing about spirit animals & I sort of just was riffing on Lamh36
    Now, if I was going to seriously choose my spirit animal I think it would be between Marie ‘Slim’ Browning and Juana Inez de la Cruz (just without the being a nun part)
    I think yours is tres tres cool.

    @Steeplejack (tablet):
    Oh I am so glad you are enjoying that. I was mesmerized and couldn’t wait to get back to it once I got started.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Valdivia: Slim is, of course, awesome. Juana Inez de la Cruz is entirely new to me; based solely on Wikipedia, she sounds damned fascinating.. I’ve always been sort of an Atlanticist, so I have missed a few things.

  111. 111.

    Howard Beale IV

    @David Koch: Louisiana is a weird state, since a lot of their jurisprudence derived from French civil law. But I hope that the LA ACLU proceeds to give Piyush Jindal a 10-ft long barb-wire-wrapped curare-tipped telephone pole up the bunghole win no lubricants response. Oh, and I also hopes he announces that he’s going to run for President as well, ‘cuz this campaign needs a dye-in-the wool Catholic to offset the rabid holy rollers and lame Protestants.

    Now how can we ratfuck the GOP primaries?

  112. 112.

    Tenar Darell

    @Germy Shoemangler: I think there was a movie with Clark Gable as a reporter that had that as part of the plot. (It was not It Happened One Night).

    ETA He plays an older, grizzled reporter who feels threatened by a younger reporter who went to college.

  118. 118.

    Valdivia

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    :) Slim is my favorite of the Laureen Bacall characters. And she had more than a few that were so cool.

    Sor Juana was really so very kick ass. She wrote a knock-your-socks-off essay about women intellectuals at a time when women didn’t really write about that, even less if you were a nun in a monastery in Mexico. Octavio Paz wrote a wonderfully admiring book about her which I think really brings her to life. I think she is what you said the other day you imagined Anne Boleyn would be to make Henry so crazy: she was beautiful, intelligent, passionate, intense (well as far as I can gather from our vantage point). The Mexican government put her on a bill (it was 200 I think its 1000 now)

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Howard Beale IV: He is arguably the on deck candidate based on his 2012 performance. I kind of what him to be the candidate for the GOP. It would be an LBJ-like landslide for whoever wins the Dem nom.

  122. 122.

    Eric S.

    @Omnes Omnibus: First I’ve seen it. I got half way through and will have to revisit when I’m not bellied up to a bar. Thank you for the link.

  124. 124.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Omnes Omnibus: Jindal’s crazier than Santorum is, plus Santorum has the Trisomy 18 daughter, whose condition led to his suspension of his 2012 campaign-and I don’t think his wife wants to go down that road again, even with Obamacare.

  127. 127.

    Cpl. Cam

    Dear Village Idiots,

    It looks like we’ll be stuck choosing between Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or someone even worse in the 2016 election and your “function in the process” seems to be a large part of the reason why. FOADIAF, please.
    Yours truly,
    Cpl. Cam

  128. 128.

    mclaren

    Looks like things aren’t going the way our glorious Mainstream Media planned. All signs suggest this was supposed to be another media-hammers-Jimmy-Carter-and-anoints-Ronald-Reagan slam-dunk. But all the Republican presidential candidates are imploding like hydrogen bombs:

    Marco Rubio is toast: Fox News trips up another Republican with simple Iraq war question — First it was Jeb Bush. Today, Marco Rubio seemed unprepared and uninformed for the question of the week on Iraq. 17 May 2015, Salon.

    David Brooks’ sickening Iraq apologia: How the New York Times hack just rewrote history — The conservative New York Times columnist explains what he’s learned from his Iraq war boosting: largely nothing, 19 May 2015, Salon.

    Christie’s Awful, Dishonest Foreign Policy Speech, Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, 18 May 2015.

    Errors and Lies, Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 18 May 2015.

    Interesting that the American media, though manfully trying, hasn’t been able to get the anti-Hillary narrative to become the main topic of national discussion as the 2016 presidential election gears up. Clearly, the media was supposed to character-assassinate Hillary and the Democrats, Fox News was supposed to smear Bernie Sanders into oblivion as a fringe lunatic crank, and one the Republican candidates (guess which one — nudge, nudge, wink, wink) was supposed to have an easy time strolling into the White House. But it hasn’t worked out that way… Looks like the media & American wealthy elites’ effort to stage a rewrite of the 1980 smear-Carter-and-laud-Reagan operation has turned out to be a bust.
    Quelle surprise! America in 2015 is not the USA of 1980. We’ve got some very real and very serious and very critical problems in this country right now…and our darling mainstream media’s efforts to ignore ’em don’t seem to be going over too well with the proles.

  129. 129.

    Sherparick

    Because you all the rest of you are assholes Ed, and guess what, I don’t need to.

  130. 130.

    Sherparick

    @mclaren: We had serious problems back in 1980 to, and Jimmy did manage to screw the pooch on policy (always have your recession in the 2nd year of your term of office if you must have one, so the recovery boosts you to reelection (see Nixon ’72, Reagan ’84, Clinton ’96 , Dubya ’04, and Obama ’12 all had their worse economic news in the first two years of their first terms, and then had 2-3 years to recover enough to get reelected). If Gerald Ford had run instead of Reagan, he would have won in a landslide (for one thing John Anderson would not have run a a 3rd party candidate and most of his votes would have gone to Ford.)

  131. 131.

    Cervantes

    @Tree With Water:

    She wants to be president. That makes all the difference. She owes the rank and file an explanation because she claims fit to lead. That’s all Warren is asking of her – to lead, now.

    I agree.

  132. 132.

    Cervantes

    @Sherparick:

    We had serious problems back in 1980 to, and Jimmy did manage to screw the pooch on policy (always have your recession in the 2nd year of your term of office if you must have one, so the recovery boosts you to reelection

    Nixon left US energy policy a shambles and Ford did nothing to improve it. Carter paid the price.

    Not saying Carter handled the mess well in every respect, but it’s important to know who created the mess in the first place.

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