Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

Come on, man.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We still have time to mess this up!

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

When we show up, we win.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

In my day, never was longer.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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Forty-two years ago tonight the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all hands on Lake Superior. Most of us know the tragic story from the Gordon Lightfoot song about the wreck. In 2001 a documentary about the Fitzgerald debuted. One of the things that always stayed with me from the documentary, as both a testament to the men serving aboard her and as a potential counterfactual, is that Captain McSorley, the master of the Fitzgerald, slowed his vessel to buddy with the smaller, slower Arthur Anderson. This was done to increase the chances they’d both make port even though the Edmund Fitzgerald had the ability to make better speed to reach safe anchorage had she gone it alone. This part of the history is recounted in the documentary below beginning at the 15:3o mark (should be set to play from that point). Captain Cooper, the master of the Anderson, and his crew showed as much valor when they went back out to search for the Fitzgerald after they’d made it safely to port.

And, of course, the obligatory:

Reader Interactions

194Comments

  1. 1.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Hey Adam. Do you know anything about the Bronze Age of comics? Would you recommend any comics from the time? The little I’ve read has interested me since its sort of a transition period from the wacky Silver Age to darker and grittier Iron Age starting in the 90s.

  3. 3.

    OGLiberal

    Remember hearing the Lightfoot song as a young kid and thinking it was about some 18th century sailing ship crossing the Atlantic. Learned what really happened a few years ago and then read a book about it. The boat was basically carrying a bunch of metal balls…any water in the holds, not good. Crazy to learn about how big the waves can get on that lake. Very Perfect Storm like…blue collar dudes trying to beat a storm to pay the bills.

    Still questions about why she went down, but she went down fast.

  4. 4.

    raven

    And 68 years ago today I was born. And 51 years ago today I went to the induction center in Chicago, raised my right hand and got on the last train to Clarksville!

  9. 9.

    Ella in New Mexico

    This is an awesome post, Adam. My husband (of 35years) and I were 16 year-old nerds who met in high school and bonded over our love of–OMG this is so dorky–Gordan Lightfoot’s music.

    This was the first song I remember hearing by him, and I remember finding more of his music later on. And the thing is, this story was powerful and beautiful, regardless of who sung about it. My husband joined the Navy shortly after graduation, and I sometimes wonder if his decision to do so was influenced by his love of the tales of the nobility of sea-farers.

    Thanks for giving me something cool to share with the love of my life. And for the inspiration of the honor of sea-faring folk.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    I have to admit that when I first heard this song as a teen, I had no idea it was based on a true story. I just thought it was great narrative poetry set to music.

  17. 17.

    raven

    @Davebo: We’re going to the beach next Sunday after the Kentucky game. AJ’s Snapper, Trigger and Grouper are all out of season so it will be Redfish, Pomp’s and Whiting.

  20. 20.

    raven

    Anyone know this

    Legend of the USS Titanic.

    Anyways this fella’, his sideburns they’re just a little too long. He giving way, see. He… he been down in Mexico he been down in Mexico. He been workin’ in this rope factory down in Mexico now. Down in Mexico they make rope outta this funny little hemp plant that grows wild in the ground. Some of you people… grow it in flower pots under your bed… ehh Anyways, he’s down there and he’s… he’s makin’ rope outta this funny marijuana plant… One day the rope factory she catch fire n’ he runs back on in to save his lunch – he’s got two sardine sandwiches – runnin’ back on in to save his lunch he gets inside n’ there’s all this funny smoke floatin’ around up inside n’.. he gets some of this funny smoke up inside his head n’.. he sit down in the middle o’ de’ fire n’ he say, “shhhhhhhhhhhit baby, I ain’t gonna make rope no more!”

  25. 25.

    JanieM

    I grew up in a town on Lake Erie, and the lore of the “lake boats” (as everyone called them) is woven through my memories. I had a friend who lived on the lake and could tell you which boat that was out by the horizon just by the pattern of lights. Or so he said.

    My dad and one of his brothers sailed the lakes before they went into the service in WWII. They were on different boats, and in November of 1940 my dad and his shipmates heard that my uncle’s boat, the William B. Davock, had gone down. (This happened on 11/11/1940.) My dad was allowed to go ashore at the first opportunity, because his brother had been on the Davock and was presumed dead. But when my dad got home he found my uncle on their parents’ couch, laid up with an injury he had gotten before that ill-fated late-season run.

    I wrote a song about this event once, but no famous folk singers picked it up. ;-)

    My old friend, still fascinated by the history of Great Lakes shipping, has a hatch (IIRC) from my dad’s ship, which was cut up for salvage in my home town.

  27. 27.

    Caroln

    (Mostly) life long Michigander here. 40 years ago, while touring the UP, my then to be husband and I went to the tip of Whitefish Point and he pointed out to me that about as far as one could see, that’s where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. Every year on this day, there is a memorial service to the men who were lost at the Old Mariners Church in Detroit.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    Forty-two years ago tonight the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all hands on Lake Superior.

    I blame Obama.

  39. 39.

    Retr2327

    @raven: Jamie Brocket. There’s a nice riff about Jack Johnson, trying to get on the Titanic, but getting turned away (wrong color; me or the ticket? You!), only to end up dancing on the pier when he sees the boat going down (poetic license). I still have that album (Remember the wind and the rain, IIRC).

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    Roy Moore has to be about the stupidest sumbitch pedophile defendant that has come around lately.
    When Sean Hannity has to outsmart you for your own good, that’s pretty bad.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    It’s funny the things that we chose to commemorate. Yesterday was the anniversary of both Kristallnacht and the Fall of the Berlin Wall and we heard nary a peep.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: I cannot prove it, but I would put money on his behavior not starting back in Alabama in his 30s. I fully expect that he was doing this with Vietnamese teenagers when he was in his 20s as an MP in Vietnam. And he got away with it because he was an MP, it was in Vietnam, and these were Vietnamese teenagers.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I did a Kristallnacht post last year and forgot the Fitzgerald anniversary. I thought about doing a Kristallnacht post last night, but decided things were depressing enough around here. And I remember the Fitzgerald post this year.

  58. 58.

    Schlemazel

    I remember the Fitz sinking, there was a lot of anxious moments because it was assumed some of the sailors must have gotten off before it went down. It was big news for several days in the local papers & TV. Like a lot of people I assumed huge ships like that didn’t sink. Since then I have seen Superior when it was angry & there is no way on earth I would venture out there.
    I have wadded in the lake in September and October & while it is warmer then it would be hard to stay in it for more than a few minutes, it is so cold it is like needles.

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah. This kind of compulsion started the second he had power over someone more vulnerable. There is zero doubt in my mind he has a few dozen teens and pre-teens in Vietnam and FSM only knows how many once he gained power and a career in AL.

  62. 62.

    aliasofwestgate

    I grew up not far from the shores of Lake Huron, which has also ate its share of ships. Or the Lakers as we call ’em when they go by. But we all knew about the Fitzgerald by the time we grew up. I was born in 77, so it’s basically part of the background radiation of my life. Lake Superior has something the locals call the ‘Three Sisters’ Phenomenon which is pretty much fatal to anything in their way. Basically 3 huge, dangerous waves in a row and there’s not a lot anyone caught in one can do about it except hang on and hope. All 5 lakes are notorious for eating ships, because they are more or less freshwater seas. If you grow up in one of the maritime towns like my old stomping grounds, Port Huron it’s all part of the local lore. The Great Lakes Shipping, the ships still in operation and the many that have gone down. Also, weather reports often contain warnings for squalls, wave height, etc.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @aliasofwestgate: Markers for lost ships dot the shoreline of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. “On October 21, 19xx, the [Blank] sank with all hands two miles east of this location.”

  65. 65.

    Eric S.

    @raven: Happy birthday. Happy you grace us with your perspective.

    My father was a Vietnam draftee. He was fortunate to spend his entire tour in Texas. Still, he doesn’t discuss it.

    And fuck LBJ.

    ETA, Happy (?) Veteran’s day.

  66. 66.

    PST

    I took the day off to sit with a sick friend. Bernadette was spayed yesterday. New vet we really liked. Today was also her first taste of snow. She likes it!

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I love it…anything to win…rather than just put up an honorable write-in candidate at this point, the GOP makes sickening excuses for a perv and then thinks about moving the election date. Anything else they want to pull to guarantee victory?

    Goalposts-on-wheels doesn’t even describe it anymore…maybe goalposts-on-Flash’s-back?

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    LBJ would have been 41 yrs old the day you were born. How many more years did it take you to first utter those immortal words “Fuck LBJ?”
    Happy B Day you old coot. If we ever meet in a restaurant I’ll be sitting in the old coot section waiting for you.

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Corner Stone:

    On Assignment with Richard Engel sorta sucked. Really shallow and superficial. He got to ride in a fast jet plane! By the DMZ!

    “Is this as far north as we can go without provoking a war?”

    “Yep.”

    I thought he was going to channel Sterling Archer. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my enormous erection.”

  74. 74.

    Emma

    A very good friend in Alabama is alternating between volcanic fury and total despair. She is apolitical as they come and usually shrugs her shoulders at most things. But she’s the mother of a 12 year old girl and the contorsions all these older, mealymouthed, pseudo-Christian white men are putting themselves through to defend Moore are driving her bats.

  75. 75.

    Manyakitty

    @Adam L Silverman: I mostly grew up in the shadow of Lake Erie, in Cleveland and Akron. And I was 7 in November 1975–old enough to be aware of current events. Even so, I first heard about the wreck from that haunting song.

  76. 76.

    aliasofwestgate

    @Omnes Omnibus: There’s a new one that showed up near where i live here by Lake Huron. They found a ship that had been searched for, for a long time. The marker/statue went up a few years later. But they dot Huron’s shores too. Probably more the further north you go. But we get more or less regular collisions of Lakers with the shorelines when idiot captains don’t make use of the pilot boats to guide them into or out of the St. Clair River’s mouth. So at least once a decade we see either PH or Sarnia doing construction on the shoreline where the giant ships collided with the sides. The transition from lake to river and vice versa is pretty wild. Local teenagers on both sides of the border dive into it all the time as a way to pass the time in the summer. Not a thing i ever wanted to do.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    As I was saying earlier:

  79. 79.

    hitchhiker

    I knew one of the guys on that ship — David Weiss, who was known in the house I shared with him and four or five others as Dewey. It was one of those 19th century mansions with a ton of bedrooms, & we were a confused collection of pot-smokers, waitresses, & junior college students living in Traverse City, Michigan, where he was enrolled at the Maritime Academy.

    I’d like to say it was one of those houses where people got along, but not so much. I remember him seeming much straighter and more into authority than the rest of us. Like, he’d be the one to demand that we organize a cleanup system, and when it inevitably broke down, he’d be the one to want a house meeting to try to fix it. His death and the loss of that ship, at the time, seemed to my young dope-addled brain as just another link in the chain of public catastrophes. Vietnam, the string of assassinations, the Nixon debacle, the many overdoses of musicians — those were the background noise. Later when Gordon Lightfoot made that song, it felt wrong in the way that commercialization of private things can feel wrong. I wish I hadn’t been such a weak-ass person at the time; one thing I could have done was to reach out to his family and offer a few memories.

  80. 80.

    jefft452

    On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,
    De win’ she blow, blow, blow,
    An’ de crew of de wood scow “Julie Plante”
    Got scar’t an’ run below—
    For de win’ she blow lak hurricane,
    Bimeby she blow some more,
    An’ de scow bus’ up on Lac St. Pierre
    Wan arpent from de shore.

    De captinne walk on de fronte deck,
    An’ walk de hin’ deck too—
    He call de crew from up de hole,
    He call de cook also.
    De cook she ‘s name was Rosie,
    She come from Montreal,
    Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
    On de Grande Lachine Canal.

    De win’ she blow from nor’ -eas’ -wes’,–
    De sout’ win’ she blow too,
    W’en Rosie cry, “Mon cher captinne,
    Mon cher, w’at I shall do ?”
    Den de captinne t’row de beeg ankerre,
    But still de scow she dreef,
    De crew he can’t pass on de shore,
    Becos’ he los’ hees skeef.

    De night was dark lak wan black cat,
    De wave run high an’ fas’,
    W’en de captinne tak’ de Rosie girl
    An’ tie her to de mas’.
    Den he also tak’ de life preserve,
    An’ jomp off on de lak’,
    An’ say, “Good-bye, ma Rosie dear,
    I go drown for your sak’.”

    Nex’ morning very early
    ‘Bout ha’f-pas’ two—t’ree—four—
    De captinne—scow—an’ de poor Rosie
    Was corpses on de shore,
    For de win’ she blow lak hurricane,
    Bimeby she blow some more,
    An’ de scow bus’ up on Lac St. Pierre,
    Wan arpent from de shore.

    Now all good wood scow sailor man
    Tak’ warning by dat storm
    An’ go an’ marry some nice French girl
    An’ leev on wan beeg farm.
    De win’ can blow lak hurricane
    An’ s’pose she blow some more,
    You can’t get drown on Lac St. Pierre
    So long you stay on shore

  81. 81.

    Kay Eye

    @Mary G:I think this is for raven: Fuck LBJ? Did you mean Fuck Medicare/Medicaid? Fuck immigration reform? Fuck Head Start? Fuck Pell Grants? Fuck nuclear nonproliferation treaties? Fuck clean air/clean water legislation? Fuck PBS? Fuck Civil Rights/Voting Rights/Fair Housing Acts? Fuck the Job Corps, George Foreman a proud graduate? Fuck Thurgood Marshall? …..I could go on, but it’s late.

  84. 84.

    James E. Powell

    @raven:

    WMMS in Cleveland – back in the early days when it was sorta underground radio – used to play that song. Hearing it again brings back memories of when you went to FM for the long versions of songs that played on AM.

    Oh yeah, happy birthday man!

  86. 86.

    Nicole

    A friend and his songwriting partner wrote a series of songs for a local PBS series about the history of shipping on the Great Lakes, including a song about the Arthur Anderson and Captain Cooper’s decision to go back out after the Edmund Fitzgerald:

    Cooper of the Anderson

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    @Kay Eye:
    Yes Fuck LBJ. Yes he got all those things done. Lots of people paid a horrible price for that. Was it worth it? Only you can answer that question but lots and lots of people were horribly affected by how he went about getting things done. We know of 58,195 of them, that paid the ultimate price, but there were many, many more than that from many places in the world, and that doesn’t account for all the maimed and fucked up people. Some of whom I spent 2 months in hospital with. Some of whom I see every time I go to the VA.
    He may deserve our thanks for some things, he deserves our scorn for others.
    So yeah, FUCK LBJ.
    We got Nixon, in my mind primarily due to Vietnam. That lying sack of shit of course made it worse and set the tone for the conservative party of today.
    So Yeah. Fuck LBJ.

  91. 91.

    NotMax

    November 10 also the date of the final maritime punch of the Big Blow of ’13, a storm event which included the killing of the complete crews of a dozen ships when they sunk on 4 of the 5 Great Lakes during its multi-day rage.

  96. 96.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    Holy Cow, you’re only 2 – or 1.2 years older than me!!!! I thought I was a youngster in this crowd, but for Goju and such. Quinerly, also a youth.

    I’m gonna be 67 next month!!!

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe)

    Much debate about when the Silver Age ended and the Bronze Age began.

    Howsoever, whether it is lumped into Bronze Age or proto-Bronze Age, would name the original ElfQuest saga as among the classics of the time, certainly a precursor to the blooming of so-called independent publishers during the Bronze Age.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @J R in WV:

    Oh hell, I forgot: Fuck LBJ!!

    There. That’s done too.

    And happy birthday, and many returns! You old fart! You got me by 14 months, tops!

  104. 104.

    Schlemazel

    @Ruckus:
    Ike got us involved in Vietnam (I have a Marine BIL who was off the coast waiting to go ashore in 1957 but was ordered off because of trouble in Korea that needed his MOS). JFK escalated & set the stage, more than half of that 58 thousand died under Nixon. I understand being bitter but in perspective we have done a lot worse, more than a couple times, in the intervening years than LBJ

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Schlemazel: Do you dispute raven’s justification for saying it? Because LBJ gets a lot of love from the the left of center for all of the things that Kay Eye mentioned, but his role in the expansion of the war often gets glossed over as it was in Kay Eye’s comment.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @Schlemazel:
    Oh you aren’t wrong. I wasn’t arguing that LBJ was the worst. He doesn’t even make it into my bottom 10 worst presidents. My complaint is that he was in charge when the big build up started. He left a mess and as I said got us Nixon. His VP Herbert Humphrey, had he been elected in 68 had the same outlook on Vietnam as LBJ, and that gave us Nixon. That was more than enough to enlist a Fuck LBJ.

  110. 110.

    Schlemazel

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    His role in Vietnam has never been glossed over that I have noticed. He was in a bad spot & sold out in order to maintain his office, it was immoral and it cost a lot of people their lives. But it also was not all he ever did and Kay Eye put it in perspective. Raven has the right to say it as do many others.

  111. 111.

    frosty

    @Kay Eye: @Ruckus:

    So Yeah. Fuck LBJ.

    I binge-watched Ken Burns’s Vietnam documentary and one of the things that struck me was three Presidents in a row saying to their advisors “We can’t win this thing.” The advisors agree. Then the President says “But we can’t get out.”

    So yeah, fuck JFK, fuck LBJ, fuck RMN. If slavery was America’s Original Sin, Vietnam was our Second Sin, and we’re still buried in the polarization it caused and I don’t think we’ll ever climb out.

  115. 115.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    FYWP, won’t let me edit. So
    ETA Party loyalty is fine but there are limits and we shouldn’t just praise him for his good points, he had a major bad one. It wasn’t even bad in hind sight. It was bad then. We need to be honest about what he did, not just the good parts but the bad parts as well. It’s like the sexual deviants in either party need to be hounded out. Just because our side does it does not make it right. I use Edwards as an example last night, he lasted what 2 weeks after announcing, because he wasn’t fit to be elected to be president. Just because the republicans/russians got the current shithead elected doesn’t mean we should.

  117. 117.

    Corner Stone

    Balloon-Juice. The only blog that will go from focusing on pedophilia to gerontophilia in the same 24 hours.

  118. 118.

    Suzanne

    I feel like a bad feminist. I am watching the ultimate celebration of toxic masculinity—Jackass.
    And I am laughing so hard.

  120. 120.

    J R in WV

    @Kay Eye:

    No, I think we all meant Fuck K I !

    LBJ and his best and brightest managed to kill literally millions of SE Asians while committing war crimes, along with 60,000 Americans dead and hundreds of thousands wounded, with chemical poisoning, PTSD, etc, etc. Fuck YOU!

    Getting great things done doesn’t excuse someone from committing war crimes. The good things are footnotes in the list of deaths and criminal activities.

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    @frosty:
    As @Schlemazel: stated Ike got us into Vietnam. JFK didn’t get us out and did escalate but not anywhere to the extent that LBJ did. He didn’t want the US to lose face so we lost a dramatic number of lives and screwed up a whole lot more. And in the end all we got were a lot of dead people and a fucked up political environment.
    You are right though the entire thing was a major clusterfuck from the get go.

  124. 124.

    MoxieM

    @Omnes Omnibus: There’s something spooky about Nov 9th. Besides those events in Germany, there are a bunch of other historical events there on that date (tl:dr). Then, the famous blackout in NY in 1965; my dad was trapped in an elevator at the Ford Foundation so, memorable. (He just pried the doors open and it was about 10″ below floor level so they climbed out. WWII vets were unflappable.)

  125. 125.

    frosty

    @Ruckus: But more than the clusterfuck, for me, was the long-term split it caused in the country. Hardhats beating up hippies. It led straight to Cleek’s Law, the last election, and the people interviewed in Johnstown. They’ll never agree with me, I’ll never agree with them. Vietnam tore us into pieces. That’s the Second Sin.

    …. aaaand racking out.

  127. 127.

    Repatriated

    If we still had Vietnam-era battlefield medicine, we’d’ve had Vietnam-level KIA numbers out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

  137. 137.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Repatriated: I now understand what you were trying to say. What you said didn’t get there. Medicine has been improving for years. If you want to talk about people damaged by the wars since 2001, you are likely correct. But those are different numbers which neither of us have.

  138. 138.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Mnemosyne:

    Hey, M. Do you belong to the Dirty Discourse forum? They have a romance writers’ section you might find useful.

  144. 144.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Click on the tweet and then embiggen the statement. Or just read below:
    http://wiat.com/2017/11/10/attorney-for-woman-who-says-she-dated-drank-with-roy-moore-as-a-teen-releases-new-statement/

    This statement is being given due to the public falsehoods and defamatory remarks being made by Roy Moore, many Alabama Republican officeholders and leaders, and Steve Bannon, regarding the motivations of Ms. Deason in describing her former relationship with Moore. She did not seek public exposure on the events described in The Washington Post article. She was contacted by the Post reporters several weeks ago. After careful consideration, and fully understanding that her character and veracity would be viciously attacked, she nonetheless agreed to go on the record and tell the truth.

    Ms. Deason confirms that the The Post accurately reported the substance of her interviews with them. She does not know the other women named in the article. She is no longer a resident of Alabama. She is a registered Republican, but has no affiliation with the RNC and has not been contacted by the RNC or any Republican leaders at any time. The same is true for the DNC and Democratic leaders. She does not know Doug Jones, has not been contacted at any point by him or anyone associated with his campaign nor made any financial contributions to him.

    There is nothing about being public regarding her relationship with Roy Moore that will enhance Ms. Deason’s life. She did not seek the limelight. No glory, no financial compensation, no justice. But she stands firmly on the truth. No one can take that away from her. No one.

    And Roy Moore knows the truth. Notably, he has not denied knowing Ms. Deason, or pursuing and dating her when she was 18 and he was in his mid-thirties. He has not denied plying her with alcohol knowing in his position as a district attorney that she was younger than the legal drinking age. He has not given a press conference or opened himself up to questions on his relationship with Ms. Deason or the other women named in the article. He appears to be in hiding while issuing incendiary statements about the women, calling them “evil” and accusing them of bribery and conspiracy with the DNC. He has also sent emails to his supporters using this as a reason to request more financial contributions for his campaign.

    It is reprehensible that so many Alabama Republican officeholders and leaders of their party have rejected wholesale the magnitude of evidence reported in The Post. Worse yet, they claim that even if they believed the statements of pedophilia and sexual assault, specifically against Leigh Corfman (the 14 year old), to be true, they don’t find it to be illegal or immoral conduct by Moore. A 14 year old cannot legally give consent for sex. In short, these leaders don’t care. This is a stunning admission that the GOP is not a party of family values, certainly not in Alabama. And Steve Bannon’s ridiculous statement that Moore’s misconduct is akin to “locker room talk” deserves no response. It fails on its face.

    For those critical of these 4 women for not voluntarily coming forward earlier, ask yourselves what difference it would have made. Republicans in Alabama, the Christian conservatives of the Deep South, are saying that they don’t care if Roy Moore’s predatory sexual child pursuits are true. It’s no big deal to them that Moore abused his position of power as a district attorney and committed crimes against teenage women.

  145. 145.

    Citizen Alan

    @Ruckus:

    So LBJ gets the blame for the 20,000 or so people who died after he left office even though had Hubert Humphrey won, the war would have almost certainly ended years earlier. Interesting viewpoint.

  147. 147.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    So much creativity unleashed during the 80s as direct sales came into force that any list of non-DC, non-Marvel worthies will be incomplete, including this one.

    Cerebus
    Scout
    American Flagg
    Crossfire
    Love and Rockets
    Zot!
    Nexus
    Sabre
    Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman
    Mr. X
    Coyote

  150. 150.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Citizen Alan: Really? Okay, lets blame 28,321 deaths on him. Guessimate. Also, if he stopped it, the deaths under NIxon would not have happened, right? And it is more than deaths. No one who went there came back unchanged. Do you want to argue about how many changed for the better?

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @Citizen Alan:
    HH was a strong anti communist. He supported LBJ’s positions on Vietnam. He may have ended it sooner, he may not have. We will never know because it didn’t happen. He didn’t walk away from LBJ and Nixon lied his ass off. People believed Nixon. LBJ may have stopped the war, had he ran and won. But I don’t think he would have won. Remember, at the time all the stuff that was listed as his accomplishments, and they were truly accomplishments, were just getting off the ground. Vietnam was the major political point. Nixon, that lying sack of shit, promised to end the war. He was of course lying his ass off but he told people what they wanted to hear.

  157. 157.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I believe there were more deaths under Nixon than LBJ. But that is quibbling over who was worse, not that the entire clusterfuck, the major escalation, the lying run for the presidency, the very fact that we can be having this argument over which was worse, LBJ or Nixon. In that it’s no contest, Nixon was worse. And that didn’t change a thing as far as how involved we were in a fucking useless war, that over a million people are supposed to have died in, the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, etc, etc. And I’m not talking of only the bombings that Nixon authorized. I personally know 2 pilots who flew into both countries before that. One AF and one Marine. That’s on LBJ.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Repatriated: Not going to happen. Everyone who is a conservative and appalled or, as Nicole Wallace puts it “a non practicing Republican”, has come out against this. They don’t care. This is going to be a no true Scotsman type of thing. If Rush Limbaugh actually did the right thing for once and tried to inject this he’d be excommunicated and ostracized as a newfound RINO. Reality is running into both an irresistible force and an immovable object.

    The former, as I mentioned in a comment in an earlier thread, is a religious issue. What Moore is described as doing is referred to as grooming. It is pretty common in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist community. It leached into the rest of the most extreme parts of the evangelical community from there. As a religious minority, although not a particularly devout or observant one, I try not to be too judgmental of other religions and other’s religious observance. However, we are long, long overdue for a discussion of just what is going on within evangelical churches, households, parochial schools, and among evangelical homeschoolers. The amount of crime and deviance being covered up and/or excused away under the rubric and rhetoric of religious freedom and the 1st Amendment is too large to keep ignoring in the name of respectful tolerance. If you let a proper, impartial sex crimes investigator lose on the Duggar family he or she would take decades to get to the bottom of the crimes they’ve committed, abetted, and/or covered up. So Moore will be covered for by significant numbers of self declared devout evangelical Christians, both non-elites and elites such as Reverend Falwell who has already come out defending Moore, because doing anything else would be to both admit there is a problem and open this semi-closed and purposefully opaque community up to inspection and investigation by non-evangelicals.

    The latter is the tribalism that has spread through the GOP base. You see it in the comments from Republicans in Alabama. That it doesn’t matter what Moore did or might yet do, they’d vote for anyone before voting for any Democrat. Even one like Doug Jones who prosecuted what the rest of us perceive as four domestic terrorists who murdered four little girls. If even that person is unacceptable because he’s running for office as a Democrat, then it doesn’t matter what a GOP candidate or elected or appointed official does. Just being a Republican means you get the benefit of the doubt and a free pass. Being a Democrat means you are always evil and never to be trusted.

  163. 163.

    Felonius Monk

    @Adam L Silverman: There is something wrong with this picture. Anthony Wiener sends a photo of his junk to a 15 yo girl and he goes to jail. Roy Moore allegedly gets physical with a 14 yo girl and he likely gets elected to the U.S.Senate. WTF?

  164. 164.

    GregB

    Twitter tells me the senior White House official in the Papadopa-plea is ta….daaaa….Stephen Miller.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Felonius Monk: If I recall correctly one of the charges against Weiner was child endangerment because his 5 year old (at the time) son was in one of the pictures of himself in his underwear that he texted to the teenage (15 at the time) girl.

  167. 167.

    Adam L Silverman

    @GregB: Yep. Also, Nunes and Rohrbacher are caught up with Flynn. And, I think, Nunes may be caught up with the Papadapolous thing, but I’ll need to see more info. The Russian woman, who was not Putin’s niece, apparently works for a Russian owned wine distributor. Interestingly enough Nunes’s winery uses a Russian oligarch owned wine distributor. I don’t know if it’s the same one. But coincidence takes a lot of work…

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    As I have stated many times in this post, that fucking lying sack of shit Nixon, lied his ass off about the war, his intentions, and his helping hand HK, is also a worse than useless asshole. But he was believed. Lots of people desperately wanted to believe the load of crap he was selling. And he knew it was all a load of crap. All of that, and more is what makes him far more despicable than LBJ.

  169. 169.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman: Wow. That is some statement.

    What’s this about Alabama talking about moving the election date so they can get Moore off the ballot? Is that legal under their election law? I guess I also have to matter if that even matters.

  172. 172.

    Ruckus

    Is this what a tipping point looks like?
    I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope……………

  173. 173.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
    Late 70s and 80s was really Marvel’s time to shine. I gave up comics when the Iron Age hit, because it utterly destroyed the character-driven comics I loved. I cannot sufficiently recommend New Mutants, or the original Longshot. You won’t believe how different things were.

    For the at least furry-curious, that was also the period of the ‘anthropomorphics’ fandom that took a rather sharp turn when it became ‘furry’ fandom. Albedo Anthropomorphics is an interesting experience that alas didn’t have time to go anywhere. Love me some Konny and Csu. And check out Beanworld! Boy, was that different.

    But for the pre-90s superhero genre? First, oh, 40 Issues of New Mutants. Formative for me.

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Thank you for this. I try to explain how approval of child abuse is baked into the Southern conservative culture, and without the scholarly history I don’t think anyone believes me. Large portions of them not only would prefer Moore, but mildly approve of his actions.

  176. 176.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: My understanding is the governor has the ability to set when the special election happens. Or at least some discretion.

  177. 177.

    Yarrow

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Just being a Republican means you get the benefit of the doubt and a free pass. Being a Democrat means you are always evil and never to be trusted.

    Yep.

    Jonathan Gray, an Alabama Republican strategist, noted that Alabama Republicans are not willing to put their Senate seat at risk, arguing that they’d rather vote for anyone over a Democrat.

    “I think they’d rather put Satan up there and then get him removed in the next election than lose the chance to correct what they think has been an injustice for eight years,” Gray told The Hill.

  178. 178.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: The only problem with New Mutants, and several other Marvel books of that time period is Leifeld.

    Break

    As to you other point, here’s a great thread on this:

    And another one that builds off it:

  180. 180.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    That’s my point. This is EXACTLY the period before Leifeld destroyed them and earned my eternal ire.

    EDIT – FUCK YOU, Leifeld, for killing off one of my favorite characters because you found him boring to draw, and aging my favorite character and turning her into a slut because you enjoyed that more. You will burn in Cartoon Hell with Ralph Bakshi.

  181. 181.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: And I can’t figure out what the injustice he’s referring to is. Sessions held that seat for over two decades.

  184. 184.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    The former was Cypher. The latter was Wolfsbane. At least Magik’s ending made sense for the character, as much as I was annoyed by the craze for apocalyptic crossover plotlines. And while the comic played it down, she was sexually far from shy, specifically because she’d been both corrupted and abused by demons. The New Mutants backstories were pretty harsh.

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: Now I’m tracking.

    What I’ve seen of the leaks about where the New Mutants movie is headed, it sounds like it’ll be both different and good if they can pull it off.

  191. 191.

    Kay Eye

    @Schlemazel: Well, thank you for that. Truman’s was the first administration to involve our country in the Vietnam nightmare. Nixon was the one who sabotaged Johnson’s last effort at peace talks, along with the North Vietnamese.
    My high school boyfriend died a few weeks ago, exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam being one factor in his several illnesses. 21 members of my high school graduating class (’61) served in the military during the ’60s. I was occasionally on the streets marching for civil rights and against Vietnam. Our government was wedded to that domino theory stuff about communism taking over the world long after it ceased to make any sense at all. Westmoreland – tragic that anyone would listen to his “analysis” of that nightmare. There were too few heroes at the top but I think he was a true villain.
    I am grateful to have an insight into raven’s mantra. I rarely comment on these issues because my, what a prickly bunch the BJers can become, and in my dotage I need to keep my cool for my own home front (my husband has Alzheimer’s which is one of those things that can happen when one gets old).
    I so wanted to join a conversation some weeks ago about the dreaded C word. But I needed a snappy mantra, maybe ‘Fuck sanctimony’, because there were distractions enough to keep me away from a keyboard for awhile.

  192. 192.

    Skepticat

    Thanks for this. A Yankee who’s always lived by and on the ocean and races sailboats, I’ve also always been riveted by tales of waterborne disaster and the power of Mother Nature. The Edmund Fitzgerald story makes my heart clench, and I always remember it when the gales of November blow. I knew two of the crew of the Andrea Gail (of Perfect Storm fame) and the captain of El Faro, the container ship that went down in Hurricane Joaquin not far from my home in the Bahamas. The parallels between the incidents, at least those one draws from the Gordon Lightfoot song, are striking. And chilling. I’m looking out at a beautiful, warm day, and it’s difficult to begin to imagine what those people went through.

  194. 194.

    Fair Economist

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I cannot sufficiently recommend New Mutants, or the original Longshot. You won’t believe how different things were.

    The New Mutants were my first introduction to the depths of sexism. I thought it was pretty good. My fellow comics aficionados derided it as “Professor X’s School for Guruls” (4 of the founding 6 were female). I pointed out that you’d think at least *occasionally* statistics would deliver a superhero team where the female half of the population would constitute more than half of the team, but to no avail.

    Bronze Age is the usual term for 80’s comics, but it’s a terrible misnomer. It was easily the best period for comics writing.

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