I can't help myself

From Salon we get word that Ann Coulter thinks Bill Clinton is a latent homosexual. Here's why:

Her evidence? Well, all those sexual relations he's had with women, of course. "I think that sort of rampant promiscuity does show some level of latent homosexuality," Coulter explained.

Other famous homosexuals (real and in fiction):

1. John Kennedy
2. James Bond
3. Babe Ruth
4. Hugh Hefner
5. Charlie Sheen
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Captain James T. Kirk

So just remember kids, if you have lots of sex with members of the opposite sex, it means you're gay. That'll throw a kink in your sexual identity, won't it?

Good For the Foreign Office

I haven't had a lot of cause to say that recently, but this time, they're saying more or less what I've been thinking:

And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.--Kim Howells, British Foreign Office Minister.

Yeah. I'm afraid this is what's been bothering me about the whole mess. Is it really a sensible strategy for Israel (with tacit U.S. encouragement) to devastate Lebanon in order to pursue a cadre of terrorists in the southern part of the country? Doesn't that risk busting up the Lebanese central government and restarting the factional warfare that helped fuel the formation of these terrorist groups in the 1970s and 1980s? Why would Israel want to have that nightmare on their northern borders again? Hell, the Lebanese only recently kicked the Syrians out of Lebanon. Doesn't chaos there form a basis for their coming back in?

Israeli officials, in every interview I've seen, tend to focus on their right to engage in this kind of warfare. They were attacked, they say, and they're responding. Fine. But wouldn't it be better if their response actually brought Israel closer to desirable goals, instead of prolonging the misery and spreading it around?

I don't like the various World War analogies that local opportunists have been spewing in hopes of attracting the stupid vote, but there is one thing that George Kennan said about World War I that seems appropriate. I don't have the book with me, but he observed that World War I was evidence that suffering didn't always make people better, that war frequently gave people the excuse to believe self-flattering lies and imagine only the worst about their adversaries. War is intoxicating stuff, and it looks to me as if the Israeli government is already pretty sloshed.

The New Worst Movie Ever Made

Those who know me know that I have in my time watched a lot of crap. Red Zone Cuba, Amityville 2, Yor, the Hunter From the Future, Outlaw of Gor, Armageddon, Ringmaster, Pearl Harbor, Manos: the Hands of Fate, Glitter, The Lonely Lady, Battlefield Earth--these and many many other horrors have left craters on my retinas at one time or another.

But I have never seen a film so bad, just so unutterably stupid, as Monster A-Go-Go.

Monster A-Go-Go is the story of...hmm. What is it the story of? There's no monster. There's no A-Go-Go, and notwithstanding the protestations of the narrator, there's no horror. What there's a lot of is dark. Indeed, the movie The Dark didn't have this much dark. There are long periods where the screen is literally blank. Sadly, these are the film's better moments.

Essentially, the film consists of a few randomly placed shots of a tall man with oatmeal on his face interspersed with...well...the mind rebels against calling them scenes where characters talk about...actually, it's never quite clear what they're talking about, because the sound guy apparently didn't think that the audience needed to hear the actors. (I'm not sure whether I should condemn or praise him for that.) Characters come and go inexplicably. We never miss them when they're gone. We never really notice when they're there. The activities of Quaker-Oats Man, which are allegedly horrifying, take place largely off-screen. It falls to the various random characters to stumble upon the aftermath of the monster's mayhem and break into indivdual discussion groups to compare findings, which we never hear. In the end, a parade of stock footage tells us that preparations are taking place for something having to do with the monster, but then the narrator informs us that there was never a monster at all! Fade out. The end.

As I said, I'm a crap veteran. I was sure that when it came to cinema, I'd been to the ninth circle of hell, where Satan's three mouths chew on the worst offenders in all of film history: Coleman Francis, Hal Warren, and Michael Bay. But no. The Inferno has a subbasement, where Monster A-Go-Go lives and rolls in the filth of its own wretchedness.

From what I understand, the producer got his mitts on some footage from a movie that ran out of money. He then decided to add some other footage, mix in some stock footage, and run the confection as the bottom half a double feature. I can guess how it went over. It's a wonder he's still alive.

My My My

According to Political Wire, a Rasmussen poll not only has Lamont ahead of Lieberman by 10% for the primary, but he's also tied with Lieberman for the general election.

I guess there are lots of crazy bloggers in Connecticut.

Mr. Shyamalan, Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

I haven't seen Lady In the Water, so don't worry. I can't reveal the twist. But I did find a small measure of amusement in the name he gave his magical being: "Narf".

Mr. Shyamalan, are you by any chance familiar with Pinky and the Brain?

Nice Try For An Analogy, But I'm Unconvinced

From Bullmoose:

Almost forty years ago, the Moose witnessed a good and decent liberal unfairly slimed by the ideological predecessors of the nutroot blogosphere. In 1968, the New Leftists didn't have the internet, but with their voices they shouted out and heckled Hubert Humphrey with the chant, "Dump the Hump." The Moose will be damned if he stands by while another progressive leader suffers the disgraceful treatment that was accorded the Happy Warrior so long ago.

The progressive leader he's talking about is Joe Lieberman, but before Wittman gets too excited about his analogy, there are a few things that want pointing out. Hubert Humphrey was, for many years, the darling of the left. The appellation of Happy Warrior was placed upon him not for hawkishness, but for his outspoken way of pushing for social programs and civil rights. When Humprey was chosen as Johnson's Vice President, liberals felt like they had a voice inside the administration (particularly important because of the strains between LBJ and Robert Kennedy). Humphrey actually came to oppose war in Vietnam; but Johnson threatened to sink his candidacy for president if Humphrey refused to back his war policies during the 1968 campaign. This lost Humphrey a great deal of support among liberals, who tranferred it first to Eugene McCarthy and then to Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy beat Humphrey in the California primary only to take a bullet in the head in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel afterwards, liberals, already pretty raw after the death of Martin Luther King, were doubly heartbroken. They could hardly be expected to transfer their enthusiasm to Humphrey, who they felt had let them down at the same time that murderers had robbed them of their heroes. It was a sad business all the way around, really.

Lieberman, by contrast, was never what anyone would call a darling of the left. When he's been a happy warrior it's been more often than not (or at least, more famously than not) for conservative issues than for liberal ones. He doesn't seem to like liberals too much, and they don't like him back. I don't think Lieberman actually disappointed anyone with his support of the Iraq War (which I take to be genuine rather than tactical), but it did confirm an opinion that many inside the Democratic party already had of him from his behavior on other issues.

So, Mr. Wittman, nice try, but I'm not buying. Incidentally, you can read more about this topic at Talking Points Memo.

Lame Questions Entertainment Reporters Ask

These are some questions that the L.A. Times's Channel Island is nominating for its Jiminy Glick awards (named for Martin Short's bizarro entertainment reporter character):

"Where do you get the bear spray? Where can you buy it?" - To Jenny Bicks, creator of ABC's "Men in Trees," which is set in Alaska

"When using an ATM, do you find yourself getting nervous?" - To the cast and creators of ABC's "The Nine," a drama about the aftermath of a bank robbery

"Do you try to solve mysteries? Like, if you are just sitting watching a mystery movie or something, would you try to figure it out before the credits roll?" - To Kristen Bell, star of CW's "Veronica Mars"

"What makes you really cranky and irritable? Is there anything?" - To the usually perky cooking expert/talk host Rachael Ray

"I'm very serious, looking for a serious answer from you: Have you ever had an experience where you truly felt there was an angel or a higher being looking out after you?" - To Rick Worthy, star of ABC Family's "Fallen," about a character who's half-man, half-angel.

The last one is especially funny. It has that faux-hard-hitting intro followed by a question that makes the actor fear that the reporter is going to whip out a holy book and insist he read marked passages.

Hunh

When it comes to this moment, I'm afraid I have nothing brilliant. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently to the impulses that would drive the President of the United States to give a spontaneous, unsolicited massage to a fellow world leader. I do think, however, that before the President strikes again, he might want to remember the story of Tony Rocky Horror.

James Woolcott has a good post on this.

A Strange History

Gregory Rodriguez praises Barak Obama's speech (a speech I actually liked as well), but in doing so he asserts a history of the Democratic party that misses a lot:

That was not always the case. Some scholars point to the Democratic National Convention of 1972 as not only the moment Democrats edged toward secularism but the event that created the religious rift in American politics. Before 1972, both major parties were essentially indistinguishable in their approach to religion. The activist cores of both were dominated by members of mainstream religious groups: the GOP by mainline Protestants and the Democratic Party by Catholics and Jews.

But the Democratic delegation that nominated South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for president at the '72 convention represented a profound shift from what had been the cultural consensus in American politics. Whereas only 5% of Americans could be considered secular in 1972, fully 24% of first-time Democratic delegates that year were self-identified agnostics, atheists or people who rarely, if ever, set foot in a house of worship. This new activist base encouraged a growing number of Democratic politicians to tone down their appeal to religious voters and to seek a higher wall separating church and state. With little regard for the traditionalist sensitivities of religious people within or outside of the party, the Democrats also embraced progressive stances on feminism and homosexuality that the public had never openly debated.

Meanwhile, the Republican delegation — and by extension the party platform — remained unchanged, and the GOP essentially became the party of tradition and religion by default. "The partisan differences that emerged in 1972," writes University of Maryland political scientist Geoffrey Layman, "were not caused by any sudden increase in the religious and cultural traditionalism of the Republican activists but by the pervasive secularism and cultural liberalism of the Democratic supporters of George McGovern."

While I certainly hate to underestimate the power of 24% of Democratic party delegates, the major shift away from the Democrats occurred for reasons largely outside of Democratic party's religious policies. White southerners left the party less because of religion than because of race. Over the same period, blacks, both northern and southern, religious and not, switched overwhelmingly to the Democratic party. In the end, the demographic shift sank Democrats in the South, though it put them on the right side of history. Also, the 1972 Roe v. Wade deicison energized millions of fundamentalists and evangelicals nationwide and drove them into Republican politics, generating enthusiastic support for Reagan against Ford in 1976 and gradually driving moderate Republicans further and further northeast. The Republican delegation did not go "unchanged". It grew far more aggressively conservative through the 1970s and 1980s--so much so that George Bush Sr., known as "Rubbers" in the 1960s for his support of contraception and family planning, had to insist over and over again that he was anti-abortion enough for the GOP right to survive the 1988 primaries. Finally, in 1972, McGovern would never have been the face of the party had not Nixon's men ratfucked McGovern's primary opponents, especially Ed Muskie, the early frontrunner in the '72 primaries who was running ahead of Nixon before the forged Canuck letter sank him.

There have been religious changes in the Democratic party since '72. It's become less Catholic. Southern Baptists of various sorts--you need a program to keep track of the denominations--have grown in influence and power. In the last four Presidential elections we've nominated two all-Baptist tickets, a Baptist/Jewish ticket, and a Catholic/Methodist ticket. While Democratic candidates are typically less given to wearing their religions as if they were Captain Midnight badges, I don't see any effort to wipe out more overtly religious candidates. (Quick, which party was the last one to run an ordained minister as a Presidential Candidate, and from whence on the political spectrum did he run?)

The column's equation of secular left with religious right also ignores a vast difference in power. Religious right politicians hold the White House, the Congressional majority and its leadership, and four Supreme Court seats. Atheists and agnostics control...well...the Skeptics Society, the Socialist Worker party, Bernie Sanders, and, for at least a few years, the Minnesota Vikings's offensive backfield. We don't have the power to push politicians to do anything at all, though I'm perfectly willing to admit that our mere presence in the Democratic party suffices to help the Pat Robertson/Bill O'Reilly types spin conspiracy theories (as do a variety of lawsuits involving coinage and the Pledge of Allegiance that have nothing to do with the Democratic party).

The narrative the column spins--that once upon a time the world was stable and everyone agreed on unifying religious precepts until one day a cabal of evil atheists came and wrecked it all--resonantes deeply in our history. Unfortunately, the places where it resonates are pretty nasty. It would be nice if more religious Democrats would drop this kind of paranoid nonsense. It would also be nice if the Cubs were above .500 and the Raiders had a more solid front seven. Life's a bitch, huh?

If you want more: Digby has it.

Bad Naked

It's funny the stuff you think about when it's too hot to sleep. Tonight, my musings took me in the direction of movies that use nudity in ways that are corrupt, foul, and painful (in a bad way). In my time, I've watched no end of films with nudity in them. Some of it was sexy. Some was shocking or disturbing in a thought-provoking way. Some was comic or meant merely to provoke low grade thrills. Then there's the bad naked: the naked where it's impossible to even feel purient interest, the naked that makes you wish that you and the rest of humanity were dead.

Having now finished my preface, I give you five movies containing the worst kinds of nudity:

5. Amityville 2: The Posession: The Amityville series never scored many points for class, but the true nadir of the franchise was an icky incest scene that takes place about a third of the way through. I can understand why the demon possessed boy wanted to get it on with his sister, but the way his sister casually tossed off her clothes upon request drained my soul. I don't think I'll ever get all of it back.

4. Showgirls: For the rape scene mainly. A well-done gang-bang scene is possible (Last Exit to Brooklyn had one, as I recall), but not when it's just another excuse to get an actress out of her clothes. Joe Bob Briggs said it best: "What movie is so sleazy that, after you see it, you have to go to a Times Square live-sex show to feel better about mankind?"

3. Caligula: Have you ever seen dogs eat recently severed testicles? That's just a preview of the fun you'll have with this movie. Gore Vidal took his name off this thing. He should have taken his name off anything that might have been adjacent to this thing as well.

2. Ringmaster: There are many, many bad sex scenes in this one, but the worst involves Jerry Springer. During this movie I believe I briefly lost the will to live.

1. The Lonely Lady: HBO was a wonderful thing when I was twelve years old. I waited until my parents were asleep, sneaked into the living room, turned on the TV with the sound down, and switched over to the rampant nudity that would arrive once the clock passed midnight. One night, I turned on the TV, checked the TV guide by its light, and discovered that, yes, a movie with nudity and strong sexual content was upon me. I thrilled. I panted. I watched with great intensity as the credits rolled. The Lonely Lady. I saw Pia Zadora. I didn't know this was, on its own, a harbinger of doom. I pressed on. Come on nudity! I saw Ray Liotta. I saw Ray Liotta wrestle Pia Zadora to the ground. I saw him rip her top off. Bingo! Here we go! I saw a...garden hose? What's he going to...? Oh my God! Where's the remote? YUCK! WHY? HOW? WHICH?

It scarred me for life. Sometimes I have flashbacks, and I weep.

Sweet dreams, kiddies.

The Tribute Vice Pays to Virtue

Wes Clark on Dailykos:

I am a proud member of the Democratic Party, and I believe it is our party's responsibility to support the will of the Democratic primary voters in Connecticut. I personally look forward to supporting the candidate CT voters elect as the Democratic nominee. Though, as an aside, I must say I find it ironic that Senator Lieberman is now planning a potential run as an independent after he continually questioned my loyalty to the Democratic Party during the 2004 presidential primary.

Gee, for a guy with Lieberman's principled reputation, he sure seems to have a habit of saying whatever he thinks he needs to say to get what he wants. Of course I'm sure he only does it because he has the best interests of the nation at heart, and those best interests just happen to involve his perpetual presence at the center of power. In this, he's not all that different from someone we all remember.

Two Elements That Need to Vanish From Horror Movie Marketing

1. Whispering children

2. Kids singing familiar children's songs in minor keys.

I'm Telling You For the Last Time

It's time once again for a dissection. Next on the table, Jonathan Chait:

Part of what I'm arguing, though, is that the tactic of embracing the Lamont primary is more likely to make the problem worse than to make it better. Consider the scenarios. If Lamont wins the primary and the general election, which is akin to drawing an inside straight, then the direct effect is positive. But, as I argued in my previous Lieberman/Lamont column, if you defeat Lieberman, "he'll play the same role as before, only this time with the power of martyrdom behind him: the virtuous anti-Democrat, too good and honest for his party."

My response to that is this. If Joe Lieberman, private citizen, wants to spend his time in the wilderness pissing on the liberals who drove him from power, that's fine. It's a free country, and he can do whatever the hell he likes. Indeed, based on the way he behaved with Lamont in the debate, I'd expect some tantrums in the aftermath of electoral meltdown. Joe Lieberman is certainly the last person to ever blame himself for his problems. His attitude about the people whom he wants to vote for him reminds me of a certain heavyset, bald loudmouth:

Homer: [melancholy] My campaign is a disaster, Moe. [angry] I hate the public so much! [melancholy] If only they'd elect me. [angry] I'd make 'em pay! [melancholy] Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

I don't see why Chait sees Lieberman's future disgruntlement as such an enormous problem that we need to make Joe Lieberman senator for life. As a private citizen, Lieberman won't command nearly as much airtime, and he won't be able to do any damage during negotiations with Republicans. He can whine, but without portfolio, what can he actually do? Unless he's planning to climb to the top of the Capitol and pick off left leaning politicians with a deer rifle, I'm not scared.

On top of the tactical argument, I was drawing on the broader problems I see lying in the future. I don't think you can evaluate the Lieberman race in a vacuum. It's part of a broader fight within the Democrat Party and the liberal intelligentsia. Kevin Drum complains that my description of the liberal internet activists--"But in fact, they believe that any deviation from the party line--except for a few circumscribed instances, such as Democrats running for office in red states--is an unforgivable crime."--is too vague. "Deliberately vague," as Drum puts it.

Yes, I suppose the vagueness was deliberate--not, as he suggests, in order to conceal my own ignorance, but due to the aforementioned space constraints. Since I have space here, I'd offer up two prime examples of the party line. The first is Iraq. To be on the side of the angels, one must favor withdrawal and believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002. The second is the netroots themselves. To be in the good graces of the activists, one must believe not only that the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications, but to signal that one accepts a Manichean battle between virtuous people-powered activists and corrupt Washington insiders.

Well, to be strict about it, the belief that the netroots consists of virtous people-powered activists against corrupt Washington insiders is more a Dailykos belief than an actual party line, unless party lines don't require actual political parties in order to be enforced. That aside, I find Chait's description of the netroots's feelings about the war in Iraq insupportable.

Chait is right to say that you can't evaluate the Liberman race in a vacuum. What's significant to me about it is that alone among Senate Democrats who voted to authorize using force in Iraq, Joe Lieberman has drawn a substantial primary challenge. Why? Maria Cantwell voted the same way Lieberman did, and has also refused to reverse herself. She's also in a pretty blue state, yet somehow she's cruising through her primary. (Her leading opponent, and I use the word leading in its broadest possible sense, recently quit the race and endorsed her.) The only other Democratic Senator facing a significant primary challenge is Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, and his challenge comes from the right.

The left's problems with Lieberman go much deeper than Iraq. Lieberman's habit of adding a patina of bipartisanship to obviously partisan Republican enterprises--Impeachment, the War in Iraq, and of undermining Democrats--the debate with Cheney, the 2000 recount--has irritated Democrats in general in the left in particular for many years now. They read Lieberman as a man who doesn't act so much out of principle as out of a hunger for praise and recognition from pundits as a bipartisan statesman. He loves his enemies and hates his friends, and a good many of his friends have grown sick of it. Having spent years troubling his own house, he's about to inherit the wind.

So, Mr. Chait, if the current argument in the Democratic party worries you, I don't blame you. But place blame for the problem where it belongs, on Joe Lieberman: the arrogant, myopic, career pol who, more concerned with his own future than with the future of his party, spits on the voters who've always supported him in the past.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Syd Barrett Died.

Lieberman Creates New Party

It's called Connecticut for Lieberman. What an imagination that man has. I've read the platform, which lists the three main members of CFL's constituency:

1. Joe Lieberman
2. Senator Joe Lieberman
and
3. Captain Cool (a.k.a. Joe Lieberman)

Italia Vinse!

Brava! Chi ha bisogno del Papa quando abbiamo il campionato?

Lieberman or Bush Quiz

Go to Salon to take it. I got five out of eight. Despite some stylistic differences between the two, I actually found it harder to distinguish Bush from Lieberman than I did to tell Coulter from Hitler. No conclusion there. Just a fact.

Jeez, Joe, For Your Next Debate, Why Not Kick A Puppy?

Bob Schrum said that Lieberman's behavior in last night's debate with Ned Lamont made him wish that Lieberman had been half that aggressive in his debate with Dick Cheney in 2000. I expect he said that with a little extra bitterness, since Schrum ran that campaign and was no doubt backstage tearing his few remaining hairs out while Joe and Dick held their nationally televised singalong. The Lieberman/Lamont debate was less a discussion and more of a pistol whipping. Lamont gets much deserved points for simply emerging with an intact skull.

For Lieberman, though, it's a little more complicated, because it seemed to me that his vehemence was simply over the top. It reinforces an impression that's been hurting Lieberman all along--that he not only differs from other Democrats on policy issues, but that he also holds those Democrats with whom he differs in contempt. His manner indicated that he considered this primary challenge nothing more than a damned impertinence, and that showing up at all was somehow beneath his dignity. His attitude was to sniff and say to the audience "How dare you think that I shouldn't be your senator?"

Is it really wise to be that meanspirited and pugnacious toward a fellow Democrat during a primary debate? I guess we'll find out. But somehow I don't think the idea of Joe Lieberman's reserving all his venom for members of his own party will sit that well with primary voters. Instead, I wonder whether voters will think that Lieberman's disdain for Lamont extends to them as well. People like well informed, caustic, and funny debaters; but no one likes bullies, even when they win.

Strange Reasoning

Joe Lieberman, on CNN, said this when asked how he justified ignoring the wishes of Connecticut primary voters:
(From Crooks and Liars)

KING: But why have parties and why have primaries if the candidates
who may be backed by the establishment, but perhaps not win the votes of
the people who turn out on primary day can just take out insurance
policies and stay on the ballot even if they lose the primary? Why have
a party then?

LIEBERMAN: Right this is a very important question. And I would
answer it this way, John. This challenge to me is obviously a challenge
to my record of serving the state of Connecticut and the United States
of America, and it asks the voters of Connecticut to decide which one of
us, my challenger or I, could do a better job for them in the six years
ahead.

But it also raises questions about what do we mean by political
parties? And what kind of politics do we want to have? And when I say
that, here’s what I mean. The Democratic Party has always been at its
strongest when it welcomed a diversity of opinions.

My opponent is campaigning against me on one issue: Iraq. I have the
support of a host of progressive groups: the labor movement, the
environmental movement, the human rights political action fund, which is
the advocacy group for gay and lesbian Americans, Planned Parenthood. I
could go on and on.

I am a committed, loyal Democrat. And the question that is being asked
of the Democrats here in Connecticut is: will we impose a litmus test?
The same kind of litmus test that we criticized the Republicans for
imposing, particularly on one issue on which I have taken a principal
stand, clearly not one that is to my political advantage, which is the
war against terrorism.

And I’m taking it because I believe that it is best for the safety and
security of our country and our families. So that’s what’s on the line
here. The other thing to say is this: we don’t know how many people are
going to turn out in this Democratic primary. Most people — I said
this morning when I made this announcement, John, that I know that if
all the Democrats in Connecticut came out to vote or even half of them
came out to vote, that I would win renomination in the primary by a
comfortable margin.

Most of the people here think that at best, there will be 25 or 30
percent of the Democrats who come out. That means about five percent of
all the registered voters in Connecticut might have the final say as to
whether I continue to serve Connecticut and my country in the U.S.
Senate. I think all the voters of the state ought to be able to make
that decision. That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done today.

Okay, let's take this apart.

"The Democratic Party has always been at its strongest when it welcomed a diversity of opinions. My opponent is campaigning against me on one issue: Iraq."

That political parties, especially in two-party systems, are strengthened when they accept a range of views is true, but only to a point. Political parties will generally tolerate dissent when it's seen as either peripheral to the aims of the party or as driven by a purely regional interest. Democrats accept that their representatives will veer from platform elements that might hurt their local industry or offend voters Democrats need to hold a seat.

Democrats are most intolerant, however, when their representatives disagree with them on issues fundamental to them--especially when other winning options are readily available. In this they're similar to Republicans. That's why primaries were invented, to make representatives accountable to those who provide them with money, volunteers, ballot access, and organization. Those politicians who risk taking a position far outside the party's mainstream have to accept the consequences of those decisions: that primary voters will be offended, that donors will be turned off, that volunteers will find other hobbies or candidates.

Iraq is the major issue of our time. Democratic voters use it as way of measuring candidates because they're passionate about it to the exclusion of other issues. This isn't like Robert Byrd's shilling for the coal industry or Bob Casey's stand on abortion. The circumstances our entry into the war and the duplicitous arguments the administration has given for staying have frustrated and angered Democratic voters like no other issue since Vietnam. Primary voters have every right to ask why they should put someone on the ballot who not only fails to acknowledge the legitimacy of their feelings, but also makes every effort to show that he shares the administration's contempt for those feelings. They have every right to wonder whether a party that refuses to serve as their voice on this issue is a party worthy of their money and time.

Lieberman's trying to make it sound as if his disagreement is a trivial one, which means that he's either dishonest or completely ignorant of the salience of Iraq as a political issue. Either way, other candidates have every right to challenge him for it, and voters have the right to judge him on it.

"I have the support of a host of progressive groups: the labor movement, the environmental movement, the human rights political action fund, which is the advocacy group for gay and lesbian Americans, Planned Parenthood. I could go on and on."

Most politicians running in contested races can. Check out any voter guide during primary season and you'll see that, in contested races, both candidates can boast of a fair-sized list of endorsements. In the case of an incumbent fighting a challenger, it would be a surprise if the incumbent didn't garner more endorsements. Incumbents win most primaries, and groups would, all things considered, rather not unnecessarily offend the probable victor and lose a benefactor. Put another way, love inspires some endorsements; fear motivates the rest.

"I am a committed, loyal Democrat."

This sentence contains three lies in six words. Committed, loyal Democrats accept the process that nominates them to office. Since this is Lieberman's first primary fight, maybe he doesn't understand that. Maybe this will help.

Once upon a time, Joe Lieberman presented himself as a candidate for President. The voters looked at him, judged his record and his experience, and decided to give him the Joementum. He failed to garner votes, and he went away, leaving the field to other, more popular candidates. He did not instead decide to take his case to "all the voters" in spite of the sentiments of those voters who had already found him lacking.

It's possible that Lieberman has hung around Bush too long, and forgotten that loyalty, like bipartisanship, is a two-way affair that requires mutual respect and the capacity to accept refusal with a modicum of grace. By making this move, Lieberman is showing that he really doesn't give a damn what primary voters in Connecticut think of him. He'll do as he pleases. Well, Joe, if that's the way you feel, don't be too upset if the voters you've blown off feel the same way.

"The other thing to say is this: we don’t know how many people are going to turn out in this Democratic primary. Most people — I said this morning when I made this announcement, John, that I know that if all the Democrats in Connecticut came out to vote or even half of them came out to vote, that I would win renomination in the primary by a comfortable margin."

Again, chalk this up to Lieberman's lack of experience in primaries. Most primaries around the country suffer from low turnout. This is a reflection of voter apathy that is sad, but it can be overcome if a race is closely contested and one or the other candidates inspires fierce loyalties.

I imagine that everyone in Connecticut is aware that Lieberman and Lamont are in a close and fairly interesting fight. If in that fight, Lieberman can't inspire enough voters to put aside what they're doing on August 8th and go to the polls for him, that says something about him, doesn't it? Part of a politician's job is making voters care enough about him and the issues he fights for to get off their asses and vote. Those who can't do that should become ex-politicians. It's pathetic that Lieberman uses his failure to arouse voters as an excuse for bolting the party.

Still, if turnout is Lieberman's worry, maybe we should ask him this: "Senator Lieberman, if 50% or 60% of Democrats turn out for the primary and you lose, will you bow out and support Ned Lamont?"

Finally, this isn't part of the bigger quote, but I wanted to get it in:

" And I want to give my fellow Democrats here in Connecticut the opportunity to affirm my service and accept the diversity that I am part of in this party."

Well thank you very much, Senator Lieberman, for condescending to us but primaries have nothing to do with affirmation of service. They function to select candidates for the party's November slate. They are a chance for candidates to make their case and be judged. If your case fails, Senator, you'd serve the party much better by withdrawing gracefully from the race. Because if others follow your example and refuse to exit the stage when they've lost the primary, the party will cease to have any meaning as an organization and its voters, frustrated, will be forced to seek other avenues of political expression, splintering into ever smaller and weaker factions. If you have any concern for the cause of liberalism left in you, Senator, you'll back off this stand. But you don't, which I imagine is why you drew a primary challenger in the first place.

So, According To These People, I Look Most Like...

TV's Matt LeBlanc. (The link's in the title, and came courtesy of Ezra Klein/Billy Zane.)

Update: Credit where credit's due. Bitterspice saw it first.

Oh, For Fuck's Sake

Jonah Goldberg on Guantanamo and why it's the Democrats' problem (via Kevin Drum):

If Democrats want terrorists to fall under the Geneva Convention let them say so. My guess is most won't, if they're smart.

I am heartily sick of this tactic. What it breaks down to is that the administration will have the military act out whatever depravities rise from the stygian depths of Alberto Gonzales's mind, and whenever anyone calls for a halt, moral idiots like Jonah Goldberg will be right there to say "See, they're soft on terrorism! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Never mind that every story about torture at one of our little health farms makes our political job of dealing with terrorism that much harder. Never mind that...no, fuck this...never mind arguing the point because what's clear is that, as with education, Katrina relief, Iraqi reconstruction, infrastructure, health care, nuclear proliferation and everythefuckthing else, the Bushites don't take handling the terrorist problem seriously. They don't give a shit about solving these problems, because to them the only problem is how to see to it that their party retains permanent control of all the levers of power. Everything else is just a means to that end. That's why there was no planning for the aftermath of the Iraq war. After they took pictures of Saddam's statue falling in Baghdad and showed Bush landing on the carrier in his flight suit, Iraq had served its purpose. The people who live there? Fuck them. Forget them. Iraqi national treasures get looted? Fuck them. Forget them. Our soldiers get blown away riding around cities in vehicles without armor? Fuck them. There are more where they came from. Our troops need health care when they come back without legs? Fuck them. Cripples in the photo-ops are a bummer anyhow. Why does this administration show such lousy results across the board? Because across the board, they don't give a shit. As long as they've got the people scared and stupid, all they have to do is strike up the band, wave the bloody shirt of 9-11, and say their opponents root for Osama.

Honestly, why would the Bush administration want to solve the problem of terrorism? If they learned anything from Bush I, it's that you don't want the war that made you popular to end. Why bother actually working to shut down terrorists when the terrorists make for such wonderful enemies for staging a new pageant of America the Great/America the Good? Why take Osama out at Tora Bora, when having him out there gives you an excuse to spy on Americans and intimidate the press into accepting your daily bullshit as if it were Holy Writ? Why bother hunting terrorists down, or dealing with the serious political problems of the Middle East, when all those problems can be better used to showcase the Democrats' "weakness".

This War on Terror is a great gimmick, because even if the average American is thousands of times more likely to die from eating too many hamburgers than from the blast of a terrorist bomb, it's so much more delightful for Americans to be afraid of what they can't control than what they can. After all, you can cut down on the ground round, but that's hard because dead cow tastes good. Fearing terrorists, on the other hand, allows you, the consumer, to be as lazy as you want. Terrorism provides all the adrenalin of real fear with none of the responsibility that comes with actually confronting it. It makes crack look like New Coke. The Bush people recognize our national addiction, and they've made themselves the exclusive manufacturers of America's drug of choice.

In exchange for the gladiatorial spectacle that is the War on Terror (in which our heroes march into the arena and triumph over ugly but mostly inconsequential foes, and in doing so symbolically triumph over Terror itself), we pay the administration with our freedom and whatever sense of moral decency we once had. We've given them the license to kill, to torture, to spy on us, to whisk people off the street for no reason and take them to prisons that we're renting out from the KGB, all so that they'll keep us good and afraid. It's a cynical bargain, but what the hell? At least it'll allow us to distract ourselves until the money and the oil run out.

What Goldberg's really saying is "Why mess with such a happy arrangement?" And maybe he's right. As the immortal Eric Idle once sang. "You see it's all a show/Keep 'em laughing as you go/Just remember that the last laugh is on you."

Don't Get Too Happy

This David Horsey cartoon explains why.

The Secret To Movie Success

According to this L.A. Times article, being a visionary genius among Hollywood executives comes down to dumb, doo-dah luck. (And not hiring Joel Schumacher.)

The Definitive (so-and-so)

I've been thinking about this because of the release of Superman Returns. Which actors have so defined a role that it's hard to imagine another actor playing it in a remake or sequel?

My list:

Gregory Peck (Atticus Finch To Kill A Mockingbird)
Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock "Star Trek")
Colin Firth (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy Pride and Prejudice)...special recognition here for having beaten out Laurence Olivier's performance in the role.
Mel Gibson (Martin Riggs Lethal Weapon)
Jack Nicholson (get ready for a list: Robert Eroica Dupea in Five Easy Pieces, Jake Gittes Chinatown, R.P McMurphy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Torrance The Shining)
Joe Pesci (Tommy DeVito Goodfellas)
Marlon Brando (another list: Stanley Kowalski A Streetcar Named Desire, Don Vito Corleone The Godfather)
Jimmy Stewart (L.B. Jeffries Rear Window, George Bailey It's a Wonderful Life)
Bette Davis (Margo Channing All About Eve)
Peter O'Toole (T.E. Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia)
Marilyn Monroe (Sugar Kane Kowalczyk Some Like It Hot)
Maggie Smith (Jean Brodie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)
Orson Welles (C.F. Kane Citizen Kane, Harry Lime The Third Man, Captain Hank Quinlan Touch of Evil)
Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates Psycho, K. The Trial)
John Travolta (Tony Manero Saturday Night Fever)
Denzel Washington (Malcom X Malcom X)
Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle Taxi Driver, Jake Lamotta Raging Bull)
Malcom McDowell (Alexander DeLarge Clockwork Orange)
Christian Bale (Patrick Bateman American Psycho)
Kathy Bates (Annie Wilkes Misery)
Paul Newman (Fast Eddie Felsen The Hustler and The Color of Money)
Susan Sarandon (Annie Savoy Bull Durham, Louise Sawyer Thelma and Louise)
Sidney Poitier (Virgil Tibbs In the Heat of the Night; yes, I know about Howard Rollins's portrayal of Tibbs in the TV series, but the TV series was so different from the film that it seemed like another character entirely.)
James Garner (Jim Rockford "The Rockford Files")
Roger Moore (Simon Templar "The Saint")
Christian Slater (Jason Dean Heathers, Clarence Worley True Romance)
Cher (Loretta Castellini Moonstruck)
Harrison Ford (Han Solo Star Wars)
Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade The Maltese Falcon, Rick Blaine Casablanca)
Clint Eastwood (Will Munny Unforgiven, Josey Wales The Outlaw Josey Wales, Blondie The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and Harry Callahan Dirty Harry)
Gary Cooper (Marshal Will Kane High Noon)
John Wayne (Ethan Edwards The Searchers)
Jack Palance (Jack Wilson Shane)
Michael Douglas (Gordon Gekko Wall Street)

Justified Omissions:

Christopher Reeve (Superman): Yes, I loved him as Superman, but I also appreciated Tim Daly's portrayal in the animated series. I wasn't a big fan of TV's "Lois and Clark", but I know it did well.

Michael Keaton (Batman): He lasted a long time, but Christian Bale seems to have settled into the role comfortably.

Sean Connery (James Bond): Yes, he made a very successful 007; but so did Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.

Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones): I'm not just thinking of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", but also of River Phoenix's portrayal of young Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Mr. Phoenix might have been a worthy man to take the fedora, had he lived.

There are plenty of unjustified omissions as well, I'm sure. But I'm too tired to get to them. Anyone who wishes to make an addition can shock the world by leaving a comment below.

Say good night, Gracie.