Super Tuesday 2! Election primary 08

[elpollodiablo]

Aw man c'mon, I really liked Sexual Personae. And I've heard her more recent readings of poetry are pretty decent, though I've also heard that she called "Howl" "sophomoric" or something.

[auto-da-fey]

Eh, she's not a hideous prose stylist, but her ideas about gender come out of the paleolithic era. That whole thing about women being complicit in their rapes because they should have known better than to put themselves in risky situations does, I'll admit, cast such a shadow over the entirety of her work that I might have failed to notice its possible redeeming qualities. I mean, I'll take her over Katie Roiphe any day, so she does have that going for her among post/anti-feminist women writers who had that moment in the early 90s.

Anyway, bit of a tangent, I guess.

[ellaguru]

Well, her views are a little more subtle than she gets credit for. But that is mostly her own fault, presenting them pretty idiotically much of the time. Not afraid of shrilly overstating a point that might have been useful were it a little more nuanced. Sexual Personae was an okay enough read, though, if a little, um, on-an-agenda.

I didn't read whatever this article we're talking about now is, though.

[auto-da-fey]

But that is mostly her own fault, presenting them pretty idiotically much of the time. Not afraid of shrilly overstating a point that might have been useful were it a little more nuanced.

To an extent, I agree with this; certainly both Paglia and many of her opponents got themselves unnecessarily embroiled in stances utterly devoid of the subtlety needed to talk about sexuality . . .

On the other hand, is there a subtle way to claim that "women have menstruation to tell them they are women"? (Sex, Art, and American Culture, p.51--I swear I didn't dig for this, I just picked it off the shelf and opened it). Or--o my!--"Lesbianism, seeking a lost state of blissful union with the mother, is cozy, regressive, and, I'm sorry to say, too often intellectually enervating, tending toward the inert" (p.24).

[elpollodiablo]

Oh christ man, WTF

WTF Camille

[davy]

Oh man that reminds me, I saw Ratatouille the other night! So incredibly infectious, man, it was just plain wonderful. I have to remember to distinguish Brad Bird's stuff from the general Pixar pablum.

yeah yeah! dude is a big fat 3-for-3. iron giant is one of my favorite movies ever, animated or not.

too bad he only releases one film every 4 years, though. i mean, if that's what it takes, so be it. but it ain't an easy wait.

[elpollodiablo]

Pffhahaha, I was just about to be like, 'Wrong thread, davy!' Then I saw my fuckup. I am just determined to derail the election thread, apparently.

[davy]

yeah, for maybe a second or two, i was all, "what the --?" but then my geekiness took over and all i can think to type was " bradbird "

[davy]

holy shit, dudes. if you've got 10 minutes, this is blistering.

keith olbermann addresses hillary clinton on "countdown":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18970417/

(click on "olbermann on ferraro uproar" in the blue video box)

[DCDave]

holy shit, dudes. if you've got 10 minutes, this is blistering.

keith olbermann addresses hillary clinton on "countdown":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18970417/

(click on "olbermann on ferraro uproar" in the blue video box)

Wow.  He is SHAKING in anger.  This is amazing.

[davy]

yeah, it's obviously no stunt.

[DCDave]

I Olbermann.

[elpollodiablo]

O'Reilly's still better

[Andrew_TSKS]

you're welcome to that opinion and all, but i doubt you'll find many who agree with you that aren't rabid conservative nutcases.

and in relation to the olbermann special comment, earlier in the evening an msnbc analyst said something about the clintons being more than willing to "win ugly" if that's what it takes, and keith said something about "oh, you would say that on a night when i'm already gonna be in big trouble." i really don't think he felt very good about doing it, especially based on the disclaimer he gave at the beginning of the segment. that said, i agree with him--you can't just let that one slide. it's such bullshit. and the way ferraro just continues to be defiant blows my mind. how can she not see the racist implications of her comments?

[elpollodiablo]

Dude, she resigned. As well she should have.

[elpollodiablo]

you're welcome to that opinion and all, but i doubt you'll find many who agree with you that aren't rabid conservative nutcases.

Nonetheless: Bill-O is hell of entertaining, whereas Olbermann is like the Daily Show without humor.

[slow west vultures]

Dude, she resigned. As well she should have.

it kind of annoyed me last night that miliseconds after nbc  finished airing their clip on the geraldine ferraro story on the nightly news, geraldine ferraro was in the anchor booth with ann curry 'defending' herself: basically pulling another favorite trick out of the clinton campaign team bag saying 'shame on you barack obama for even bringing this up'.  geraldine was pretty combative in the interview, and it was probably as close as i'll ever come to see ann curry actually asking pointed questions in response.  for all the uproar, it just reminded me of how close the clinton campaign team is in with the media.  barack obama may have got to respond wittily, but its like the clintons still got the last word.  i wanted to punch geraldine ferraro.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Dude, she resigned. As well she should have.

but she didn't apologize. she continues to insist a) that she's right, and b) that she's being racially discriminated against by everyone who has a problem with what she's saying. even her resignation letter made it sound like she was only resigning so she could step up her defiance in the media without it blowing back on hillary; which, by the way, it's too late--it'll still blow back on hillary. but anyway.

xpost w/swv

[andronicus]

Hahahahah dude Keith Olbermann is such a pompous self-obsessed windbag.

Oh my god.  I mean, he's right, but man.  I mean people might watch these 'special comments' like 10 years from now and laugh at the hystrionics.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Dude, she resigned. As well she should have.

it kind of annoyed me last night that miliseconds after nbc  finished airing their clip on the geraldine ferraro story on the nightly news, geraldine ferraro was in the anchor booth with ann curry 'defending' herself: basically pulling another favorite trick out of the clinton campaign team bag saying 'shame on you barack obama for even bringing this up'.  geraldine was pretty combative in the interview, and it was probably as close as i'll ever come to see ann curry actually asking pointed questions in response.  for all the uproar, it just reminded me of how close the clinton campaign team is in with the media.  barack obama may have got to respond wittily, but its like the clintons still got the last word.  i wanted to punch geraldine ferraro.

in re: that whole "shame on obama for even bringing this up" tactic, here's talkingpointsmemo:

Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams is suggesting that it's the Obama camp that played the race card in the dust-up over the Ferraro comments.

Williams has a new statement out that points to this video of Obama at a recent debate, in which he seems to say that he doesn't agree with his supporters' efforts to highlight a pattern of racially-charged remarks coming from the Clinton camp.

"Senator Obama's campaign staff seems to have forgotten his pledge," Williams continues. "We have not. And, we reject these false, personal and politically calculated attacks on the eve of a primary."

While the statement does reiterate Hillary's disagreement today with Ferraro's suggestion that he's where he is politically because of his race, there's no repudiation or rejection of the comments. Instead, there's this strong insinuation from Williams that the Obama camp's criticism of Ferraro's comment amounts to playing the race card in some way.

so basically, according to maggie williams, obama's camp reacting to ferraro's comments is what put this whole race-baiting issue in the public eye, and not the comments themselves. and furthermore, it's her contention that obama, by repudiating an earlier effort on the part of campaign workers to make clinton's attacks on obama look racially charged, implied that he would never point towards racial motivation in the clinton campaign behavior again--apparently even in cases when the racial motivation is extremely overt.

fortunately, no one is swallowing this horseshit, everyone realizes that there's a big difference between the incident williams is referring to and the current incident, and people are still putting the heat on ferraro, but even the fact that the clinton campaign would attempt this defense gets me upset. regardless of whether stephanie power calling clinton a monster was as bad as this (i say it wasn't, but that's just an opinion), the obama campaign handled that situation as justly as it can be handled. meanwhile, the clintons took days to even admit that ferraro was on the staff (at first they said she was working independently in support of clinton; which, of course, turned out not to be the truth), and it took them days to say more than "the comments were regrettable". i can't even IMAGINE how big of a fuss they'd have kicked up if an obama staffer had made some sex-based remark about hillary.

her campaign really seems to think that they can operate according to a different set of rules here, and the worst part is the way that so many people seem to give her a pass on that.

[DCDave]

Either that, or she's hoping to win Pennsylvania the same way that she won Ohio, on the backs of racists.

[elpollodiablo]

What the fuck do you want? A tearful mea culpa? For her to fall on her sword on the national stage? Who really even gives a fuck about Ferraro? She said something absolutely ridiculous and now she's stepped down. The worst thing about the whole debacle is that it's given the media an in to "pick apart the subtexts of race and gender that have dogged this campaign from the beginning." It's the beginning of the stupidest fucking discussions about race and gender and identity politics which will be led be WASPy Ivy League graduates who don't know from discrimination or hardship. I'm with blucas: the discourse is about to get incredibly fucking dumb.

Also agree with richard w/r/t Olbermann; he's like Stephen Colbert if Stephen Colbert were actually for real with his pompous wankery

Also you misspelled 'histrionics'

[elpollodiablo]

Either that, or she's hoping to win Pennsylvania the same way that she won Ohio, on the backs of racists.

See what I mean about the discourse becoming fucking retarded? We can expect a lot more "insights" like that one in the coming months.

[hannah]

Also you misspelled 'histrionics'

It's spelled "herstrionics"

[elpollodiablo]

It's spelled UP YOURS HANNAH