The biggest news out of the South Carolina Republican debate last night was that Fred Thompson woke up, called Mike Huckabee a "liberal," and got the "I'm With Fred" bloggers all twitterpated.
Oh, and he got off a couple of droll one-liners:
Asked about the United States response in a confrontation with Iranian speedboats, Mr. Thompson said, "I think one more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they’re looking forward to seeing."
Ba dum bum.
Update: Mike Huckabee comes back with some helpful advice for Fred Thompson.
I guess that's the Baptist way of saying, "You're full of shit, Fred."
Q: Isn't it a problem if such a prominent pundit is a misogynist, when his job is to opine on a presidential race in which there is but one female candidate?
Shaker Tasha just emailed me this story about a 21-year-old male Lewis & Clark College student who was suspended for a semester after "forc[ing a 19-year-old female student] to perform oral sex on him"—or, as we around here call it, raping her.
There are a lot of upsetting things about the incident itself, the rapist's punishment, and the response to the rape—including the fact that the victim "calls what happened to her something akin to 'gray rape,' a term she learned from an article in Cosmopolitan written by Washington Post journalist Laura Sessions Stepp." That poor girl. Gray rape, of course, does not exist, and it's a term whose only purpose is to diminish the gravity of any rape which fails to conform to some imaginary archetypical stranger rape.
I don't have much to add to all of the above, although I'd like to point out one quick thing with regard to the reporting at the first link. After the first 767 words of this 3,000+ word story, this is what I knew about the rapist, Morgan Shaw-Fox:
He is "a scholarship student from Boulder, Colo." He "was a well-known student, a charismatic 21-year-old junior with ambitions of becoming an actor. A beat-boxer and singer, Shaw-Fox had created Lewis & Clark’s first a cappella group." He "does apparently have a degree of appeal." He has "this kind of magic." He has "a very sexual and hot vibe coming from him." His "nickname for himself on his MySpace page is 'Morgazm'.”
And this is what I knew about his victim, Helen Hunter:
She is a sophomore at Lewis & Clark. She's 19.
In a world where journalists have to pack as much information as possible into the first sentence, because most people don't read more than two paragraphs of any story, I had to read nearly 800 words before I found out anything about this rapist aside from what an awesome fucking dude he is (except, ya know, for the whole raping thing), or anything that humanized his victim in the same way he had been humanized.
In which Chris Matthews explains to Keith Olbermann how Barack Obama is a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia, crossing the Nefu to strike Aqaba, err, Hillary Clinton from behind, because her campaign "was not, to use the parlance we all use, positioned well."
Yesterday, Kate wrote a great post about "Electability," and refusing to base her vote on the fear of bigots:
Somebody's got to go first. And without wanting to rule Edwards out prematurely, the way things are looking right now, somebody will be going first this year, whether it's a black man or a white woman. Which means bigotry and hatred are going to be inescapable, defining issues throughout this campaign and -- if all goes well -- throughout our next president's term(s) in office. We can't avoid that. It will not go away if we just wait a little longer to vote for a person of color and/or a woman. Whoever goes first, whenever it happens, will have a hard and lonely road to walk. That's the problem with voters having clearly based their decisions on race and gender for over 200 years, even if we're only getting around to talking about "identity politics" now.
Couldn't agree more. There is, however, an interesting flipside to the electability issue, as it relates specifically to Clinton and Obama.
I've noted a few times previously that one of Clinton's biggest positives as a candidate is that she's been vetted from here to Planet Unicorn and back again; there aint' nuttin' new under the sun that the rightwing and/or the national media can dig up on her at this point. It's just going to be the same old shit over and over ad infinitum, and, frankly, I'm not sure how much more mileage they're going to get out of ancient conspiracy theories about having Vince Foster killed. "Hillary's a girl and probably has cooties" is about the best they've got—and, as we've now seen, that only stands to help her.
(Sure, there are quite legitimate grounds on which to object to Clinton on policy grounds, but you don't expect the media to start discussing policy, now, do you?)
But while Hillary's been given a sustained colonoscopy by the press corps for 15 years, Obama's still largely an unknown quantity. The truth is, he's probably had less scrutiny than even most senate candidates, because the Illinois GOP was such a clusterfuck in 2004 that the state Democrats could have run a bag of rancid garbanzo beans and won.
Obama's original opponent was the winner of the Republican primary, Jack Ryan, who subsequently dropped out of the race after child custody divorce records containing embarrassing sex allegations were made public. After Ryan's withdrawal, the GOP scrambled, only to come up with the carpetbagging Alan Keyes as an opponent, with less than three months to go before the election. The typical Illinois Republican is not the same brand as Keyes; the few who were ideologically well-matched with him largely had no idea who he was.
Obama won in a landslide, with comparatively little scrutiny. The state media was more focused on Ryan's salacious sex scandal. (During the Democratic primary, they'd been more focused on his primary rival's domestic abuse scandal.) The state GOP's attention was elsewhere for most of the election; their opposition research on him was absolutely nothing compared to what the national machine's diggers will unearth.
In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, for "advice" as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate.
…Obama maintains his relationship with Rezko was "above board and legal" but has admitted bad judgment, calling his decision to involve Rezko "a bone-headed mistake."
All I can tell you is that for those of us familiar with Illinois politics, the name Tony Rezko has approximately the same quality as "Bernard Kerik."
Jeff Dinelli's got more on Rezko, and notes: "Tony Rezko stories go on and on within the always exciting stories of shady Chicago politics. They're not going away, as the ABC-TV story above indicates. For years they have tarnished Obama's squeaky-clean image in Illinois." Also see Taylor Marsh, with Let the Vetting Begin and About Obama's Lobbyist Co-Chair… There's also local stuff like this, into which the national media hasn't even begun yet to dig. And that's just a taste of what's to come.
To be clear, I am categorically not implying that Obama is dirty, or even, to borrow from Gertrude Stein, that there's a there there; I mean only to point out that there could be any number of things waiting to blow up in his face (and ours)—real or fashioned out of whole cloth. The media doesn't care which. (Through how many interminable non-scandals has Clinton been?) It's the Big Question Mark, the void that will be filled in ways we cannot know. I keep remembering the report that the Democrats were "holding fire" on Huckabee unless and until he gets his party's nomination—at which point they will unleash a torrent of oppo-research on him to bring him down. I have a decidedly sick feeling that the GOP is doing the same w/ Obama—only they're not stupid enough to say it publicly.
Every time someone points out how great the media coverage of Obama has been thus far, I feel a creeping sense of "famous last words" crawling up my spine. It makes me incredibly nervous, if I'm perfectly honest, to consider having such an untested candidate as a national nominee. Thanks to the national news desk every wire service has had set up in her colon for half my life, we know a lot more about Hillary Clinton than we do about Barack Obama.
And while there's an undeniable unfairness to the media's panting, slavering eagerness to follow even the most scurrilous of leads if they sniff a scandal, there's a legitimate need for rigorous vetting during a presidential campaign, too—so, unlike voting as a response to bigotry, this issue doesn't quite leave the same room for the righteous fuckthatitude I'd like to give it.
I'm not saying it makes Obama unelectable; I'm saying it's an electability issue worth considering while we're still deciding who's going to top our ticket this year.
It was only just yesterday when Olmert Pile thought that Bush is a wise man full of Yale and Harvard infused wisdom. Here's a closer look at that wisdom, as exhibited by our man of the hour during a tour of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial:
At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said. [...]
Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were killed at the camp.
"We should have bombed it," Bush said, according to Shalev.
"I was most impressed that people in the face of horror and evil would not forsake their God. In the face of unspeakable crimes against humanity, brave souls — young and old — stood strong for what they believe," Bush said.
I really don't know what to make of this. I'm not sure that Bush realizes that had the US bombed the camp, the people of whose adhesion to religion he's so enamored would be stone dead. Bush doesn't seem to be aware that there were survivors at Auschwitz; is he really saying to the survivors that they should've been killed for the greater good of "disrupting service" at the camp?
A true thinking man, the kind that really has wisdom, might have opined that the bombing of the roads and supply lines surrounding the camp would've been a great way to start. Would it have stopped the killing? Definitely not. And neither would have Bush's vision of bombing the whole thing. But the former could've netted more survivors. Sure, it's speculation.
But speculation requires a reflective thought process and reasoning. All you have to do is watch any Bush presser footage to know, unequivocally, that he does not possess skill one. And that makes Ehud Olmert nothing short of a bona fide ass for being blind to something that everyone else can see.
Oh, and by the way:
President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday
Let me know when the press orgy begins about Bush showing weak emotion.
Mr. Shakes (by email): Since I signed up on the Obama site I've received 2 emails from him. The first was titled 'We knew it would be hard' and the second was titled 'Something Big.' I am hesitant to open these at work.
Toady, I entered a conversation about whether a white news commentator might not have known that suggesting that other golfers "lynch him (Tiger Woods) in a back alley" was a racist comment worthy of public sanction.
Among the various arguments I read was this one: Given the commentator's age, she might not really understand the charged context of the word "lynch" in reference to a person-of-color.
And somehow, vaguely, in the back of my mind, I remembered a time when I could not imagine that I would be hearing this argument from progressives.
Later in the day, I read that many younger readers at the same blog did not know the racist connotations of the phrase "Shuck and Jive", "cakewalk", or "porch monkey".
I was amazed.
I tried to think back to when conversations about racism, sexism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and homophobia among progressives started to have the edges filed off of them.
I could remember that, in the 80's, even though there were still many, many confrontations with the MSM and mainstream culture, and much consciousness-raising yet to be done, I didn't think I would have been having this very basic argument about using the word "lynch" (or arguing about whether rape was "gray", or "gag gifts" featuring detached female body parts were "just a joke" rather than sexist) -- with progressives.
I wondered when things started to change, and I realized that, for me, it was around 1988.
Of course Rush Limbaugh had been saying shit like "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back" since the 70's. He just didn't have a national platform from which to do it . . . . until . . . . . until . . . .
Until the late 80s/early 90s. Suddenly, there were racist, sexist, homophobic AM talk-shows cropping up everywhere -- Dr. Laura, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, etc.. They were loud, claimed to speak for "real americans" -- and they were crumby -- and crappy -- and creepy.
How did that happen? Well, for one thing, when the FCC abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (and Congress tried to re-institute it as law, but was vetoed by Reagan), there was no longer any requirement that publicly licensed broadcasters provide time for coverage of opposing viewpoints on controversial issues. (Some conditions remained for rebuttal of purely personal attacks and political editorial until 2000, when these were suspended as well.)
Hmmm. Notice any changes from 1988 to 2000? And then MORE changes from 2000 to present? On the airwaves, that is, and TV?
In addition to removal of the Fairness Doctrine, the Telecommunications act of 1996 allowed media conglomerates to suck up ownership and control of more of what we see and hear, and the FCC regulation changes in 2003 allowed a single company to own as much as 45% of the media we receive (limited to 25% in 1985), and stopped reviewing licenses in terms of "public interest" considerations.
Hmmm.
Now, you may be asking -- what does this have to do with the Creeping Creepiness of Racism (not to mention Sexism, Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Xenophobia)?
Well, my friends, I believe that we are being systematically de-sensitized to these issues by the MSM.
De-sensitization isn't difficult. All you have to do is get someone to accept something as trivial ("It was just a joke") and the next thing you introduce (slightly more overt, slightly more offensive) can also be touted as something trivial. If it's too much, too soon, you can back off a bit, maybe look contrite, put someone on a leave of absence for a few months, and then bring them back and try again.
One of the distinct advantages of getting older is that I can remember more than two decades.
I remember that Howard Cosell once said: "Look at that little monkey go!" (in reference to a black athlete - 1983) -- and was out a job that year, even though there was some argument about whether this was a term he used for athletes of all colors (yeah, right). I remember that Jimmy the Greek was fired from CBS in 1988 for his racist comments about black athletes. Not sanctioned. Not given a leave of absence. Fired.
Let's compare some statements, shall we?
"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way -- because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner -- the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid." - Jimmy the Greek, 1988
". . . these people have shown a remarkable ability, ladies and gentlemen, to cross borders, boundaries -- they get anywhere they want to go. They can do it without water for a long time. They don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do." - Rush Limbaugh on Hispanic competitors on Survivors, 8/23/06
See any differences? Oh -- maybe the social outrage and the firing. Just that.
In my mind, Jimmy the Greek and Rush Limbaugh are perfectly comparable. They aren't front-line news-anchors, but they're both big, bombastic personalities with major media presence.
My problem with filing off the edges of our outrage at such racist words and actions is just that -- it's filing off -- it's erosive -- and the problem with erosion is that if you let it go on long enough, you'll eventually wind up with nothing at all.
(Now I'll put in my tired old disclaimer: Yes, we've made progress. Yes, it's not like it was when I was a kid. Yes, consciousness has been raised, and gains made. No, I'm not talking about conversations between individuals where education is going on about race and racism. No, I'm not done dealing with my own racism yet. )
However -- I honestly believe that, in the last decade, and perhaps longer, we have lost ground as a nation in terms of eliminating racism.
I believe that we have been slowly spoon-fed the pap that racism isn't a problem anymore, even as rank racism is spewing forth from our television sets and radios.
People of color may have a better resistance to this insidiously toxic media message, as they are subject to the actual results of racism every day -- and radical white progressives may (I said "may") have an increased immune-response to this stuff as compared to whites of other political/sociological persuasions. I suspect, though, that all of us have slowly conceded corners of our resolve to the onslaught.
It happens so slowly -- so incrementally, that we don't notice at first -- that's why I love montages -- because when you put all the messages together, you realize that it the indoctrination has been huge, and intentional, and vile -- and not subtle at all:
(For those of you who with whom I discussed this issue today -- I'm sorry if I seemed cranky -- it's just that I'm ready to reclaim some ground, and I've had it right up to HERE.)
An interesting endorsement for Obama today. Pelosi's BFF George Miller, a fellow Californian who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee, announced today he's endorsing Obama.
Pelosi has so far stayed out of the race. But when her top advisor who also happens to be a famous champion of women politicians endorses Obama, does it send the signal: is there room in Washington for both a Speaker Pelosi and a President Hillary?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Voluminously speaking, it seems to me like the dicks are taking up a hell of a lot more space in the Beltway. From a strictly geometric perspective, a few more vaginas might be in order.
Maybe even more than two—although I'm not sure the world is ready to so brazenly test the Patriarchal Law of Concurrent Cuntitude, which posits that tokenism is the universe's stabilizing force. If we allow two women to simultaneously hold positions of power, there's no telling what might happen.
[Via LeMew, still the bestest French pussycat in all the land.]
The Kiwi adventurer, one of the first two known people, alongside Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, to conquer Mount Everest, has died at age 88:
The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.
"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," [New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark] said in a statement.
…Hillary didn't place himself among top mountaineers. "I don't regard myself as a cracking good climber. I'm just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm and I'm good on ice," he said.
[1,000 points to the first Shaker who can bring back a link to a winger making a "Hillary's dead—no, not that Hillary, unfortunately!" joke.]
Hi, Shakers! Paul the Sickly Spud here, crawling out of bed and to the computer to bring you the question of the day.
Where did you spend your last birthday?
I've been thinking about this, because this year my graduation occurs right around the same time as my birthday! So, I'm having a big double party at the same place I went to last year; the most awesomest wondermous exotic locale in Chicago, The Tiki Terrace. They're relocating now; so I'll get to party in the new digs! Woo hoo!
Maureen Dowd's Wednesday hit piece on Hillary Clinton -- with the dateline of Derry, New Hampshire and interviews with people attending the post-election parties -- was actually written while she was in Jerusalem.
What, Jayson Blair wasn't available?
If the New York Times says it’s not plagiarism, then so be it. Perhaps they give columnists a little more leeway. But at the least it’s misleading.
Chris Matthews has a new theory on why Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire (his old theory being that she won because Bill cheated on her). Now she won because the people of New Hampshire are bigots…and he conveyed this theory by—wait for it!—behaving like a total bigot.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: What the hell happened in New Hampshire?
MATTHEWS: You remember the Lone Ranger and Tonto? I think paleface speak with forked tongue. You hear me? Forked tongue....
That, by the way, is a cleaned-up transcript. I listed to a recording of this exchange, and he actually says: "Me think paleface speak with forked tongue. You hear me? Forked tongue."
Telephone companies cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time, according to a Justice Department audit released Thursday.
The faulty bookkeeping is part of what the audit, by the Justice Department's inspector general, described as the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.
More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
And at least once, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation — the highly secretive and sensitive cases that allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies — "was halted due to untimely payment."
"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.
Boy, being a small-government, big-authoritarian conservative sure can be fraught with contradiction! If you starve the beast until it's small enough to drown in a bathtub, there's no more money left for unconstitutional power grabs. And trying to balance wanton thievery and corruption with abject incompetence is a nightmare! Gosh, what's a party of total douchebags to do?
All right, here I go again with the politics shit.
Maybe it's just because I'm feeling all protective of Senator Clinton these days, but I'm having a lot of trouble with Amanda Marcotte's thoughts on strategic voting. Not because I'm opposed to an Obama/Edwards ticket -- that would be tits -- or because her proposed strategy for getting that seems unsound to me. But because of the reason she gives for saying that "getting Clinton out of the race" must be the first order of business for democrats.
Essentially, it comes down to electability. Hillary is polarizing. Too many people hate her. There's a chance we could end up with a Republican president if we run her. Etc. Everything we've been hearing since well before she announced her candidacy.
Amanda goes into more detail than that (and let me be clear that I think her argument has some merit):
Let’s look at the most likely people to abandon the Republican party and refuse to vote in the general—supporters of the spoilers Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. In other words, right wing conspiracy theory cranks and Bible-thumpers. These folks share between them a distinct loathing for women and a dedication to a strict, religious patriarchy. The only difference is probably levels of racism and sort of a philosophy on how best to control women, with the thumpers seeking government control of women and the libertarian cranks arguing that if you remove government protections, you can leave the control of women up to individual men. Obama might bring out the Ron Paul supporters to vote for whatever candidate the Republicans run, but a lot of the Bible-thumpers will stay home. But both the cranks and the thumpers will stand in line for hours to make sure that no slithery, vagina-possessing, apple-eating daughter of Eve ever symbolically castrates them by holding an office that they have no hoping of ever having. And doubly because she killed Vince Foster, you know.
There's truth in that. There's maybe a ton of truth in that. Unfortunately, I still see two problems with it.
1) The assumption that Paul and Huckabee supporters -- let alone loads of other Americans -- aren't every bit as racist as they are sexist. Race might not be what everyone's talking about this week, but do we really think it won't be a gigantic fucking factor if Obama gets the nomination? The wholeprogressiveblogosphere jumped down Gloria Steinem's throat this week -- and rightly so -- for suggesting that sexism is more damaging to a candidate than racism. But a day later, Clinton's unelectable because there are too many misogynists out there, yet we assume the racists will just stay home if Obama's the candidate?
I don't buy it. I think they're playing (relatively) nice with Obama right now, because the short-term goal is knocking Clinton out. Once that's done, we'll all be reminded of just how much they hate us -- and of just how racist this country really is. Sure, the talking heads might not sound as blatantly racist as they have sexist lately, but you can bet they'll be talking about all those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad racists of whom they totally don't approve so goddamned much, we will still get to hear every one of the racists' talking points ad nauseam.
Whether Clinton or Obama will play better with right wing jerks is immaterial. If you want a candidate who won't be vociferously opposed by bigoted slimebags on bigoted grounds, then the only logical strategy is to vote for Edwards and hope he picks a white male running mate. And, you know, preferably a white male running mate who reads a little less fruity.
Which brings me to my next problem...
2) Though I am, as I said yesterday, a cynic and a pragmatist when it comes to elections, here is where I draw the line and stand not only on principle but on ideals: I will not base my vote on fear of bigots.
I really can't understand the objections I've heard to both Clinton and Obama that go like this: "I would love to vote for a woman/black man, but I just don't think the rest of the country is ready." Translation: I'm not a sexist/racist -- I'm just willing to let those assholes own my vote.
Do people really think it's going to be any different, any easier, if we have an African-American and/or female candidate next time around? 20 years from now? 50? Do we really think that if we just let our culture progress a little more, with a few more white male leaders shepherding it along, someday America actually will be unequivocally ready for such a change, and race and sex won't be huge, historic issues the way they are today? Seriously?
Somebody's got to go first. And without wanting to rule Edwards out prematurely, the way things are looking right now, somebody will be going first this year, whether it's a black man or a white woman. Which means bigotry and hatred are going to be inescapable, defining issues throughout this campaign and -- if all goes well -- throughout our next president's term(s) in office. We can't avoid that. It will not go away if we just wait a little longer to vote for a person of color and/or a woman. Whoever goes first, whenever it happens, will have a hard and lonely road to walk. That's the problem with voters having clearly based their decisions on race and gender for over 200 years, even if we're only getting around to talking about "identity politics" now.
I have no faith whatsoever that the racists will be less active at the polls than the misogynists, or that the nation's soppy love affair with Obama will continue if he gets the party's nomination and finds himself running against no one but a white man. But that's no reason not to vote for him, either. If we base our votes on the assumption that hateful dickheads outnumber thoughtful, compassionate people, then we've given them control of the outcome before we've even had a chance to test that assumption.
By all means, if you don't want to vote for Clinton or Obama -- whatever your reasons -- don't do it. But for pete's sake, don't vote against them just because you believe that's what assholes will do. If we do that now, at what point does it become rational to start voting for candidates we all know bigots will hate? At what point do we say, okay, now the country's ready for this kind of change, even though we've still never had a woman and/or person of color as president, so really, we have no idea how it'll play out?
The fact is, we can't know who's electable and who's not, because this country is big and complicated -- and because we've never tried to elect an African-American or woman president before. Trying is the only way to find out if that's possible. That means giving up the safety net of nominating a white man so we can sidestep the issues of racism and sexism. It means facing those issues head-on, and having faith that the bigots will not win. It means thinking about all the people who will vote for this candidate, and dismissing all those who would vote against him or her solely on the basis of sex or race as the bigoted fuckwits they are -- not deserving of our mental energy, much less our fear.
It might mean finding out we're wrong. It might mean finding out there are more of them than we think. And believe me, I know how high the stakes are in this election.
ButI will not base my vote on fear of bigots. I'm not sure if I could live with another four years of Republican rule. But I am damn sure I couldn't live with myself if I voted according to which candidate I think a bunch of sexist and/or racist assholes would find most palatable.
"I said, nudge the process forward—like, pressure; be a pain if I need to be a pain—which in some people's mind isn't all that hard. And they said, well, like—yesterday, somebody said, well, are you disappointed? I arrived and it nudged the process forward."—Your Eloquent President, on the peace process, during a joint press conference in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier today.
Unbelievable. Democrat Andrew Cuomo, who's currently the Atty. Gen. of the state of New York, said during an interview yesterday: "It's not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can't buy your way into it. You can't shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don't work when you're in someone's living room."
Though he says he used the term "shuck and jive" as a synonym for "bob and weave," that's pretty much a textbook case of bullshit. "Shuck and jive" has a very specific history, and it ain't a boxing metaphor:
"To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.
"Shucking and jiving" was a tactic of both survival and resistance. A slave, for instance, could say eagerly, "Oh, yes, Master," and have no real intention to obey. Or an African-American man could pretend to be working hard at a task he was ordered to do, but might put up this pretense only when under observation. Both would be instances of "doin' the old shuck 'n jive."
Cuomo says he wasn't even referring to Obama specifically, and that he said complimentary things about Obama, so that makes it okay. Or something.
Honestly. With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?
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Chris Matthews has a new theory on why Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire (his old theory being that 
