April 9, 2008

People Who Said Things Better Than I Did Yesterday

On Jay Leno making another homophobic crack, then apologizing for it, then canceling himself out by whining about those mean ol’ homos getting mad at him, here’s Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:

Well, after apologizing last week for asking Tonight Show guest Ryan Phillippe to give the camera his “gayest look,” Jay Leno spoke with KMXB radio in Las Vegas about the controversy on Friday and swiftly undermined any value his apology had with a series of pathetic excuses and justifications. …

Aside from undermining his own apology with the tired non-apology “if I offended anybody,” he completely misses the overall point about how that kind of humor facilitates intolerance, offering “I never made fun of gay rights or even gay marriage,” as if making fun of being gay isn’t a bigger problem. See, if the premise weren’t that merely being gay is somehow intrinsically funny, the joke would be “give me your best soap opera look,” not “give me your gayest look,” or even “gayest soap opera look” as Leno is now trying to reframe it. Who does he thinks laughs at a joke like that — people who aren’t homophobic? Yeesh.

Then, after casting us as oversensitive hysterics in the classic self-defense maneuver of insensitive and obtuse idiots everywhere, he gets to the best part in which he obliquely accuses us of deliberately misrepresenting what happened on the show to gin up outrage. I mean, I really wonder where, exactly, Jay read at “the blog” that he went on an anti-gay tirade — because not only does it not say that anywhere, or anything close to it, it also includes video of the actual exchange, so no one would have to rely on our subjective interpretation of it.

I believe that’s called projection, Shakers.

Bill Press on Randi Rhodes, and the generally revolting behavior of Barack Obama supporters:

…Randi went over the line in calling Hillary Clinton “a big f***ing whore.” Sure, she’s got a right to say it. But it was not right to say it, especially not right for someone who represents Air America and all of progressive radio.

Unfortunately, as I’ve learned on my radio show, too many Obama supporters don’t understand that in order to love Barack Obama, you don’t have to hate Hillary Clinton. They don’t think it’s good enough to build up Barack Obama. They think it’s necessary to destroy Hillary Clinton, too.

And that’s just wrong. Being passionately and enthusiastically for Barack Obama doesn’t mean you have to say ugly things against Hillary Clinton. In fact, it’s counter-intuitive. In politics, it’s much more effective to be FOR somebody, than to be against somebody.

Carol Lloyd on Rhodes’ suspension, and the larger issue of playground bullies (a.k.a. Obama supporters):

With progressive pundits like Randi Rhodes, who needs wingnuts? …

Thursday Air America Radio announced that Rhodes had been suspended because of the comments, so good for it. Yet such suspensions won’t offer but a drop in the bucket against our wasteland of media vitriol. Forget sex and violence; I think playground cruelty is the source of the most obscenity. Have you seen the outdoor ad campaign for the new romantic comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? The black-and-white billboards proclaim: “I’m So Over You, Sarah Marshall,” “You Suck Sarah Marshall,” “My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall,” and “You Do Look Fat in Those Jeans, Sarah Marshall.” It’s the first time I’ve wanted to shield my daughter’s eyes from a spectacle in the city.

Ironically, the person who has been most articulate about the current mean streak in American culture is Barack Obama, Rhodes’ apparent favorite. But as someone who also favors the senator from Illinois, I’ve become increasingly queasy about the tone some of his supporters are willing to take. At a recent brunch, I heard a sweet elderly woman wearing an Obama button talk about “just hating” Hillary Clinton. …

As ad hominem insult has become normative political speech, professional bloviators like Rhodes seem to have to go farther each day to retain their “edge.” Still, why does Rhodes need to be so misogynist when she’s carving up her victims with her tongue?

Taking self-proclaimed progressives to the woodshed: Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who really ticks me off, because he’s a right-winger, and he’s making sense, and he’s not ripping up either candidate to do it (unlike — guess who? — the Obama supporters):

The objection here is not that progressives shouldn’t level a reasoned, principled, and critical dissection of Clinton positions. There are legitimate policy issues and positions to take her to task on. Unfortunately, that got tossed and Clinton’s left side critics have found it much easier, and more fun, to engage in juvenile delinquent wolf ticket selling. They then pivot and froth, fume, and rail at Fox for doing the same thing. And Heaven forbid if anyone dare utter any criticism of Obama. That’s deemed treasonous and the name calling kicks in with a vengeance against the offender.

The reasons for the juvenile delinquent name calling by Rhodes and company boil down to this. Clinton initially backed the Iraq war and refused to apologize for it or claims as Obama wrongly does that he was an outspoken anti-war guy from day one. Two, she supposedly is a back room, deal-making, opportunist Democrat who has been a shill for big money, corporate donors.

Her greatest sin, though, is that she pig headedly stands in the way of the coronation of Obama. A subtext to that is that by blocking the supposed inevitable, she, not Obama, is tearing the guts out of the Democratic Party and is making it that much harder for Obama to coast into the White House. Putting aside for a moment this wishful thinking fantasy land knock, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, have I seen the progressive Hillary baiters itemize exactly what they think they’ll get out of an Obama White House that will be radically different than what they’ll get from any other top Democrat who’s backed by big money corporate interests, pockets money through the back door from corporate special interest lobbyists, is lauded by defense industry top brass, hailed by centrist Democratic Senators and governors, and fawned over by hard nosed GOP conservatives, headed by former Bush political strategist Karl Rove, as Obama is. Tell me? …

The desperation of progressives to get someone in the White House who will quickly reverse the monumental damage of Bush’s policies is understandable. If progressives would simply stick to challenging Obama and Clinton to speak out boldly and clearly about their stance on Supreme court appointments, criminal justice reform, immigration, failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and a specific plan for ending the Iraq War, among other seldom heard discussed policy issues then there would be no argument that both need to be hammered for ducking and dodging these thorny issues. But that’s far different than acting like 13 year olds and shouting out vile names at one candidate and only one candidate.

Posted by: Sapphocrat