Newsweek has a great interview with General Petraeus, the man who will never admit victory --a wise strategy, given the history of "mission accomplished" in the Iraq War.
It is clear by now to even the most ardent advocate of American withdrawal from Iraq that Petraeus' surge transformed the situation on the ground. While the political settlement remains tenuous, nearly all serious observers of the conflict are saying that the bulk of American forces in Iraq could and should go... it is now a matter of when and how America makes its exit that occupies the discourse --A remarkable thing, when you consider the dire state of affairs in that country two years ago.
Watching the Democratic Convention, it is indeed interesting to see how the narrative of this war has been transformed from that of a "lost war" to one of an "unecessary and costly war" that America must extricate itself from so that it may redirect the $10 billion a month it is costing somewhere else... a sum particularly galling to many when one considers the almost grotesque gobs of oil money that the government of Iraq is now raking in.
Meanwhile, politicians from every part of the political and ideological spectrum are congratulating themselves on their shrewdness and foresight, cherry-picking their own statements and nuances to demonstrate their wisdom and foreign policy acumen in advocating "the surge" or "timetables" or "staying the course" or whatever, cheerfully disregarding anything they got somewhat or utterly wrong.
And through it all, the American military, cast adrift by the politicians and foresaken by a significant part of the populace, continues to do what it has done throughout the hard months of the surge, competently and professionally executing the mission laid out by superiors and through dogged stubborness and the use of intelligent counterinsurgency tactics, snatching success from the jaws of failure and ignominy.
My favourite bit of the interview is this:
Petraeus: I think it's true that they are past Al Qaeda. They are past ... an organization that embraces an extremist ideology, employs indiscriminate violence, and practices oppressive social actions such as forced marriage or cutting fingers off smokers. Newsweek:Forget that, no smoking ...
Petraeus: That was the tipping point when they cut the fingers off the first person who was smoking. I mean, can you imagine an Anbar sheik being told he can't smoke?
Will historians in decades to come say that Al Qaeda was defeated because of its opposition to tobacco use? As someone with personal experience in the matter, I can tell you that an Arab having a nicotine fit is a fearsome adversary!
In her review in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis points out that the Les Grossman character that Tom Cruise plays, a grotesque caricature of a vulgar Jewish movie mogul, is arguably the most offensive thing in the movie, amounting to a kind of "Jewface." Maybe it's because Stiller himself is Jewish, or maybe it's just that Tom Cruise was so unexpectedly hilarious in that role, but that one rolled right off my back.
As has been said countless times, this movie is making fun of HOLLYWOOD --not Jews, blacks, or those with intellectual disabilities. Besides, in my book, any flick that can rehabilitate Tom Cruise's image is a towering achievement.
Sad:
The Conflict in Georgia --where the hell are the anti-war protesters that turned out in their thousands and hundreds of thousands to protest the Iraq War? Code Pink? A.N.S.W.E.R.? Bueller? Bueller?...oh, this isn't American aggression, is it? In that case, as you were, peaceactivists.
This trailer
Bill O'Reilly is not funny. He is the King Midas of not funny. Everything he touches becomes not funny. Anything within a 10 yard radius of him is automatically not funny. Anything he even considers remotely funny is automatically not funny. Ergo: This movie is not funny.
George Lucas : How can we explain what happened to this guy? how can we explain his latest cinematic abominations? I have a theory that, although once a pioneering visionary, George Lucas’ evolution as a storyteller has been shaped both by the birth of his children and by his gradual poisoning through the ingesting of large quantities of lead and aluminum over two decades…. Something which drove him mad and turned him into the megalomaniac he is today.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out
So John Edwards has thrown it all away. And the lowly National Enquirer was the rag that gave his political ambitions the Coup-de-Grace? Shameful!
Just who is this femme fatale that managed to lay low a man who aspires to the most powerful position on earth? New York Daily News sez:
Oh, and she used to do alot of blow and sleep around NY... She's a keeper!
And by the way, loyal spouse Elizabeth Edwards has cancer, remember? But it's cool, right? Because Edwards "didn't love" this Hunter lady, and he ain't that baby's daddy, ya'll.
Classy guy!
In the wake of these revelations, and the feckless way in which the former Senator has "managed them" , even some Liberal Bloggers are shaking their heads in disgust and disappointment. They are generally a forgiving lot, these progressives, but Edwards has so comprehensively beclowned himself, that many erstwhile supporters seem ready to introduce the well-coifed attorney from North Carolina to the underside of the bus (Mind you, over at the Daily Kos they are all La La La I can't hear you!)
What is it with some powerful alpha-male Democrats? These are guys married to accomplished, overachieving, and sometimes quite attractive women, and if they wanted to they could probably date models or playboy bunnies or rocket scientists on the side... depending on what they prioritize.
Yet time and time again we find them getting sleazy with very,very, average women, or when they do get involved with lookers, they turn out to be hookers!
Perplexing!
Sunday, August 03, 2008
You Can Be Better
Triumph gives it to ComicCon 2008
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Why So Serious?
I'm not really a big fan of the caped crusader. As a teenager, I was a big fan of ultraviolent movies, like many my age, and my "comic book vigilante" tastes ran more toward the antics of Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, a deeply disturbed Vietnam Vet who saw his entire family slaughtered by mobsters and embarked upon an almost suicidal one-man-war on crime that continues to this day. In those days, the anti-hero Punisher seemed grounded in a certain gritty 1980s "war-on-drugs" era reality, and there was a grimness and sense of despair in Frank Castle that appealed to my adolescent self, I suppose.
That is not to say that the more fanciful Batman mythos was not without some appeal, but not being a big D.C. comics reader, the film and TV interpretations were my only real exposure to Bob Kane's iconic creation in my youth.
As a 14-year old,for instance, I found little charm in the campy 1960s incarnation in reruns on the TV, and was greatly disappointed by the grotesquely overhyped Tim Burton take on the character. The ludicrousness of Bruce Wayne's modus operandi, i.e. dressing up like a giant bat in a stiff, rubbery suit to "scare criminals" had an air of the ludicrous, which was not helped at all by the stilted action depicted in the Tim Burton-helmed movies. Throw a punch? Please! Michael Keaton could barely raise his arms in that getup.
Frank Castle's persona and methods, on the other hand, manifested more realism. The Punisher had no real gimmick or mask or secret identity: his imposing physique, perpetually grim expression and Kevlar armour emblazoned with a giant skull were all he needed to intimidate criminals... and besides, I think killing the criminals was higher on his priority list then intimidating them.
The further 90s iterations of the Batman franchise only served to renforce my antipathy toward the character: I was completely uninterested in the animated versions, and found the ridiculous Joel Shumacher films annoying. I was first introduced to Harry Knowles's site, as many others were, when I caught wind of his now-legendary obliteration of the third sequel, Batman and Robin, an event that some say simultaneously ushered in a new era in the internet (the era of the uber-powerful online movie geek?) and put the moribund franchise on ice for almost a decade. Good riddance!
But then, three years ago, Chris Nolan made Batman Begins. Was it the perfect superhero movie? No, of course not. There were some false notes: Katie Holmes in over her head as the love interest, some bad fight-scene editing, and some groan-worthy expository dialogue during the runaway-L-train climax immediately spring to mind. But you could feel that Nolan was on to something with his "re-boot" approach. Instead of simply swallowing the Batman's 1930s origin story holus-bolus and proceeding as if it were a given, Nolan chose to re-interpret and update it, grounding the Batman's origin story in a reality that today's filmgoer could swallow.
I remember thinking that it was almost as if all the comics and films that had come before had been legends, that is to say, embellished retellings of a story that had actually taken place; tales about a mysterious man who really had existed, but whose exploits were now lost in the mists of time, like those of the heroes of Troy, or the knights of the round table. Batman Begins seems to be offering us a more reality-based take on the mythical character known as "the Bat-Man", showing us the "facts" that form the basis of that myth. Batman, this version shows us, is not some supernatural being, but rather a man who has harnessed extraordinary wealth and physical gifts, and trained himself rigourously in order to put them in the service of good, all the while cultivating an aura of mystery so as to strike fear into the criminals he stalks. Batman, we learn, is really just a ninjitsu-trained billionaire masquerading as a playboy in order to pursue his virtuous vigilanteism.
Perhaps it was purely coincidence that Batman Begins came into being in an era where films like Troy and King Arthur were offering stripped-down versions of two of the legendary stories most central to Western society, removing the centuries of accretions and interpretations to get back to, if not the historical basis of each myth, at least more plausible versions grounded to some degree in "reality" --which did not prevent mostly justifiable accusations of historical innaccuracy and fabrication in each case, incidentally.
With Troy, this re-interpretation meant excising "the gods" from the story almost entirely, and offering compelling explanations for iconic references like Achilles' famous heel and the Greek gift of a wooden horse. In King Arthur, it meant losing the supernatural elements and questing beasts, turning Merlin into a loincloth clad druid, and stripping off the late medieval period plate armour common in so many depictions in favour of late roman chain-mail more appropriate to the post-roman Britain in which the historical Artorius likely lived (By the way, another film that adopts this approach is 2007's Last Legion, which starred Colin Firth, and which would not otherwise merit a mention, given that it was mostly crap and anachronistic in the extreme).
The relatively unspectacular box-office take of these films illustrates that re-envisioning beloved legends and mythical archetypes is an endeavour fraught with peril, not to be taken lightly, but Chris Nolan's deft handling of the problematic areas of the Batman mythos also shows that it can be pulled off.
Batman Begins offers alot of explanations to questions that have never been satisfactorily answered before. i.e. Why Bruce Wayne really picked the bat as his symbol; How he was trained to do what he does; Where he got the equipment to begin his mission; What his ultimate goal is. And at every step, we find that the explanation is plausible... far-fetched, certainly, but definitely not supernatural.
Now, with his very dark follow-up, The Dark Knight, Nolan takes us one step further into this plausible world he has created, and in its disconcerting realism, we find it more nightmarish than we could have imagined. In this sequel that surpasses the first film in every way, Nolan has created a surprisingly moving tragedy and a really effective crime drama featuring horrifying moral dilemmas and very effective action set-pieces.
I'm not going to parrot everything the critics have already stated about the "Godfather II of superhero movies", but I will say that the comparisons to Michael Mann's Heat strike me as quite appropriate. Tonally, and in terms of their style, ensemble cast and scope, the movies are indeed comparable. The performances in the Dark Knight are everything you have heard they are too, and a startling turn by the late Heath Ledger as a nihilistic psychopathic Joker is every bit as haunting and disturbing as reported --it will stay with you. If there is a weak link in the chain, it is Ms. Gyllenhaal, whose status as a sex symbol and "it girl" continue to baffle me and countless others.
Regardless, this movie is grim, brutal, unforgiving. Characters are forced to compromise their integrity, characters we want to see succeed fail and some we care about die. The film will punish you, but it will also reward you.
Maybe the Dark Knight will be the movie that finally manages to transcend the "superhero movie" genre, and be recognized for the masterpiece it is.
Go see this movie, and see it in IMAX.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thanks
"We never know the love of our parents for us till we have become parents." -- Henry Ward Beecher
Ain't that the truth!
I learned so much in these past few weeks:
I learned that you can become so incredibly attached to someone you have never even laid eyes on.
I learned that a 3-D ultrasound does give you a pretty good idea of what a baby will look like, so much so, that when William finally arrived, I exclaimed "that's the kid from the picture!"
I learned that my wife really is as tough as I suspected.
I learned, or rather confirmed, that my mother really is as generous as everyone always said she was.
I learned that family is not only the most important thing, it is really the only thing.
Now comes the really hard part...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
William Timothy Charbel Ellard
Born July 11, 2008 at 14:42
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam
What an eventful week, both in the news and on the home front! The folks came up to spend some time with my wife and I, now that Nesrine is in the final days of her pregnancy. That meant that I got to watch La Selección's moment of glory with my dad last Sunday. Though the scoreboard may have said the score was 1-0, the truth of the matter is that the Germans looked thoroughly outclassed by the Spanish side, and that it could of easily been 3 or 4 nil. Sure, grim-and-bloodied German captain Michael Ballack and his squad gave Spain's fans a couple of frightening moments but the result was never in any real doubt.
I basically missed Canada Day altogether, as Nesrine and I had a little hospital stay which turned out to be a false alarm --the stork got diverted by bad weather, I gather, but I did catch wind of the controversial appointment of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada on our nation's birthday some time after the fact. Perhaps I found this news so very dispiriting because my wife is in her final days as the vessel for what is most manifestly a little human being who has for some months now displayed his own personality, individuality and even habits.
There are so many reasons that this appointment, a manifestation of what John Paul II called the culture of death, should be considered offensive, but I think David Warren's column says it best, so I am attaching it in its entirety:
Let me tell my reader about an "epiphany" I once had -- a long time ago, yet seemingly yesterday. Some things, especially memories of love, remain vivid for the duration of one's life. The experience occurred when I was 17, travelling through India by third-class rail.
I had left Howrah Station in Calcutta the day before, bound for Raxaul on the frontier with Nepal. I rode 25 hours continuously on an unbelievably hot and crowded train (often thinking I might die of suffocation), to some obscure distant junction. There I changed trains, as instructed, boarding a flatbed, to my relief -- with crudely built railings and grid of low benches to hold the passengers in place -- wonderfully open to the sky. Another 20 hours, making every stop across the state of Bihar.
An atheist at the time, I almost prayed for rain.
In such a carriage, one does not choose a seat. It chooses you. I found myself physically merged with an extended family, consisting of two sisters, their frail-looking husbands, a sprightly grandma, and about 15 small children. The elder sister, sitting high in the middle of the mob, was also quite pregnant. And beaming with joy.
When I say these people were poor, I am describing a phenomenon beyond the comprehension of most North Americans. They had the rags they were wearing, a bedroll or two, a tiffin stack of simple food. (If they had any valuables, they were effectively concealed.) But what they also had was a treasure beyond postmodern understanding. They had each other.
I was passed a little baby soon after the train moved (so slowly, I thought I could outrun it). A little boy was also set on my left knee; there being nowhere else to put him. Rags were stretched against the scorching sun; a cool breeze puffed them. The magnificent scenery of the Gangetic Plain rolled by in splendour -- the little farmer's fields, the galaxy of villages. Chaos at every stop.
Eye contact was made with each member of this family in turn, and I was now fully adopted. Language was unnecessary: I followed the conversation in their eyes. There was some singing; there were some prayers. When mealtime came, I was passed my share -- a chapati, with a spoonful of lentils on it.
After a few hours of this, the profound happiness of this extended family had communicated itself to me. I felt an inner exhilaration of belonging, such as I had never felt; a profound joy in being alive. For these people knew: that life is holy.
"I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life."
Yes, this is a sermon. That would be Moses speaking, in the Book of Deuteronomy. I don't think I began to grasp this idea until I was 17, riding those rails through Bihar: that we choose life, or we choose death; for ourselves, for others. The rags you wear are of no great importance. It is important to live; and living, to rise, towards the Love that made us. "Rise, let us be on our way," in the words of the last Pope.
Like many, many, many Canadians, I took the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to membership in the Order of Canada -- proclaimed on "Canada Day" -- as a stick in the eye for everything we believe in. As a gratuitous insult to the memory of three million aborted babies.
It was intended as that. The perpetrators of this hateful deed -- presenting an abortionist as a model for "humanism" and champion of women -- knew perfectly well what they were doing. As I had learned even before the event, protocol had been breached in making the appointment. There was no consensus on the appointment committee; the chair, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, had failed to recuse herself. It was done deceitfully, after the Governor General's office had assured outraged callers last February that Morgentaler would not be on the list this year. And last weekend, as the rumour spread, a fresh round of outraged callers were being mocked -- given the phone number of Campaign Life Coalition by the Rideau Hall switchboard.
The announcement was then delayed -- another irregularity -- until after the Parliament Hill celebrations, to prevent a large pro-life demonstration from coalescing there. And, instead of denouncing the appointment, our cynical prime minister had "talking points" distributed to his caucus before the fact.
A very dark thing was done, as such things are always done -- in a very dark way.
Yet I think it may be for the best, in a longer view of things. We might often grumble that the "ruling class" in Canada -- the smug, self-serving, "progressive" political, legal, academic, and media elites, including the prime example at Rideau Hall -- belong to some other world than the one from which they suck taxes. But seldom is there an event so stark, that we see them as they are. The Morgentaler award revealed that to so many Canadians.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Gaudent magni viri rebus adversis non aliter, quam fortes milites bellis
Seneca wrote that. It means great men rejoice in adversity just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Black steadfastly refuses to fade away quietly in disgrace. During his incarceration, he has taken to teaching as well as writing. It is said that his jailhouse history seminars are standing room only.
No one knows if there are more people who would vote for an African-American president to prove that they and their country are tolerant than would vote against him because of intolerance. I suspect there are, but no prudent person would predict the outcome of this election. Accordingly, I reaffirm my prediction that McCain will win.
Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that Lord Black seems to have made some premium lemonade out of the lemons life has handed him.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Politicians Flee Category Five McCain
The Republican nominee for POTUS was big news round these here parts last week when he came to town. He waded through the tumbleweeds and past the creaking saloon doors of the ghost-town that was end-of-parliamentary-season Ottawa to give an address at the local speakeasy.
Nobody appears to have any time for him anymore. He is the rare electoral loser leader among the pantheon of Liberal winners --He and John Turner rate a shared alcove next to the restrooms. When it comes to Martin, PMPM loyalists could drive themselves crazy with tantalizing “if onlys”. For example: if only he had waited for the fall of 2004 or later to have the writ dropped for his first election as PM, the sponsorship stuff might (might, I said) have blown over somewhat and he would not have lost his majority in the 2004 election, right? Who knows what Martin could have achieved if only he had built on, or at least kept, the majority that the Little Guy from Shawinigan handed him when he left…
But hey, isn't it funny how some Canadians who claim that seventy-year-old John McCain is “too old” to be President are the same Canadians who would have gladly followed Paul Martin had he won that imaginary majority back in late 2004 and then decided to take the Liberals into the next election this fall as a seventy-year-old PM and party leader?
The thing is, I understand how the complainants feel. They probably feel the same way I and other Jews feel when we go to the Canadian Islamic Congress website and read "editorials" with headlines such as: "Zionist Israel at 60 -- A History Built on Ethnic Cleansing" and "Israel: An Armed Ghetto by Choice."
"If the Afghan government is a criminal enterprise and Canada’s stated mission is to support the government of Afghanistan, then what the hell are you achieving?" she said. "Is NATO here to make five people happy or to make the whole province happy?"
Then in the comments, sovereigntists wine, snivel, spout conspiracy theories, and denounce as they usually do whenever someone confronts them with reality.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Scott Thompson and Kurt Cobain
Stuff like this is the reason I love The Kids In The Hall. Who else besides boy-faced Dave Foley could take a somber topic like the death of a rock icon and say something in such poor taste to bring down the house? As is the case with Monty Python, another troupe that defined comedy in an earlier era, most of the stuff the members of KITH did after the end of their show does not hold a candle to their groundbreaking early work, but occasionally they can blow you away with something daring, like Foley did here.
Here is a favourite from their TV show:
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
More Campus Fascism... now Fascism comes clad in ersatz religious headdress!
Colby Cosh introduces us to Gilary Massa, who wants to choke off and suffocate the insolent pro-lifers on her campus:
It is certainly wrong to take money from some students and use it in a lopsided fashion to promote the opposite side in a legitimate, ongoing public debate. And what else is the executive of the York Federation of Students doing by meeting during the summer to sneak through a ban on funding and access to SU resources for pro-life groups? Properly understood, the YFS's actions are not so much a free-speech issue as a simple instance of theft.
This analysis depends upon the status of the debate over therapeutic abortion as a "legitimate" one. YFS vice-president Gilary Massa, reportedly the chief engineer of the YFS ban, hopes to win this point by denouncing pro-life groups as "sexist" and "demoralizing" to women who have had abortions, or who may wish to have them. This constitutes an obvious attempt to raise the poorly defined crime of "sexism" to the same level of social intolerability as racial prejudice or political extremism
Gilary is both a practicing muslim (presumably, given the pictures I have seen with her sporting a hijab), and apparently a hard-core feminist too! Cognitive dissonance... head swimming... must sit down...
Ah that's better! Now where was I? Oh yeah, the devout member of the umma who happens to favour abortion-on-demand, and thinks pro-lifers are "sexist"... yeah, that's actually the position she appears to have staked out. The mote in thy neighbour's eye, the plank in thine own...
What about mainstream Islamic scholarship's rejection of unrestricted abortion, deriving from this sura of the Quran: Kill not your offspring for fear of poverty; it is We who provide for them and for you. Surely, killing them is a great sin. Qur'an 17:32
Yeah, I also know about the Shiite Zaidiva and their dissenting position, but I'm willing to bet Gilary ain't Shi'a --not too many of them originate in Africa. So suffice it to say Gilary and islamic scholarship do not appear to be on the same page on this issue. Is the evidently pious Ms. Massa actually advocating something that goes against what her religion teaches?
Ah heck, you know what? Screw it.
It is obvious that my association of islamic orthodoxy and the hijab is nonsense, because given her rather un-islamic position regarding abortion on demand, clearly this woman's hijab is not so much a religious garment signaling her adherence to the tenets of islam, as it is a political statement, so my whole point is moot.
Political statement you say?
Do go on...
Well, it just so happens that Percy Grainger provides an intriguing tidbit on the National Post Full Comment page for this article:
Here's the text of a letter that Ms. Massa wrote to the York University administration, dated February 21, 2008, which as of today is posted on the YFS website:
"The York Federation of Students (YFS), representing 45000 undergraduate students and the Graduate Students
(GSA) at York University representing 5,700 students, are shocked and dismayed to hear that your administration along with the McMaster Students Union has banned the use of the phrase “Israeli Apartheid” on campus. This strange and unprecedented ban is a blatant violation of democratic freedoms of speech and dissent, and an
attack on students’ right to organize. It is the position of the YFS and GSA that universities are sites where discussions and debates about difficult geo-political questions should be promoted, not stifled. International controversy about use of the phrase “Israeli Apartheid” cannot be resolved through repression, but through ongoing intellectual exchange.
The YFS and GSA strongly support the United for Students’ Rights (U4SR) coalition at McMaster in their demand that the disgraceful ban on the phrase “Israeli Apartheid” be rescinded in accordance with a basic commitment to freedom of expression and organization in the democratic context of the public university."
It is obvious - Ms. Massa only believes in "democratic freedoms of speech and dissent" where she agrees with the point of view being expressed. The level of inconsistency is astounding!
So, to sum up:
The abortion debate is settled. Gotcha.
The Israel-Palestine debate is not settled? OK.
So my inevitable question:
Says who?
Oh yeah, right: the growing ranks of the new campus Fascists. They are legion.
Good for a couple of laughs... or tears, if you consider the implications of the fact that this farce is actually taking place in Canada.
As far as I'm concerned, the most disconcerting thing by far to come out of this tribunal is the revelation that Awan, a lawyer-in-training, had never heard of the Library of Alexandria until he read about it in a Barbara Amiel article(?!?!)
Notwithstanding my smarmy comments, my real problem in this case is specifically with the content of Olbermann's hyperbolic rant, not his general disposition toward Hillary or Obama. Olbermann is just one of the more egregious examples of media people who have declared a verdict and now want to proceed to the sentencing, but I won't get into that.
Simply put --I don't like his attitude. I have a real problem with Olbermann declaring from on high that certain things "cannot" be said. So now that his diktat has been promulgated, we should all move on? The media (our betters) are the arbiter of what speech is within the bounds of acceptability for politicians now?
If you have been reading any of my nonsense lately, you may be aware that we have a bit of a free speech issue in Canada at the moment (google human rights commission, macleans, and levant for more details). The idea that "certain things are not to be said" really gets under the skin. As far as I am concerned, Hillary can claim Obama is a crypto-muslim black radical who will lead the U.S. into WWIII and therefore she has to stay in the race, but it isn't up to Olbermann to anathemize her speech. Sure, he can denounce her for what she says (or even for what she "seems to be saying"), and let the good citizens of the U.S. do their duty by exercising their option to consign her to oblivion, but he should not get to tell her and the American people what is and is not acceptable rhetoric. That path leads nowhere good.
As far as the Clinton "gaffe" being the invention of Obama's "media groupies" and/or the Obama campaign itself... I'm no Hillary partisan, and therefore am not prone to lying or dissembling to stick up for her. For the record, I don't give a rats ass about her or what she meant. I'm mad on principle: My problem is with Olbermann adopting the imperative and saying she cannot say something (as opposed to saying "she should not have said it").
Now, if you were to argue that this was simply a rhetorical device of his own, or that he was playing a role --that of grand media inquisitor, perhaps?-- I would still be annoyed, because I've become a free-speech nut, I'm afraid, and I don't like media, government, church, whatever, telling me or anyone else (even Hillary) what we can or cannot say!
And if you were to say that, unlike the state, Olbermann cannot exercise coercive power and that therefore my point is irrelevant I would simply revert to sophomoric namecalling: Olbermann is a douchebag, and I don't like his pompous windbaggery and the idea that what he says might influence the way people think about speech: "Oh, we simply can't say that! What would Keith Olbermann say?"
As far as all the contextual stuff goes (i.e. first time in history there is a black candidate for president, Michelle Obama's fears), once again, not the point. There are plenty of well meaning people up here in Canada trying to shut down debate and free discussion of issues for all the right reasons: combatting "hate" and "anti-semitism" and "islamophobia", but that does not make what they are doing any more justified.
BTW, did somebody say free speech absolutist? In Canada, like in the U.S., we actually have rules that govern free-speech, and the fact is that incitement to violence is illegal. You worry that some nutcase might feel "empowered" by her remarks. I maintain that regardless of whether or not it was in good taste (and since when has good taste been a criterion for political discourse?), what Hillary said was not incitement, and therefore fair comment... "hurt feelings" or not. This is a point we could argue.
You and I both know that Clinton is done. Why the hell do people need to stiffle her now? At this point, one would think they should just stand back and let her bury herself with increasingly outrageous and "catastrophically inappropriate" comments as she grasps at straws. Like your fellow holding the sign there, who is doing such a brilliant job of persuading people not to vote for his candidate.
Frankly, reckless and innapropriate rhetoric is what makes American politics so damn interesting to me! Maybe I just have more faith in the wisdom of the American people (or the effectiveness of the Secret Service) than you do.
I think your Johnson/King point is bang-on...but I would not let Clinton off the hook by saying she is just doing what so many whites do with black rivals. The Clintons have a unique brand of parochialism and condescension all their own!
Oh incidentally, Michelle Obama is going to drag her huband down as this campaign wears on. Somebody get that woman some talking points! She is bad news.
By the way, you really must listen to a Rex Murphy monologue in the original Newfie dialect:
After all, Couillard can't help the size of her breasts. From the looks of them, they are real. The idea that she should keep them covered because they may, er, distract, is foolish and parochial. But she did choose her boyfriend and husband, one presumes. And she chose to date a politician. One thing lost in the salacious headlines is Bernier designated Couillard as "a spouse" for travel purposes. This means Canadians paid for her (and her breasts) to fly to goodness-knows where with Bernier on his budget. We should be grateful the price of airline tickets aren't decided by an individual's weight.
har har har!
****
Olbermann: the lickspittle, the pontificator:
Outrage much, Keith? Uh, what? Hillary "cannot say this"? As history has shown, the Clintons can and will say anything, when they need to. Besides, this is the frigging nomination race, and in spite of the most fervent wishes of Obama's media groupies, Senator Clinton is not yet ready to concede that prize and prostrate herself before the annointed one. And so, she is being immolated for a simple statement of an inconvenient historic fact.
Rex Murphy, as usual, said it best in this weekend's Globe and Mail:
There are nights when watching Keith Olbermann of MSNBC - who is to Obama as Igor was to Dr. Frankenstein, a slavish servant and a groupie - pound away at Hillary Clinton, when I've been tempted to call The Hague. Specifically the war crimes tribunal headquartered there.
