A New Opportunity for the Right-Wing Fiction Machine

According to Chris Good of the Atlantic Monthly, Elena Kagan will be hard for conservatives to attack if Obama nominates her for the Supreme Court:

I asked Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network (a conservative group focused on judicial nominees) what conservatives are going to say about Kagan, and what Kagan's "wise Latina" moment, if there is one, will prove to be.

"She has been much more careful than Justice Sotomayor. She never would have said something like that even if she thinks it. She's been so careful for so long that no one seems to know exactly what she does think," Severino said.

As if any of that's going to matter.

It's not like honesty is Job 1 on the right. If they can't find anything in Kagan's record to attack, they won't have any problems making things up. It might turn out that creative conservatives are consulting the collected works of Joe McCarthy, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Ann Coulter as they gear up for a Kagan nomination.

Time to Invade Nepal, Maybe Turkey Too

The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit today for the car bomb that fizzled last night on Times Square. No doubt Bill Kristol and other neo-conservatives will soon start calling for invasions of uninvolved countries like Nepal or Turkey.

Actually, India would be a better candidate.

The 9-11 attacks were launched by Saudi nationals and coordinated from al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. In response, the Bush administration invaded Iraq despite an enormous amount of evidence that al-Qaeda considered Saddam Hussein to be an enemy.

If the car bomb in NYC really was set by the Pakistani Taliban, the most likely country to be targeted by the neo-cons for invasion would be Pakistan's main enemy, India.

I guess India's lucky the bomb fizzled.

Brent Musberger: My Role Model for the Day

I had a Brent Musberger kind of situation today and think I handled it well.

Illegal Immigration--Why Do Much of Anything?

Peggy Noonan writes that the U. S. shouldn't pass any new immigration legislation until the "borders"--by which she means the Mexican border--are secure.

In the past four years, I have argued in this space that nothing can or should be done, no new federal law passed, until the border itself is secure. That is the predicate, the commonsense first step. Once existing laws are enforced and the border made peaceful, everyone in the country will be able to breathe easier and consider, without an air of clamor and crisis, what should be done next.

But the federal government already puts an enormous effort into border security and illegal immigrants have to go to great lengths to get into the country undetected. Instead, it seems that the main "problem" is the Mexican population that's already here in the U. S.

But if the Mexican population is a problem, it's a problem that I tend to welcome. My favorite restaurant in my part of Kentucky is the Mexican-owned Italian restaurant, I like seeing the Mexican guys at the stores, and I like the Mexican guy who lives next door better than I like my Anglo neighbor. I want my daughters to learn Spanish and wish I'd remember more of my own Spanish from high school.

In general, I appreciate Mexico and wish the Mexicans well. The drug cartel problem in Mexico is a great deal worse than the "illegal immigration" problem in the U. S. and we're the major cause of that problem because of our national hunger for "illegal" drugs. What I'd like to see is some sort of system that authorizes parts of the rural population in Mexico to circulate back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. In this way, Mexicans wouldn't have to risk death to enter the U. S., but they would also have the option of going back and taking up opportunities in Mexico after time in the U. S. I imagine that there will be less illegal immigration if there is more legal immigration.

I'd also like to see amnesty for the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. Once again, I want to go back to our problem--the drug problem. We have a couple of million people in jail for drug crimes, but millions more Americans ignore the drug laws in a way that's much more destructive to ourselves and Mexico than Mexican immigration. As a result, I don't think we in the U.S. have much credibility when we talk about the majesty of the law in relation to immigration. So, let's exercise a little modesty and forgive the transgressions of those who entered illegally from Mexico. Most of them seem to be making a positive contribution anyway.

Models In Need of an Airbrush

Above is a picture of a group of super-models who are modeling for Louis Vitton in Paris this year. Most of these women are in their early 20's, but they are so thin and worn that they look more like concentration camp survivors than anything else.

Camp survivors or drug addicts.

HuffPost cites readers at Reddit as saying:

"Seriously, though--how many of them have enormous foreheads and huge eyes? A lot of them are not attractive sans makeup. Their faces look smooshed; they're too damn skinny. Put down the coke straw and eat a cheeseburger, ladies!" and the more poetic "coke, coke, coke ,coke, heroine, coke, heroine, heeeey that one is smiling..., coke, heroine, heroine, coke, ..."

I would have put a couple of "meths" in with the coke and heroin cases.

Maybe all that airbrushing isn't so superfluous after all.

Crist Not Hitting Bottom Yet

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced today that he'll continue his campaign for Florida's U. S. Senate seat as an independent.

"My decision to run for the United State Senate as a candidate without party affiliation in many ways says more about our nation and our state than it does about me . . . As someone who served the people in Florida more than 15 years, from the state Senate to the governor's mansion, I can confirm what most Floridians already know. Unfortunately our political system is broken. I was never one who sought to hold elective office to demagogue, to point fingers. For me, for me, public service has always been about putting the needs of our state and our people first. And every single day, as your servant, I have tried to do exactly that."

Crist is counting on a groundswell of moderate opinion in his favor.

Good luck with that.

Joe Lieberman won as an independent in Connecticut because the GOP did not field a credible candidate, which meant that Lieberman was supported by Republicans as a way to undercut the Democratic candidate. However, Florida Democrats have a major candidate of their own in Rep. Kendrick Meek. Crist isn't going to get anywhere unless Meek closes up shop.

And that's highly unlikely.

The problem for Crist is the same as it is for almost any moderate. He wants to put "the needs of our state and our people first" but doesn't identify any specific ideas for doing so because that would put him in the crosshairs of the ideological battles between conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats.

Moderates generally like "compromise" and "bi-partisanship," but Crist is going to find out how poorly those principles play on the campaign trail. The right-wing views any politician who is willing to compromise with the Democrats as a "big-government liberal." Likewise, progressives view any willingness to compromise with Republicans as evidence of a politician's selling his soul to "corporate interests" and the Washington/media establishment.

And the worst thing for Charlie Crist is that both sides are right about him.

Sorry Charlie! But you still haven't hit bottom yet.

Fareed Zakaria Needs Smarter Super-Smart Friends

Fareed Zakaria's defense of Goldman Sachs in the current Newsweek has a Tom Friedman-esque air of "I was talking with a super-smart Wall Street guy on the flight back from London and he told me that this Goldman Sachs case is crap."

Like Friedman, Zacharia needs smarter super-smart friends feeding him his lines.

Maybe James Jones Shouldn't Have Known the Joke At All

Gen. James Jones, President Obama's national security adviser, is in some moderately warm water for telling a Jewish joke at a gathering at "The Washington Institute for Near East Policy – a pro-Israel think tank."

The joke scored a two-fer for Jones. First, he told a joke that relies on the kinds of long-time Jewish stereotypes associated with anti-Semitism from the expulsion of Jews from England to the Inquisition to the Holocaust. At the same time, he was telling the joke to a largely Jewish audience where a lot of people were guaranteed to be offended.

One person who attended the gathering noted the intense stupidity of Jones' story, "can you imagine him telling a black joke at an event of African Americans?" So what was the joke. Here's an account from Jake Tapper of ABC News.

Jones tells the joke “in order to set the stage for my remarks,” and then proceeds to tell the story of a “member of the Taliban separated from his fighting party.” The Taliban member stumbles upon a shack, which it turns out is a "little store owned by a Jewish merchant.'

“I need water,” the Taliban fighter says to the merchant. “Get me some water.”

“I'm sorry I don’t have any water but would you like to buy a tie?” the merchant says. “We have a nice sale of ties today.”

The Taliban warrior goes on a tirade against the merchant, against Jews, about Israel. “I need water you try to sell me ties, you people don’t get it.”

"Well I'm sorry I don’t have water for you,” the merchant says, “I forgive you for all of the insults you’ve levied against me, my family, my country...But I will help you out."

The merchant steers the Taliban towards a restaurant two miles away.

“They have all the water you'll need,” the merchant says.

The Taliban fighter walks towards the restaurant, then returns about an hour later.

"Your brother tells me I need a tie to get in the restaurant,” he says.

Ba-dum-bum.

Yeah, "Ba-dum-bum." That was hilarious. Personally, I've hated these kinds of jokes since I started college. Here, I'm an equal opportunity hater. I hate black jokes, Jewish jokes, Polish jokes, Italian jokes, and hillbilly jokes.

I hate it when I hear jokes about "hicks" as well.

It's all ugly. It's all crap. I'm rather proud that I've never remembered one of these jokes long enough to repeat it.

So what's Gen. James Jones have to say about it.

“I wish that I had not made this off the cuff joke at the top of my remarks, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it. It also distracted from the larger message I carried that day: that the United States commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.”

My wish is that Gen. Jones hadn't known the joke in the first place.

Sarah Palin as Stop Sign

The best thing about Gabriel Sherman's article on Sarah Palin in the New York magazine is the throw away line that Palin is the "president" or "CEO" of right-wing America.

But I see Palin more as a the right-wing's stop sign, the leading symbol of their refusal to accept the America in which they already live, the post-civil rights, post-feminism, post-gay marriage, macroeconomic America in which government acts on a large scale, a liberal black guy can be president, Mexican immigrants run the Italian restaurant down the street, and lesbian newlyweds are out gardening on weekends.

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It's really too bad.

Rick Perry a Progressive at Heart

Well, sort of. In spring 2009, Texas governor Rick Perry was ready to rejoin the Confederate Army. This spring it's the Glenn Beck Army. That sounds like progress to me.

Chris Matthews on Republicans Becoming Far Right

Chris Matthews thinks that the Republicans are trending too far to the right to appeal to suburban voters.

That's the basic perception over at HuffPost and TPM as well.

But I don't buy that.

Sure, it looks like the far right is taking over the Republican Party.

But if the far right is the only alternative to the Democrats, a sizable percentage of moderate voters will vote for them just because they're unhappy with the Democrats.

The best thing for Obama and the Democrats could do is engage the far right in debate. I think they'll find it easier to debate Sarah Palin than John McCain.

RSI Going to Philadelphia

Getting out of town is good! One of my grant application ships came in and now I'll be spending five weeks in Philadelphia this summer doing research.

Tea Party in Washington

And I used to like Victoria Jackson.

Happy Tax Day!

Good day for the RSI household. We haven't paid more than 8% of our income in federal taxes for years and our refund went up at least $2,000 this year. Now we're can think about visiting our ancestral homeland in Cancun.

Or is that Bora Bora?

Well, anyway. I'm sure I'm descended from people who were smart enough to be born on a tropical island.

Digby Doesn't Like Teabaggers

The liberal blogger Digby REALLY doesn't like Teabaggers. But then again, most conservatives I know don't like them early. I hear a lot of "Republicans won't vote for Sarah Palin."

Me? I'm pretty sure that my mother, one of my brothers, and one of my sisters have Teabag sympathies. Maybe my dad too.

So, I'm compelled to cut them a little slack.

A Note on Carl Paladino's Racist/Porn Convergence

This is a note on the racism/porn scandal that's developing around Carl Paladino, a multi-millionaire Buffalo NY businessman and Tea Party GOP candidate for governor of New York.

Yesterday, WNYmedia.net ran a lengthy story on the racist and pornographic e-mails Paladino has been forwarding to his friends, cronies, and political contacts in the Buffalo area.

There was plenty of racism and porn to go around.

Two of the racist e-mails focus on representations of Barack Obama. First, there's an African tribal dance pictured as an Obama inauguration rehearsal. In fact, there was a lot of "African" stereotyping of Obama right after his election. For example, some guy in my town walked into a convenience store on election night and announced that "we've elected a monkey for president." Of course, there's been even more "Obama" racist jokes after his inauguration. There is so much of it at my daughter's high school in Kentucky that dealing with racist joking is another reason to "hate" high school.

By the way, the tribal dance video was supposed to have been a big hit on racist web sites.

The second Obama picture involved Obama and his wife Michelle as a "pimp" and a "ho" in a play on blaxploitation movies from the 70's. This kind of stereotyping goes back to the images of "black dandies" in blackface minstrel songs from the 1830's. In relation to African-Americans, the racist idea in the dandy stereotype is to treat black people as absurd, inept, and incompetent for anything but singing and dancing. The stereotype is especially directed against African-Americans who are determined to shine in politics, business, literature, and the arts because it portrays black accomplishment as fundamentally farcical. In this sense, the picture of the Obama as a pimp and whore represents the election of Barack Obama as a racial absurdity.

The final racist item was a video of an airplane landing amongst a group of black people with the caption "run n-word run." There's a certain way in which this image is just as disturbing as the pornography I'll discuss below. Much like the tribal dance video and the pimp and ho picture, the video of the black men scattering is designed to demean and degrade African-Americans. But the airplane video is more demeaning because it portrays black people as being helplessly subject to white people and white people as getting off on their humiliation. It's a little bit like the scene in "Invisible Man" where a group of white men in a Southern town are entertained by watching young black men scramble for coins on an electronically-charged surface. The image was not only an abject humiliation of the black guys, it also involved the pleasures of white power. The same with the airplane scattering the black guys in the image circulated by Carl Paladino.





I find pornography to be traumatizing in the sense that contact with porn leads me to have post-traumatic stress symptoms. So I abstained from looking at it and limited myself to scrolling through. But there's very kinds of graphic sex clips and a bestiality video.

A couple of quick notes:

1. The Racism is not just Paladino's. It's the racism of the people who forwarded the e-mails to Paladino and the racism of those who laughed at the Obama racial send ups. To Paladino, the racist e-mails were "just humor . . . I'm not sensitive to ethnic humor. dago, spic, wap, polack, whatever we hear it every day. I think the oversensitivity to black/white humor is wrong and in itself demeaning." No surprise there. "It's just humor" is the typical response of racist blowhards when they're called out on their bigotry. In the case of Paladino, it's important to emphasize that he's a focal point for an extensive network of racist blowhards.

2. Pornography and Tradition. Hard-core porn has been at the heart of a number of scandals lately, including the sexting of Tiger Woods and the Jesse James/Sandra Bullock mess. Racism and porn have been linked in the United States since at least the 1830's. Paladino's e-mails bring the racism/porn nexus to the surface in the context of Tea Party politics. One of the things that interesting about the pornography angle here is the extent to which Tea Party conservativism is disconnected from Victorian ideas of tradition and propriety.

Last Week's Grading Orgy

Last week I really got it done on the grading front.

Capstone students turned in first drafts on Monday--back on Wednesday. Feminist theory students turned in research proposals on Tuesday--back on Thursday. Thursday night, I started reading all of my take-home essay exams. They were done by Saturday at noon.

And the papers were great. I got a lot of outstanding work--work that would have been outstanding anywhere.

Count me a happy professor at the end of last week's grading orgy.

Tiger Loses: The World Sighs in Relief

Phil Mickelson won the Masters Golf Tournament today. Good for him. Even better, porn king Tiger Woods lost, therefore enabling us to preserve the idea that there's some justice in the world.

Needs More Rehab

Disgraced former New York Governor Eliott Spitzer muses about getting back into politics. I'd probably vote for Tiger Woods first.

Duke Anti-Christs Win! Apocalypse Begins

Oh God! The Devil's favorite team, the Duke University Anti-Christs won the NCAA basketball championship. Fire and Brimstone start tomorrow. The survivalists are right. The world is coming to an end.