2011 archive

What the Booman said.

Mano Singham has a particularly jaundiced view of President Obama’s Kabuki moves:

Obama and the Democratic party leadership are not trying to get the best deal from the Republicans. They and the Republicans agree on what they want to do (cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits and provide more tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations) because that is what their bosses, the oligarchy, want.

What Obama is trying to negotiate is a way to get all these things without completely alienating his party’s base. He will go as far as he can get away with. That is why all these trial balloons keep getting floated and then denied.

Can’t say that I disagree strongly, since the Beltway Braintrust has convinced everyone inside the Beltway that outgo, rather than income, is the problem.

Meanwhile, Dick Polman collects some interesting quotations.

At least, that’s what Scott Herhold thinks, even though he says he’s not saying that. A snippet:

A colleague of mine, when asked if a U.K. phone-hacking scandal could break out in America, likes to reply: “We’re not organized enough to organize a three-car funeral, much less a sophisticated phone surveillance scam.”

There’s truth in her take. At most mainstream news media outlets, particularly at newspapers, the order of the day is survival. And phone hacking is both expensive and illegal, two major threats to longevity.

I’m not saying it could not happen here, particularly at tabloids like the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a variety of the escapades erupt at an online celebrity gossip site.

The reasons he cites later on in the article are actually quite persuasive and worth a look for anyone who expects it to happen here.

There’s another one he missed (or maybe he ran out of room).

Great Britain is a small country, less than 90,000 square miles. That’s roughly between the sizes of Minnesota and Michigan. Any significant newspaper there is necessarily a national paper, not just in influence (as the New York Times may be considered a national paper), but also in distribution. Even the Guardian long ago dropper the “Manchester” from its masthead.

That’s a lot of hungry cats in one cage.

A scandal at a British paper is therefore ipso facto a national scandal.

So I think it is unlikely to have happened here, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that or some other scurvy practice at a regional rag.

Frankly, I think the cesspool of lies known as “Fox News” has done and does far more damage to the polity in its short life than the News of the World has done to Britain throughout the paper’s existence.

In the Chicago Tribune, Megan Crepeau decodes Congressman Allen West’s (R, My-Way-or-the-Highway) charge that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is “not a lady” because she dared to disagree with one of his political stances.

After pointing out that the Congresswoman is neither a British peer nor a 19th Century robber baron’s trophy wife, she concludes with

OK, obviously these are ridiculous standards to judge any woman by these days — so much so that the word “lady” has started to be reappropriated by young folks like me, who use the word casually and ironically. I start instant message conversations to my female friends with “hey lady,” and it’s funny because I know the friend I’m chatting with is parked on her couch being as slovenly and unladylike as I am. “Ask a Lady” is a popular advice column on the website thehairpin.com. The website’s male equivalent is “Ask A Dude,” which gives you an idea of how seriously anyone takes the word “lady” these days.

But West takes it very seriously, and here’s why: When he said “lady,” he was speaking in code. To old-fashioned conservative men like West, “lady” just means “someone who agrees with me,” or at least “someone who disagrees with me quietly.” To be a “lady” is to be docile, calm and uncritical. West thinks that since his colleague is just a woman, not a lady, she doesn’t deserve to “be afforded due respect.”