I'm Tired of Crap Like This

The professionally outraged are at it again:

Uncredited, via Towleroad

Andrew Garfield inadvertently set off a controversy this week when he proclaimed himself to be a gay man "without the physical act." The comment came as Garfield, 33, was speaking Monday about his role in Angels in America, a 1993 play about the AIDS crisis and other LGBT issues being put on in London. Garfield plays the gay protagonist Prior Walter and was asked during a Q-and-A how he got ready for the role.

"As far as I know, I am not a gay man," Gay Times reported he said. "Maybe I’ll have an awakening later in my life, which I’m sure will be wonderful and I’ll get to explore that part of the garden, but right now I’m secluded to my area, which is wonderful as well. I adore it, but a big concern was what right do I have to play this wonderful gay role? ... It was as about doing honor, doing justice and knowing my herstory."

Garfield explained that he spent a lot of his free time preparing to become Prior. Then he brought up RuPaul's Drag Race, the reality TV contest that's been airing for nine seasons.

"My only time off during rehearsals—every Sunday I would have eight friends over and we would just watch Ru. This is my life outside of this play," Garfield said. "I am a gay man right now just without the physical act—that's all."

So of course, the usual suspects have taken umbrage at an actor who a) is discussing how he has prepared for a role, b) trying to explain where his head is while he's in the role, and c) expressing solidarity with us.

Yeah, go ahead -- attack your friends and allies. That always works so well.

All I've got to say to Garfield's critics is, "Grow up and get over yourselves." Which, strangely enough, is my response to outraged "Christians." Think about that. (I've been convinced for years that the extreme right and the extreme left meet: they share an attitude, if not a particular ideology. But the methods and the end goals are the same: ideological purity. According to their criteria.)

(Sidebar: I'm reminded of nothing so much as those trans activists who start foaming at the mouth when a cisgender actor dares to take on a trans role. My response: "They're actors. They make their livings making us believe they're someone else." The end result of their reasoning, as far as I can see, is that no actor is allowed to take on a role outside their real life persona. Sure, I think trans actors and actresses deserve career opportunities -- but should they not be allowed to take on cisgender characters?)

Meanwhile, our real enemies are working hard to take away everything we've won.

And History Repeats Itself

Two stories that caught my attention this morning (well, over the past couple of days, but I was focused on other things).

First, this, from Towleroad:

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, gay state Senator Mark Leno, and gay SF Supervisor Scott Weiner were booed off stage at a kickoff event for the annual Trans March in San Francisco, KRON reports:

“My first year in Sacramento, we added gender identity to the Fair Employment Housing Act,” state Sen. Mark Leno said.

But he was mooned by a heckler and booed by several others. Openly gay state Sen. Leno was yelled off the stage, as was Scott Weiner, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and also openly gay, and Lee.

Lee and Weiner didn’t even have a chance to speak.

“Though this has not been a warm welcome or one of respect, I will continue to fight for transgender rights, equality, and the respect that you’re not giving us today,” Leno said.

This is what caught my eye:

“I’m upset because I’m a Trans woman who has a lot of Trans friends who are homeless, and I’m tired of people using our community as a prop, a political prop,” Ashley Love said. “I’m tired of white, gay men riding the Stonewall movie and reducing Trans women of color to secondary props, to historical props, to social props, political props. I’m tired of politicians coming here for 5 minutes, do a little sound bite, and run off, but do they really care about us?”

I've seen this before: in the 1970s-80s, I watched the New Left take over the gay rights movement, which up until then had been pretty well focused and pretty effective. All of a sudden, it was "Yes, we'll work on equal rights for gays and lesbians, but first we have to end war and world hunger." It took a decade and the AIDS epidemic to regain momentum. Now, suddenly, the trans rights movement has to take on homelessness.

And as for white gay men "whitewashing" Stonewall, read this:

Two longtime LGBT leaders/activists, who were at the Stonewall uprisings, one transgender and one lesbian, have just weighed in publicly. Here’s what they witnessed that night.

Trans leader Dana Beyer writes:

“I was there [at the Stonewall Uprising] the second night, too, and the streets were overwhelmingly filled with white men (which included the way I was perceived back then, too).”

Lesbian activist Robin Tyler:

“I was there [at the Stonewall Uprising] the second night. The majority of protesters were white gay men. And a lot of people were very upset about the death of Judy Garland and their grief turned into anger. We talked about it.”

All the documentary evidence, eyewitness accounts, what have you, point to the fact that the majority of the demonstrators/rioters were white gay men. As Aravosis points out, yes, there were trans people of color, mostly trans women, heavily involved, front and center, but let's not have a lot of bullshit about "whitewashing."

It's worth noting that the controversy was sparked by a two-minute trailer.

Pat Cordova-Goff, an 18-year-old who describes herself as a “trans woman of color” and a student at Citrus College in Glendora, Calif., created the Gay-Straight Alliance Network petition calling for a boycott of “Stonewall” after watching the trailer. The petition has now racked up more than 24,100 signatures.

And, strangely enough, we hear from Ashley Love again:

“Seeing the film in its entirety was disappointing in how once again white gay men reduce trans women of color down to historical, social and political props,” said Ashley Love, 35, a journalist and coordinator with the education group Stonewalling Accurate & Inclusive Depictions. Describing herself as a black and Latina woman of transsexual history, she said that the film further highlighted “issues of classism, trans-misogyny, anti-blackness, Hollywood trans-face casting, misgendering, identity appropriation and transparent propaganda.”

What I'm hearing is a lot of ideologically generated bullshit, backed by a desire to be in the spotlight.

And, for the love of all that's holy, the film is not a documentary, it's fiction.

What I'm seeing in both these stories is ideological (read "moral") purity overtake all other considerations. (Fiction is supposed to reflect your agenda? Since when?) I saw it in the '80s, with the rise of the New Left and its "politically correct" approach to everything, and if you look real hard (actually, not all that hard), you'll find it on the anti-gay right, and in fact, the contemporary conservative movement (which shares with the fringe left the inability to differentiate fiction from reality).

And that approach is self-defeating. By all means, boo the people who are in the best position to help advance your cause, and boycott a movie that's going to do more to raise awareness than you're ever going to do. That will be real effective, won't it?

Today's Republican Party

This was just too good to let pass:

Yesterday on “Trunews,” End Times radio host Rick Wiles discussed “the possible occult connections” to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, whom he concluded was murdered by President Obama and was a human sacrifice to mark the pagan festival of Lupercalia.

Wiles explained that the “Luciferian” “devil-worshipers” who control the government are out for blood, noting that Lupercalia is observed between February 13 and 15. Scalia’s body was discovered on the 13th. “There’s always human sacrifice involved,” he said, claiming that Scalia was “killed” to mark the beginning of pagan fascism ruling over the U.S.

“The 13th was the 44th day of 2016, Obama is the 44th president of the United States,” Wiles said, “so you have this numerology thing taking place.”

Wiles said that the assassins who killed the conservative justice “deliberately left the pillow on his face as a message to everybody else: ‘Don’t mess with us, we can murder a justice and get away with it.’ And I assure you, there’s a lot of frightened officials in Washington today, deep down they know, the regime murdered a justice…. This is the way a dictatorial, fascist, police state regime takes control of a nation.”

“The day the justice died, the day justice in America died,” he continued, “they got away with it.”

I wonder if Wiles has endorsed anyone for president yet. If he has, the only one I can see admitting it is Ted Cruz.

There's a sound clip at the link, if you want the full effect.

Via Joe.My.God.

Chik-fil-A (Update)

I am really sick of this. It's another non-event blown completely out of proportion -- a media circus in which both the right and the left get to smile pretty for the camera. And the media, since it has nothing better to do, is lapping it up.

Let me summarize:

CFA CEO Dan Cathy stated quite bluntly his anti-gay beliefs. OK, fine -- he's allowed to say what he wants. He's allowed to believe what he wants. (And let me point out something here: religious belief is a choice.)

The left is up in arms. Well, that's only to be expected. If the left were more effective, someone might actually pay attention -- besides the aforementioned media.

The right is screaming "Free speech!" and "Freedom of religion!" Well, sure -- Dan Cathy's allowed to say what he wants. He's not insulated from the consequences. As for his beliefs, as disgusting as they are, he's allowed those, too -- and no one on the left has said he's not. The right is once again madly whipping together a nice dish of red herring. (I wonder if that comes with waffle fries.) Update: Here's a good commentary from David Neiwert on the whole "free speech" nonsense.

(It's worth noting that those civic leaders who have made threats against CFA opening outlets in their cities have backed off of those threats pretty rapidly. They know they're out of line, but it does make some nice headlines, now, doesn't it?)

The argument has been made that Chik-fil-A outlets are franchises, independently operated. (Note, though, that they are not independently owned.) However, there's some question as to how "independent" they are: it seems that potential franchisees are rather heavily vetted to make sure they conform to the corporate "family" values -- ideally, they are bigoted in the same ways that Dan Cathy is. Ditto for employees. (Like the woman in Georgia who was fired so she would be a stay-at-home mom. Wonder if that fool boss of hers ever asked himself what her family was going to live on -- although that may come too close to dealing with objective reality for him to manage.) And, as for the lame attempt at damage control -- "we are committed to giving the best service to all of our customers without discrimination" -- there's no evidence to support it. Quite the opposite.

And there's also the fact that the Chik-fil-A "charitable" arm, the Win-Shape Foundation, has donated over $5 million to anti-gay causes, including recognized hate groups.

So there are "kiss-in" scheduled for today at Chik-fil-A outlets. Gods! You want an effective protest? Hand out leaflets detailing the groups that Chik-fil-A funds, detailing the lawsuits against them for violation of discrimination laws, detailing their employment practices, and the like. Perhaps I have too much faith in humanity, but it seems to me that most people, unlike fundamentalists, will take facts into account.

Anything else is just posturing.

The Leftist Backlash

I ran across a couple of posts the other morning that brought me back to an issue that, in my humble opinion, is significant for the progress of acceptance of gay people by the larger society. Both reek of the New Left of the 80s.

This one, an opinion piece by someone named Topher Gen at Pink News, I have trouble taking seriously.

And that’s what Pride does; it fuels the flames of hate. Today, Pride is little more than a giant excuse for corporate marketing and a bit of drunken fun. The march claims to ‘celebrate’ its participants’ sexuality, but it’s to its community’s own detriment.

Click through and read the whole thing, if you like -- unfortunately, it doesn't get any more coherent, and Topher Gen seems to be one of those wild-eyed zealots who is going to show us The Way -- his way, which is the only way.

This one is pernicious. This is where the old New Left (your struggle is everyone's struggle, but everyone else comes first) has wound up. The whole cast of this one is negative, marked by a determination to take every aspect of Pride in the worst possible light.

Pride initially represented the cry, “We exist!” shouted from an ignored and stigmatized community to the larger population of the country. It was a celebration of the margins. While this is still the case in some ways, the LGBTQ community has now found itself underwritten by the most oppressive elements of American society—banks, politicians, and corporations, the ultimate ostracizers—and it has largely accepted this. It is a shift almost as dizzying in scope as the shift in mainstream consciousness towards LGBTQ rights. Decades ago, from the margins came a movement, one which has now, years later, unfortunately and almost unblinkingly accepted the subsidy of organizations and individuals that actively enable the perpetual, repressive “othering” of the powerless.

I think we can rather take this funding by major corporations as an indication of how far we've come in gaining acceptance in society at large. To be realistic about it, they're doing it because it's good business. Think about the implications of that for a minute or two. There's also the fact that Pride is not about the 99%. That's not the point. (You're going to see this point made again and again here.)

Speaking of imperialism, even while some supporters cheer Obama for his support of marriage equality in North Carolina—“a day after it could have done some good,” Occupy Chicago organizer James Cox reminded me—I think of the words of Mike Knish: “For every one of us cheering Obama’s entry into the 21st century, there is a pile of dead Afghani kids who don’t give a shit”

WTF? "Speaking of imperialism"? Well, of course he was speaking about imperialism -- why, Gay Pride is all about the fight against imperialism. Just ask any leftist with a high score on the purity index. This reminds me so much of the political speeches after Pride parades in the 80s by the likes of Urvashi Vaid that I'm really wondering if this guy is in a time warp of some sort.

No, Gay Pride is not about Afghanistan.

And what about [Bradley] Manning? The now-famous (increasingly so) whistleblower who allegedly disclosed evidence of US war crimes was honored in the parade with a float from Chicago activist Andy Thayer’s Gay Liberation Network (GLN), which featured a healthy Occupy Chicago contingent among a group of roughly 35. Tunes from a previous anti-war movement—Edwin Starr, John Lennon, and Marvin Gaye—backed the group, which sought to bring political consciousness to an event that seemed, as Cox noted, “more about having fun than trying to achieve any right.” This is to be praised. The problem comes, then, in the GLN’s full and unqualified acceptance of Private Manning as a gay man and not, as is definitely possible, a transgender woman.

OK -- Bradley Manning was honored with a float, but it's a bad thing because it didn't identify Manning as a transgender woman, because he might be.

Do I really have to comment on that?

That's the bulk of it. There are actually comments thanking this idiot for this post, on the order of "the fight for gay rights is the fight for everyone's rights" -- notable because the point is not that everyone should be fighting for our rights, but that we're supposed to be fighting for everyone else's. To be fair, there are also comments pointing out other of the huge flaws in the author's reasoning, and the poster under whose auspices this went up, Kit O'Connell, left a comment that does display the sense of proportion that I find so lacking in the post itself.

The point of this is that these commentaries display the lack of a sense of proportion that I find as endemic on the left as on the right. They are talking about a specific event, and in effect trying to dictate to the rest of us what our celebration is supposed to be, starting with the baseline, which is that all the elements of their agendas must be included. If you follow this blog at all, you know I don't respond well to authority, particularly if that authority is self-bestowed.

Maybe next year I'll write my own post on Gay Pride -- on what it is, not what I think it should be.

Yeah, I Know

I've been slacking off again. I'm tired,and it's really becoming spring, so I have no attention span whatsoever, and the news is not new.

I do have some thoughts on the King & Spaulding/DOMA mess, but I think there are a couple of posts that summarize my thoughts pretty effectively, without me having to do the work of actually thinking about it. Try this one from David Link at Independent Gay Forum. I don't often agree with Link, but in this case I think he's hit it right on the nose. Link's post is a response to this bit of handwringing from Jonathan Rauch, which typifies the response of the "acceptable" left and the Very Serious People in the corporate media.

This post from Scott Wooledge at The New Civil Rights Movement takes, I think, exactly the right tone: unmitigated snark.

My own reaction to most of the tut-tutting has been to the effect that no matter what small victories we achieve, we can count on finding those both inside and outside the community who will take it as an opportunity to proclaim once again what bullies we are (always prefaced, in this case, with "I personally believe DOMA is abhorrent. But. . . .")

It's also gratifying to learn that most of my surmises in this post turned out to be pretty accurate.

The real lesson from all of this, which is the one the right doesn't want you to hear, is that anti-gay bigotry is bad for business.

Sarah Palin for VP

WTF?

Joke of the Week.

Update:

If you want a good take on what's wrong with the left wing of the Democratic party in this country, read this post by Melissa McEwan.

I'm pissed at the Dems because it feels like they let Clinton get beat to fuck against that glass ceiling until she was black and blue only for the fucking Republicans to make use of her sacrifice. . . .

And of course, neither the Republicans nor the corporate press had anything to do with it at all -- it's all Obama's fault.

But mostly I'm pissed that John McCain and Karl Rove and the GOP shat all over a historic moment in our nation's history and couldn't give Obama one. goddamn. day. to be rightfully celebrated as a candidate of national historical significance.

Excuse me -- this is John McCain and Karl Rove and the GOP doing what they've been doing for the past generation or more. And McEwan expected something different in this campaign?

Do you start to understand why I don't go to Shakesville for analysis?

Ditto for Bilerico -- get this one:

One of my best friends and I have been Hillary supporters from the beginning. Today my friend e-mailed me to say that she might be voting for McCain because he picked a woman. How many other voters like her are there? I'm willing to say a lot. And if you want to call my friend a moron, let me pre-empt your attacks by saying she's a prosecuting attorney and was a nationally competitive debater for ten years. So this woman knows a thing or two about politics.

I know lawyers. I've worked for lawyers, gone to school with lawyers, hung out with lawyers, including litigators -- do you want to know how many lawyers I know who can't find their butts with both hands and a map? And why should a lawyer know anything more about politics than any cabbie? By the same token, creationists and the anti-gay right are star debaters -- but they aren't really concerned very much with reality or things like, you know, facts. If picking Sarah Palin -- who's nothing more than a trophy VP pick -- is a reason to vote for a completely and thoroughly anti-women ticket, someone's best friends are not playing with a full deck.

What we have here is a bad case of identity politics run amok, not to mention a seriously gender-centric worldview. Can we just get over ourselves for a minute and think about what other considerations might play a role in the selection of a running mate -- like complementarity with the head of the ticket, as well as ability to govern? And, dare I say it, some sort of expertise?

Publius has much more rational commentary at Obsidian Wings.

Aside from that, I'm not going to comment further on McCain's VP pick, except to note that the press will handle her with kid gloves, because that's the way the press handles Republicans.

Calling BS on Aravosis

AmericaBlog is one that I read daily, with full awareness that it's rabidly partisan, often shrill, and sometimes borderline unhinged. This one, however, stopped me cold. Citing this WaPo story, John Aravosis says in his post:

Washington Post calls being gay a "lifestyle choice"

[. . .]

And it's not just the headline, it's in the article itself. They're talking about being gay (unless they're going to claim that they meant opposing abortion is a "lifestyle choice," and if so, they're entering Alice in Wonderland territory).

In point of fact, no.

In the online version of the story, the headline is different, and the only use of the term "lifestyle choices" in in the lede:

For nearly two years, a young political aide sought to cultivate a "farm system" for Republicans at the Justice Department, hiring scores of prosecutors and immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices.

I think we can all agree that a "Christian life" is a matter of choice.

Even in the version Aravosis has posted, the "lifestyle choices" bit in the subhead can't really be taken as a reference to gays. The widest interpretation, as far as I can see, still leaves it value-neutral, and the obvious connotation is that it's about the right wing.

There's been plenty to criticize WaPo for over the past few years, enough that I don't think we need to make shit up. I've seen Aravosis spin stuff until it made me dizzy, but this is beyond the Pale. (He's even got this one labeled "gay." Please.) One of the advantages Left Blogistan has over Right Blogistan is that we don't do that.

Let's keep it that way.

Not FGB: Left Meets Right

at the extremes. From Pam Spaulding, who got it from Shakesville, who got it from Michelle Obama Watch, this story, which features Pam Spaulding doing her best Jeremiah Wright imitation:

It's the level of rationalization, excuse-making and countercharges that what we are seeing isn't racism that has been mind-boggling. It reveals the sickness that needs to be cured. We are a diseased nation.

Via Kate @ Shakesville -- Gina of What About Our Daughters launched a Michelle Obama Watch site to combat the right-wing attack machine on the future First Lady. Who knew she was going to have to feature this morally bankrupt "art" by someone named Yazmany Arboleda that, among other things, calls the two Obama daughters "nappy headed-hos."

Spaulding links to this blog post from LA Times, which in turn links to the NYT story, this article from the Sun-Sentinal (Broward County, FL), and this piece from David Segal at WaPo, which provides the most detail. However, all three of the posters seem to have gotten their information and their stance from commentary from Warren Ballentine, "The People's Attorney", who seems to have misreported the incident and places the same emphasis that Spaulding does: after noting the title, Ballentine writes:

The artist thought his racist views were protected under the Constitution because he was expressing himself through his art. Wrong.

Sorry, but comparing Ballentine's comments with the information from the news stories, I think there's an element of misrepresentation here. I'm not going to accuse anyone of editing the news to fit a polemic. I will say, however, that we seem to have a group of bloggers who have let their ideology blind them to the reality of this particular incident. In point of fact, the so-called "racist" views (and more on that peculiar construction later) are protected. Ballentine doesn't strike me as much of a lawyer.

Another part of the exhibition was an "Assassination of Hillary Clinton" piece, which is what one of the stories comments with precipitating the police involvement, but it's got to be the title of the exhibition itself: The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama. NYPD, however, was quite explicit that the exhibition was not shut down and that the artist was not charged. The title on the street-level glass front of the building was blocked out. Assassination in relation to a presidential candidate is a legitimate concern of the authorities, and needs to be investigated to be sure there is no real threat. Spaulding, however, doesn't want to be bothered with that little detail, and wants to "step back" and bring her own agenda to the forefront:

So, the big picture is that the whole assassination thing is what deep-sixed this, as the artist learned the hard way. But stepping back from that aspect of it, should this have been shut down, or is it freedom of speech and Arboleda's work should have been seen and commented upon by the public who saw it first hand?

Given the tone of the whole post, I strongly suspect that a) Spaulding is offended, and not by the assassination piece (sure, it's offensive, no argument); therefore, everyone must be offended to the extent that the artist's head is in jeapordy; b) because the artist doesn't portray Obama with the respect Spaulding feels he deserves, he's a bad man and probably deserves whatever the police hand out (not that she comes out and says so, but read her post -- it's hard to escape that conclusion).

And, just to answer her question, under a heading borrowed from Atrios: "Short Answers to Stupid Questions": No, it should not have been shut down, not on the basis she's proposing, and it has not been shut down specifically because of the artist's First Amendment rights. And not only does he have a right to express his views, the public has a right to see them. I'd like to know who said art has to be inoffensive -- oh, wait, wasnt' that Jesse Helms or some other right wingnut who kept trying to pull funding from the NEA?

I wonder if Spaulding likes the company she's in.

I am grossly offended by the way this incident has been misrepresented. The MSM did a much better job on it (give or take the stupid blog post from NYT). Spaulding's beef is the "racist" aspect, which she can't even support except on the basis of her perception: she presents no evidence that this artist is a racist, but a tenuous and not very believable diatribe on how this country is sick and every portrayal of a black man that doesn't fit her criteria is "racist." This exhibition is quite obviously a commentary on racism and misogyny as they has appeared in the MSM coverage of the Democratic primaries. (And I might note that Spaulding has been more than happy to pile on when those subjects come up.)

There a context issue here, as well. All three bloggers have stripped the events as well as the exhibition of their original context and substituted one of their own, which is a standard tactic we've seen from the anti-gay right wing. For example, we had to learn the title of the exhibition from one of the commenters at Shakesville. That is a pretty significant omission from all the posts.

I could extend the benefit of the doubt to these posters and say perhaps they just didn't know the title. I don't think that would be justified: it's not that hard to learn (it's called "Google," people), and it's an important aspect of this exhibition. I have to conclude that they just didn't bother to find out -- someone's agenda is hanging out, and it's not pretty. I think one reason I'm so incensed about this is that we have enough problems with racism, misogyny, and homophobia in this country that we don't need to go looking for it where it doesn't exist.

And I think what amazes me the most about all three of these posts is that they just don't get it. Nor, for the most part, do their commenters. I've had a long-standing suspicion that religious fundamentalists just don't understand metaphor, which is why they need the Bible to be literal truth. And now we're seeing it among the PC fundamentalists. There are way too many comments about "targeting" little girls, when to anyone who bothers to think about it at all, that was obviously not the case. We may decide that it's good art or bad art, but if you're not going to take into consideration that it's a commentary on current events, and not an event in itself, you're really missing the point completely. (My own take, based solely on the installation photos I've seen, is "eh." Could have been a lot more subtle, and I think that way a lot more effective. One has to consider that the blatancy of the works is going to turn people off, and where's your message if no one wants to listen? On the other hand, the artist is all of 28 and probably can't be expected to know any better.) I'm not sure I like the idea of the arts in this country being an equal opportunity victim. (And of course, as I type that sentence, it occurs to me that what we have here is victim politics being milked for all it's worth.)

And after reading , you will see just what garbage the posts from Gina, Harding, and Spaulding are. Just change the labels, and you've got something worthy of Little Green Footballs or The Corner. And people wonder why the blogosphere is in such disrepute: there's a lot of information out there on this incident, and all three of them got it wrong by the simple expedient of jumping on their high horses and charging madly off in all directions without bothering to digest any of it.

And now you see why the extreme left leaves me with the same taste in my mouth as the extreme right: The term is "knee-jerk," emphasis on the second syllable.

Update:

Digby has some pointed remarkson the misogyny side of this question, which I think apply at least as well to the racism side. Maybe we would all be better served by treating the questions that Arboleda tried to address with some seriousness, and stop trying to shoot the messenger.

PC Amok

I have to confess that I'm more than a little mystified by the left blogosphere's reaction to Hillary Clinton's remarks about Robert F. Kennedy, not to mention the reaction of the "liberal" media. Keith Olbermann went completely batshit (as reported by John Aravosis:

The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time!

And to not appreciate, immediately -- to **still** not appreciate tonight -- just **what** you have done... is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead.

This, Senator, is too much.

Because a senator -- a politician -- a **person** -- who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot -- has no business being, and no apacity **to** be, the President of the United States.

Lord. Love. A. Duck. First of all, just who in the hell is Keith Olbermann to be telling anyone what they may or may not say? And as for not appreciating "what you have done"? And just what is that?

Andrew Sullivan is all over it (here, here (another link dump), here, here, and here).
Of course, given that it's Sullivan, the type specimen of Clintonphobia, that's no real surprise. And given the link dumps with reactions from other sources from both Sullivan and Aravosis, you can see that this has hit big.

I see two things here. It wasn't the brightest comparison, given that assassination has been in the air since the first rumors of Obama's possible candidacy, but it's not so inflammatory or reprehensible as Olbermann makes out, nor is it worth the time and effort that Sullivan has put into reporting it. The whole flap reminds me of nothing so much as the attempts to either ban or bowdlerize classic literature such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it contains the "N" word. (Oh, and can you say "$400 haircut"?) If we have to be afraid of something that should provide an opportunity to deepen understanding, then there's something really bad wrong here. If one cannot take a dispassionate look at what actually happened, in the context of what was intended, then I think you're probably suffering from badly impaired interpersonal skills. (I'm reminded of a very active thread a while back at EA Forums about hate speech and insults that concluded that intent is a large part of any insult, and that we are, in general, good enough at picking up nonverbal cues from each other that we can usually tell what's going on. Granted, it's harder when relying on the written word -- which most of these commentators seem to have been doing -- but it's not impossible unless you just don't get it. Or if you have an agenda.)

One might also, for example, point out that Clinton was talking about long-running primary contests, not assassinations. While there are public figures of such a low standing on the general humanity scale that they might relish such an idea, I can't quite convince myself that Clinton is one of them, no matter what Sullivan thinks.

The second thread to this is that I see the blogosphere setting itself up as the new Washington Insiders. That bothers me. I'd much rather be part of a swarm of gadflies. Taking something like this, blowing it out of proportion, and not discussing the substrate that's leading to that reaction (which we will probably get eventually from Dave Neiwert or Glenn Greenwald), makes you one of the Villagers.

(I'm happy to note that Scott Lemieux, who is one of those bloggers whose opinions I tend to respect, agrees with me And Robert Farley has, I think, the proper attitude about the whole brouhaha.) (Update Sunday morning: Surfing around a bit more yesterday afternoon, I'm gratified to see that several commentators have maintained some sort of rationality about it.)

Speaking of Stupid

This, from Jeralyn Merritt at Talk Left, is worthy of some sort of hall of fame. And basing her screed on comments by Politico?

Puh-leeze!

And Jeralyn's score:

Agenda hanging out: 10
Reading comprehension: 0

. . . assuming she actually read Obama's remarks, which is doubtful. And reading through the comments, you get the feeling that no one read Obama's remarks. I mean, get this: here's Obama, speaking in favor of Jim Webb's 21st Century GI Bill and attacking McCain for opposing it, and the commenters at this post have their knickers all twisted because a) Jeralyn's not too bright and/or b) she's a Hillary hack (and please don't think that I consider the two mutually exclusive), and c) Obama somehow is criticizing Democreats, which is an idea put in their heads by the aforementioned not-too-bright possible Hillary hack, and is also an idea that some of them have managed to morph into Obama criticizing the troops because he's an elitist snob who doesn't understand Real Americans.

(head scratch)

That's almost as good as Leonard Stimson having heard that Obama's a Muslim. And starting here, the comments get positively surreal.

Thanks to hilzoy, who has some incisive remarks on this one.

The Night of the Generals?

John Aravosis finds this hugely disturbing as a reflection of the thinking of our top military leaders:

Okay, first off, sounds a little bit like he's questioning the fact that we're having elections. This strikes me as inappropriate coming for the uniformed military, or anyone else for that matter. It also sounds like he's cranking up the "scary" in order to help the Republicans win the elections. That's just as inappropriate from a member of our military.

Okay, first off, I think Aravosis is reading a lot into this that isn't there. The article reads to me simply as Mullen giving a hint of how the military is thinking in order to insure a smooth transition to a new administration, and one that is likely to represent a distinct shift in the attitude toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that's all to the good, and certainly not surprising at all: that's Mullen's job, to think ahead.

I seldom quote Aravosis, although I do link to stories he presents, simply because while what he's reporting is often germane to my interests, he tends to be somewhat shrill and more than a little alarmist. Case in point. Commenting on Aravosis on Republicans is sort of like commenting on Bruce Carroll on Democrats: we already know what he's going to say, we don't even need to know the specific issue.

Read the article, because Aravosis' spin is way out there.