Heathers: They're Gonna Get Mean, and They're Gonna Get Ugly Somehow, and There's Gonna Be a Million More of Them...

Paul Krugman and Clive Crook congratulate America for becoming its best self.

I am not so sure.

Here's one of the mean ones: Robin Givhan of (surprise!) the Washington Post:

Just before Barack Obama celebrated his victory, Hillary Clinton celebrated her tenacity. She was in New York and she took the stage with Bill Clinton, who was wearing a dark suit and a burgundy tie. One desperately wanted to speed-dial one of his aides to suggest he stop wearing those red and orange ties because they have a tendency to make him look inflamed. As Hillary Clinton spoke, she was smiling that talk-show smile -- the one that never wavers. She was dressed all in cobalt blue: her pants, her jacket and the blouse or tunic she had on underneath it. Stylists will often advise clients to dress in a single hue to elongate their figure, but they're usually talking about subdued colors such as black or navy. The only people who dress from head to toe in bright blue are more than likely telling you to put your seat tray in the upright and locked position. What would possess a woman seeking the highest office to dress in a manner that only Veruca Salt could love?...

And here's one of the ugly ones: Tom Sowell of the (surprise!) Hoover Institution in the Orville Faubus role:

There is one big difference between now and the 1930s.... [W]hen all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively. But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs. Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.... [W]e do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job. John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America...

To quote the immortal Guy Fleegman: "I don't like this. I don't like this at all.... [I]n a second they're gonna get mean, and they're gonna get ugly somehow, and there's gonna be a million more of them..."

Comments

[Neil B.]

I think that Obama's big dilemma right now is what to do with Hillary. He has many reasons not to pick her for Veep, but that may be the only way to mollify her supporters enough to enable a win in November. What to do?

[MaryLou]

Clive Crook was fairly mean in his comments about the Clintons and their legacy in his pro-Obama column. Also, if you consider 'popular vote' to be number of voters who actually voted for a candidate, then Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. That is not inconsiderable. Her supporters will not take kindly to continued characterizations as 'whiny' 'racists' (at least not if their support in the generaly election is actually desired). Time for the Obama campaign to call in the kool-aid drinkers and send out the grown-ups.

[jerry]

You may not have realized this Brad, but many people were wondering what *your damage* was.

Some felt that Hillary Clinton was a true friend, but that you and Josh Marshall and Matthew Yglesias had sold her out for a bunch of Swatch dogs and Diet Coke heads.

It was pretty clear that over at AmericaBlog, the motto was "real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly."

Some people heard Markos saying about Clinton, "They all want me as a friend or a fuck. I'm worshiped at Westerburg and I'm only a junior."

What I heard so much of the netroots claiming was "You were nothing before you met me. You were playing Barbies with Betty Finn. You were a Bluebird. You were a Brownie. You were a Girl Scout Cookie."

So I am not sure that the discussion around here should really turn to the Heathers.

[jerry]

Okay, having read Paul Krugman's column, and he is right again, I have my "get off my lawn" moment, seeing this in the right column. "Who's smarter: Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg?"

Now, personally, I think Bill Gates IS Satan. But to even compare that little pimple Zuckerberg to Gates? Get off my lawn!

[jerry]

I would like to see Krugman explore his ideas concerning misogyny, because I think the story is more mixed than he lets on.

There is definitely misogyny in society. But a lot too that has happened is that America has grown up, victorian mores have been abandoned, and women and society are finding themselves able to handle BOTH equal opportunities as well as a healthy interest in sexuality.

A lot of what is claimed to be misogyny by modern, radical, feminists, simply is not, and much of America, and specifically American women have come to understand that to the dismay of the modern radical feminists. Disagreeing with feminism is not prima facie misogyny. Looking at porn is not prima facie misogyny. Visiting strip bars and sex workers is not prima facie misogyny. Believing there is gray rape is not prima facie misogyny. Examining biases against men in courtrooms, demanding that the accuser bear witness, getting rid of legal double standards in family court and asking for a rebuttable presumption of joint shared custody is not prima facie misogyny. Asking that girls under 18 have parental permission or the permission of a judge prior to obtaining an abortion is not prima facie misogyny. Cliched commercials that emphasize tits and ass are no more misogynistic than commercials that use cliches of men as dolts compared to their wives and children.

There are definitely aspects of society that are misogynistic, but a lot of what has happened, has been that much of society has examined and rejected the phonier claims of mainstream radical feminism in ways that could never have happened for racism. And in other aspects, in equal pay, in access to education, in hiring, in allotments of housework, in bringing up kids, most of the institutionalized barriers for women have been lifted and men and women that find existing ones work together to remove the rest.

It's time for the sanctimonius women's studies set to be rebooted.

[Tuco]

We owe a debt of gratitude to Hillary for battle hardening Obama. And to his credit he ran an excellent campaign. He looks to be a much more formidable opponent than Kerry ever was.

As to the polls, Americans have shown themselves to be much stupider than the rest of the planet. Sigh...

[Tuco]

OK, the remark about the polls should have been posted one thread up.

[rea]

For crying out loud, here it is at last--the confrontation between Obama and McCain for the presidency, with the right already accusing the presumptive nominee of the Deocratic Party of having "spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America." And what do we get in this thread? A bunch of people who want to talk about Hillary Clinton.

She's not running for president any more. She's endorsed Obama, wh shares her ideas about . . . nearly everything. Get focused on beating McCain, people.

[howard]

all i really want to know is whether thomas sowell is getting stupider or whether he was always this frickin' dumb and i didn't realize the extent of his ignorance.

plus, what rea said....

[Doctor Jay]

It's time for the sanctimonius women's studies set to be rebooted.

Gee, and that wasn't a sanctimonius comment, not at all.

Honestly, if that shot from Sowell is the best they've got, Obama will have it wrapped up by mid-September.

[Ken Houghton]

"McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America."

No, but his lobbyist-advisors have certainly spent decades aiding and abetting those who are clearly opposed to the American ideals of freedom and democracy. (Which, presumably by the Reagan standard, doesn't matter to Sowell if they can be construed as "allies"?)

[Robert Waldmann]

What Rea said and what howard said when he said "What Rea said."

wasn't Robin Givhan chief janissary storm trooper in the vanguard of the war on Gore ?

Now if Clinton still had a chance, I would guess that her writing about clothes (doesn't the post have a fashion section ? Why doesn't Givhan work there ?) was an effort to stimulate misogyny. As it is, I guess she is just dumb as well as nasty and dishonest.

[jerry]

My point in bringing up Clinton, was that before we go all pointing out the Heathers, we seem to have a problem with Heathers in our own camp. This makes the information coming out of the liberal blogosphere NOT the reality based information it is claimed to be.

This leads to problems of amplification of bullshit, liberals running amuck over silly issues that just annoy people, repetition of smears, and lots of other nonsense.

Regarding Robin Givhan being one of the mean ones, she is the FASHION editor at the wapo. Talking about how people dress is her beat. I think it's 99% nonsense, but few people listen to me, and many people enjoy and appreciate that sort of discussion.

Most fashion talk seems to be elitist, east coast oriented, trendy, rich, preppy crap. And often almost sexist as all get out. But hey, criticizing Givhan for remarking on Clinton's dress and style is dumb. That's her job, and when she did the same thing to Cheney we all read and grinned. If you think it has no role in the election, first, sadly, I think you are wrong, and second, complain to her boss for printing that level of analysis.

I think all that style stuff is 99% crap, but then I'm a geeky engineer. Lots of people take that as proxies for sophistication, proxies for style and judgment, and indicative of who can go balls to balls with Putin. And I note that Obama seems to be a pretty snappy dresser too.

NIFOC.

[Doctor Memory]

"Some felt that Hillary Clinton was a true friend"

Some did, indeed. The rest of us remembered how many Americans and Iraqis are currently dead, disfigured, dispossessed and dying because that "true friend" (among many others, and we haven't forgotten them either) decided that she could trust George W. Bush's case for war in 2002. And we didn't think much of such friends.

[Monte Davis]

Re Sowell: You gotta love the neocon stance, firmly focused on the existential threat posed by an Iraq or Iran to a nation that outspends the rest of the developed world combined on defense... or by a jihadi's smuggled nuke... or by the irresistible cultural appeal of a faith/culture/governance model that reached its high-water mark centuries ago and has been choking itself ever since.

What confidence they have in our system and our values! I shudder to think how they'd view the world if they were "people who hate America."

[christofay]

H Clinton approved and voted for the Kyll Iranians Lieberman amendment (consider the still unlooked upon propaganda to drive the Iraq war) which alone will prevent me for voting for her ever.

That's what we need another hyped-up war to drive us all the way to Argentina.

[TedL]

Robin Givhan is the *fashion* writer for the Post. Every column she writes is about what people wear, and she gets extra points for snark. You may remember that at one point she raised a stir because she reviewed Cheney's choice of wardrobe when he went to visit a concentration camp.

So, yes, there was definitely some bad treatment of women in the press, but Chris Matthews would be a much better example.

[Oskar Shapley]

By Grabthar's Hammer, what a columns.

[piotr]

Re Sowell: no, he is not talking about jihadi smuggled nuke, he is positively raving: "But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs."

So who will rain nuclear attacks on American soil for three long years? New nuclear states, India and Pakistan, do not have nukes, they have crap. Low power overweight crap. India actually had something a bit better, plus India can cobble together an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea did not seem anywhere close. Iran did not even started yet. Capability ANYWHERE to stage multiple attacks probably resides in Russia alone, and without years of research and hundreds of billions of investments, it is not easily reproduced.

Sowell's idea of "window of opportunity" is a phantasmagoric vision. It does not translate into any possible plan of action. Perhaps, obliterate Iran as a precautionary measure. Morally, it does not compare favorably with Hitler.

The second slow reading of Sowell ravings indicate a possible logical meaning: we cannot survive three years of threats and attacks. Since it is hard to see how we would enable an opponent to stage multiple attacks, it would be three years of threats followed by an attack. This could be devastating indeed. Sowell, for one, seems to be close to madness because of mere anticipation of such threats, imagine how devastating an actual threat would be! And then, three years of them!

[piotr]

I think Robin Givhans renders invaluable service to the public. For starters, at least 15% of men are color blind, and they could never tell if Clinton look inflamed or subdued. I guess no less then 25% are ignorant about the proper names of colors. For myself, I would probably venture "some kind of blue" rather than "cobalt".

My guess would be that at least 3/4 of the male public is more or less color oblivious. Even faced with waterboarding, they would produce some hazy recollection of female dress at best. They get some general impression, but they do not know why. Enter Robin Givhans who can instruct and explain.

Probably giving a good coverage of a very important political even should be a team effort, with contributions from critics of fashion, entertainment, social scene, eating outside, and travel sections. I am ambivalent if the writers of gardening column should have some input as well. For some reason Bussiness Section is infested with people who pay attention to utterly boring stuff, so I would keep them away.

[Dom]

I think you mean Orval, not Orville. And why is Sowell taking that role in the comment you quoted? When, in any comment, has Sowell been a segregationist?