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Friday, April 11, 2008 |
Matt Taibbi: Erica Jong Thinks I Want to Do My Mother: A Response.
I feel compelled to respond to an article written in part about me by emigree contributor Erica Jong. According to the eight hundred year-old sex novelist, my offhand description of Hillary Clinton's arms as "flabby" means that I'm a misogynist and a sexist who is guilty of "Momism," which she describes as an "Oedipal obsession with the bad mother -- to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother." The whole of her argument is based upon my use of that one word, "flabby" -- which she argues is evidence of my typically male tendency to fixate on the appearance of female politicians. Like other sexist men, I apparently trained my monomaniacal focus on Hillary's appearance while while ignoring the paunches, liver spots and comb-overs of male politicians.
Jong has apparently never read anything else I've written. Here is a short catalogue of some of the physical descriptions I've used in recent articles about male politicians:
RUDY GIULIANI, former presidential candidate: "Virtually neckless, all shoulders and forehead and overbite, with a hunched-over, Draculoid posture that recalls, oddly enough, George W. Bush, the vestigial stoop of a once-chubby kid who grew up hiding tittie pictures from nuns." Also: "The electoral incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones' acid-bath-surviving Two-Face character." A "bottomless pit of vengeful little-guy ambition."
MARK PENN, former chief strategist for the Clinton campaign: "Penn is the Democratic version of Karl Rove. He even looks like Rove, only he's fatter and more disgusting. Up close in a forum like this, his eyes bulge out of his fat, blood-flushed head; his neck spills out of his too-tight shirt collar; and he generally looks like Jabba the Hutt, his suit bursting at the seams, with only the bowl of snackable live toads suspended at arm's length missing from the picture."
MIKE HUCKABEE, former presidential candidate: "Huckabee, who in recent years has lost 100 pounds, has the roundish, half-deflated physique of an ex-fatty. With his button nose and never-waning smile, he looks slightly unreal, like an oversize Muppet."
TOM DELAY, former House majority leader: "DeLay moves through the aisles like some kind of balding incubus, and as he passes, Republican members instinctively turn their backs on him, not wanting to be caught in the Gorgon's gaze (or, more to the point, be threatened with the loss of a chairmanship or reelection funding)."
JAMES SENSENBRENNER, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman: "An ever-sweating, fat-fingered beast who wields his gavel in a way that makes you think he might have used one before in some other arena, perhaps to beat prostitutes to death." Also: "Your basic Fat Evil Prick, perfectly cast as a dictatorial committee chairman: He has the requisite moist-with-sweat pink neck, the dour expression, the penchant for pointless bile and vengefulness."
MITT ROMNEY, former presidential candidate: An "utter tool...a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo who will say (or won't say, for that matter) whatever the fuck it takes to get elected." Also: "When it comes to the satanic art of presidential campaigning, this lean, heavily moussed political athlete is a stone prodigy, a natural who glides through campaign events with the aid of some dark supernatural power - a tie-clad, sweat-resistant cross of Roy Hobbs and Rosemary's Baby."
BORIS YELTSIN, former Russian president: "A pig... A human appendage of a rotting, corrupt state, a crook who would emerge even from the hottest bath still stinking of booze, concrete and sausage."
TOM TANCREDO, former presidential candidate: "Vengeful midget."
JOHN McCAIN, Republican nominee: "On the trail, McCain looks equally pathetic -- slow-moving, soft-spoken and physically frail. With his lecturing tone and corny jokes ('Governor Schwarzenegger and I have many similar attributes'), he recalls the moralizing granddad who's not a bad egg overall but who embarrasses the fuck out of you by waiting till your late thirties to give you the birds-and-the-bees speech."
That's just from the last few years. And yet according to Jong, the reason I decided to use the term "flabby" when describing Hillary Clinton is because, deep down inside, I want to fuck my mother. "And love is the problem, of course," Jong-Freud writes. "You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her."
I mean, wow. And I thought I was a hack.
Sincerely,
Matt Taibbi
Related:
Erica Jong: Misogyny, Momism and Militarism
 [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com]
10:51:18 AM 
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OAS Chief to US Congress: No Venezuela-Terrorist Link. WASHINGTON - There is no evidence linking Venezuela to terrorist groups, the head of the Organization of American States told US lawmakers looking into last month’s Colombia-Ecuador border crisis.
“You mean does Venezuela support terrorist groups? I don’t think so,” OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said Thursday during a heated exchange with Florida Representative Connie Mack, [...] [CommonDreams.org » Headlines07]
10:08:07 AM
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Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups. A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided [...] [CommonDreams.org » Headlines07]
9:51:47 AM
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McCain Adviser Ralph Peters: Military Strain From Stop-Loss Policies Is ‘A Myth Of The Left’. On Sept. 14, 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13223, allowing the administration to implement a “stop-loss” policy. Under stop-loss, “military personnel can be prevented from leaving the armed forces upon completing their enlistment terms.” Stop-loss policies were created after the Vietnam War. However, the Bush administration has overstretched the military by extensively using these orders to make up for declines in re-enlistment as the Iraq war drags on.
Yesterday on PBS’s Newshour, ret. Lt. Col. Ralph Peters — who now advises Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign on national security affairs — called the dangers of stop-loss policies a “myth of the left.” “Stop-loss is old,” said Peters. “This is not a new thing. In time of crisis, soldiers can be extended. They know it.”
Peters was sharply rebutted by Bobby Muller, president of Veterans for America, who pointed out that many high-ranking military officials have also warned that the Bush administration’s policies are overstretching the armed forces:
BOBBY MULLER: You might think that Bobby Muller is parroting myths created by the left in this country when I talk about stop-loss, but Colin Powell is not parroting any left-wing fantasies. General Casey, General Cody, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, they’re on record. This is not sustainable. There are people being held…
RALPH PETERS: But that’s a different issue.
BOBBY MULLER: I suggest that you may be out of touch with the military today if you think that all of these people that sign up for four years or five years of active military duty really expected — just like the National Guard — that they would wind up being extended for, additionally, a couple of years beyond their contract period?
No, sir, they’re not expecting that.
Watch it:
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Yesterday, Bush finally announced that he would be “cutting Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months.” This move came after months of warnings from his top military advisers. “The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply,” Army Chief of Staff George Casey said back in September. This week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen noted he was “very public for many months that we need to get off 15 month deployments as fast as we can.” In July 2007, Gen. Colin Powell also observed, “[T]hey probably can’t keep this up at this level past the middle of next year, I would guess. This is a tremendous burden on our troops.”
If Peters believes that there is nothing wrong with stop-loss, is he advising McCain to sustain this policy…perhaps for 100 years?
Digg It!
Transcript: (more…)
[Think Progress]
9:45:32 AM
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Boston newsman protests Bill Oâo[dot accent]Reillyâo[dot accent]s Emmy Award..  Barry Nolan, a local Boston news reporter, is mounting a campaign to protest the fact that Bill O[base ']ÄôReilly will be awarded an Emmy Award by the Boston/New England Chapter next month. Nolan insists that O[base ']ÄôReilly is [base ']Äúa mental case[base ']Äù who shouldn[base ']Äôt be held up as an example of journalistic integrity:
[base ']ÄúI am appalled, just appalled,[base ']Äù Nolan told the Track. [base ']ÄúHe inflates and constantly mangles the truth…and his frequent target is the [base ']Äòleft-leaning[base ']Äô media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him.[base ']Äù [[base ']Ķ]
[base ']ÄúI hope people will express their displeasure to the board of governors and they[base ']Äôll rescind their decision,[base ']Äù he said. [base ']ÄúIt[base ']Äôs morally unacceptable.[base ']Äù
Nolan plans to attend the May 10 ceremony, and he’s invited Keith Olbermann as his date.
[Think Progress]
9:44:16 AM
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Obama Urges Parental Responsibility. GARY, Ind. — The standard Barack Obama venue lately has been high schools. Truman High School, Theodore Roosevelt High School, Jefferson High School.
The Democratic presidential candidate has been pitching an audience-pleasing message of economic populism to crowds of a few thousand packed into each gymnasium. But he gets some of his loudest applause when he segues to education _ and a bit of a lecture to mothers and fathers on how to be parents.
Sure, there is the usual critique of current government policies. But the cheering peaks with a dose of tough talk.
"Parents if you don't parent, we can't improve our schools," he said. "You've got to parent. You've got to turn off the television set in your house once in a while, you've got to put the video game away once in a while."
Obama, who aspires to be the first black president, dwells a little longer on the subject with predominantly black audiences, as he did Thursday in this economically struggling city in the south shore of Lake Michigan.
"You should have a curfew in your house so your children aren't out in the streets all night. You should meet with the teacher and find out what the homework is and help that child with the homework. And if you don't know how to do the homework, don't be embarrassed, find someone to help you."
"Fathers, be fathers," he added. "Be a part of your child's life. Be a part of your child's life and try to make them proud.
"And the last thing is, if your child is misbehaving at school don't curse out the teacher. You know who you are. It's not the teacher's fault that your child is misbehaving. That's some home training."
The crowd reacted raucously and Obama laughed. "You know what I say is true, though. Don't blame the teachers, and the government and the schools if you're not doing your job."
That assessment of responsibility is a variation of a sentiment he expressed last month in his speech on race in Philadelphia.
Obama's self-help message has a broader political appeal, blending a socially conservative solution with his more liberal view that government can and should do more to improve the lot of Americans. And the appeal to fathers is rooted in his own experience, a doting father himself who was raised by his mother and a grandmother after his father left the family when he was 2.
For Obama _ and for voters _ his race has a double edge. In the speech on race on March 18, he noted that he has been variously deemed "too black" or "not black enough." In primary after primary, he wins the vast share of the black vote. Yet his race also represents a transitional, even historic, moment for the country and the presidential contest so far proves he has defied simple racial pigeonholing.
So while Obama may be the politician with the best credentials to speak candidly and admonish the black community, he also has worked vigorously to present himself as the presidential candidate who happens to be black rather than the black candidate.
Obama can display a comfortable ease with an audience and can riff off a crowd, no matter the skin hue. But these freelance exchanges are all the more noticeable when he is speaking to blacks _ and he gets away with stereotypes that might cause offense coming from another candidate.
He'll make reference to "cousin Pookie" _ a fictional layabout whom he urges supporters to "get off the couch."
Asked Thursday by a student in Gary to discuss the shrinking value of the dollar, Obama said it was a symptom of a trade imbalance and a burgeoning debt.
"We've been borrowing money like nobody's business from China," he said. "We're like that cousin who always comes and never seems to have a job. He's out there buying new rims on his car, but can't pay the rent."
In white suburban schools in Pennsylvania and Indiana, he offers sobering words for college-bound students, whom he says on the one hand want affordable education but also expect colleges to provide a high quality of life.
"You're going to have to be better consumers of higher education," he told one student in Malvern, Pa., who said she faced a $45,000 a year tuition. "When I was going to school, we knew the food was going to be bad. The gym didn't have all the state of the art Nautilus equipment."
In Lafayette, Ind., Thursday evening, he expanded, sounding much like a parent at the dinner table.
"There are kids in China and India who are learning an awful lot of math and an awful lot of science with facilities that are a lot worse than the ones we have," he said. "And we have to keep that in mind when we're shopping for schools and encouraging school administrators to cut out the frills."
 [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com]
9:38:34 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Patricia Thurston.
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