Lighten up everyone!

Crosslinked to STA

I used to enjoy the Rush TV show, but don’t find his radio show as enjoyable.  I prefer a local show on KVI 570 called the Commentators (PLUG-> ChaChing! $$ {I wish}).

And Rush has been known to go overboard IMHO in the course of his commentary, something the media loves to feast upon.

But he has also been known to apologize when he is wrong, something under reported.  So with all respect, I will carry his apology here regarding the Michael J Fox Ads.  Take it as you will.

Transcript

RUSH: I want to make an apology here. You have number seven from the audio sound bite roster ready to go? All right, let her rip.

FOX: The symptoms that I had in the ad that I did, that’s called dyskinesia, and that’s actually from too much medication.

RUSH: Okay, I need to apologize, I was wrong because I speculated either he didn’t take his medication or he was acting. I never said the word faking. Now, if you people on the left want to equate acting with faking, I mean, go ahead, George Clooney would be a faker, all your favorite actors, we’ll call them fakers. I never used the word. But I was wrong. He did take his medications. Now he took too much medication.

The point is, he did something differently to appear in this ad than when he appears on Boston Legal. And that was my first human reaction. "Whoa! I’ve never seen this. I have not seen this before." Now I gather, from the past three days, that we are to believe that this is the normal condition that poor Mr. Fox has to live with each and every day. That’s the impression that they’re leaving, is it not? That this is how his life is now, but he himself said he took too much medication. He didn’t do that when he went on Boston Legal, but it happened for the taping of this ad. I think the reason for that is so you would really, really hate Republicans, because Republicans don’t want to cure it. Jim Talent doesn’t care. Michael Steele doesn’t care. No one in the Republican Party cares. They don’t want to cure these things. They’re happy, in fact, to see people suffer like Mr. Fox is in this ad.

An interesting interview at Salon.com with Camille Paglia, where she skewers the Democrats over the Foley debacle.  Camille wastes no shots in pointing out the Democrat’s blunders, and even takes us back to the Clinton years, to the complaints and criticism about his sex-capades that were not expedient to say then.

This from a noted Democrat is very revealing.  I don’t think I have enjoyed reading anything at Salon more.

She also does a good job of pointing out where the Republicans have failed in the political debate.

And while I do not agree with her positions on the war in Iraq, I do think she has some interesting points along the way regardless.

Honestly the whole interview has merit and I would happily reprint it all, were it not for the restrictions on fair use.  I could spend a whole day extracting and saving my favorite one liners.

(emphasis added- original questions are underlined for clarity)

Salon Interview: Camille Paglia- Our fave pop intellectual weighs in on the Dems’ gift to Ann Coulter (Foley), why Condi’s success matters to feminsts, and Bob Woodward (yawn).

What has been your reaction to the huge uproar over Rep. Mark Foley, which was on the front pages of newspapers in Europe as well as the U.S. for two straight weeks?

Foley is obviously a moral degenerate, and the Republican House leadership has come across as pathetically bumbling and ineffectual. But the idea that this is some sort of major scandal in the history of American politics is ludicrous. This was a story that needed to be told for, you know, like two days.

Mark Foley was never on the radar of anyone outside the small circle of news junkies. So his fall and banishment from Washington were nothing but a drip in the torrential flood of current geopolitical problems. The way the Democratic leadership was in clear collusion with the major media to push this story in the month before the midterm election seems to me to have been a big fat gift to Ann Coulter and the other conservative commentators who say the mainstream media are simply the lapdogs of the Democrats. Every time I turned on the news it was "Foley, Foley, Foley!" — and in suspiciously similar language and repetitive talking points.

Yea ok, I get it already.  Politics is ugly.  In my last blog I noted that this is the ugliest election year I can remember.  Well this is that much more so.

This is as ugly as I have ever seen.  But…at the same time, if Foley was a pervert for making slightly suggestive remarks to an underage page, how sick is Webb to write some of this?  Some of the scenes are clearly delving into child porn.

So yes, this is ugly…but which is uglier, the guy who wrote it, or the people who want to use it against him?

Yea I know.  Free speech.  Well, decide for yourself if Allen crossed the line in reporting/revealing it, or if Webb did for authoring it.

Or if this is just more stupid politics.

I will state for the record that I have no personal interest in this race, nor do I have any in depth knowledge of either candidate.  This is being reported as being noteworthy in the discourse about the tactics in national political canpaigns, and may not be used as an implied or stated endorsement or condemnation of either candidate.

Warning:  The following contains graphic sexual content and is unedited or unaltered by this blogger.

****

Via Drudge

Sen. George Allen, R-VA, unleashed a press release late Thursday that exposed his rival’s fiction writing, which includes graphic underage sex scenes.

(image not posted)

The press release, as provided by the Allen Campaign:

WEBB’S WEIRD WORLD

The Author’s Disturbing Writings Show a Continued Pattern of Demeaning Women

· Some of Webb’s writings are very disturbing for a candidate hoping to represent the families of Virginians in the U.S. Senate.

· Many excellent books about the United States military and wartime service accomplish their purposes, and even win awards, without systematically demeaning women, and without dehumanizing women, men and even children.

Watch this ad.  And since you are feeling obedient, send me money.  Thank you. 

The Democrats decry this as racist.

OK so exactly how is this racist?  According to the Democras, because the girl in the playboy party segment is white and Ford is black.  So apparently the only reason the RNC chose that actress was to play on the racist fears of the voters who cannot tolerate a black man and woman in a relationship.

From the Chicago Trib:

Is the Republican National Committee’s playing the race card in a television ad against Rep. Harold Ford Jr., the African-American who hopes to be the first black elected to the Senate from a southern state since Reconstruction?

It certainly looked like it to William Cohen, the former Clinton administration Defense Secretary and one-time Republican U.S. senator from Maine.

COHEN: I think the Republicans have to be careful, also, in terms of not engaging in conduct. And I was watching the — the Tennessee race, specifically. It reminded me of what happened in North Carolina with Harvey Gantt, a purely overt racist approach.

BLITZER: You are talking about the new RNC ad which has this white woman talking about Playboy and the — the African-American candidate, Harold Ford Jr., the Democratic candidate.

COHEN: It’s — to me, at least as I watch that, is a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment.
And when the question is always asked, why — he would be the first African-American since Reconstruction elected to the Senate, you say, well, why is that the case? So, why is the South different? Why would they not elect someone…

BLITZER: So, you’re a former Republican senator. Is the RNC playing the racial card against Harold Ford in Tennessee right now?

COHEN: I think they are coming very close to it, if not doing it exactly. And I think they ought to stop it. I think that they have a candidate, and discuss the — the issues on the merits, and not get into that kind of personal type of an attack.