Updated…scroll to bottom.

No, I usually don’t venture this blog beyond the usual issues of sex and politics…but, being a fan of the National Football League, I figure that I might as well add my predictions for this weekend’s conference championships. Especially since they now affect me pretty directly.

First, the AFC early game:

New York Jets @ Indianapolis Colts – 3 PM EST kickoff, broadcast by CBS (Indy as 6-1/2 point faves)

Ahhh, the mouth and self-confidence of Rex “Son of Buddy” Ryan…and thus far his defense has more than backed up his smack with two straight road wins (Cincinnati and San Diego). The fact that he was helped by key critical mistakes by those teams (as in 3 missed field goals by the Chargers and a subpar performance by Carson Palmer and the loss of Cincy’s deep threat with Chris Henry’s tragic passing) does not change the fact that the J-E-T-S are in the Pentultimate Big Show….and that their rock-solid D and smash-mouth power running game (and the steady hand of rookie QB Mark Sanchez) gives them both a rally cry for the old school style of play and the oppurtunity to beat the house.

Problem is, for the Jets, Peyton Manning ain’t Carson Palmer or even David Rivers…he’s seen it all and responds all too well to pressure. And, even if Darrelle Revis, who is the ultimate Shutdown Corner right about now, can eliminate Colt WR Reggie Wayne, who will stop the rest of the Indy receivers?? Pierre Garcon??  Aaron Colie?? David Clark?? Oh, and while Indy’s running game has been a bit nonexistent, it is during the big games where backs like Joesph Addai flash their greatness.

If Rex’s boys can keep the game tight going into the 4th quarter, then they have a real chance for the upset. I just don’t see it getting that close, though…too much Peyton and dome field advantage.

Prediction: Colts 28, Jets 17.

Now, the late game:

Minnesota Vikings @ New Orleans Saints – 5:40 New Orleans time kickoff, broadcast by FOX (NO favored by 4-1/2)

The Vikings didn’t pay Brett Farve that much money, and head coach Brad Childress didn’t spend all that time coaxing him out of his “retirement”, just for fun. Just his experience and his wiles and his thowing out of his backside and finding the right guy at the right time has elevated the Vikes into a genuiinely feared Super Bowl threat. And although Adrian Peterson hasn’t had the big numbers of early seasons and hasn’t broken off the really big runs, he’s still durable and physical enough of a back to be taken seriously. That, and the modern day Purple People Eaters in the defensive front 4 (led by Jarred Allen), who basically decimated the vaunted Dallas Cowboys offense last week.

That was last week, though. And that was in Minneapolis.

New Orleans, though, is a fundamentally different team.

This is NOT the same team that gave up huge numbers to the likes of Washington, Atlanta, and Carolina, and who rested on their laurels and basically gave up the Tampa Bay game (though it still took a shanked Garrett Hartley game-winning field goal attempt at the end of regulation to keep the Bucs alive to win it in OT). Nor is it the same team that in the last four regular season games could not defend the run or run it themselves.

Drew Brees is….well, the surgeon that Drew Brees has always been, and with three All-Pro linemen defending his backside and some nifty playcalling by head coach Sean Payton, they should basically control that Minnesota pass rush. (Allen being the caveat, of course, if G Jerome Bushrod doesn’t get help in his blocking schemes.) It would help a great deal if TE Jeremy Shockey can play, he’s struggling with a knee injury, but is expected to contribute.

Oh…and did I mention this kid named Reggie Bush who has been hidden all this time during the regular season??  He adds the sizzle to the already steady and consistent trio of Pierre Thomas, Mike Bell, and Darnell Hamilton….and if the Viking front line is as dinged up as reported (DT Pat Williams is doubtful due to a knee injury), that could take tremendous pressure off of Brees and allow the Saints to do some ball control of their own and keep Farve off the field.

And when Farve is on the field, he won’t have one of key weapons, WR/KR Percy Harvin, who is suffering from chronic migranes and may not even make the trip down to New Orleans. One less headache for Saints D Coordinator Gregg Williams, who will attempt to both contain Peterson from breaking the big play and pressure Farve into making throws out of his ass…which could mean a big INT payday for all time interception leader S Darren Sharper.

Still…you dont want Brett Farve to have the ball last with time on the clock and a chance to win it all…he is that dangerous.

Fortunately, I don’t think that the Saints will allow him to get to that…because they start quick, score early and often, and get the breaks of a Peterson fumble and a Sharper INT (and perhaps even a Bush punt return TD or three)…and then slam the door on Farve late with constant pressure D.

Not to mention….they have the fiercest Dome-field advantage EVER….80,000 Whodats united blowing the roof off the Superdome can do wonders.

Prediction: Saints 38, Vikings 24.

We will see, of course, tomorrow. Should be fun times.

Update (1-23-10): Minnesota WR Percy Harvin did make the trip to New Orleans, but he’s still doubtful due to his chronic migranes. I do expect him to make a go at it. Saints TE Jerome Shockey is expected to play with a dinged up knee.

Some very interesting comments from TheCoach overat Lion’s Den University regarding his personal opinions on both games, First, on Saints/Vikings:

Last week, the Cowboys didn’t actually play as bad as the 34-3 thrashing intended. Dallas moved the chains early on in the game and had positioned themselves for a touchdown and a field goal before committing stupid penalties and turnovers but as soon as Flozell Adams went down, Jared Allen took over the game getting to Romo on almost every play. TheCoach doesn’t see Allen having the same type of impact this week unless the Saints suffer a huge blow during the game to their offensive line. No team has been able to pressure Brees this year because he is protected by one of the best offensive lines in football. After the Cardinals mauled Aaron Rodgers the week before, they couldn’t even bring down Brees once last week. If you watched the Cardinals-Saints game, you saw how good New Orleans can be when they play Saints football. It is not only because of their vast amount of talent, but because of how their head coach utilizes the talent. Sean Payton is a great head coach and at times in the game last week had linebackers covering wide-outs and had the entire Arizona defence bite on the flee-flicker that scored a touchdown. E.J. Henderson’s absence at middle linebacker didn’t hurt the Vikings last week because Romo had no time to do anything anyways, but Sean Payton and Drew Brees have WAY to many weapons to not take full advantage of a team who hasn’t looked the same since Henderson went down. Last but certainly not least, the fact Reggie Bush is starting to look like the player we expected him to be, could mean big things come Sunday for the Saints.

TheCoach still calls it a closer game than I do (New Orleans 30-20), due mainly to the Dome field advantage.

Then, he has this on the AFC matchup (Indy-NY Jets):

Peyton Manning played good last week, but this week he is going to have to play great! His offence has the worst running game in the league (ranked 32nd), and the Colts are facing the best pass-defence and if Peyton can’t do it all himself (the guy has done it his whole career), the Jets will be able to upset the Colts. Indianapolis needs to jump out to an early 10 or 14 point lead in order to make the Jets abandon their running game and put the game in Mark Sanchez’s hands. That’s how the Colts blow out the Jets. There is no way Sanchez can keep up with Manning’s prolific offence but if the Jets can keep Peyton off the field early, and run the ball and put up some points themselves… this will turn out to be another great game as the Jets are the Cinderella of the NFL right now. I expect Revis will blanket Reggie Wayne but it won’t matter because when Peyton wants to score, Peyton scores, and will find Garcon or Clark and utilize them all day reminding everyone of why Manning is the best quarterback in the league. No other quarterback has been able to get past what Revis and the Jets do and havn’t had a great game in the process. Before Peyton exited in week 16, he was 14-of-21 for 192 yards, practically on pace for 400 yards and 30 completions… the Colts were up 15-10 and rarely when Manning has a lead does he lose.

I’m not nearly as sold on the Jets because even with their #1 ranked D, they still needed huge help to even make the playoffs, and they also relied as much on the mistakes of the other teams as they did their own talent. I just can’t see Peyton Manning allowing Indy to make those kind of mistakes in a pivotal game…and nothing says that Indy’s running game might just emerge as a surprise.  Nevertheless, if they are close or even leading come the 4th quarter, they can definitely pull the upset. I just don’t think that they will bet there.

And for the record, he calls it Indy 23-20.

Once again, Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald gets it exactly right.

First, from his latest column in Salon.com on the reemerging “Blame the Left for the Massachusetts Debacle” bullshit meme:

In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by “the Left,” let alone “the furthest left elements” of the Party?  As Ezra Klein says, the Left “ha[s] gotten exactly nothing they wanted in recent months.”  The Left wanted a single-payer system, then settled for a public option, then an opt-out public option, then Medicare expansion — only to get none of it, instead being handed a bill that forces every American to buy health insurance from the private insurance industry.  Nor was it “the Left” — but rather corporatist Democrats like Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis — who cheered for the hated Wall Street bailout; blocked drug re-importation; are stopping genuine reform of the financial industry; prevented a larger stimulus package to lower unemployment; refuse to allow programs to help Americans with foreclosures; supported escalation in Afghanistan (twice); and favor the same Bush/Cheney terrorism policies of indefinite detention, military commissions, and state secrets.

The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials — and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems — has been captive “to the Left” is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it. For better or worse, the Democratic strategy has long been and still is to steer clear of their leftist base and instead govern as “pragmatists” and centrists — which means keeping the permanent Washington factions pleased.  That strategy may or not be politically shrewd, but it is just a fact that the dreaded ”Left” has gotten very little of what it wanted the entire year.  Is there anyone who actually believes that “The Left” is in control of anything, let alone the Democratic Party?  The fact that Lanny Davis — to prove the Left’s dominance — has to cite one provision that was jettisoned (the public option) and another which the Left hates (the mandate) reflects how false that claim is.  What are all of the Far Left policies the Democrats have been enacting and Obama has been advocating?  I’d honestly love to know.

And he takes on the Obama loyalists who have been prone to the same BS analysis, too:

And then there is the “Blame the Left” theme from Obama loyalists, who actually claim that the Democrats’ problems are due to the fact that the Left hasn’t been cheering loudly enough for the Leader.  I recall quite vividly how Bush followers spent years claiming  that the failings of the Iraq War were not the fault of George Bush — who had control of the entire war, the entire Congress, and the power to do everything he wanted — but, rather, it was all “the Left’s” fault for excessively criticizing the President, and thus weakening both him and the war effort.

To insist that the Democratic Party’s failures are not the fault of Barack Obama — who controls the entire party infrastructure, its agenda, the news cycle, and the health care plan — we now hear from Obama supporters a similar claim:  it’s all the Left’s fault for excessively criticizing the Leader.  A couple of days ago, Josh Marshall promoted — and Kevin Drum endorsed — a post that made this claim:

And we can look no further than Howard Dean, and MSNBC, and Arianna Huffington, and, yes, some columnists at the Times and bloggers here at TPM–you know, real progressives–who have lambasted Obama again and again since last March over arguable need-to-haves like the “public option,” as if nobody else was listening. They’ve been thinking: “Oh, if only we ran things, how much more subtle would the legislation be,” as if 41 senators add up to subtle. Meanwhile the undecideds are thinking: “Hell, if his own people think he’s a sell-out and jerk, why should we support this?”

The reason “the Left” criticized the Iraq War was because . . . they thought it was a bad thing and thus opposed it.  The reason some on the Left have been criticizing the health care plan and other Obama policies (the ones I listed above) is because . . . they think they’re bad things and thus oppose them. For instance, health care opponents believe that forcing Americans to buy private insurance that they can’t afford and/or do not want is bad policy and will harm the Democrats politically.  That’s what rational citizens do:  they support proposals that they think are good and oppose the ones they think are bad. What are people on “the Left” supposed to do:  go on television and into their columns and lie by pretending they support things that they actually oppose, all in order to sustain high levels of affection and excitement for Barack Obama?  Someone who would do that is what we call a dishonest propagandist and party loyalist, and, in any event, is unlikely to have any credibility with anyone beyond already-converted, fellow Obama admirers

Oh, but Greenwald wasn’t finished with the Democrats…at an online roundtable discussion over at the New York Times website on the repercussions of the MassSen debale on the Democrats, he swiftly and decisively debunked the mountain of denial which the Democrats were piling up to spin the loss and blame liberals and “the Left”:

Of course, Greenwald will be criticized in some quarters as just another DFH blogger and a purist…but that’s par for the course.

So now, it is official….Scott Brown — Teabagger, Playgirl poster guy — is now warming Ted Kennedy’s old US Senate seat for the next 2 years.

Goodbye, Democrat supermajority and filibuster protection. Goodbye, any chance of reasonable health care reform, since now Lieberman and Nelson can now play Kingpin and extract even more onerous concessions to Big Insura and the antiabortion lobbys (and still not avoid the inevitable GOP stall tactics.

Already, the usual suspects are playing the blame game.

The Dem establishment is blaming their candidate, Margaret Coakley, for running a weak campaign.

The usual media Village Idiots are blaming the Democrats for overreaching themselves with a “big government” agenda (to use NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell’s phrase) at the expense of those prestine “swing voters” and “moderate Independents”.

The usual Democratic Leadership Council mouthpieces (see Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis) blame the supposed dependency of the Dems on “the Left” (or to use the current popular phrase, “the left of the Left”) for dragging the party down and alienating said “independents” and “moderates” for the favor of those “dirty effin hippie” bloggers who put ideological purity above practical pragmatism.

And of course, those same liberal bloggers are all over President Obama for allowing the vaunted mandate of reform to slip through his hands and enable the Teabaggers and Blue Dogs to seize the moment and revive themselves.

But, what if this debacle was not really a surprise, but the inevitable and even predicable result of a party continuing to take its “base” for granted and not addressing their key fundamental concerns, even going as far as ignoring their basic needs?

What if the results were made inevitable by the many double crosses and private deals that the Obama administration and the Democratic “leadership” were foistering in the smoke-filled back rooms whale saying the exact opposite in public about “transparency” and openness??

What if this was all about the ruse of Prez O talking up “change” while in reality retaining much of the worst of Dubya’s past policies, from FISA immunity to the Af-Pak wars to corporate bailouts paid for with taxpayer money, to the on-again/off-again crawfishing on DADT/DOMA??

And what about the bait and switch of “health care reform” where all the talk about “public option” and universal health care affordability got mutated and morphed into Baucus-Romney-MassCare with a Stupak kick in the ovaries for women’s reproductive choice and a few extra bribes for Ben Nelson and Nebraska??

Perhaps that had a lot to do with why most of the Dem base in Massachusetts stayed home and the Independents bolted, allowing Buff Brown the Teabagger Pinup to emerge victorious and grab a supposedly in-the-bag “liberal” seat???

Naaaah…must be Coakley’s fault for running a bad campaign.

In any case, the repercussions for the 2010 midterms and the 2012 Presidential elections could be enormous, especially if it spells that the rumored death of the GOP proves to be as premature as all the death calls of 1992, of 1977, or of 2008. Boy, they sure look like they are the more disciplined party, even with the wingnuts in charge..and it’s the Dems who look like a fragmented, ideologically listless party with no identity.

But, that’s what happens when you attack your base and run for the “corporate center”, and thusly allow principled right-wingers to play the “populist” card.

Unfortunately, my guess is that the Dems are so dominated by Village Idiot Conventional Wisdom and the old DLC/Fixed Noise logic that their basic instinct response will be to retrench to the (Center-)Right, attempt to find at least one Republican to compromise with to make the “bipartisan” facade look real, and dump on “the Left” and those “DFH’s” in the “netroots” for dragging them down….and hope that the craziness of the Teabagger/Birther Hard Right and the specter of a Beck-Palin Presidency is enough to keep liberals in the fold.

Problem is, though, that blaming Dubya and using Sister Sarah and the Teabaggers as a convienent foil just isn’t going to work anymore if you blow your supermajority.  Ultimately, you have to actually govern on your own merits…and given what little the Dems have produced with their majority, it’s only fair that they reap the whirwind of their lack of initiative.

If Dems can’t even hold on to Ted Kennedy’s seat, for crying out loud, then there isn’t much hope for swing states, now isn’t there??

It’s past time for the Democrats to decide what kind of party they want to be. The first option is for them to rework themselves as a genuine progressive populist party and oust the BlueDogs and ConservaDems and the DLC shysters (and that means that Rahm Emanuel needs to get his walking papers, too), and for Obama to move HARD to the Left and start kicking.GOP/Teabagger asses like Ronald Reagan used to kick liberals in the teeth. Rediscovering progressive social values like respecting reproductive and sexual choice and not selling out GLBT’s wouldn’t hurt, either.

The other alternative would be to follow the DLC/Bayh template and abandon the liberals altogether and remake the Dems in their own corporate, BlueDog image, with Harold Ford, Jr. (the African-American Redneck version that ran for Senate in Tennessee a while back, not the latest model trying to carpetbag his way into Hillary Clinton’s old NY Senate seat this year) being the prototype…perhaps even with a special wrap-around to the thinly-veiled Wallace racist instincts of the “working class White” voters whom were the “Reagan Democrat” swingers of old.

Although I do hope for the former, I’m guessing that given the current power dynamics and media dominance, we will see more of the latter…and Obama will be a one-term President before the next wave of Republican reaction takes over.

And the Dems can’t blame Ralph Nader for this one, though…they destroyed themselves all by themselves.

Maybe it’s time that we had a real party of the Left that actually gave a damn about fighting for principles of equality and justice and social solidarity..and wasn’t afraid to name names and kick ass??? I’m open for suggestions, people.

You would think that even the densest of wingnuts would give the proper gravitas and respect to natural calamity. That no one would stoop so low as to turn a disaster of cataclysmic proportions into yet another self-promotional, egotistical excuse to shill their personal myopias.

Unfortunately, Rush Limbaugh and the “Reverend” Pat Robertson either didn’t get the memo about being tactful in the face of devastation…or they are just that plain racist, dimwitted, tone-deaf, blind, and generally typical right-wing asshat fuckheads.

Imagine, if you will, if it was, say, Staten Island rather than Haiti that had suffered a cataclysmic 7.0 earthquake that basically flattened even 4-story buildings, wrecked infrastructure, and basically left millions of people in utter chaos not knowing whether or not their friends or family or lovers were even alive.

I’d probably suspect that you wouldn’t be hearing any talk of blaming the victims for creating their own doom, or accusing those officials rushing over to give whatever assistance they could of playing political games.

But..when the country is Haiti, the US President is Barack Obama, and the bulk of the victims happen to be Black….well, let’s say that the temptations of some of our more racist and chauvinistic politicos and spokespersons are just a bit too much to resist.

First, to “Rev”. Pat, who has long had a fabled history of seeing pain and suffering as “God’s will” and “God’s revenge” on the victims for not living right — as in ‘not living right-wing as good, fascist fundie Christians should live”. (Remember how he amd the now departed Jerry Falwell blamed the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001 on “atheists”, homosexuals, and “abortionists”?? Or how he basically predicted that Florida would suffer through hurricanes due to Walt Disney World’s dangerous tolerance of queers??) Yesterday on his syndicated program The 700 Club, rhe Far Right-eous Reverend decided to put his foot in it again, this time discussing why Haiti had such a horrible string of natural disasters. (That country had been devastated earlier by Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, and Ike, as well as non-tropical flooding, not to mention the aftereffects of political and ethnic strife and economic imperialism, the Duvalier dictatorship, and just being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.)

And you know Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True Story, and so the Devil said OK it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they’ve been cursed by one thing after the other desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we meed to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come.

Oh, I see….so it’s that damn Voudou (only ignorant Westerners still refer to the native magickal tradition as “voodoo”) and the foolishness of Toussaint :L’Overture in thinking that Black slaves there actually deserved to be the equal of the White man that condemns Haiti to such bad luck….but, if they would just get right with Jesus Christ, then all would be much better and they’d enjoy the prosperity of their enterprising brothers on the other side of the island. Or..so says Rev. Pat.

Of course, it would have been even pathetic even if Robertson got almost everything in his rant wrong…like, the fact that it was Napoleon Bonaparte, NOT Napoleon III, who ruled Haiti in the name of France at the time of the slave revolt. Or the fact that that “deal with the devil” not only helped that nation achieve their freedom, but ultimately greatly benefited the United States, since it was the bleeding dry of Napoleon’s troops and funds that prompted him to give up the entire Louisiana Territory — not only New Orleans and what is now the state of Louisiana, but the whole damn territory running from Canada down to the Gulf — for what would be considered as the bargin of the millenia at $10 million.

It took Haiti’s ambassador to the US to put down Rev. Pat’s senility but good.

The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC): 1-12-10 Segment with Haitian Ambassador to the US Raymond Joseph reacting to Pat Robertson’s “pact with the devil caused Haiti’s suffering” smack (via YouTube)

There’s wingnut history…and then there’s REAL history. Too bad all of Rev. Pat’s millions couldn’t get him an actual book to read other than the Old Testament.

But, at least Rev. Pat has the legitimate excuse of senility.

Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, simply knows better…he’s just that much of a racist asshole.

Jabba the Fat-Ass Oxycontin Addict/Football Analyst decided yesterday te bring his own verbal diarrhea to the debate, using his junk box of a radio talk show to focus on Prez O’s immediate response to the tragedy, incorporating it to his usual rants of “Obama the Magic Negro attempting to play the Black community” meme and his ceaseless comparison to the response to the “Underpants Bomber” aborted attack in Detroit earlier this month.

All the quotes following are taken from Media Matters via their “Limbaugh Wire” column of yesterday.

LIMBAUGH: I want you to remember it took [Obama] three days — three days — to respond to the Christmas Day Fruit of Kaboom bomber. Three days. And when he came out after those three days, he was clearly irritated that he had to do it. He didn’t want to do it. He comes out here in less than 24 hours to speak about Haiti.

[...]

Oh, this is what he lives for. He lives for serving those in misery. Now don’t misunderstand here, folks. See, this is — I wonder — I don’t have the whole press conference, but I wonder: Did he apologize for America before acknowledging we are the only people on Earth that can possibly help them out down there in any significant way?

Oh, but let’s just compare….three days to react to an attempted plane bombing that ends up killing no one, with the offender arrested and placed in custody (and compared to the six days it took for Dubya to respond to the earlier Richard Reid “Shoe Bomber” attempt)….versus 24 hours to react to a major devastating 7.0 earthquake near the capital city of a major low-lying and heavily populated area in the Western Hemisphere, with a potential death toll moving into tens of thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands. But, hey, it’s just those shiftless nigg…..ahhh, I mean, those welfare queen and gangsta Blacks, so why should we decent conservatives give a shit…ehhhh, Rushbo??.

So, why is Obama sooooo worried about those poor folk?? Can’t be because of human empathy for suffering and cataclysmic disaster, or simply the human need to lend a hand to those in need.  Naaaah….must be something more political and nefarious afoot…like, domestic politics, maybe??

LIMBAUGH: Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen — in the words of Rahm Emanuel, we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama’s hands — humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this to burnish their — shall we say — credibility with the black community, in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community, in this country. It’s made-to-order for ‘em. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there. Could not wait to get out there.

Hmmmm….so actually sending our best and brightest people and resources to a country in complete chaos and disorder following a natural disaster of untold magnitude isn’t motivated by moral kindness and urgency…but plain old fashioned Machevellian realpolitick.  Yeah, right, Rush, you fuckhead, just like what Dubya and “Heck of a job” Brownie did during Hurricane Katrina. And just like Dubya did when he rushed himself to New York City to aid the victims of 9-11…oh, wait, he didn’t???

Ohh, but wait, El Rushbo’s not quite finished with this:

LIMBAUGH: That place, Haiti, has been run by dictators and communists. And how long is it gonna be, how long is it gonna be before we hear Obama and the left in this country say that what we really need to do is reinstate the communist Aristide to the leadership position down there to coordinate putting the country back together? The Haitian economy is entirely dependent on foreign aid. They produce nothing — zilch, zero, nada.

Awwww, come on, Rush….you’re not going to give Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier and the Tonton Macoutes their due for ruling Haiti with an iron fist for the benefit of United Fruit and Chiquita??  Or for doing you and your “business” allies the favor of toppling Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power (and slaughtering hundreds of thousands in the process in the name of progress and prosperity)?? And actually, putting Aristide and the people back in power would be a great idea…for later. Saving lives and getting things in some sembulance of order takes first priority right now.

But even with all that, you would think that that small, tiny smidget of a soul that wasn’t cut out of Limbaugh’s heart after his recent surgery would enable him to at least support efforts to get funds and relief to the people struggling for basic survival. Yeah, sure he would…as long as it’s not organized by the Obama White House.

LIMBAUGH: Would you trust the money’s gonna go to Haiti?

CALLER: No.

LIMBAUGH: But would you trust that your name is gonna end up on the mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?

CALLER: Absolutely.

LIMBAUGH: Absolutely right.

CALLER: That’s the point.

LIMBAUGH: Besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.

Yeah…the same income tax that donates $3 BILLION a year of foreign aid to the state of Israel to maintain nuclear overkil. And I though that right-wingers like Limbaugh wanted to do away with income taxes as evil Marxism incarnate??

Blackened hearts like those that beat from Limbaugh and Robertson can only be pitied by those of us with normally functioning brain cells and morals…but the fact that these charletons are able to actually thrive and profit off other people’s sufferings and pain, and even use such as a talking point for their mockery, is just plain pathetic. But then again, this is America, where bigotry sells.

I’ll just leave Olbermann to pass the true and final consensus judgment on these fools, as only KO can.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC): 1/13/10 “Quick Comment” on the rantings of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh on the Haiti calamity (via YouTube)

[Another post recovered from the old SmackChron blog, originally posted from November 22nd.]

[Updated: scroll to bottom.]

You know, everyone is talking about the absolute dire threat that Sarah Palin — former Alaska Governor and former VPOTUS nominee — brings to the election campaign.

You know…the adoring crowds of Teabaggers just hoping to jump her bones….errrrrrrr…….catapult her into the White House on the strength of her right-wing convictions and spunky “never say die” attitude.

And of course, her desire to speak the truth about the issues of the day is….shall we say, unrivaled.

Of course, her truth is just a wee bit different from the actual reality, but isn’t that par for the course for the usual brand of wingnutter Republicans recently??

This week, the former half-term governor/nearly landslide loser in the 2008 election kicked off the publicity tour of her much awaited book of memoirs of said campaign, titled Going Rogue; which for some strange reason made it up to #1 on Amazon.com’s bookseller list. In it, she basically blames the campaign staff of her mentor and running mate, Arizona Senator John McCain, for not using her properly in the ‘08 campaign, and not allowing her to show herself as the conservative asset that would have blown Barack Obama back to Illinois (or Hawaii, or Kenya, or to his radical Islamic socialist madrassa school in Indonesia, I guess) if only given the leeway and the freedom. She also uses the book to make the usual wingnutty statements about the evil “socialist”/”communist”/”big government” agenda set upon the American people by Prez O and the Democrats; and to defend her record as governor of Alaska against critics who dared level the charge of “quitter” at her.

In order to maximize the sales of her book (and to avoid palling around in alien liberal territory where she might have to face actual criticism), she decided to go on friendly outlets like Fixed Noise (mostly Sean Hannity’s show) and not quite so friendly, but vital for book sales venues like Oprah Winfrey’s show…the fact that Oprah announced the next day that she was shutting her show down after the 2009-2010 season was just mere coincidynk…or perhaps Palinitis is becoming as virulent as the H1N1 Swine Flu virus.

Probably a good thing for Gov. Palin, too….considering that her book has come under considerable fire for its consistent…shall we say….fudging of the facts. Or, to put it more directly, it’s repeated and consistent knack for spawning repeated cries of Repub Congressman Addison “Joe” Wilson’s pointed phrase: “You LIIIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!”

Plenty of folk have come forth to fact-check Going Rogue….The Huffington Post website did a slideshow featuring a mere 18 choice whoppers that they found — among which were the claims that Palin was only told right before McCain’s concession speech on Election Day that she wouldn’t be allowed to speak (in fact, she was told several times that day); that the McCain folk had attempted to put the bill on her vetting on her (in fact, they used her legal defense fund), and that she was intimately involved in the legal wrangling over the Exxon Valdez oil spill, even taking credit for the final compensation (the actual Supreme Court decision radically reducing Exxon’s damage claims, and her own public statements back then expressing “disappointment” at the ruling back then, nonwithstanding). In fact, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in that case had two choice words for Palin’s accounting of the case: “cockamanie bullshit”.

And then, there are the lies chronicled by Keith Olbermann that clearly make you marvel at her capabilities:

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) 11/18/09 segment on the continuing lies of Sarah Palin (via YouTube)

Now, all this probably wouldn’t matter much to Palin’s diehard fans, who would normally flip off such criticism as such liberal media hateration.After all, their queen wouldn’t slight them in any way, right??

Actually, she would. Ask the folks in Noblesville, Indiana.

Yesterday, some of Nobelsville’s finest citizen wingnuts lined up and waited in the cold and the rain for more than nine hours for Palin’s book tour to hit their fair town. The idea was that they would purchase a copy of her book, then use the receipt to finangle their way to Palin for a signed autograph.

It would have worked well, too, had Palin decided to stay to the end….problem was, for whatever reason she only got as far as the “N’s” before she decided that enough was enough, and headed back into the comfort of her tour bus. Which made for some pretty angry people on the outside looking in.

Needless to say, certain media folks were quick to take advantage of this rift in the Palin fan continun.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell guesthosting): 11/20/09 segment on Sarah Palin’s grand book tour FAIL in Noblesville, IN (via YouTube)

Question for Rush Limbaugh: Still think that she’s such a brilliant political analyst??

I’ll say it again: Lisa Ann is more qualified for a VP slot than Caribou Quitter Spice ever will be. And more intelligent. And sexier. She should get the Newsweek cover….on general principles.

I did say that she was sexier, too….right??

Update: Guess who else thinks that Lisa Ann should get more props for showing Sarah Palin who has brains?? None other than…Tina Fey, whose spoofing of Palin for Saturday Night Live has earned her fame and fortune. Spaketh Ms. Fey, hosting the Ad Council’s annual dinner, as quoted by The Huffington Post:

“Mrs. Palin and I continue to have so much in common,” she said. “They recently made a porn movie about Sarah and then this same porn actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a parody of ‘30 Rock’ … And weirdly of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy.”

Scary thing about that comment?? It may just be is true.

Quite naturally, LA had a quick response to the props from Tina Fey. Posted today at her Twitter page (@thereallisaann):

Thank you Tina Fey!! U r amazing. Also thank u sarah palin, for just being you!! Hahahahr

That “porn movie” is now a porn series, which Lisa Ann, along with HUSTLER, who produced the “Naylin’ Paylin” series, is now offering as a special box set at her official website, TheLisaAnn.com (Warning, the link is definitely NSFW). If you are into such things, check them out, and feel free to join her site, too.

• @vickyvette I especially love plugs from hot women with big, overflowing racks…I'd follow @taystevens anyday!! in reply to vickyvette #
• Morning, Twitterers!! Back afrer a brief spell, had to crash after a difficult two days at work, didn't even turn on my 'puter yesterday. #
• Oh…did I mention that IT'S FREAKIN' COLD here in South LA…and the worst is yet to come; lows in the teens with wind chills BELOW ZERO!!! #
• "South LA" meaning South Louisiana, not the other LA, of course #
• New Orleans is right now at 37 degrees. THIRTY SEVEN. AT NOON. And we haven't even gotten the worst of it!! #
• Just wanted to announce that my SmackChron blog is now at a new location: http://tinyurl.com/yhhoh2c Adjust your links accordingly, please. #
• @eonline Ahhh, nonononono….keep Kim's mitts off Reggie Bush, at least for a month. We kind of NEED him right about now!!! #whodat in reply to eonline #
• And with a new and adult-friendlier web host too…thank you, HostGator.com #
• OOPS…that last tweet was about me moving the SmackChron, not about KimK and Reggie #
• WOW…MSNBC's Ed Schultz (@WeGotEd) seriously floated for Dorgan's ND US Senate seat.I'm guessing that he'll have to bolt his show for that. #
• WTF is up with Vince McMahon's WIFE running for Chris Dodd's US Sen seat in CT, though?? Is she going to use WWE talent to sell herself?? #
• If I see Cena or HHH or The Undertaker in any of her commercials, I'm offically gonna yank. Where's Ned Lamont when you need him?? #
• @vickyvette No snow here..just C-O-L-D…and getting colder by the weekend. in reply to vickyvette #
• Because there are so many flavors of nutritious and bootylicious: http://twitpic.com/vyno1 Follow the magnificant @SunnyLaneLive, please /RT #
• RT: @mika_tan: #bestpickuplines "I just graduated from the NASA Academy and my next mission is to explore Uranus." /ROTF/LMAO!! Mika wins!! #
• The lovely @Deauxma reppin' her Texas Longhorns for tonight's BCS Championship game http://tweetphoto.com/8214758 #
• Take 2, please…The lovely Deauxma reppin' her Texas Longhorns for tonight's BCS Championship game http://tweetphoto.com/8215092 #
• The lovely @Deauxma reppin' her Texas Longhorns for tonight's BCS Championship Game http://tweetphoto.com/8215308 #
• http://tweetphoto.com/8215308 //Beat that, Crimson Tide! Oh….and vote for @Deauxma at @FreeOnes2010: http://www.j.mp/7YR1CF #
• @clubalektrablue Nope, 'Bama was just better. Props to that frosh 'Horns QB, though..his trial by fire will pay dividends in the future. in reply to clubalektrablue #
• RT: @ddayen: Enjoying watching the US Taxpayer BCS National Championship Game… wait I mean Citi //LOL Some Boise folk might beg to differ. #
• I'm sure that the screams for a playoff won't cease even if the best team from beginning to end ended up winning the crown… #
• ..but with all its flaws, I'll still take the BCS format over having pollsters and fishhacks determine the national champion in the old days #
• Only way I'd tweak it would be to have a Final Four-like tournament featuring the winners of the four major New Year's bowls… #
• …have the semifinal games the week of the NFL Divisional Playoffs, and the Championship Game the week before the Super Bowl. #
• @vickyvette Gee….that was a rapid response. Way to go, VNA Souljahs!!! (But..how in the hell is @BreeOlson holding on to the lead??) in reply to vickyvette #
• RT: @vickyvette: Hmm social network idea…blonde, big tits, Norwegian… needs your vote http://www.vote4vette.com and RT the hell out it #
• @BlackSexxxology For me, twice a day does the trick….and it's "masturbate" with a "U", not "ER". in reply to BlackSexxxology #
• Good news, good news…I found out that all of my old posts from the SmackChron that got nuked when Bluehost ripped my domain… #
• …were safely transferred to my new blog host. So, they weren't destroyed after all. #
• I'm right now transferring some posts over even as I type this. #
• Captain Caboose on the loose at AVN/AEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBnAvvu0Asw @SaraJayXXX just kickin' and shakin' #

Powered by Twitter Tools

• Captain Caboose on the loose at AVN/AEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBnAvvu0Asw @SaraJayXXX just kickin' and shakin' #

Powered by Twitter Tools

[This is another post from the old SmackChron that was posted last November.]

[Updated below: scroll to bottom.]

You know…it is really tempting for me to jump head first into the latest fracus involving the former Miss California Carrie Prejean, who recently had her Joan of Arc transformation hit another huge stumble.

The woman who has attempted to make herself into the martyr for beautiful artificially enhanced right-wing fundie Christain beauty pagent ingenues got herself caught yet again when she attempted to sue the officials of the Miss California pagent for $1 million damages from their stripping her of her title due to her supposed breach of their contract. Prejean had claimed that she was being target solely for her conservative religious views.

Well, it’s kinda hard to say you are being persecuted when you take advantage of the pagents largesse to get a boob job, or you hide from the pagent officials cheesecake topless photos you made of yourself earlier in your career…but that pales in comparison to this latest.

For, you see, the pagent officials broke out a videotape at the hearing on her lawsuit showing Ms. Prejean doing a lot more than just posing.

As in…full on naked.

As in…masturbating.

Complete with a facial closeup that proved that it was indeed her, in spite of her initial denials. “That’s disgusting!!!” she was alleged to have said at first.

15 seconds after the film ended, Ms. Prejean dropped her lawsuit.

That night, James Dobson’s fundie Right group Focus on the Family dropped Ms. Prejean from a benefit fundraiser they had scheduled her to appear in this week.

The Hollywood gossip site TMZ.com first released the news of the sex tape, with their usual snark (but without releasing the actual tape for the obvious legal reasons): “Let’s just say that she has a promising solo career ahead of her.”

And the popular reaction is of the usual range…from shrieks of denial and allegations of “Blackmail!!!” from her fans to cries of “Dirty hypotwat!” and “Skank ‘ho!!!” from her detractors.

For this man, though, there is mixed feelings.

Yeah, part of me is feeling the schaudenfreude of watching someone who lectures others on their lack of morality being hoisted on their own petard. You can’t moan and groan about gays and porn girls and sluts by day, Carrie dear, and make solo jill-off vids and softcore cheesecake at night.

On the other hand, though, I actually feel some empathy and even sympathy for Ms. Prejean…because for a woman who is raised on fundamentalist notions of sexuality, it’s not that easy to battle the conflict between everything you have been taught about non procreative sexuality being a “sin” of the devil, and those sexual feelings that young women obviously confront.

No one coerced Ms. Prejean into making that video, and I’m probably guessing that she sincerely enjoyed making it and got herself off good and plenty…and she was obviously doing it for the pleasure of herself and other viewers.

Being someone who is all about respecting female sexual pleasure, it is quite encouraging to me that even someone as bellicose and as pious as Carrie Prejean is capable of tapping into herself and her inner sexual desires. Just because she may have intended it to be only for her and her intimate partner’s enjoyment (though, I’m wondering if she might have wanted it out there for other people, but hesitated because it would conflict with her “good Christian girl” image) doesn’t mean that she or any other conservative woman isn’t capable of enjoying sex and orgasms for their own sake.

Of course, the Puritans on the Right (and not a few liberal Puritans as well) won’t take it too kindly that Ms. Prejean has missed up their preconceptions of young women as either repressed spinsters or mindless sluts. And the usual knuckle-draggers will make with all the usual insults of “We knew she was a skanky ‘ho who degrades women…now, when will we see the damn tape so that we may jack off ourselves??”

Personally, I admit it….I want to see the tape myself. Not to belittle or insult Ms. Prejean, but to honor her. I really do hope that she did have a good time making the tape, and that whomever the tape was intended for got what was intended from it.

And maybe, just maybe, all the fracus about this tape will begin a period of enlightenment for Ms. Prejean, in which she reconciles the beauty of her body and her sexuality with the voices whispering in her head that sexuality is something to be feared or repressed. Perhaps, she will see that she is a hell of a lot closer to those porn performers and “sluts” who engage in and even record their acts of self-pleasure for the sheer joy of the orgasm than she is to the Jim Dobsons and Pat Buchanans and Michelle Bachmanns who use her celebrity and noteriety to sell their own repressive fascist agenda.

Then again, she might just call it an evil gay/liberal conspiracy and continue to rant and moan about “traditional values” and the dire threat of gay marriage. Who knows??

Either way, I’d rather respect women who make masturbation videos who don’t feel shame or disgust for loving sex. Whether they be conservative, liberal, radical or not.

——————————————————————————————————————————————-

[Update 11-10-2009]

Well..I tried to give Carrie P the benefit of the doubt, but she just took it and crushed my hopes to the ground. Looks like she’s going full tilt wingnut Haggard on us.

This week, Miss Prejean has been hitting the talk show circuit hard (with stops at The View, NBC Today, and Fixed Noise’s Hannity), attempting to play her Joan of Arc act that she was merely a victim of the usual liberal media witch hunt against conservative women…even goin so far as to refer herself to being “Palinized” merely for standing up for “traditional values” and “Christian faith”. What’s so particually inane is that she’s now pimping her “tell-all” book, where she decides to blame her current troubles on not only those dirty leftists, but even dares to take shots at the secular culture and especially porn for its alleged evil impacts on society I’ll just give you some examples Carrie’s lunacy:.

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean on Tuesday defended a recently surfaced erotic video of her as a youthful indiscretion and questioned whether it could actually be called a “sex tape” since no one else appears in it.

“It was me by myself. There was no one else with me. I was not having sex,” the controversial beauty queen told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira in New York.

Prejean admitted to making the video of herself and sending it to her boyfriend when she was 17 years old. The tape surfaced during a negotiating session with the Miss California pageant officials over a lawsuit Prejean filed against the organization for stripping her of her crown earlier this year. When the tape’s existence was revealed, Prejean dropped her suit and settled with the officials, who reportedly paid her $100,000 to go toward her legal expenses.

(excerpted from MSNBC.com online article)

Ahhh….OK, Carrie….so it was a tape that you made when you were young. But…surely you were raised with all those wonderful Christian values enough that you had a sliver of thought back then about the repercussions of making such a tape BEFORE you actually made it??

And please….you “weren’t having sex”?!?!?! Last time I checked, stimulating your clit with your fingers resulting in an orgasm was still considered to be sex….otherwise, how in the hell would you criticize Bill Clinton for what he had with Monica Lewinsky?? Or, does the Bible allow for exeptions for masturbation lately??

“You can call it whatever you want to call it. If you want to call it a sex tape, that’s fine,” Prejean told Vieira. “I sent it to my boyfriend at the time. I was a teenager. I cared about him. I trusted him,” she added. “I think now they call it ‘sexting.’“Did I think it would come back now and haunt me? No. But I think that a lot of young people can learn from this. Nothing is private anymore. Nothing is private.”

Really, Carrie?? Well…it certainly isn’t private when you go out and run nonsense like this (excerpted from her soon-to-released bio, via TMZ.com):

“Unfortunately, pornography has become mainstreamed — it rushes at us through big screens, portable screens; soft-core porn is on mainstream TV cable stations, hard-core porn is just a mouse click away on the internet, and the envelope of what seems acceptable seems to get pushed farther and farther as more and more people are exposed to this material.

The result is that girls grow up in a culture where it is hard to have an innocent, healthy, normal view of themselves, how they should behave, how they should act, and how they should dress.”

“Our bodies are temples of the Lord. We should earn respect and admiration for our hearts, not for showing skin to look sexy … I have since learned that your outer beauty can only get you so far in life.”

Let’s see here….so, calling Carrie Prejean out on her hypocrisy in getting her ass caught making sex tapes and softcore porn stills while decrying the availability of such material on the public is basically “trashing conservative women.” I guess that means that Michelle Bachmann and Ann Coulter aren’t really as batshitty as we think, but are simply misunderstood and trashed by the “liberal” media??

And of course, “American values are under attack”…mostly by the overwhelming majorities of Americans who actually voted the likes of Barack Obama into office, and who,elected Democrats to super-majority status (though it is highly questionable whether that amouts to “liberal bias” to begin with) and rejected the social conservative policies represented by that other conservative martyr, Sarah Palin. But, hey, that must have been a figment of the liberal media’s imagination, too, I guess..

As for the smackdown on Olbermann….well, he had a response for that. You think that KO wouldn’t be ready??

Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC): 11/9/09 “#1 Story” segment  on Carrie Prejean’s “sex tape” hypocrisy and her call out of the “liberal” media for alegedly “attacking” her (via YouTube)

• @clubalektrablue Nope, 'Bama was just better. Props to that frosh 'Horns QB, though..his trial by fire will pay dividends in the future. in reply to clubalektrablue #
• RT: @ddayen: Enjoying watching the US Taxpayer BCS National Championship Game… wait I mean Citi //LOL Some Boise folk might beg to differ. #
• I'm sure that the screams for a playoff won't cease even if the best team from beginning to end ended up winning the crown… #
• ..but with all its flaws, I'll still take the BCS format over having pollsters and fishhacks determine the national champion in the old days #
• Only way I'd tweak it would be to have a Final Four-like tournament featuring the winners of the four major New Year's bowls… #
• …have the semifinal games the week of the NFL Divisional Playoffs, and the Championship Game the week before the Super Bowl. #
• @vickyvette Gee….that was a rapid response. Way to go, VNA Souljahs!!! (But..how in the hell is @BreeOlson holding on to the lead??) in reply to vickyvette #
• RT: @vickyvette: Hmm social network idea…blonde, big tits, Norwegian… needs your vote http://www.vote4vette.com and RT the hell out it #
• @BlackSexxxology For me, twice a day does the trick….and it's "masturbate" with a "U", not "ER". in reply to BlackSexxxology #
• Good news, good news…I found out that all of my old posts from the SmackChron that got nuked when Bluehost ripped my domain… #
• …were safely transferred to my new blog host. So, they weren't destroyed after all. #
• I'm right now transferring some posts over even as I type this. #

Powered by Twitter Tools

You would think that Amanda Marcotte would step a bit more lightly into issues of gender politics and sexuality since her last encounters; where she pissed off feminists of color several times by stealing Brownfemipower’s speech as her own, then breaking out a cover for her latest book that practically reeked of anti-Black racist imagery; and then managing to piss off women with artificially enhanced breasts by spouting off the superiority of naturally small-titted women.

You would think wrong, of course.

Not that Amanda doesn’t do some excellent work and make some excellent points as a hip indie liberal spokesperson, but on some occasions she is capable of biting off more than her mouth can digest.

I give you two examples forthhence.

First off….we have Amanda’s response to Playboy December 2009 Playmate and bikini model Joanna Krpa, who used the pages of Fixed Noise’s website to defend posing naked for that esteemed magazine in pretty strong terms:

However, the magazine’s December cover girl, bikini model and “DWTS” star Joanna Krupa, has something to say to those women who view the men’s magazine as sexist and demeaning to the female gender.

“I think they suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision. How many of those self-important, so-called ‘feminists’ have been on the set when a celebrity shot a Playboy spread? There you go. What is feminist about discriminating a photo shoot just because it involves female (partial) nudity that happens to give men pleasure? Pathetic,” Krupa told Tarts in an exclusive interview.

“There are several great reasons why female celebs line up to shoot Playboy: finally a woman gets paid more than a man for comparable work, she gets to set the rules, gets to be in a real team work with other women, as many key positions at Playboy are in fact held by women!” Krupa adds. “She brings in her creative ideas, gets involved in the photo selection and ends up with something she co-created through and through.”

Notice that Krupa isn’t quite saying that Playboy Playmates have more power than other women in other professions; just that they do get a great deal of autonomy and power to determine their own destiny, and they do get paid a great deal more than the men do, too. And remember, this is Playboy, not HUSTLER….nudity rather than actual sex.

Nevertheless, that alone was enough to upset Amanda’s cookies, for this is how she responded in the typical “See me, the hip liberal elitist feminist” fashion of hers (special innanity emphasized by me):

This is the sort of ill thought-out argument that makes me grumpy first thing in the morning. (Via.) The idea behind the “porn is empowering!” argument is that women who work in porn gain power in a pragmatic way, playing by men’s rules, and feminists should support this for pragmatic reasons, because at the end of the day, women have more real power. And that would be a legitimate argument if the women involved had more power at the end of the day. But what power do they have, exactly? Johanna Kruppa cites the big paychecks you get for nude modeling in Playboy, but since those paychecks stop coming when you’re a hag of 23 or so (or possibly younger), then it’s a false form of power.

You know who has real power in the real world? Hillary Clinton. Nancy Pelosi. Tina Fey, even. Hell, I have more power than a Playboy model in the real world, since my opinions are taken seriously. All of us would never have this if we posed for Playboy, because as much as the men who make the rules coo and flatter Playboy models, they actually think you’re dumb bimbos and they don’t give a shit what you have to say.

Do I think this is fair? No. I think that it would be a better world if someone could both be in Playboy and be a congresswoman. But fair isn’t the point, by Kruppa’s own measurement—she’s making a “getting power in the unfair real world” argument, after all. But she’s failing to understand that her argument fails on its own measures.

Of course, nowhere in Krupa’s interview did she even hint that she had more power than Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton (or Sarah Palin, or Carly Fiona, or even Carrie Prejean), only that being a Playboy Playmate does have its advantages for the future.

But it’s Amanda’s notion of who has “real power” that has me really fascinated…in the way that watching a train wreck is interesting. Yes, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton have plenty of power (and look what good that has done during the recent health care debate, BTW….you’d think that the two most powerful women in politics wouldn’t get rolled by the likes of Bart Stupak, right???)…but their power comes from the institutions they represent (and the largesse they receive from corporations that rely on those institutions). Plus, even those positions are quite transient as well; nothing says that Pelosi can’t lose her Speakership if the Democrats lose big in the 2010 midterms, or even lose her seat and have to settle for the slightly less profitable largesse of the corporate sector.

Also….it’s really not about getting power that really matters, but what you do with it….and beauty models aren’t the only profession that relies of skills that can be transitory. Try being a professional athlete sometimes, Amanda; do you think that NFL or MLB players skills will last them forever and ever?? Yet, I don’t see you knocking them as any less “powerless” than you are….but then again, Playboy models seem to haave bigger tits and pull hunks a hell of a lot better than you have, right???

And as for the adage that adult models aren’t being taken seriously….well, not all of them wish to put themselves in the spotlight and spout their political views. Maybe they just want to bask in the moment of being recognized for their bodies and their beauty, and feed their egos and bank accounts in more private ways. Not everyone wants to or needs to become fighting feminists, you know. But, maybe Amanda should have actually listened to what Joanna Krupa had to say before spouting off about how superior she was.

Or…maybe it depends on which beauty contest she’s talking about at the moment.

Which brings us to Amanda’s second “WTF?!?” moment, whence she commented on the whole fracas involving former Miss California USA turned Christian fundamentalist Joan of Arc wannabe Carrie Prejean. As the world now knows, Miss Prejean has been on a campaign to play herself as the persecuted queen of conservative family values because she answered a question about gay marriage; and because she was ultimately defrocked from her crown due to not meeting her commitment to her title. The fact that she was making topless pictorals didn’t help her cause, either, even though initially Donald Trump and the Miss USA officials actually gave her a free pass, waiting for later to pull the plug. Then, when she decided to attempt to get paid by suing the paegent officials for “religious discrimination”, slander, and libel, directly citing her right-wing social views as the main reason why she was defrocked…revelations of her solo masturbation sex tapes emerged out of the blue which killed that attempt cold.

Considering that Miss Prejean has made it her personal duty and mission to educate the masses on the supposed abject evils of “pornography” and to deny not only gay and lesbian folk but also other women of the right to do exactly what she did in private, you would think that it would be a pretty strong stretch for a devout liberal feminist to defend her.

Oh, but guess who went there. And stayed there for the weekend.

I agree with Jeff here that it’s about time that we started viewing the release of privately made sexual photographs and videos to anyone other than their intended audience as a form of sexual assault. The motivation to do so is indistinguishable from that as a rapist—using sex as a tool to dominate and humiliate someone, while puffing up your own sense of power—and often the results could be even worse for the victim, because her assault was performed in front of a crowd. And I agree with Jeff that we need to consider Carrie Prejean’s ex-boyfriend the scum of the earth for releasing this video, and it’s true that it’s a case of sex being used against a woman to silence and humiliate her, as she’s claimed. All that said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with learning something from the fact that this video exists. That the video was released in an act of sexual assault, and should be treated as such. But that doesn’t mean that the act of making the video isn’t something that also matters, when the person who made it is a spokesperson for legally controlling and punishing the sexual behavior of others. I hope we can be nuanced enough about this to see that Prejean is both a victim and a horrible hypocrite. I think it’s important to realize that all these sex scandals involving the moral scolds of society demonstrate that right wingers really do get into being moral scolds because they want to reserve sexual pleasure for themselves while denying it to others. Also, that homobigotry isn’t really about some kind of strict view of human sexuality evenly applied, but that it’s basically just bigotry and attacking people for being in a minority.

Oh, really, Amanda?? Surely you know that Miss Prejean has appeared in such venues as the Focus on the Family convention and Sean Hannity’s Fixed Noise talk show extolling the virtues of abstinence and decrying the influence of “pornography” in our culture and how it allegedly debases “natural”, “wholsome” sexuality at the click of an Internet key, right?? And that she has been reported to have even attempted to lie about the age in which she appeared on those self-lovin’ vids, claiming that she was 17 (implying that she was an “underage victim” of evil men) when in fact she was of perfectly legal age and had signed model releases?? (Not to mention that she tried to put off her autonomy and will in making the photos and the vids by claiming that it was “the wind” that forced her breasts to be shown explicitly; and that the vids were meant to be merely personal and private but were released by the evil big, bad Liberal Media that really, really hates good strong Conservative women???)

Oh, and the vids were NOT released to the public (at least, not yet), one of the tapes was released to the Miss America officials as part of the defense of her lawsuit.

Now…as I posted here before here when the Prejean mess first came out, I’m not going to come down on her for making intimate sex videos or topless photos of herself; it’s her body to do with as she wishes. It’s the dissonance of hypocrisy, though, for her to do this AND simultaneously insist in being the Patron Saint of Christian prudery, let alone the Great Misunderstood Martyr for Ex-Sluts Turned Born Again Maidens for Christ. It’s not being perfect Christians, of which there are none; it’s about walking your talk and speaking one thing while doing exactly the opposite….or doing in private the sime exact things that you would censure and censor others for doing.

Of course, for folk like Amanda to acknowledge that would mean that she would actually have to acknowledge that there are women who actually DO sex videos and porn for their own pleasure and profit, and don’t hate themselves or the men and women who happily consume such product. Since Amanda wants to be in with the hip elitist antiporn feminist liberal crowd who sees such folk as anathema to their own concept of feminist purity and male sex baiting, she simply can’t go there. So much better to see Carrie Prejean as both a hypocrite AND a victim of universal male gawking and male sexuality…which serves as the wonderfully universal convenient scapegoat for feminists who want to “save” women in sex work and porn and adult modeling from the Evil Male Gaze…and from themselves, too.

And then there is the matter of “the evil boyfriend” who supposedly ruined and “slut shamed” Prejean by “releasing the tape to the public”. Ahhh…I really, really do hate to break in the joyous male baiting, but certain facts get in the way of the celebration:

1) The boyfriend did not steal the vids from Prejean; she GAVE them to him for his own entertainment. That makes them HIS videos, not hers.

2) He did not release them all to the public; he only gave one video to the legal team representing the Miss America paegent…and only after Prejean had apparently lectured him to lie about her being underage when doing the vids….which would by law subject him to legal charges and serious jail time. Why would she perpetrate such a lie, other than to cover up her role in the affair…and to maintain her air of hypocrisy as victim??

3) If he really wanted to destroy her, he would have released the offending videos during the paegent, when it would have done the most damage….remember, Prejean was reigning as Miss San Diego at the time, and the public release of those vids would have been absolutely toxic to her career. So, why did he wait until now, and why only one vid??

4) And maybe, just maybe, Prejean is being a bit coy about her outrage about the vids, using the publicity to full advantage to hawk her book and rail against the “liberal media” and make crackbacks at Keith Olbermann for not applying the same standards to Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor?? Perhaps she would rather play both sides of the street, pretending to be so high and holy for the Christian fundie and radfem crowd, while also hawking her “other side” for her male conservative base to finance her future career?? It would’t be the first time someone played both the sex and anti-sex angle, you know.

But…when you have been raised to believe that all men are potential rapists who use their penii to slash and assault women, that even right-wing women whose stated values are exactly the polar opposite of yours can be allies with you on the subject of controlling the evil sex desires of men and their female “enablers”, and that you being a hipster liberal are more capable of guiding another woman’s experience than that woman herself, the inconvenient facts tend to get in the way of your rant.

Personally, I don’t think that girls who do personal private sex tapes of themselves willingly should have a Goddess damn thing to apologize for, nor should they be put up on charges if they are that self-confident and proud of their bodies and their sexual prowess. They should be careful and understand that their online “sexting” can be seen by others and that they should be prepared fully for any consequenses should their content fall into the wrong hands, and they should be aware of the local laws against showing sexual content among underage persons….but other than that, no one should be slut-shamed at all for showing themselves off willingly. It’s not the tapes that is the issue with Carrie Prejean, it’s the hypocrisy of her being such a right-wing antisex activist and attempting to criminalize the very activity she engages in in private.

On the other hand…it doesn’t help matters when self-identified liberal feminists, in their zeal to “protect” women from the “male gaze”, deny these same women their agency and free will and reduce all their activities to the essence of “male rapicity” and “sexual assault” as a “cultural concept” that targets “us”. as a gender.(And I’d say the exact same thing about Gloria Allred and her thinly-veiled threat to prosecute Prejean for her “sexting” activities.) The men who use their activities to slander and smear these women, though, should be called out and dealt with…but for their antisex bigotry and their excessive actions, not for them having erect penii.

In other words, Marcia Pally’s old adage still applies here: FIGHT SEXISM, NOT SEX. Too bad Amanda Marcotte is too caught up in herself and her feminist supreriority complex to read and understand that memo.

Update: By al means, Ren Ev and Natalia….pull your punches. Or not. (And Natalia?? Nice hair. )