Marcia: SICKOFITRDLZ stands for "Sick of it -- radical lesbian." Rebecca had to create a mirror site this year with another title due to some of her readers, she has young readers, not being able to access it anymore in schools due to "sex" being in the title. So I had that in mind and went with what I went with for that reason. I'm a longterm community member and I just got sick of it -- of all the lies being pushed by our so-called 'independent' media and their orchestrated campaigns that I started my own site. I'll say thank you here to Ava, C.I. and Mike who were there for me to help me set it up and get my first posts up. I'll also say thanks to Rebecca who called me that night to congratulate me and thanks to everyone participating who'd offered input and answered questions on Friday without me having to make the first call. Thank you. I am a lesbian and by today's weak-ass standards, I probably qualify for a radical.
Jim: Marcia's going to be commenting on things throughout, like everyone else; however, if you don't see an interview with her this edition, we'll do one next week, we are concerned about the time. The illustration is by Betty's oldest son.
Dona: And Marcia, you are welcome. Thank you for participating in this roundtable. We've roughed out drafts of three pieces already -- one on Florida, one on the candidates and coverage, and another on I forget. Plus Ava and C.I. are addressing the State of the Union. So some topics may be less explored in this roundtable for that reason. In addition to what Jim noted, Ralph Nader stuck a toe into the 2008 presidential race and John Edwards pulled out.
Jim: We don't have an Edwards piece planned so we'll start with that and Wally and Mike were supporting him so we'll go to their reactions first.
Wally: You pick a candidate and you think he's going to fight and then he doesn't. It's very depressing. I thought, "He's pulling out." Mike called me Tuesday night to tell me C.I. was telling him the next day was going to be major.
Mike: Yeah and I thought it was going to be some really strong speech about Iraq on Wednesday about the war. I'd planned this Tuesday night post and done all this research on Edwards -- and Wally helped me out with some of that. I called C.I. to check my facts and C.I.'s saying that I don't want to write about that. I'm glad I didn't. I would've felt twice as foolish. But I forgot until Wally reminded me on the phone Saturday, when I was telling Wally that it was going to be big on Wednesday, he automatically said, "Edwards dropping out." And I was all, "No, no, no."
Wally: Well that was my fear. But I put it aside. Like Mike's saying, I feel disappointed. Edwards said he was staying in until the primaries and then he didn't. I was very disappointed.
Jim: Well that was obviously a mistake. Any other mistakes he made?
Mike: Wally and I talked about how he refused to stand up to Obama. He came off like Bambi's best friend, a real suck up. It's a shame he waited until his last weeks to really start fighting and then drops out. But that hurt him more than anything else with college age men. I'm not just basing that on my campus or just Wally and my campuses. I'm basing that on the reactions I would get when I would write about that as well as some polling Kat did for me when she'd be on the road speaking out with Ava and C.I. against the illegal war.
Kat: For Mike, after, when we're all talking to anyone who's wanted to speak privately or in more depth, I would ask them what they thought of Edwards and explain that a friend of mine, Mike, was supporting him and he was troubled by some of the things Edwards wasn't doing. If it was a college male, he would immeditately say, on his own, that Edwards needed to stand up to Obama. That was a very big deal. With women, it would be brought up half the time, fifty-percent. I never did a follow up of saying, "Well Mike thinks the problem is . . ." with anyone who didn't have that answer on their own. So it was fairly clear that this was a problem for college age men. They saw him as speaking strong solo but weak when he hopped on stage with Bambi.
Ava: And students often bring up, during the discussions, that they're supporting something. Every time someone would bring up Edwards a guy, it was always a guy, would say that he's too weak and "afraid" or "scared" -- those were the terms -- to take on Obama. So that was a very real problem and he should have addressed it sooner. As Mike's pointed out, Elizabeth Edwards was much stronger in her critiques of Obama than was her husband.
Jim: So that's one thing he did -- or in this case, refused to do -- that hurt him. What about the media?
Rebecca: There was a big deal about the lack of coverage Edwards received from the MSM but was little media any better? The Nation pimped Bambi non-stop with multiple cover stories in 2007. Didn't Edwards just make one cover, one with all the Democratic candidates? And look at Democracy Now! Just mentions -- forget good or bad coverage, or extended coverage, and we all know Bambi got more extended and more positive coverage from DN! than any other candidate -- John Edwards was mentioned in 74 segments -- that includes headlines -- in 2007 and 2008. That includes things like Ann Coulter's gay slur against him. Dennis Kucinich was mentioned 68 times in the same time period and had on air interviews multiple times. So let's not just pretend like it was big media. For those wondering, Obama had 127 mentions -- including many testimonials where the guest was allowed to pontificate solo on the wonders of Bambi. Hillary had 140 mentions and all they did was slam Hillary so sometimes 'more' doesn't mean better coverage.
Jim: C.I., you look like you want to say something?
C.I.: The campaign is responsible with regards to the MSM. Elizabeth Edwards gave more eye catching interviews. She produced better copy. Whether you think that was fair or not, that is reality. The campaign should have grasped that and used surrogates, he has a large family and his parents were in on the campaigning. That was a mistake they made. If I can deal with the hair because I'm sure no one else will want to. John Edwards has nice hair. Not saying 'fancy boy.' He's got nice hair. He has it cut nicely. But if he was serious about the election, since he'd already been dubbed the "Breck Girl," I believe Maureen Dowd came up with that in the previous election cycle where he'd go on to be the vice-presidential nominee, he should have grasped that as soon it popped up this cycle. He should have made a for show trip in Iowa or somewhere and had it cut off. Get a crew cut or something else. And when the press acted shocked, his response, on camera, should have been, "I'm here to talk about the issues but the press seems obsessed with my hair so I got this hair cut to prevent it from being the focus." I mean that's basic. Mitt Romney could do it tomorrow and probably should. I mean when Mia Farrow got tired of all the attention on her hair, she lopped it off. If you want to run for the White House again and the same carping from your earlier run begin popping up, you need to be prepared to address them. Cutting off the hair and going on camera to make the point that the press is focusing on your hair would have put the press on the defensive, earned some sympathy and had everyone talking about the new look. On the defensive, the press would have said on the gas bag shows, "Well we weren't making that much of a deal out of it." Or they would have pinned it off on columnists. But it would have ended the discussion about how much a hair cut cost. And it honestly would have embarrassed the MSM long enough to get some real coverage on your issues. It was an obvious move and it didn't happen and that goes to a lousy campaign. Joe Trippi came from the Howard Dean campaign, he was not the campaign. He's been given far too much credit for the work the campaign did and Dean's own appeal. I think he's been exposed as unqualified. He did a lousy job running Edwards' campaign. He was a one-trick pony who thought he could do what he and others did for Dean's campaign and have the same results. When that didn't happen, he never knew what he was doing.
Kat: And you made that criticism for months to friends working on his campaign.
C.I.: I did. Over and over. When he wasn't getting serious attention from the independent media, alarms should have gone off. Edwards started campaigning in 2005. The campaign ran the race each year the exact same way. Elizabeth Edwards' own misfortune added a twist and created a brief uptake in press coverage. But the campaign was run at a stand-still. It was a huge mistake. There was no creativity -- and Trippi wasn't the creative force on the Dean campaign -- and there was nothing. I mean, Howard Dean was on the cover of The Advocate long before he was on the cover of Time. The Dean campaign, not Trippi, got that. They ran with it. There's this mistaken idea that Dean popped out of nowhere and had all these internet donations with no press. He did have press. And The Advocate was a natural for him due to his perceived record on gay marriage. The Advocate is a gay weekly, for those not aware.
Marcia: Geared towards men.
C.I.: Geared towards gay men. But it was also a cover. That does matter. A cover is a big deal especially for any candidate trying to get traction. The media sits up and takes notice. They're not saying, "Dean's on the cover of a gay magazine." They're saying, "Dean's on the cover of a magazine. Maybe we should follow him a little more closely." Joe Trippi hoped and prayed for a repeat of the online donations this cycle, but for Edwards, and it didn't happen. The online donations came from the coverage. People weren't stumbling across postings or Dean's home page by accident. Excitement was created around Dean in areas of the media and that prompted interest. With Edwards, the campaign -- not the candidate, the campaign -- didn't foster that interest and we had Edwards attempting to top a speech he'd given in 2005 or 2006 a year later and then wondering why it wasn't getting the same level of coverage. It was a repeat, there was no excitement, no novelty and that's what the press looks for if they're leaving their pre-selected candidates. The press was hostile to Edwards, no question. But they were hostile to Dean and his campaign created media interest in him. As is often the case, a woman did all the heavy lifting on the Dean campaign and a man got the credit. Trippi made it clear that he was a one-trick pony and how little his contributions to the Dean campaign were. Where I do fault Edwards would be two areas. First, the area Mike and Wally have long noted and already noted this roundtable. Two, Trippi needed to be fired. My understanding, throughout the campaign, from people working on it was that Trippi didn't just not come up with ideas, he shot down good ones. That was noticeable early on and all anyone was talking about, that worked for the campaign, by June. If you'll remember, when Hillary Clinton was expected to lose New Hampshire, the press was full of stories that she had to change her team. No one ever made that assertion about Edwards. They should have. He came in second in Iowa and third in New Hampshire. He never should have made it to South Carolina with Trippi still on board. That's his mistake.
Betty: Listening to what C.I.'s pointing out, it really is true. I remember John Edwards getting coverage for a speech in 2005 and being impressed with the speech. And last year I remember some strong speeches John Edwards gave. And little else. Other than Elizabeth. So, yes, it really was the campaign doing what they did in 2005 again in 2006 and again in 2007. It was repeats. Looking back on it, after C.I.'s outlined it, there was no way that was going to create excitement. I also think it's a cop-out to suggest it was because he was White. I'm not saying he suggested that. I'm saying I have heard some gas bags suggest that. It goes to the campaign and the press hatred. But he really didn't fill the news cycle with anything other than speeches. Great ones, concrete ones, but we'd heard it already. I'm not justifying the way the news is, I'm just saying you need to grasp the way it is and figure a way around it if you're running for public office. I also think he was hurt more by the tag-team on Hillary than Bambi was. Bambi tended to get a pass and bat his long & lovely eye lashes. Edwards looked angry during the tag-team and there was a backlash after that event.
Jim: Going to a question and this was from reader Joni who wondered if Cedric and Wally had any problems after Cedric declared for Hillary and Wally for John? Cedric and Wally do joint-posts five days a week.
Cedric: I never had a problem. I'll let Wally speak for himself.
Wally: No. It wasn't a problem. We both knew the other had thought and thought about who to vote for and it wasn't an issue. Cedric was actually more sympathetic to me throughout especially on Wednesday.
Cedric: Right because I worked overtime to find us possible topics so we wouldn't have to do "John Edwards withdrew."
Wally: That's true and why we had two topics that day. "THIS JUST IN! 1 LEAVES, 1 STANDS BY HIS MAN!" and "THIS JUST IN! 1 LEAVES, 1 STANDS BY HIS MAN!" -- "1 leaves" was about Rudy G. We didn't even write about Edwards.
Cedric: And just to explain my great aunt had dental surgery last week. Wally and I write together over the phone. I was with her at the dentist office Wednesday afternoon so Wally e-mailed to both of our sites and that's why we have the same title. Usually I don't have "This just in!"
Wally: Right. I was rushing to get them sent to both of our blogs and forgot all about the title.
Jim: So where do you, Wally and Mike, go now?
Wally: I'm for Hillary now. That's true of most of the people I know who were for Edwards but we already saw that Hillary was the favorite in my state when we held our primary Tuesday.
Mike: I'm probably for Hillary as well. I was thinking about the Green Party and voting for Cynthia McKinney but we have closed primaries and I didn't switch my affiliation. We vote Tuesday so I'm voting for Hillary.
Jim: Okay, next topic --
C.I.: Hold on. Marcia wanted to talk about Edwards.
Jim: Okay. Marcia?
Marcia: I wasn't going to vote for Edwards. He lost my vote with his response to gay marriage and then trying to hide behind his wife. To me that was the same sop the GOP's been throwing out for years. Trina noted this, how they'd say, "I'm not for abortion." And then their wives would come along and say they were. And their wives weren't going to be making the decisions so it really didn't matter what their wives thought. But people would hear that and be fooled or fool themselves. So when he tried to offer that Elizabeth Edwards was for it but he was against it, I thought that was sop being tossed out.
Jim: Okay. John Edwards and Rudy G dropped out last week. As Dona noted, Ralph Nader stuck a toe in, forming a presidential exploratory committee. In last week's "Roundtable," Jess has a number of comments regarding the Green Party and Nader. He felt that Nader need to declare if he was running and said, "When that debate takes place next weekend, he's either announced his run or he's out. I don't care if after Super Duper Tuesday he shows up and says, 'I'm running!' I won't support it. I'll support Cynthia McKinney." So, Jess, he announced the exploration on Wednesday. What's your take? Was that soon enough?
Jess: Yes and no. I was going through the members accounts at The Common Ills and saw one that had just come in. It was about Kimberly Wilder (On the Wilder Side) reporting, "Ralph Nader in. Ralph Nader announced his presidential exploratory committee." And I was excited and left a message on C.I.'s cell so it could make that day's "Iraq snapshot" -- which it did, thank you, C.I. -- but then came the aftermath. Last Sunday, I also said that there was a reason he needed to announce quickly -- reasons actually -- and one was that he didn't need to be running against Hillary. If he was running, he needed to be running for something. Now he's been better in some outlets, like CNN, about distributing the blame equally -- on Barack and Hillary -- but when you've got a-holes like John Nichols pimping like crazy, then Nader needs to be a lot clearer. If he's not, he's not going to get the support he needs because it will seem like he's just in it because of Hillary. He gave an embarrassing interview with Amy Goodman where he mumbled a few lines about Barack and went after Hillary. There's not a whole lot of difference between the two. As Ava and C.I. pointed out months ago -- though The Nation only noticed last week -- Bambi's economic team is a fright-mare. Allan Nairn may make a fool out of himself justifying Bambi's cozying up to Big Business with "they'd attack him if he didn't!" but Nader doesn't need to make a fool out of himself. Nader, in previous elections, inspired a lot of young people myself included. He should be offended, strongly offended, that while he inspired us with concrete plans, Bambi's going around saying nothing over and over. That's not a minor point. In fact, Bambi is more the opposite of Nader than Hillary is for that reason. It's like Ralph's Alanis Morissette or the original Liz Phair and Bambi's Avril Lavigne. It's insulting. Hillary's just Hillary with all the bad and good that entails. Bambi's a watered-down, pre-teen copy of Nader and he should be offended. The press has created a lot of nonsense this election cycle and Nader needs to always make it clear that his run isn't about a 'feud' with Hillary Clinton but it's about the fact that he will do something and can while Bambi and Hillary won't. If he's not getting that point across regularly, and calling Bambi out, I have no need for him. I don't believe he's done ego runs before but if he's going to let the lie that John Nichols and others are putting out -- that Ralph's in the race out of fear of Hillary -- I don't need him around and I'll vote for Cynthia McKinney. Gladly.
Jim: Jess is a Green Party member. Does anyone else want to add anything to that?
Marcia: I will. Considering Ralph's not so strong interest in women as a candidate -- check his books or the Rolling Stone 2000 interview -- he really doesn't need to be seen as in the race just because Hillary might get the nomination. After whining in one of his books that Gloria Steinem wouldn't drop everything and come to DC at the last minute for his issue of the damage high heels cause to women's feet, he really needs to be sure that he's not seen as in the race because the US has the first female candidate that many Americans have ever considered for president.
Hillary's made it to the final round. No woman's ever done that before for one of the major parties.
Jim: Marcia, you're supporting Hillary and did your endorsement in the gina & krista round-robin back in May of 2007. Betty waivered but came back. Have you?
Marcia: Have I waivered? No. I wasn't pleased with that nonsense of 'if Iraq is your issue find another candidate.' But there was no difference among the media designated three 'front runners' so obviously I was going to have to focus on other things. Barack Obama utilized homophobia to grab some votes. That's disgusting. People talk about how 'craven' and 'calculating' Hillary's supposed to be but the reality is she's been falsely smeared as a lesbian by the right-wing since the 90s. And she's not putting homophobes on stage. I also love how the 90s are being rewritten. That crappy BuzzFlash couldn't stop hawking 'premiums' on the war against the Clintons until Hillary declared. For six years we got it non-stop. Hillary declares and they're so rude to her and using the same crap that the right-wing did, the same whispers and rumors. And Amy Goodman and The Nation need to get a damn grip. "Bill Clinton did this, Bill Clinton did that." Bill Clinton's not the Bully Boy. He didn't grab additional powers. He also didn't have a Democratically controlled House and Senate for the bulk of his terms. So Bill Clinton made or didn't proposals because Congress wasn't forced to agree with him. For goodness sake, the House impeached him. Let's not pretend that Bill Clinton was running Congress. My point is this nonsense that Bill did this bad thing and that bad thing, if it went through Congress, Al Gore might have had a vote -- if it was a tie in the Senate -- but Bill Clinton didn't. He could veto. But let's stop the nonsense where everything that happened was the fault of Bill Clinton. I am critical of Bill Clinton for many things but I'm not going into that. I've decided that there's enough Hillary Hatred in the air and I'm not adding to it. That's why I'm not linking to Joan Wyle's site. That's nothing against anyone who does but I'm not interested in her little play about Bill and Hillary in bed together. I know C.I., Elaine, Rebecca and Wally linked and that's fine. But I'm not linking unless she intends to offer us the same kind of critique featuring Barack and Michelle in bed.
Jim: It's interesting the way that went down, the link or not link. We haven't decided here yet. But what did emerge was that Cedric, Betty, Marcia and Kat said no. All but Kat are African-Americans. And Ty, who is also African-American, has made clear that he's a "no" vote for linking from this site.
Ty: Well I just think we're sick of it. And honestly Bill and Hillary in bed, it strikes me as smutty. Like Marcia said, show me Michelle and Barack in bed and then I'll know you have an equal standard and be happy to consider linking. But right now, my vote is no. Toni Morrison, who is the author for all moody White girls after they've given up doodling horses in the margins of their spirals, may be for Bambi but she's not that popular with African-Americans. She's writing those dense, Djuna Barnes like novels that are a pain to read unless you're into self-mutiliation. As Betty said before in one of these, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker, we listen to them. Most African-Americans I know were asking "What's Beloved?" when Oprah's movie was on the big screens.
Betty: I'm dying of laughter right now because that really is true. Toni Morrison, more than any other Black author, is dependent upon the White audience. I don't want to be insulting to someone so I'll just note that our own version of Jackie Collins has more weight in the Black community than Morrison. Maya and Alice speak to our hearts and souls while Toni's off doing literary tricks and conceits.
Cedric: As stated by Betty and Ty, I don't know any one my race who reads Toni Morrison. I'd argue that even though he passed away some time ago, Richard Wright is better known in the community than Toni Morrison. I also want to address her endorsement of Bambi. It goes to why, or the media nonsense, goes to why African-Americans aren't that close to her outside of academia. The media made a big to do that "Toni Morrison who called Bill Clinton the first Black president has endorsed Obama!" Well let's get to what she said. She said, "Clinton displays almost every trope" -- right there she loses the community, trope's her academic flourish -- "of Blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's and junk food loving boy from Arkansas." Now read over that carefully and she basically did everything but call him a watermelon eater. Her comments were insulting. That's why she's really a White wonder and not part of the African-American community. If you don't get that and you're White, imagine that you just said the words she said and imagine the reaction you would get, the anger and the charges of racism. Toni Morrison has never been in touch with the average African-American, she is a White created celebrity.
Betty: Which is probably why she identifies so strongly with Barack. But she's too busy being 'fancy' to tell a moving story. She's a stylist and works up a big show in terms of that but says very little. My oldest sister would not listen to me when Beloved was about to come out at the movies and she bought the book in paperback. She got to page twenty-something and dropped the book off at her library hoping someone else would want it. And it sat there for week after week after week. I think it was going for the vast sum of fifty cents. But no one wanted it. Even with the movie out. But I know Ruth mainly enjoys listening; however, I wanted to ask why she didn't link to Joan Wile?
Ruth: The reasons outlined. I am a grandmother myself and would be happy to link but only if she has an equal standard. It is too late in the game for the Bambi is wonderful nonsense. I am sick of all the attacks on Hillary. They have had the opposite effect. My sons were not for her at the start of the campaign. They were for Dodd, Biden and Edwards. I do not remember the count for each but those were there choices. The backlash Marcia was talking about from the debate where there was the tag-team is when they started getting sympathetic to Hillary. The non-stop attacks have humanized her in a way that has made her more like us and not "former first lady." They have had a very strong reaction to the treatment of her, long before New Hampshire, and they are firmly for her. It was probably July or August when my oldest son was saying to me, "I really hate that these attacks are making me defend Hillary." But that is the case and to be expected, as C.I. pointed out a year ago, when the 'left' uses the right-wing smear tactics from the 90s. My daughters-in-law were always for her. Jayson, my grandson who is gay, went from lukewarm about Bambi and undecided to firmly for Hillary when Bambi decided the way to play in South Carolina was with homophobia. He was very offended and that had an effect on my grandchildren who are old enough to vote because he's their brother or cousin and he is gay. They are not about to vote for any candidate who would insult their family which is what he did when he used homophobia.
Jim: Ruth, are you coming out for Hillary?
Ruth: Yes, I am. The choices are now Bambi or Hillary. Jayson is gay. I have many friends who are gay or lesbian and I think it is appalling that he was allowed to get away with putting homophobia on stage and allowing it to broadcast its hatred. That is not a minor thing with me. So perhaps Ms. Wile can write a scene where Barack Obama's is in bed with his wife and telling her, between gay 'jokes,' how he will be going on a job interview with her the next day. I also find that offensive -- that he did not think his wife was smart enough or adult enough to go on a job interview by herself.
Jim: Okay well Howie e-mailed to say that he was so glad someone else was planning to vote for Mike Gravel because he thinks Gravel is the only candidate in the Democratic primary who can make a difference. Elaine, you vote Tuesday. Will you be voting for Gravel?
Elaine: Just for Howie, I will do that. No, seriously, like Howie, I do appreciate what Gravel stands for and has stood for. Though the media acts as if there are only two candidates left standing, Gravel remains in the race. I know Wally and Mike were a lot more hurt by Edwards dropping out than they may have indicated. It was a shock after he stated he would stay in until the convention. Well, Gravel has. He's done so with no media coverage. And I believe that alone deserves support. I believe his work to end the draft during Vietnam is something that begs for support today. So I will be voting for him and, no, I don't expect him to win but I don't believe my vote is wasted. I think he is the best choice and that's why I'll be voting for him. He's earned my vote with his record.
Jim: I've got a note from Dona saying Rebecca, Ava and C.I. need to talk. I'll start with Ava so she and C.I. aren't going crazy trying to take notes. We'll do Rebecca between them. If you don't mind, Ava, I'm going to toss to you on Iraq. We always, as Elaine points out, let C.I. do the heavy lifting on that topic and I thought you might want to grab it.
Ava: Sure. Actions took place two Fridays ago and two Saturdays ago in the US and Canada. Monday rolls around last week and you wouldn't have known it from independent media. They didn't care. It's shameful and appalling. With John Edwards, we had Mike and Wally who supported him and I had no problem with that being a topic here. But I did have a huge problem with the amount of coverage Edwards received for dropping out. That included the cover of The New York Times with a huge photo on the front page and a butt shot inside the paper. Where was Iraq? Amy Goodman shoved it aside all damn week long. On Friday she was noting the OMB re-evaluation of their study. Friday morning she's finding time for it. It made C.I.'s snapshot Wednesday. It took her until Friday to note it. Had a bombings not taken place Friday in Baghdad, she might have continued to ignore the OMB's over a million killed story. It's just disgusting. Amy Goodman's the cover story of the current issue of The Progressive for a multi-page Q & A done by Elizabeth DiNovella that's an embarrassment on both women's part. The third question to Goodman is about the Iraq War and DiNovella's asks, "What do you think was the mainstream media's biggest failing regarding the Iraq War?" "Was," DiNovella? I wasn't aware the illegal war had ended. I wasn't aware that there had been a market improvement in the coverage. I was aware the year is 2008 and I think we can certainly talk about the problems with coverage of the Iraq War as it hits the five-year-mark On the last pasge of the interview, Goody's talking about Iraq and how "the population is just decimated, displaced, killed." And she says that "as long as that is going on I think it is our responsibilty to show that." Well if you think that, how about explaining how you made it through the month of January avoiding Iraq until January 25th? Don't offer that "we only have one minute" nonsense from January 4th where you refused to give time to a segment on protesters. You only had one minute, so why it even bothered to air, who knows? So, outside of headlines, no segment pops up until January 25th. C.I., Kat and I check the archives last week when we were laughing at the inane article. She says "as long as" the illegal war "is going on I think it is our responsibility to show that." Now she had non-stop Obama-rama throughout. We had Grace Lee Boggs praising Bambi, and a ton of Hillary hatred. But Iraq doesn't show up until the 25th of last month. Care to explain that? She goes on to say, in the interview, about Iraq, "But as long as it falls off the front pages of the newspapers, people can tink, 'Well it must not be that bad.' It's our job to make sure it's front and center." That is your job. So, again, why did you wait until January 25th to do a segment on Iraq? That's putting it front and center? Or is that just garbage you toss out to come off good to the press?
Jim: Well said. Okay, Rebecca, free-form question to a degree. You vote Tuesday -- or maybe you choose not to vote -- do you know who you're voting for and do you feel comfortable sharing?
Rebecca: Sure. I am voting. I'm voting for Cynthia, Cynthia McKinney, and I'm the one who screwed up because I should have told Mike that there was a deadline to switch party membership. If I was voting in the Democratic Primary, I'd be telling Elaine that I voted for Mike Gravel but actually I would be voting for Hillary.
Elaine: And she's not lying. But she is a bad liar and I'd nod and play along but think, "You did not vote for Gravel."
Rebecca: If I was voting in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, I would vote for a fighter and someone who can and will stand up. Bambi doesn't. I'd vote for Hillary.
Jim: Okay. Well, that leaves C.I. and I know you and Ava do not want to discuss one topic until after Super Duper Tuesday. So I'm going to ask you another. I hope you'll answer what you brought up on the phone Thursday night. What's the one thing about the debate that should have gotten traction but didn't?
C.I.: The body language. Barack Obama's tall and obviously taller than Hillary. But they were seated on Thursday night. Point being, the tendency he has to look down his nose when speaking or listening. It was really shocking and I'm not sure I had missed it all this time or maybe it was a new development. But that nose was stuck up in the air and I -- Ava and I were on a campus and rushed to catch the last of it -- asked the students around me, "Do you notice anything strange about his face?" They all looked and said, "He's looking down on everyone." He had his head tilted back repeatedly, jutting out at an angle with his nose in the air. Since there were just two candidates at the debate and both were seated it was rather obvious and I kept expecting someone to go to town with it but I never saw anyone that did.
Jim: Follow up, Maureen Dowd turned in more nonsense and last week and you explained why it was nonsense.
C.I.: That was Rebecca's post and Rebecca would have gotten that herself if she'd thought about it. She's a huge Bette Davis fan.
Rebecca: I'm not so sure. I knew something was wrong but couldn't put my finger on it.
C.I.: So she forced me to read the column and I called her back. In Wednesday's New York Times, Dowd contributed "Seeing Red Over Hillary" about the State of the Union address and penned this: "Like Scarlett O'Hara after a public humiliation, Hillary showed up at the gathering wearing a defiant shade of red." Dowd is the pop-cult ref queen and picked up some extra bucks in the 90s writing for Premiere magazine -- that's a movie magazine. So it's appalling that she wrote that. It's more appalling that no one caught the mistake before it ran. "Like Scarlett O'Hara after a public humuliation" and then showing "up at the gathering wearing a defiant shade of red." That film's called Jezebel and it was released prior to Gone With the Wind and starred Bette Davis who won her second Oscar for it. In that film, Davis' character Julie Marsden shows up at an all white gown formal wearing a red dress and causes a scandal. That Dowd could make such a huge mistake -- the pop-cult queen -- was shocking. It would be like her writing that, "Like Bruce Willis trying to defuse a bomb on a bus . . ." while all the readers were thinking, "Wait, that was Speed and it was Keanu Reeves, not Bruce Willis." I don't think it's minor, she chose to write about it. The same way Newsweek elected to write a story in the 90s about "s&m" on TV and included the tidbit that, on Friends, Chandler handcuffed Rachel's boss that he was having an affair with. As anyone who watched Friends would have known, Chancler was handcuffed by Rachel's boss. Not only did they get it wrong, they also misquoted Chandler's line from the show. When confronted with that error, Newsweek's attitude was, "It's just TV." No, when you choose to write about something, you are saying it's worth writing about and, therefore, you need to get to the details correct.
Jim: And that's going to be the last thought.