Patterico's Pontifications

5/31/2011

Create Your Own Star Wars Crawl (Update: The Most Patriotic Crawl Evah?)

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 7:21 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Here’s something to frivolous as we watch Anthony Weiner’s career disintegrate before our very eyes…

Remember how in the beginning of every Star Wars movie they start off with a few paragraphs of crawling text.  Did you ever feel like writing you own?

Well, now you can.  Seriously.  Like my wife is a sci-fi sweetie, so I wrote one about us, taking about how I met Princess Mary of the Tagalog clan (if you know Filipino culture, that is a moderately funny joke) and so on…

I don’t know if there is a language filter or not, but certainly they don’t care if you are wildly far away from the topic of Star Wars.  And best of all, you can link to or embed your creations.

And all for free, here. (Via IGN).

So how about you have fun with the concept and then link to your creations in the comments?  Sound like fun?

Update: I slept on it and woke up with the perfect idea for a crawl:

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

We Have a Very Angry Weiner, Here (Update: Johnson Rises to Weiner’s Defense)

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 6:07 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Update (II): If you thought that no one would be lame enough to defend these interviews… you’re wrong.

If you thought that Congressman Weiner couldn’t look worse than he did in this post, well you were wrong. There is of course, this video, too, from MRCtv (and the man formally known a College Politico):

Watch  to the whole thing, especially the part where he calls one of the reporters a jackass.  Really, I haven’t seen a performance this awful since when Connie Chung interviewed Gary Condit.*

Update: Right Wing News calls it “the Hindenburg of press conferences.” Heh.

Meanwhile as a follow up to something I wondered out loud this morning, we might finally explain how he accidentally would tweet such a thing to the whole world.

Now as Lee pointed out in the comments to that post one way to send a direct message is to type the following in a normal tweet:

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#Weinergate: Total Meltdown

Filed under: General — Stranahan @ 4:03 pm



[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]

Watch what Aaron posted –  my take: it’s over. Weiner just ended his political career – at least for a while.

– Lee Stranahan

Interview With The Weiner (Update: More Video and Some Kos Kids Turn Against Him)

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 1:05 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Yes, that is a riff on Ann Rice’s novel and the movie adapted from it.  (By the way, why was it “The Vampire” and not “a” vampire?  I mean it’s not like as if the character was the only one in the whole world.)

Anyway, via Hot Air, we get The Weiner being interviewed on Cnn, and in my opinion, not helping himself at all:

And good for the reporters not letting him off easy, at least there.  Up until now their reaction has been…  flaccid.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Update: Longer coverage of it, here:

Via Randolph Jenkins of… the Daily Kos, who writes:

Does anyone still believe that this was a hack?

Come on guys. If he was the victim of hacking, why is he being so shady about it? Why is he refusing to talk to the cameras, and is even – as you’ll see in the first link – running away from the cameras refusing to answer any questions about the situation.

If Breitbart or one of his minions is behind this, why not have an investigation?

Sexual harassment and hacking are no laughing matters.

Congressman Weiner – I know you’ve posted here before. If you have any courage and decency, why don’t you answer three simple questions:

(1) Why was the college student to whom the tweet was directed at being followed by your account?

(2) Why did you earlier tweet, “thats545inSeattleIthink” right before the tweet went out to the student who lives in Seattle?

(3) Why are you refusing to answer questions about this matter?

That is right, they are losing Daily Kos.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

So Why Was the Weiner Interested in the Porn Star?

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 11:50 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

I made a throwaway comment about it in the last post, but I figured I would make it into a full post, here (with Rule 5 goodness to follow).  The Prudence Paine Papers had discovered that Congressman Wiener was following a porn star who goes by the name Ginger Lee, and digging deep into the archives of her tweets (@gingerlee), Prudence discovered this tweet:

You know it’s a good day when you wake up to a DM from @RepWeiner. (I’m a fangirl, y’all, he’s my trifecta of win.)

A DM is tweet slang, for a direct message, that is a message sent to you only.  They can only be sent to a person who follows you.  And they can only reply if you are  following them back.

(And as Donald Douglas points out at American Power, Weiner takes a very hands-on approach to his wiener twitter profile.)

So I wondered, well, what on earth could have attracted Weiner’s attention?  Well, she said she woke up to that tweet, so let’s assume that it was something the day before.  No one can read anyone’s mind, but this post seems to be a good nominee (this is the whole post, no title):

Don’t let anyone who supports [the Protect Life Act] ever say to you, ‘I’m for less government regulation. Oh, there’s too much government regulation.’ You’ve got to be kidding. You can’t vote for this thing and then say you’re for less government regulations. The mother of all government regulations, this is the regulation of an individual woman in a room with her doctor — andCongressman Pitts, apparently. I mean, I can’t think of a bigger government regulation. […] What this is about is a fundamental philosophical agreement, and that is that if you are ‘conservative’, and you believe in smaller, less intrusive government, you’ve gotta take awild, wild philosophical bank shot to get back to into supporting this bill. I don’t know how you do it! […] I know we read the Constitution that first day we were here, and I’m glad we did. You have to also basically say, if you support this, you don’t believe in a right to privacy for at least one half of the country. […] I think most Americans of all political stripes believe there’s a basic right to privacy. Is there anything more basic, more basic than your body?

Anthony “Rahm May Have Left Congress, but Badass Still Abides” Weiner

And if you are curious, here is her full archives, presented in an irritating format.

But the extra fun thing is to look at her Weiner post the day she allegedly received the direct message:

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Johnson on the Weiner: You Wingnuts Are Crazy For Not Believing… Wait, What is the Official Story Again?

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 9:19 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

You know, this doesn’t need a detailed fisking. Johnson has achieved such an absurd level in his lack self-awareness, very often he fisks itself.  A case in point is his reaction to the Weinergate scandal.  You don’t need to follow every detail, although I would recommend this post that gives a pretty good summary and of course co-guest-blogger Lee has been all over it this weekend. But you don’t have to have all that background, because as I said, the lameness of the post is obvious on its face:

If you haven’t heard about the latest Breitbart scam, here’s a pretty good summary (but they should check the spelling of their headline): Brietbart to use SEX SMEAR on Rep. Anthony Weiner.

In a nutshell, someone apparently hacked into Weiner’s Twitter and yfrog (a picture-hosting Twitter app) accounts, posted a lewd photo, then sent a screenshot of it to a student in Seattle. Wingnuts, of course, refuse to believe that Weiner didn’t post it himself.

And of course if you go to the link, you get…  wait for it…  a Dailykos post all about how supposedly the screenshots from Big Government et. al. were fakes.  Yes, really.

But as of now (and don’t bother to delete this Charles, because I have a screenshot) the very next line says:

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#Weinergate, Clinton & The Girl Under The Bus

Filed under: General — Stranahan @ 5:27 am



[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]

Sex scandals are really about everything but sex. They are about the reactions to the scandal. The denials, the cover-ups, the acting and the actors, the defenders, the turnabouts, the exposure, the predicable patterns of response. The way the waves ripple out from the event in the center, crashing into each other and forming other waves.

So there’s no small amount of irony that Rep. Anthony Weiner – a young-ish, ambitious politician on the way up who finds himself in the middle of a currently widening all-American new-media sex scandal – has deep, almost familial connections to the Papa Bear of modern U.S. sex scandals, former President William Jefferson Clinton.Bill Clinton_14

Clinton officiated at Weiner’s wedding less than a year ago…

He’s not exactly the poster boy for matrimony, but former President Clinton got to try his hand at marriage once more this weekend.

Clinton was chosen to preside over the lavish wedding of Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., to longtime Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

According to a source at the wedding, the former president joked "marrying a politician can be tough because it’s ‘easy to distrust them whatever their religion,’" the New York Daily News reported.

And so it’s not hard to assume that Weiner is going to take some direction from the way President Clinton weathered his own troubles…which doesn’t bode well for any women that Weiner may have been involved with in any way.

The ugly reality is that, time and again, the liberal, Democratic strategy is to not just throw The Woman under the bus, but to then also back the bus up and drive over the body a few times to make sure it stops moving. This misogyny can be committed freely, too, because the liberal, Democratic assassins have the sanctimony of being ‘the party of women.’

Whatever your political persuasion, the most brilliant, searing and honest essay on the Bill Clinton sex scandal was written by the late liberal Marjorie Williams. You owe it to yourself to read the entire thing – seriously, it’s a great, important piece –  but here’s how it opens…

OKAY, class, let’s review: The man in question has been sued for sexual harassment over an episode that allegedly included dropping his trousers to waggle his erect penis at a woman who held a $6.35-an-hour clerical job in the state government over which he presided. Another woman has charged that when she asked him for a job he invited her into his private office, fondled her breasts, and placed her hand on his crotch. A third woman conceded to friends that when she was a 21-year-old intern she began an affair with the man – much older, married, and the head of the organisation whose lowliest employee she was. Actually, it was less an affair than a service contract, in which she allegedly dashed into his office, when summoned, to perform oral sex on him. After their liaison was revealed, he denied everything, leaving her to be portrayed as a tramp and a liar. Or, in his own words, "that woman".

Let us not even mention the former lover who was steered to a state job; or the man’s alleged habit of using law-enforcement officers to solicit sexual partners for him; or his routine use of staff, lawyers, and private investigators to tar the reputation of any woman who tries to call him to account for his actions. Can you find the problems with his behaviour? Take your time: these problems are apparently of an order so subtle as to escape the notice of many of the smartest women in America – the writers, lawyers, activists, office-holders, and academics who call themselves feminists.

When news broke that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating whether President Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, or encouraged others to lie, the cacophony that ensued was notable for the absence of one set of voices: the sisterly chorus that backed up Anita Hill seven years ago when her charges of sexual harassment nearly stopped Clarence Thomas’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

With very few exceptions, feminists were either silent or dismissive this time. "If anything, it sounds like she put the moves on him," said Susan Faludi, author of Backlash. Betty Friedan weighed in, but only to huff her outrage that Clinton’s "enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern… Whether it’s a fantasy, a set-up or true, I simply don’t care."

Because of the liberal Democratic street cred on women’s issue, Alpha Male Liberal Politicians attract wide-eyed idealistic young ladies. When I worked at NBC, Senator Barack Obama appeared on The Tonight Show. I saw him in the hallway, said hello and shook his hand.  Standing next to me was a girl in her early twenties and her mouth was literally hanging open looking up at Obama. She was quivering. Literally quivering. I’ve seen women around some big celebrities. Rock stars, too. I’ve never in my life seen a sober woman so ready to throw herself at someone. (To his credit, I saw no sign whatsoever that his effected Senator Obama in any way.)

monica

There’s something about the musky combination of power, prestige and claims of doing good for all the people (but especially the poor and disenfranchised with voter registration cards) that is irresistible to certain women. It’s primal. And so they flock, and she’s thrilled to become a political insider by just allowing a politician to get inside her. But it’s a snare. As soon as the going gets tough and the spotlight becomes too hot, the woman usually learn they’ve been used like a tissue.

Modern history has taught that if you’ve going to fuck a powerful Democratic politician, keep some DNA as proof. A blue dress, a love child…something. Because he’s going to deny deny deny and make you out to be a crazed stalker, which you’ll have a tough time denying, really. Professional operatives will quietly regale reporters on background with stories of your wide eyed past and after all, you approached HIM. Benefit of the doubt will go to the man in the suit, especially when his slightly stiff (but brilliant!) wife stands by her candidate. But if you have some DNA that you’re willing to produce when it all gets too crazy, he’ll cop. He’ll have to. We’ve all seen too many episodes of CSI.

Right now, even the yet-unproven accusations about Rep. Weiner don’t rise to the level of a physical affair. Maybe none of these caveats and warnings apply to the Congressman or anyone he knows. For their sake, I sure hope they don’t.

But Weiner’s casual denials, disinterest in investigation and his desire to get away from the distractions to focus on important issues A, B and C (good writing – do things in threes) should give some pause. It’s classic Clinton so far and as long as Democrats have dicks. it’s foolish to ignore that pattern.

– Lee Stranahan


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