ThoughtCrimes.org

I will say yes when you want me to say yes. I will be quiet when you don’t want to hear me say no. I will take your call. I will listen to your opinion of my friends. I will listen to your friends opinions of my friends. I will be civil to your mother… Super Bowl car ad with the slogan “Charger. Man’s. Last. Stand."

That was the best Super Bowl game ever. Not only did both teams play hard and play well, but the Saints won. (And deserved to win, in spite of what dat canaille Troy Nelson wrote.)

Too bad about the ads, which I suspect, by halftime, had inspired a lot of perplexed reveries among women viewers.

I like a clever commercial. The Betty White/Abe Vigoda spot for Snickers was funny, and I enjoyed seeing Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo return as the Griswolds. I might even, in another context, have cracked a smile at the commercial in which a gorgeous wife is sacrificed to a bunch of futuristic uber-villians for a good set of tires, because I’m a sucker for parodies of bad science fiction.

But watching one commercial, and then another, and then another about how hapless men are being emasculated by women with our lavender scents and shopping and vampire shows and book clubs and requests not to leave the toilet seat up and by the way, here’s a website Tim Tebow and his mother want us to see… Let’s just say I detected a trend. Individually they might have been innocuous. Throw ‘em all together and it’s time for one of those talks - the kind a guy in a Super Bowl commercial abhors -- where the wife or girlfriend tells him to put away the football, sit down, and explain to her what the Hell is going on.

I only have a vague notion of how television ads are created and scheduled. Obviously, a cabal of advertising executives did not get together and say, “let’s write a bunch of commercials with castration as the subtext.” The idea just occurred to a bunch of them at roughly the same time. Combine that with the Tebow spot and CBS’ refusal to carry an ad for a gay dating site, and what comes through loud and clear is a state of widespread and sweaty anxiety among ad executives about masculinity, women and control.

Or the widespread perception among ad executives that sweaty anxiety about masculinity, women and control will be a good selling point this year.

Or the sweaty anxiety about masculinity, women and control of whatever CBS executive approved the ads.

Or all three. Who knows? Either way, something is afoot.

What guys often don’t realize is how counter-productive this exaggerated allegiance to masculinity can be. For an experienced woman, suspicion about a guy’s sexuality is likely to be aroused rather than allayed by an “icky-gurls” attitude combined with overt homophobia.

So, my dear, you prefer the company of men? Women make you uncomfortable? Uneasy? And references to men having sex with each other makes you break out in a nervous sweat?

Sorry to tear you away from your fascinated viewing of that game where broad-shouldered men with shiny tight butts hurl their magnificent physiques across a green field, often in slow motion. (I like watching that too.)

…but we need to talk.

“I guess I'm rooting a little bit for the Saints as the underdog partly just because when I think of what's happened in New Orleans over the last several years and how much that team means to them. You know, I'm pretty sympathetic.”

President Obama to Diane Sawyer when asked, "So serious question, Colts/Saints?"

… I think President Obama's answer is simpatico with this generation's elevation of "victimology" and symbology above all else. Rather than focusing on the teams playing the game the rooting has been transferred to the more "deserving" team by proxy of their suffering fans. The Saints represent their fans which represent New Orleans which represents Katrina which represents victims of a storm event... which happened five years ago. See, the choice should be easy. American Thinker

Oh, for God’s sake. Now the fact that President Obama is rooting for the Saints in the Super Bowl is being touted by the folks at American Thinker as “this generations elevation of ‘victimology’” and a sign of an “anti-Capitalistic” bias.

Certain sections of the Right Wing don’t just have a problem with empathy. They are completely unable to grasp it, and perceive any expression of it as a personal affront.

Bill O’Reilly: But if we go to Charleston South Carolina, I will have to protect you. And I will! I will! But I’ll have to protect you! Because they will come after you…

Jon Stewart: This is idiotic. Gawker.com

Gawker picked up some unaired clips of that Jon Stewart/Bill O’Reilly interview. This one (the seventh one down on the page) is perhaps one of the funniest, revealing as it does O’Reilly’s daydream of himself nobly protecting Stewart from an imaginary mob of frothing southern conservatives.

Look, I have no problem admitting that there are differences in general philosophy and outlook between, say, San Francisco and Greensboro North Carolina, but the notion that people in the south would be so incensed by Jon Stewart that they would attack him on the street is simply bizarre (not to mention insulting as Hell to southern conservatives.)

And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word "vote," or say it in English, put a committed socialist idealogue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama. Tom Tancredo,speaking yesterday at the first Tea Party National Convention

How was Barack Obama, our first black president, elected?

It was the lack of literacy tests says former Republican representative Tom Tancredo, to hoots and cheers from his audience of Tea Partiers.

Of course, anyone familiar with the history of civil rights in this country knows that literacy tests were for years used in the American south to prevent black voters from voting. So, either Tancredo and his audience are unaware of this and therefore have no business denigrating other Americans for lack of education -- or they are aware of this, and consider the voting policies of the Jim Crow south something to emulate.

This nostalgia for the days before the 1965 Voting Rights Act is especially interesting given that we’re seeing, at the same time, a systematic effort at historical revisionism coming from the right (via Jonah Goldberg) in which famously racist movements like the Nazis and the Klan are depicted as the products of liberalism.

Incredible as it may seem, what follows is apparently an honest-to-God political ad released by Carly for California, a website supporting Carly Fiorina’s campaign for senate.



It opens with a shot of bucolic peace. Blue skies, peppered with white fluffy clouds, rolling green hills… A woman’s voice breathlessly pronounces the word “Purity,” as the word itself appears in white letters against the sky, followed by “Piety.” “Our fiscal conservative leaders, men we admire” the narrator half whispers to a shot of sheep trotting across the grass. “We aspire to be.” (More sheep walking around.)

“Wholesome” She murmurs, to a shot of more sheep cropping the grass with the word itself superimposed on them. “Honorable, true believers…”

But...something is wrong! A photograph of a black-faced sheep suddenly rises up on a pillar above the grazing flock into the fleecy blue …”Men, like Tom Campbell, who would never lead us astray, his pedestal so high.”

Thunder! The sky darkens, lightning flashes, the pedestal is shattered and the little cut out sheep falls as little cut outs generally do in such videos, end over end. As it tumbles, some sinister gothic chorus starts up, a combination of the opening bars of “O Fortuna” and the original Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack from The Omen. The breathy woman narrator is replaced by a man declaring with deep voiced and sarcastic disapproval, “Leaving but one way to fall…”

What follows, backed up by this chorus, is an extended rant about how Tom Campbell is not really a fiscal conservative, peppered with unflattering shots of Campbell and people who are apparently supposed to be disapproving voters.

But it’s at the 2.26 mark where this ad truly distinguishes itself, once again returning us to the flock, who are being menaced by what looks like a possessed version of Lamb Chop, the late Shari Lewis’ puppet sidekick…



…who keeps popping up among the sheep with glowing red eyes. The true coup-de-grace to the video's credibility comes when this fiend is shown creeping away from the other sheep. Yes, the ad calls Campbell "a wolf in sheep's clothing," but what we are seeing is obviously not a wolf, but a man in a rented sheep suit crawling on his hands and knees.

So the message of this ad is, Tom Campbell may look like just another mindless sheep cropping the grass and letting out occasional bleats, but that’s just a ruse. In reality he’s not a sheep at all! He's a man capable of walking upright.

Which is a bad thing.

Bad, baaaaad, baaaaaa…..

Chris Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?

Peter Sprigg, of the Family Research Council: Well, uh, I think certainly…

Chris Matthews: The question is, should we outlaw gay behavior?

Peter Sprigg: I think the Supreme Court decision is Lawrence v Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.

Chris Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior.

Peter Sprigg: Uh, yes.

It’s a pleasure to see someone in the media – at last! – asking the most obvious question. Too bad it wasn’t followed up with the next obvious question. I guess Matthews ran out of time.

The next obvious question, of course, is, what kind of penalties do these people envision homosexuals facing if homosexuality were to be, once again, criminalized?

Maybe something like this?

People like Peter Sprigg hate questions like that, because answering honestly would reveal the nastiness of their agenda. For years, they’ve been given a pass by a media content to politely unfocus its eyes and ignore the implications of equating gays to pedophiles, rapists, etc.

It's time to ask those questions. Actually it was time to ask to those questions twenty years ago.

Ajami opens with the sound of a pencil gently scraping a piece of paper. Nasri, a young Arab boy, is drawing a picture, his way of making sense of a life punctuated too frequently with loss. Nasri’s father is dead, his grandfather an invalid, and his older brother, Omar, is, at nineteen, already the head of the family. When the family find themselves unwillingly embroiled in a deadly feud, Omar must come up with enough money to pay off the Bedouin clan now gunning for both Omar and Nasri.

At first the film seems to be a well-made, but typical crime story set in a poor mixed neighborhood in Jaffa, but about an hour into the movie, the point of view begins to shift, more storylines emerge, time frames are shuffled, and situations that initially seemed straightforward, with unequivocal good guys and bad guys, become complex. Aside from Omar and Nasri, the characters include a charming and hedonistic friend named Binj who has a pretty Jewish Israeli girlfriend, Malek, a naïve young villager worried about his desperately ill mother, and Dando, a heavy-set, possibly corrupt and brutal Israeli cop. This is not just a movie about Arabs vs. Israelis. It’s also about Muslims vs Christians, Bedouins vs. Palestinians, and violent acts that seem senseless only when the events leading up to them are unknown.



Ajami has been short-listed for the foreign language Oscar. The work of two directors, Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, it opens on Friday in New York City. Hopefully it will get a wider distribution, and I urge anyone who can to make the effort to see this beautifully made, perfectly plotted, and heartfelt film.

what I actually suggested is that we impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse, since both pose the same kind of risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. I'd be curious to know what you think should be done with IV drug abusers, because whatever it is, I think the same response should be made to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program. Renew America, Bryan Fischer 1/31/10

See, our own right wing religious fanatics don’t want to kill homosexuals.

They want to lock them up and brainwash them.

Of course, nobody familiar with the Religious Right is likely to be surprised by this. Equating homosexuality with pedophilia, drug addiction, insanity, etc. is the norm among members of the far right, Why would such a mindset not lead to treating homosexuals like drug addicts, or child molesters, or the mentally disabled? Arresting them. Locking them up. Submitting them to forced “reparative therapy.”

Yes, folks, here’s more of the right wing’s notion of “less government” – re-education camps for homosexuals.

(Thanx to Crooks and Liars.

"The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday--but never jam to-day." -- The White Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass

"In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat, why would we want to get into this debate?" Boehner asked, rhetorically.

"At a time when Americans are asking 'where are the jobs,' why do we want to get in this debate?" he continued. John Boehner on the issue of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Rawstory

We want to get into this debate now because, for the right wing, it’s never a good time to talk about issues like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Really, when would be a good time? After all terrorism is defeated? After we’ve made a complete economic recovery? How many years will that take? And are we to believe no other problems are going to crop up that people like Boehner can point to and say, “this should take priority?”

So the answer, Representative Boehner, is “yes.”

We want to talk about this now.

By allowing these cameras to roll, it allowed Obama to sit there for an hour and a half refuting every single Republican talking point, which he really has not had an opportunity to do in his campaign rally speeches that he's been doing in Florida yesterday, that he's been doing addresses in the White House. He was able to directly refute Republicans to their face for an hour and a half on T.V. I think he scored a lot of political points. Crooks and Liars 1/30/10

This is why eliminating direct debate has been such an important tactic of the right wing for the past twenty years. Tea Partiers screaming insults and half-baked conspiracy theories works for them.

Reasonable discussion?

Not so much.

The defense had hoped to show Roeder was frustrated by Kline's failure to prosecute Tiller and was influenced in part by Kline's belief that Tiller was breaking the law. New York Times 1/28/10

It’s a relief to learn that Judge Warren Wilbert has ruled out the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter in the case of Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion activist who walked into a church and gunned down Dr. George Tiller. Wilbert has also ruled out testimony by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who’d tried, but failed to prosecute Tiller. The judge feared turning the courtroom into a “referendum on abortion.”

This, thank goodness, puts a damper on the defense’s hope of citing Roeder’s “frustration” as a factor warranting the lesser charge of manslaughter. “Do what we say, and nobody gets hurt" seems to be a steadily rising chorus on the right.

The defense had hoped to show Roeder was frustrated by Kline's failure to prosecute Tiller and was influenced in part by Kline's belief that Tiller was breaking the law. New York Times 1/28/10

It’s a relief to learn that Judge Warren Wilbert has ruled out the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter in the case of Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion activist who walked into a church and gunned down Dr. George Tiller. Wilbert has also ruled out testimony by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who’d tried, but failed to prosecute Tiller. The judge feared turning the courtroom into a “referendum on abortion.”

This, thank goodness, puts a damper on the defense’s hope of citing Roeder’s “frustration” as a factor warranting the lesser charge of manslaughter. “Do what we say, and nobody gets” hurt seems to be a steadily rising chorus on the right.

The theme picked up by Media Matters’ overview of conservative response to the President’s State of the Union speech is pretty consistent:

John Hood, at NRO’s "The Corner" pronounced him “flippant and arrogant,” and John Erickson “cocky and snide.”

Jay Nordinger at The National Review allowed as maybe Obama couldn’t help it. "Obama looks arrogant, whether he's arrogant or not. I don't think he can help it: It's the upturned chin..."

Ben Stein before the speech observed that he expected Obama to exhibit “Fake modesty and fake humility" -- “fake” unless Obama says something like what Stein would like him to say which, according to Stein would be, “'I'm not the messiah; I'm a politician. I don't know very much. I'm going to take a year off until I learn more. And I'm not going to interfere and screw up people's lives anymore.' "

John Stossel also has some ideas for Obama's speech. “Well, I’d like him to say, ‘Gee, I’m so sorry. I was arrogant, we were arrogant, we thought we could reshape the world, my vision, so we wasted lots of your money…” Stossel was visibly disappointed afterwards. “He certainly didn’t sound humbled," he complained.

See, that’s why Obama is so darned arrogant. He doesn’t make a State of the Union speech in which he apologizes to everyone, says he was wrong, and promises never to do it again.

That President Obama – he just doesn’t know his place!

“The truth shall set me free,”

Here's James O’Keefe going all Sydney Carton on us after being caught allegedly attempting to do something in Senator Mary Landrieu’s office that apparently had nothing to do with wiretapping..

I mean, there could be an innocent explanation for him and his crew passing themselves off as technicians and trying to access Landrieu’s phone system…right?