UPDATE. Ace of Spades features prominently in this column, but did you know that Spades is also a culture critic for Breitbart.com? His latest is about how you only ever hear about shows that middle-aged women like because Obama or something. This'll give you a good idea of his method:
I don't know the politics of Mad Men (though I have heard-tell that it largely about delivering a frisson of satisfaction for liberal women about the dastardly men of the late 50s), but I'm going to guess here that Middle Aged Liberal Women Who Work in the Media are Huge Fans, because dang, if I have not absorbed whole plotlines of the show just by reading Maureen Dowd's column. (Tell a lie, I don't read her column. No one does. But you know what I mean.)Also:
Men like some TV shows too -- Archer, Justified, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But no one talks about them in the media. You're not surrounded by constant references. Middle Aged Liberal Women Who Work in the Media don't like them, I guess."Justified FX" in Google = 3,300,000 results. I'm guessing "Media" is an imaginary magazine put out by a G.I. Joe doll Spades genitally mutiliated in 12th Grade.
I think all the attention to it was adulation on leftie blogs.
ReplyDeleteObvously, it got a huge amount of attention as the bullshit attention-getting show that it was. It was a circus among the many other GOP circuses and certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with Libertarianism, which itself has nothing to do with reality.
ReplyDeleteThe rebuttal to all this is obvious. For the ones that were blogging during the Bush years, go back and find a full-throated support of the Iraq War, or torture, or warrantless wiretapping, or the TSA. One wouldn't have to look very far, though I can see why you wouldn't want to do that to yourself.
ReplyDeleteThese guys are all committed civil libertarians for precisely as long as and not a minute longer than there's a Democrat in the white house. Actual civil libertarians shouldn't give them the time of day.
I got a hysterical NRO mailing about the Rand Paul Event:
ReplyDeleteIt was impossible to dismiss this as just a right-wing Tea Party attack,
because a lot of liberals agree with the substance of Paul's
criticism. This filibuster had to get under Obama's skin. As much as
anything else, he was elected on a promise to turn the page on the Bush
era and conduct the war against terrorism with greater concern for civil
liberties. Watching Paul's filibuster last night, I couldn't help but
think that this is how Obama imagines himself – a principled
crusader for justice. When Bush and Cheney were running the show,
whatever could be said about them, at least they were consistent in
supporting broad presidential powers in the realm of national security.
But it's hard to look back at the pre-2009 Obama and see him as anything
other than an arrogant hypocrite now — somebody who thinks a muscular
executive branch is okay so long as he's running it.
Emphasis mine. The object is merely to "get under Obama's skin" and make him feel bad because unlike Rand Paul he has never managed a 12 hour filibuster. Althouth he "imagines himself a principled crusader for justice" he's nothing but a "hypocrite" and so presumably can't even find any satisfaction about getting up every day and using the Oval Office potty. They are still referring to Obama, btw, as "the junior Senator with the messianic message." and still imagining that to their readership (and no doubt they are right) if they can just show America that Obama is nothing but a jumped up affirmative action chicago thug style bully, hopelessly hypocritical and in over his head, the entire first and second election can somehow be nullified. Or as good as. Which is to say they can pretend that it never happened.
My parents, who follow politics very closely and are, of course, lifelong Democrats and liberals/leftists asked me what the point of the Rand Paul thing had been. I said, bluntly "It was a phishing expedition used merely to create a good mailing list for fundraising." Lo and behold David Corn came to the same conclusion--albeit he apparently had some actual evidence. God bless the internets for with them a lonely carper like myself can produce nearly as good punditry as a paid for journalist like David Corn.
ReplyDeleteWalter Russell Mead
ReplyDeletelooked forward to the possibility of "a significant Republican and
conservative movement for a less aggressive, less global foreign
policy."
Until the day after a Republican is selected President; then it'll be "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" all over again.
Krugerrand Paulthon's Flying Bullshit Circus
ReplyDeleteDo you really believe that Spades made it to 12th Grade?
ReplyDeleteRight wingers love Justified because one of the secondary characters is a bona-fid-dee Republican and has appeared on Rush Limbaugh. I love Justified despite that fact. Limbaugh managed to interview this guy in a characteristically bullying and pawing kind of way--simultaneously arguing that the guy was a victim for being a Republican in Hollywood and also triumphantly surmounting this obvious blow to his career because...argle barble blargh. Ignored the fact that the must more popular Walt Goggins is a stone cold hippie/liberal and the Timothy Olyphant character is a southern fried gay icon.
ReplyDeleteWell, I do think all the weeping and wailing about whether we should/should not join with Rand, even in imagination, was largely wasted. Although the NRO piece I cited upthread/downthread implied that having a few lefties sign on (spiritually speaking) was good for the party its pretty clear that since the real fault they find with Obama is that his warmongering and full throated defense of american manliness is merely opportunistic and not sincere the real goal of any attack on Obama's war powers is simply to retrieve and burnish them for the future leader who will be worthy of them. Not, and NRO admits it, ever to limit those war powers when they are held by the rightful leader.
ReplyDeleteYes, several times.
ReplyDeleteI wonder: Do they have a Roy of their own reporting on us? If so, we should get serious beer and chips rewards for our Rand-dom Fandom however short lived. Very ecumenical of us. And since it's likely to have convinced Democratic Leaders only to move further to the right in the belief that their base has shifted, we need some comforting.
ReplyDeleteSo, Ace is fretting about the opinions of a writer he doesn't read on a TV show he doesn't watch? Dude really needs a hobby.
ReplyDeleteAmazingly, he doesn't seem to notice that by the end of that incredibly twisty* paragraph, he's completely nullified any tangible evidence for his point. But of course, conservatives don't need evidence; their all-knowing gut is the only guidance they need.
ReplyDelete* "You are in a maze of twisty little soundbites, all alike."
Lost in all of the right-wing hoopla is that Paul was still doing exactly what Repugs have been doing ever since the 2008 election: trying to block yet another Obama nominee.
ReplyDeleteNow, Brennan, to my mind, is one of those people who embodies the institutional insanity that is the national security state, but, it's fairly obvious that the objections to him didn't start until he began working for Obama. During the blighted Bush years, there were no right-wing objections to him whatsoever. Nor was there much concern about rights and U.S. citizens in those benighted Bush years (recall the foaming at the mouth over John Lindh and the calls for his execution--there was no right-wing call for his rights to be observed, nor any tears shed about the railroad job to which he'd been subjected).
The only really funny thing about this was watching McCain whine and complain--my gawd!, a whippersnapper pushed McCain's mug out of range of the cameras for a full news cycle, and on a matter of defense, too!
McCain's such a drama queen and attention whore that I can't wait to see the hissy fit he throws when the College of Cardinals doesn't elect him Pope.
I think they have a very distant relationship with the cultural references they are making/critiquing because they assume their readers are ashamed of knowing about this stuff, or don't know about this stuff. These "reviews" always remind me of the (apocryphal?) story about the writer of The Golden Bough, the first and most famous book of cultural analysis of "savage" peoples. When asked whether he had ever met any aborigines the author, Sir James Frazier (?) replied "Heaven forbid!"
ReplyDeleteThere's a faint smack of "I don't know about this personally but a friend told me that....[prostitutes hang out behind the theater], [you can't get pregnant from having sex during your period], [urban legend mixed with smutty prurience.]
"But no one talks about them in the media"
ReplyDeleteStop talking about things I don't care about.
"Even those conservatives who may not agree with all of Paul's views on presidential war powers," said Philip Klein at the Washington Examiner, "were supportive if for no other reason than they relished seeing a conservative win a messaging war with Obama."
ReplyDeleteTheir obsession with their continual failure to do this continues. Usually they're wrapped up blaming pop culture or Saul Alinsky's mind-control powers. It's no wonder they practically cream their pants when they get what amounts to an unambiguous PR victory.
(They frequently pretend, of course, as when they claimed that conservatives totally destroyed, man Hillary Clinton in the Benghazi hearings, but they know damn well they're bullshitting and their heart clearly isn't in it.)
Likes this post.
ReplyDeleteNick Searcy has worked consistently for the past 20 years- he hangs with some nasty customers but I've never heard him lament he doesn't get any work because of his politics. Of course, there was one unwatchable episode of Justified where his character relished the opportunity to torture a suspect.
ReplyDeleteI think Jim treacher considers himself the Roy Edroso of the right...
ReplyDeleteSo now Rand Paul is mulling a run for the presidency because...he's proven to the American people that he can hold his water for 12 full hours? Well, what? You tell me.
ReplyDeleteI, personally, would be much more likely to support a presidential run on the part of Rand Paul's toupee, which I find to be both more credible and knowledgeable than Mr. Paul himself. Usually I'm pretty good at thinking up names for people's hair...but this one has me stumped. Henry? Julian? Peter? I'm sure someone here can come up with a name that fits Rand Paul's hair (both real and imaginary) better than those.
I thought conservatives loved Mad Men for its depiction of smoking, sexual harassment and whiskey as vanished virtues from a time gone by.
ReplyDeleteAce of Spades features prominently in this column, but did you know that Spades is also a culture critic for Breitbart.com? His latest is about how you only ever hear about shows that middle-aged women like because Obama or something.
ReplyDeleteThis middle-aged woman would like to hear about movies that don't cater to teenage boys.
For all the conservatives like to present themselves as financial geniuses, they really don't understand markets very well, do they? Movies sell tickets and tie-ins, and the most reliable buyer of those are young men. So, of course, big movies are pitched to them.
TV shows sell advertising. A show that appeals to grown-ass women who buy stuff for themselves, their families, and their homes, and may well make purchasing decisions at work is going to attract a lot of advertisers. That you attract such an audience by making the product relevant to them and well-written is the kind of thing that generates buzz and gets people in the media excited. Which sells more advertising, both for the show and for the publication discussing it.
Hey, anything to give them another excuse to whine about Girls. No joke, that's the point of Ace's post. It's in response to a John Nolte post that's also about Girls.
ReplyDeleteI get it, you don't like Lena Dunham. Maybe a hobby would take your mind off it? Hit up one of your wingnut welfare sources for a few grand, and you could score enough decent equipment to shoot your own sitcom, with nothing but conservative punchlines. Other than you guys, I mean.
Do we even know that the shows he mentioned (Mad Men, Mean Girls, Big Love, and of course Girls) are targeted towards middle-aged women? It's a hell of an assumption he's making. Dude didn't actually do any research, and he doesn't seem to even know what the ratings are for these shows (he assumes they're low). Look, we already had the professionalism chat with PJM, do I have to note that yours truly - Anonymous Self-Publishing Internet Asshole - actually takes a minute to look up and source facts?
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling like its a "Terry" and it's originally from Indianapolis.
ReplyDeleteEither that or Lord Bigglesworth. These things are notoriously hard to pin down.
Ace has none up his sleeve:
ReplyDeleteI have no evidence for this so I'm a little embarrassed about posting this (but not so embarrassed I won't post it, note).
But, one supposes, if Breitbart.com didn't want a never-ending geyser of bullshit, they shouldn't have bought the beef with IBS. I mean, really, Archer? Hell, I dig it, but have half-hour comedy sitcoms ever been the most-talked-about shows? Maybe the problem is that some of his commenters, at least, don't seem to understand that it's a comedy:
It does get a little on the 'chick porn' side, what with the main
character being essentially every woman's dream... Billionaire Playboy
that survives an ordeal to become a secret crime fighting vigilante, but
has repressed love for his old flame, who is his best friends current
flame....the plotline reads like some kind of Made for TV 'Shades of
Grey' without the sex.
At least the guy actually kills people instead of taping them to the wall for the cops to find, though.
I think the part after the first sentence is some sort of comparison between Archer and Batman, but at least the first sentence shows that he totally doesn't get that Archer is pretty much a complete asshole, as do all the other Archer fans I know (even/especially the conservative ones who are seriously into James Bond). Besides, it's really all about Pam and her dolphin puppet anyway and you can't tell me any different and don't you dare judge me.
Ditto Always Sunny. That show's on what, its eighth or ninth season? Stuff is trendy when it's new. Always Sunny got tons of press for its first two seasons, and after that people focused on newer shows (Louie, for instance - guess that one doesn't fit into Ace's paradigm).
ReplyDelete(Tell a lie, I don't read her column. No one does. But you know what I mean.)
ReplyDeleteActually no, Ace. I have no idea what you mean. Granted, MoDo does spend a lot of time sucking, but
A) glass houses and all that and,
B) you just claimed to have osmosed a show you don't watch from her columns.
Rocket J. Squirrel, of course.
ReplyDeleteIf referring to Rand Paul as a "blind pig" could be called adulation.
ReplyDeleteThey're targeted to grown-ups and women like them, which is what is making Ace all bent out of shape.
ReplyDeleteI do notice he doesn't mention Breaking Bad. Surely that gets talked about enough for him? Or do too many scary middle-aged women like it?
"But Senator McCain, you're not a Roman Catholic!"
ReplyDelete(beat) "So?"
Shorter Ace of Spades: "Middle aged women won't talk to me!"
ReplyDeleteStart of longer shorter: "It all started with Mother."
He gained his knowledge of a show that he does not watch from a column that he does not read. That's our Ace!
ReplyDeleteA lot of Mad Men's fans are men who aspire to be as cool as Don Draper. Or more frighteningly, Roger Sterling.
ReplyDeleteIn a lot of ways 2016 is still a long way away. And Rand Paul is... Rand Paul. While it's quite feasible he could run, the odds of him not doing something stupid that strips him of his golden boy status are very slim.
ReplyDeleteLet Me Tell You About My Mother...
ReplyDeleteHow I Met My Mother is, I suspect, another of his favorite shows.
ReplyDeleteI decide what I don't need based on columns I don't read
ReplyDeleteI do not watch what they suggest
Because they fail the penis test
Which is to say I do not know
Cuz I don't read them, ho ho ho
Roger is quite the silver fox.
ReplyDeleteIt does get a little on the 'chick porn' side, what with the main
ReplyDeletecharacter being essentially every woman's dream...
Every woman's dream is an amoral, violent, dimwitted, narcissistic man-child who views women as interchangeably disposable pleasure toys with no agency of their own, has no sense of boundaries or consequences, and has spectacularly unhealthy and abusive relationships with both his mother and his surrogate father figures? That's probably the most egregious misreading of Archer I've ever seen. (A close second was some guy claiming the show was all about Pam when it's clearly all about the travails of a poor misunderstood genius who overcame the horrors of his childhood and got an awesome van.)
I'd forgotten how bizarre that Noah Rothman piece is. Not since Frances Martel has a Mediaite writer tried so desperately to say something they can't possibly believe is true.
ReplyDeleteSadly, this is his hobby.
ReplyDeleteOh, shit, that's probably actually true.
ReplyDeleteIt's "Half Hour News Hour" vs The Daily Show all over again, i'n't it?
I couldn't be arsed to click the link, so I must ask the more diligent here: in Ace's ... column is so hard to say here ... bleat? let's go with bleat ..., did he manage to write about some wimmins without going all bacon and play-doh?
ReplyDeleteSorry I forget to un-italic there.
ReplyDeleteAce needs to get his grody paws off of Archer, which happens to be this middle-aged liberal woman's favorite show (along with The Venture Bros.)
ReplyDeleteAlternately: Well, he did Grade 6 twice...
ReplyDeleteSelf-certified Coonskin
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's all the commericals for bacon and Play-doh that have upset him.
ReplyDeleteAlternate shorter Ace: "For chrissakes, I'm not gay, I just find vulvas repulsive!"
ReplyDeleteI have no evidence for this so I'm a little embarrassed about posting this (but not so embarrassed I won't post it, note).
ReplyDeleteThe right-wing blogosphere summed up in one sentence.
At least the guy actually kills people instead of taping them to the wall for the cops to find, though.
He should just go ahead and write "Finally, something I can fap to!"
Ace doesn't like them, so he automatically assumes they appeal to a demographic he scorns.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I never got hooked on Mad Men (saving it for my Old Age Netflix Review while waiting to die), but the few I saw early on were pretty frank about the brutally misogynistic schoolboy attitudes and antics of the time and place. Frankly, I was a bit put off that most of the reviews and popular mention of the show seemed overly nostalgic, despite the open portrayal of the hostile work and home environment for women and minorities.
ReplyDeleteI guess it just took a few seasons for the assholes to realize they were the bad guys in the show. Figures--they are pretty slow to recognize what everyone else already knows.
Usually I'm pretty good at thinking up names for people's hair...but
ReplyDeletethis one has me stumped. Henry? Julian? Peter? I'm sure someone here
can come up with a name that fits Rand Paul's hair (both real and
imaginary) better than those.
Lordy-loo, Jen, it's got to be "John" or "Howard". Need you even ask?
Start of longer shorter: "It all started with Mother."
ReplyDeleteHe should watch Archer then.
Yep... AND dusting off the transvaginal ultrasound wands, shutting down the rest of the Planned Parenthood clinics, busting the few remaining unions, canonizing the Defense of Marriage Act, and adding another twenty feet to the North American version of Hadrian's Wall on the Texas/Arizona Mexican border.
ReplyDeleteNor does he eat green eggs N ham, thankyouverymuch.
ReplyDeleteAnd the conservative version of Athena is finally revealed: sprung forth, fully form'd, from the brow of Ace.
ReplyDeleteBit of a letdown.
Aw, come on... "I don't know...", "I have heard-tell that...", and "I'm going to guess here that..." represent the main body of wingnut research and hard data crunching. When combined with the ultimate "new-kuler pawred" conversation stopper "No-one reads their stuff/cares what they think", it's a wonder that Progressives are still around at all.
ReplyDeletesomeone here can come up with a name that fits Rand Paul's hair
ReplyDeleteFrancisco? Hank? Ragnar? Howard? Dominique?
:...he's proven that he can hold his water for 12 full hours?"
ReplyDeleteOK...how long will it be before the catheter becomes the new teleprompter?
I doubt that they do, it would entail stepping away from the circle jerk, with the attendant risk that some real cognition would pierce the bubble.
ReplyDeleteNow you've done it. Mentioning Treacher is a surefire way to have him show up to remind us that President Obama once ate dog meat.
ReplyDeleteI was with you up until the last sentence. Pam has a stanza from Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib" tattooed on her back; Krieger is a Rush fan.
ReplyDeleteCurious how it's the same artificial hoopla over Teabagging, at the same point after the inauguration, with the same insistence that the same phony Not Really Republicanism is about to transform the Republican party by not changing it in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteWhat if Paul is actually serious about drones & executive assassinations, just as he is also serious about subverting the civil rights act and destroying women's reproductive rights?
ReplyDelete"...subverting the civil rights act and destroying women's reproductive rights" - with DRONES!
ReplyDeleteAlternate-universe NRO would be calling for the prosecution of Bernie Sanders for treason for even threatening to filibuster President Romney's nominee for secretary of defense, and insist that said nominee's proposal to use drone strikes against illegal immigrants during border crossings is entirely justified.
ReplyDeleteThe National Review is absolutely nothing beyond a partisan Republican rag. Partisans can take actual issues, fake issues, or sheer nothingness to fling at their opponents.
ReplyDeleteI think I see his problem. The show he's describing is"Arrow", the Cw's Green Arrow show. Archer seems to be the name of a different show, and he got them confused.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say, "You know Sen. Paul is right. Why aren't Democrats saying this?", is that adulation or frustration?
ReplyDeleteUhh ... y'see ... 6+6=12 ... work with me here, people!
ReplyDeleteJust a couple of months ago, Walter Russell Mead was calling on Israel to level Gaza.
ReplyDeleteUm, yes duh. See e.g.: Bush, flightsuit, codpiece
ReplyDeleteMiddle-aged women--ick, amirite, fellas?
ReplyDeleteMy bad. It's so obvious.
ReplyDeleteHis hair is named Dagney.
Archer has struggled in the past to attract a fanbase but is having a breakout year and is almost certainly gonna keep earning more attention.
ReplyDeleteJustified has a solid reputation, but it's not anything revolutionary, labors in the crowded field of 'offbeat take on the police procedural', and invites obvious comparisons to the far superior Deadwood (one of my favorite shows ever, fwiw).
Always Sunny did get a lot of attention when it first aired, but that was forever ago, and it's always been a divisive show.
Meanwhile just came off an incredibly strong season that included at one point a near perfect string of great episodes, and they even secured the rights to a fucking Beatles song.
In other words, goddammit Ace, you fox-eared asshole.
otoh, I find it completely plausible that a lot of Maureen Dowd columns are just her describing the plot of Mad Men episodes.
ReplyDeleteOr legislation
ReplyDeleteThey don't even pretend to like my jokes!
ReplyDeleteSo apparently a "messaging victory" occurs when they clearly come out and speak to something that a majority of the public is really concerned about. I'm skeptical that they can learn this lesson.
ReplyDeleteSure, the Republicans are acting like partisans, trying to make good for their team. In other words, they are acting exactly like I usually do, just for the other team. But the fact is that by refusing to talk about an issue that that the public actually cares about, the Democrats, with some honorable exceptions like Ron Wyden & Barbara Lee, the Democrats have left themselves open to this.
ReplyDeleteHa, I was thinking Squirrel Nutkin. It does have a certain squirrelish quality, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteand insist that said nominee's proposal to use drone strikes against
ReplyDeleteillegal immigrants during border crossings is entirely justified.
Wait, Mitt Romney's preferred pick for Defense Secretary was Ron Paul?
What if Paul is actually serious about drones & executive
ReplyDeleteassassinations, just as he is also serious about subverting the civil
rights act and destroying women's reproductive rights?
Well, based on the dumbshit hypothetical upon which he based his filibuster, based on what he was filibustering, based on what apparently satisfied him, and based on what he told Rush Limbaugh, that "What if" is doing approximately a metric assload of work in the above.
Yup. Legislation. Which is apparently unnecessary in the drone matter, because Eric Holder assured him that Rush Limbaugh won't get bombed by an unmanned drone at his goddamn breakfast table.
ReplyDeleteAce has a good grip on the flippant tone. I think his writing has improved over the years. That said, he's still Ace. That takes a lot of getting over.
ReplyDeleteI have nothing much to add here, other than my usual Australian fretting about people focusing on the use of random process-free murder against US citizens. And while the people saying "yeah, well, they'll just kill you with a SWAT team, the drones aren't the point" have an excellent point, they also... have an excellent point. Drones sort of come to represent extrajudicial murder because they make it so easy.
I'm kind of disappointed in people. Coming up to the election, I was right with them. Yeah, in order to stop the menace of the Mitt, we have to all pull together, and we can talk about drones later! But, um, now it's later. We got the better guy in, and there's a LOT I like about Obama. It's nearly two years to midterms. The Republicans are going to spend this time repeatedly shitting the bed. This is where we get to turn to the President and say "NOW, about those extrajudicial murders, HMMM?"
Also... I can't help it. Every time there's something on the subject, I can't help but hum under my breath "Drones, yeah! Game of Drones, yeah! Game of Drones! (drones, fuckin' game of drones, fuckin' game of drones)..."
Yes, and the reason the question had to be asked was that up until this point, the Obama administration was asserting that it totally could bomb Rush Limbaugh, or any other American, at any time if it felt convinced that they were imminently ready to commit terrorism.
ReplyDeleteFrom the 'brown' of Ace, more likely.
ReplyDeleteHe ADMITTED to it once. And by the doctrine of ubi fumigant ibi ignis and qua ita dixit and niger Praesus malum, that means he is CURRENTLY EATING ALL DOGS.
ReplyDeleteHoly shitsnacks, I think you're right. And the hits from the commenters just keep on comin':
ReplyDeleteCan we assume that Middle Age Liberal Women Who Work in the Media hated Firefly?
I...I...just, wow.
Paul's statements about the southern border are indeed quite crazy.
ReplyDeleteI think that he probably wrote it off once he noticed that the Skyler Haters' Club's membership was shrinking.
ReplyDeleteBeauregard.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, were you addressing me? Because your authority is not recognized in Fort Kickass.
ReplyDeleteIn the episode from this season where Lana and Mallory get locked in the storage room you can see the boxes from Fort Kickass (still labeled) because that's how awesome Archer is.
ReplyDeleteGreen Arrow kills people in the show? Man, nerd rage.
ReplyDeleteYes, since when is Mad Men the darling of middle-aged liberal women? I don't think 50 year old women are the ones tuning in to watch Christina Hendricks' chest.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of my favorite gags of the season so far. (Also in the running: "What? Nothing. I'm just a hologram! Bzzzt!") Not to go all Ace of Spades, but I feel like Archer doesn't get enough credit for the strength of its writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm mystified by this. I'm willing to assume that there are people who can separate its estimable production design and wardrobe from the fact that it's a cultural tragedy about almost uniformly shitty people, but one of the Michigan Avenue department stores near my office has periodic Mad Men tie-in window ads that try very hard not to.
ReplyDeleteLast summer there was one that asked ARE YOU DON? My reaction was "an dour, alcoholic philanderer whose life is predicated on a lie? I hope not. I'm probably closer to Harry. What do you have that hides sweat?"
One thing I'll say about Roger Sterling: he gets all the good lines, and John Slattery has the best timing on TV. There's a reason that even in a more, um, context-rich piece like Paradise Lost, the devil is kind of appealing.
So Maureen Dowd (b. 1952), a woman who came of age when her media industry was dominated by men, is unusually interested in a show about women coming of age in a media industry dominated by men? Well I'll be doggone.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I'd read her more often, too, if she'd written about the Iraq War using Invader Zim as a metaphor for George W. Bush. But I'm not waiting up.
Yeah, they haven't been using Krieger as much this season, but what we have is golden (that line, "She slapped you so hard you died", mouse wedding)
ReplyDeleteAlso, agree on the quality of the writing, and it's more impressive since Adam Reed supposedly does the whole thing himself.
No, so sorry...that is the name of Rick Perry's hair.
ReplyDeleteYes. It should also be noted that Mareen Dowd likes a tv show that frequently uses a girl who is about the same age Maureen Dowd was when the show takes place to observe and comment on the behavior of the other characters.
ReplyDeleteThis is incredibly strange.
Hattie.
ReplyDeleteHave to disagree about Justified-- it has the best dialog on television, worthy of Elmore Leonard himself. As much as it pains me to say it, Deadwood was a weak imitation of itself in the third season, and I wasn't sorry to see HBO pull the plug.
ReplyDeleteSeen and raised:
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much a misreading as wishful thinking. Sorry, Ace, even if the illustrator made you good-looking and rich, women would still be able to tell you're an asshole.
ReplyDeleteSt00pid Dickus won't let me embed animated GIFs--got converted to a JPG. Go to this page for the full epic glory.
ReplyDeleteWhat was really hilarious was Daniel Luban's characterization of Walter Russell Mead as a "pillar of the East Coast foreign policy establishment who takes pains to market himself as a skeptical moderate." I'm thinking that Luban must have met the "moderate" alien cockroach who is showing up at the Council on Foreign Relations meetings wearing Mead's skin.
ReplyDelete"lonely"? But you have us!
ReplyDeleteAnything else you want to say about Obama's skin, NRO? Please proceed.
ReplyDeleteI think it was telling the even the Republicans couldn't be bothered to pretend they knew what the "underground electrified fences" were all about.
ReplyDelete1. Who organizes the ultimate bum shock fights?
ReplyDelete2. Who built those gloves?
3. Whose lab is that there?
Your arguments are as feeble as Krieger's weak, womanly hands: addressing them is like being choked by a child. Which I thought would be hot, but...
Some of the more conservative types seem to believe Mead has a useful point of view, but I've always considered him a professional bloviator. He's an asshole and a hawk, but the most annoying thing about him is that he always writes three paragraphs where one would have gotten the point across.
ReplyDeleteNow if only someone would filibuster over the use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen, which is more to the real point.
ReplyDelete"Dude didn't actually do any research..."
ReplyDeleteAu contraire, he looked into his heart and asked himself what he liked and didn't like. That--having some dim awareness of their actual feelings--constitutes basic research for wingnuts. Usually it's "principles" and "values." God forbid they should then inquire into the patterns, history, and causes of those feelings, but--as Geo. W. Bush once said dismissively about actually understanding something--"That's Psychology 101."
Well, the legislative branch can have another look at that AUMF that's been in place for over a decade, through multiple administrations and presidential terms.
ReplyDeleteYou make good points, wjts, but ... Socking a pig carcass with shock gloves, complete with the inevitable "X-ray look."
ReplyDeleteSee, this is why atheist is still one of my secret crushes.
ReplyDeleteI want to be united with mds, in a sexy war of attrition without clear goals or endpoints.
ReplyDeleteKrieger is one of those characters who works best when he's used sparingly. As much as he's my favorite (well, it's a toss-up between him and Cheryl) I'd rather see him used well for a handful of great bits rather than having him be shoehorned in where he doesn't fit just for the sake of seeing more Krieger.
ReplyDeleteOh no, I totally agree, he's a sometimes character, I just feel like we're seeing less of him than previously (no, I didn't forget about "Legs")
ReplyDeleteNo, actually, the "question did not have to be asked." Rand Paul could have introduced legislation that would order the White House/Admin "never" to do something on pain of a penalty--that would have been the logical legislative solution to something which (you think) was unclear. If you think that Obama and Holder are actually planning to kill American citizens on US soil with drones you obviously have to believe they will do it and find an excuse later. Asking them to assert something in a hypothetical is by its very nature grandstanding and useless after the fact. Actually legislating and putting penalties in the law would be a better approach.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in fact, Holder's original statement was purely hypothetical and r referred to a future state of civil war/militia activity or invasion where many legal statuses might be in flux as in the original civil war and previous periods of invasion from outside our borders (French and Indian Wars! Wolverines!)
The point here is that the Obama administration did not assert that it could totally "bomb Rush Limbaugh" and Paul did not filibuster the use of Drones to kill anyone other than Rush Limbaugh like white right wingers. He specifically exempted from concern people that the rest of us might be very concerned about--non citizens crossing the border illegally? non citizens in other countries? Criminals in a prison riot (as long as they weren't white supremacists?).
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and you can't make an ally out of Rand Paul. He won't permit it. He won't permit any extension of white citizen's rights to non citizens, non whites, or enemies of his little future state should he become president.
Speaking as someone who is personally related to a Weatherman, a member of SDS (different relatives) and most of whose relatives were FBI wiretapped at one point or another I can assure you that a President Rand Paul would be thrilled to spy on and drone kill any number of leftists, liberals, commies, and non white or "illegal" people in this country if he were the one with his finger on the trigger. No good fruit comes from that kind of poisoned tree.
I have yet to see a non partisan Republican rag. Can you link to one? Besides however stupid the tack NRO takes they think they are serving their readership quite well and they apparently do--they are simply mouthing out what their readers actually believe.
ReplyDeleteYesterday upon the stair
ReplyDeleteI met a man who was not there
And what he watches, on TV
remains today obscure to me
I only watched about four or five episodes of Justified, the main reason being that Searcy's character was really the only one I liked (I didn't see the torture episode). I liked him mainly because his accent was a real southern accent, not exaggerated (like Olyphant's love interest in those episodes), though admittedly Olyphant's is not bad.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely support them taking another look at the document and considering whether it supports an endless, limitless war.
ReplyDeleteToo late the Phalarope. If you'd only had insomnia, like me!
ReplyDeleteI'm all for the legislative branch doing its god damned duty and a) having another Church style committee with hearings into executive branch overreach and b) writing new legislation, repealing the AUMF etc...
ReplyDeleteHowever, that being said, there is no unitary legislative that will/would/could do this. Our legislature remains mired in an inevitable and crippling partisan war of attrition against an entrenched enemy (the opposition party). Neither Democratic legislators nor Republicans have the interest--let alone the ability--to work across party lines to rein in the executive. The Republicans won't do it except for partisan political purposes because they support militarism, imperialism, and executive strong man rule as a matter of personal preference and political policy choice. The Democrats can't and won't do it because they are so embattled domestically in their battle with a rabid house republican majority that they can't afford to deviate and take on any new tasks or tasks which would undermine the only branch of the government that they hold securely (i.e. the executive).
Politics is the art of the possible, to throw out an important cliche. The imperial presidency is not going to be a big focus of either the right or the left wing of our currently elected legislators until they feel secure in their overall political positions and control more of all three branches. That's just the reality.
depends on how you feel about pork for dinner, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAlso, post-LSD Roger is a lot less of an asshole.
ReplyDeleteIf a political party isn't interested in introducing a Church-style committee while the balance of power is rather even, then why would it want to do so when the balance of power is stacked in its favor? If a two-party system can't meaningfully reign in imperial tendencies while there is no clear ruling party, then it would seem these tendencies can't be reined in at all. I don't accept that.
ReplyDeleteThe American Conservative publishes some crazy shit, but they also publish some interesting pieces that could even be useful to a non-conservative like you or me, for one example.
ReplyDelete"Why aren't you helping it?"
ReplyDelete"The tortoise is obviously a moocher."
You're absolutely right that Paul should have introduced legislation rather than theatrically filibustering, though apparently this filibuster didn't come out of the sky, and he's part of a group of legislators who have been asking these questions for some time. I feel like I can say Paul is right about something without being his "ally", and I'm absolutely against his right wing lunacy on other issues. I tend to agree with your assessment of what Rand Paul would do with surveillance and military force, against "Occupy" and similar groups, were he elected president. But I also think that to some degree the person who is bringing up the questions is irrelevant... or maybe you're right and I am being too naive?
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I do think, it is irrelevant who is president when a norm of process-free executive assassination is created, because such norms tend to continue long past a given presidency, and can be used by a future president
Damn! late to the party again, and no doubt, the bowl of gags has been emptied by shitweasels cleverer than I.
ReplyDeleteI swear, one of these days.../shakes fist and howls at moon.
/tips hat to everyone in the room
...
We have a club, secret handshakes and some comfy chairs. You are welcome anytime!
ReplyDelete...
It may simply come down to a matter of taste. Do you prefer an unstoppable colossus of fury and lust, or do you prefer Q (the James Bond one, not the Star Trek one)?
ReplyDeleteAhem.
ReplyDeleteI'd hit [Christina Hendricks] with the berserker fury of a dozen Norsemen. I'd hit that so hard she'd sing the aaa-aaa chorus of The Immigrant Song.
I'd hit that I like I turned a Bag of Holding inside-out and dropped it into a Portable Hole.
Hitting that would fill me with such transcendental bliss the final three seasons of Lost would seem like time well spent.
Why oh why isn't the media talking more about this half-season of television from a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard that, I started wondering if my position was wrong. I would love to see Limbaugh whacked
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy! Congress wants nothing to do with laws
ReplyDeleteThis strikes me as rather life of Brian esque, with all due respect. You are speaking like the character who asks that his right to be female be written into the group by laws. John Cleese is taken aback. Whether it is acceptable or no the facts remain the facts: a partisan democratic system throws up officials elected for their ability to represent the interests of their constituents (however shortsighted or vile). Getting anything done in this multi actor, two party, three branch, system requires working to advance party/ constituent interests more than it does isolated, pure, man alone style idealism. To be fair id likevto point out even very good, honest, idealistic legislators have to compromise in order to get good stuff done for needy constituents or deserving causes. Bernie sanders gets whatever good he does only by working with groups of others and trading votes and compromising. This is not an aberration, it's a natural outgrowth of the particular system we have.
ReplyDeleteA rand Paul can and will get up to filibuster because he *doesnt care* about the consequences of his actions. He does not intend to work for the greater good with other senators. He is not interested in legislating for other than base profit to corporate donors and he therefore never really expects to need moral suasion--he can rely on base self interest.
As a big V-Bro's fan I will definitely have to give this show that I had previously not heard of a shot.
ReplyDelete...
Come to think of it, how old is Ace? Isn't he also in middle-aged by this point? And isn't his resentment against "middle-aged women" somehow the
ReplyDeleteperfect expression of his shallow misogyny? Apparently the biggest problem in Ace's world is that some women are settled, and have a bit of money and some agency.
In any case, it is unquestionable that you produce better political writing than 99% of the pundits we have now.
ReplyDeletePlease note that he didn't actually claim that he'd fuck her.
ReplyDeleteWell, if we're going to be known as The ________ Shitweasels, we need an adjective before we get the jerseys made up. Early suggestions include:
ReplyDeleteFightin'
Slinkin'
Stinkin'
Anonymous
Any others?
Oh yeah, Searcy's fantastic. But seeing him roll up his sleeves and grab a phone book made me sick, it was played as heroic and not horrific.
ReplyDeleteLet's split the difference and praise Krieger stalking a naked, drug-addled Pam through the office.
ReplyDeleteAce has had so many wonderful expressions of his shallow misogyny I could never pick just one.
ReplyDeleteDo you prefer an unstoppable colossus of fury and lust, or do you prefer Q (the James Bond one, not the Star Trek one)?
ReplyDeleteWhat if John de Lancie were in fact an unstoppable colossus of fury and lust? Uh, speaking purely hypothetically.
Can we assume that Middle Age Liberal Women Who Work in the Media hated Firefly?
ReplyDeleteShort Answer: No.
Slightly longer answer: "Middle Age Liberal [sic]" spells "MAL." So, no.
Shitfaced?
ReplyDelete"The Fightin' Slinkin' Stinkin' Anonymous Shitfaced Shitweasels " *is* pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteBo better watch his back.
ReplyDeleteI am very influenced in my thinking here by a really good essay at this blog https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/assassinations/ with the infelicitious name of "nsfwcorp" but it pretty thoroughly covers the history of US involvement in targeted assasinations, war by other means, etc... and specifically in the role of various Congressional actors in trying to rein the murderous executive in.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm pointing to is that the broad killing powers ceded to the Presidency have a very long history and the idea that Congress somehow opposes these powers, or would if it only "asked the right questions" isn't naieve so much as it is ahistorical. Congressional oversight is the exception, not the rule.
I was shocked at the insane Skyler hatred expressed on the few review/comment blogs I saw. The intense hatred of her for being "fat" and for being, in essence, a middle aged woman showing the signs of an actual pregnancy was a real eye opener. The audience of males really feels entitled to an airbrushed, sweat free, wrinkle free, fat free woman in all roles that matter in their shows. Their disgust was the disgust of a dissapointed consumer who paid for a certain kind of experience, damn it. Its more than the dislike that you feel (are encouraged to feel) for an "ugly" character like, say Frank Burns. It was a kind of revulsion at her very presentation to them as a something seen--like she was a leper walking through their temple.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I will read.
ReplyDeleteGod, I hope they dust those things off before they use them.
ReplyDeleteYou know what dude pointed out to me that I should be watching It's Always Sunny? Amanda Marcotte.
ReplyDeleteShe is quite the dude is she not?
ReplyDeleteshow off
ReplyDeleteyeah wait whut?! isnt Ollie the MUs capital t Token Liberal?? doesnt he use harmless trick arrwos in the books??
ReplyDeletethese guys need to get out of the basement more & go to some cons....or at least read some fan blogs!!
ReplyDeletewell to be fair teen & twenty something liberal women liked it too....first heard "SHINY!" from hs students.....
ReplyDeleteOn reflection, and rereading the thread, I didn't mean the focus of my comment to be on me (thanks guys for the emotional support!) but rather to point towards how incomprehensible Senatorial shenanigans have become even to pretty sophisticated political observers--people who have been very political for the last 60 years (now 80). I mean--these people lived through it all, politically speaking, and my mother grew up talking politics with her father. But what someone like Rand Paul is doing, what the new new new Republican Party is doing with their parliamentary maneuvering and filibustering and high fiving and grandstanding is utterly opaque to them. Because the cracked nature of the Republican party base--the guys who think Obama is buying up all the ammo, or the guys who think Obama is killing all the gun owners--is invisiable to them.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of strange on that point. He shoots what appear to be lethal projectiles at any mooks, thugs or henchmen who get between him and his target. But once he's alone with the target, it's a lecture, then pin the blackguard to the wall for the cops to find.
ReplyDeleteChristina Hendricks was unable to shake an uncomfortable thought that had lodged in the back of her mind. Yes, she thought, I'm doing pretty well. I know that. Through a combination of talent, hard work, skill, and a little bit of luck, I've managed to land any number of good parts on good projects. I'll even flatter myself and say that I've managed to put a few touches on those roles that other people wouldn't have been able to manage. I've been nominated for major awards, and even won a few of them. I like my life. I'm good at my life.
ReplyDeleteBut... but...
Can I really say any of that matters unless some pseudonymous dingleberry on the internet will spend several paragraphs rhapsodizing on how much he wants to stick his dingus inside of me?
Few know this about alien cockroaches -- they really are a calm, levelheaded bunch.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeleteThe New Republic?
ReplyDeleteWhile some of my best friends are Phalaropes, I am of the family Corvidae.
ReplyDelete/avian pedantry
Aaaahhhhh. Shows are gendered now, huh? Funny, my husband considered SATC appointment television. Did he like it as much as I did? Oh, I imagine no. But he did enjoy it and followed the stories and was invested. What a fag.
ReplyDeleteI've been watching "It's Always Sunny" for a bit now, sans penis. I don't know why I enjoy the show. Is it because of my hoo-ha or is it because I imagine "Sunny" is what "Seinfeld" would be if every character on the show were a mentally-challenged sociopath?
What's pathetic is that these fucknuts can't even their inane, petty grousing right. "Mad Men" is pretty well-liked by just about everyone with highfalutin taste, no matter the icky stuff betwixt their legs.
"EXCUSE ME MOTHER! I'm communicating with my readers. Who really love me. Also keep your things out my corner, don't think I haven't noticed"
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention that. Ace's word-poo is in response to more word-poo by John Nolte, where he herps and derps his way to this "joke.": I'm willing to bet that more than 866,000 people canceled HBO out of the fear that while channel surfing they might accidentally see Lena Dunham naked.
ReplyDeleteHA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! Get it? Lena Dunham does not look like a SI swimsuit model therefore should not be seen be seen naked on television. HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!
I assume John Nolte was similarly scandalized by Will Ferrell's many naked scenes.
These guys always make it hard for me. The derp is so plentiful.
ReplyDeleteI'll upvote that in agreement.
ReplyDeleteAll's I know is that if Hollywood makes one more goddamn "boys do dumb shit 'n' kookiness (beer! hookers! topless chicks! car chase!)" ensues" movie, I'm going to put my head through my drywall.
ReplyDeleteThe only show that men like that gets some mention is Game of Thrones
ReplyDeleteMy soul cries out to hear a show I like mentioned, and it never gets mentioned! How will I know I am watching the cool thing if my show never gets mentioned by the liberal media I despise and distrust? Also I cannot type things into the Google and I couldn't read what I found anyway.
I fully expect Roger to end up as a hippie cult leader with a following of impressionable young girls.
ReplyDeleteYou hit on it. These kinds of columns spent grousing about some piece of pop culture ostensibly valued over one's own by the masses reveal a childish need for validation. Which also describes much of movement conservatism: "Validate my selfishness, fear, greed, and self-centeredness! Admit country music is better! Say you like Archer - say it, boah!"
ReplyDeletePrepuce.
ReplyDelete"If a girl isn't pretty/Like a Miss Atlantic City/She should dump the Stage/ and try another route...... When a guy pays a quarter/for a seat He feels he oughter/get a figure that his wife can't substitute..." (From the play "Funny Girl")
ReplyDeleteGuh, no shit. And the movies they do target at women are usually awful romantic comedies that are more misogynistic than the dumb shit 'n' kookiness frat-boy flicks.
ReplyDeleteAt least movies based on Jane Austen novels can be counted on for three-dimensional female characters. Too bad she only wrote a few.
"it's really all about Pam and her dolphin puppet"
ReplyDeleteNonsense. It's about Cheryl and her ocelot Babou.
And then you have to wonder, what supposedly happens if a man looks at a naked woman who doesn't look like a swimsuit model? Does your dick fall off? Or is this just another occurrence in life? Why men supposed to be so fucking childish about women's bodies?
ReplyDeleteNot the one in Men in Black.
ReplyDeleteJohn Nolte? I ain't gettin' out of the boat on THAT island.
ReplyDeleteIt's an excellent name, but the hardest to fit on a marquee since Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives.
ReplyDeleteI like Sunny too because apparently what I think is really really funny is watching stupid people do stupid shit. I loved Married With Children back in the day, which was also about stupid people doing stupid shit because of their shallow and venal natures, though it always played, to me, like a British comedy set in the US for some reason. Anyhoo, for many years I claimed Al Bundy as my spirit guide.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it: watching boorish morons, and making fun of them, is fucking funny. I mean, that IS why we're all here, isn't it?
Krieger stalking a naked, drug-addled Pam through the office.
ReplyDelete*sploosh*
And whatever my equivalent of "sploosh" is. Which I guess is just "sploosh". With semen.
ReplyDeleteMen like some TV shows too -- Archer, Justified, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But no one talks about them in the media.
ReplyDeleteMr Spade is undumb enough to know that the media who make testosterone-friendly TV shows are the same sprawling collective entity as the media where these shows are supposedly ignored. However, BB are paying for resentment and conspiratorial piffle about a Media that the Man imposes upon them and forces them to watch, so he's going to give the audience what they want.
Memo to self: Take out large insurance policy on DrKN's drywall.
ReplyDeleteAt least the guy actually kills people instead of taping them to the wall for the cops to find, though.
ReplyDeleteI have not watched Archer but my informants advise me that the characters within it are fictional and its portrayals of intelligence agencies are not historically correct.