He drank deep from the rough wineskin. It was good.
He spoke to the dusky woman.
“Pilar, today I shall make fun of the Arnie”
She turned away, and bit her lip. Because his was too far away. She did not speak. And then she did.
“Why? Why must you do this thing?” He did not answer, but scratched his rough chulo. It was good. He would make fun of the Arnie. He would annoy el Tio Cerveza.
“Why must you do this? Answer me! I cannot read your mind, you know!”
I see the sun also rises over Elucidator’s posts, which are soemtimes as bumpy as islands in a stream. But then, **Eludator is an old man and the sea of his prose can be as fatal as death in the afternoon. I guess I’ll lay down my weapons in this thread and bid a farewell to arms.
We know that our political system is completely corrupted. We know that the populace can’t be roused to fix it. We know that our civilization is collapsing in slow-motion.
And we know we can’t do a thing about it.
So we argue over pictures of a movie-star-turned-political-candidate’s naughty bits.
Hey, Californians! Was that debate as much like an episode of “Jerry Springer” as it sounds?
And may I express my thanks to Arianna Huffington for changing sides? It was awkward for me to have the hots for her (Mmmmmm, bitchy Greek women!) when she was a Republican.
What offended me the most about last night’s debate what that the moderator was a wimp and a pussy. He was clearly so excited to be sitting at the same table with Arnold and allowed him to interrupt and talk over people at will. As for Arnold himself he came across as a genuine and dyed-in-the-wool asshole.
I hope that someone produces a Mapplethorpe photo of Arnold with a black forearm in his ass.
Also, in a moment of Simpsons Synchronicity (do they do it on purpose?), an episode Fox in Chicago showed yesterday began with Rainier Wolfcastle’s bankruptcy sale. Homer sees a rack of videotapes and says, “Oooh! Your early porno movies! Are any of them not gay?”
Also, in a moment of Simpsons Synchronicity (do they do it on purpose?), an episode Fox in Chicago showed yesterday began with Rainier Wolfcastle’s bankruptcy sale. Homer sees a rack of videotapes and says, “Oooh! Your early porno movies! Are any of them not gay?”
Best that I can tell, all this stuff about Arnold concerns stuff that he did 25 years ago or more, as a young man. I haven’t seen any of this stuff concerning his more recent past. People change. By contrast, the Clinton stuff was about things he did after he was already in the political arena, or after he was already president.
You can’t call people hypocrites on the basis of opinions that you yourself have assigned to them but which they themselves deny holding. The vast majority of Republicans that I’ve encountered say that their objections to Clinton are about perjury (or sex with a subordinate), not sex itself. A lot of Democrats feel deep down that the “real” Republican objections were about sex itself, but this does not make the Republicans hypocrites. (This was discussed at greater length in a thread a while back).
While there were undoubtedly a lot of Republicans out there who objected to the sex angle as well (and a lot of Democrats too - I recall a lot of Demos playing defense by presenting themselves as disgusted with Clinton’s behavior but insisting that it did not “rise to the level of impeachment”), you need to present evidence that the same people are actually supporting Arnold before calling anyone hypocrites. Fact is that a many or most of such people are most likely members of the “Religious Right”, as another poster suggested earlier. And best as I can tell, the State of California is not exactly a hotbed of religious fundamentalists. And even in California itself, the there are a sizeable amount of people supporting the more conservative Republican (McLintock).
Actually, the GLEE is well-founded–you must admit that the whole thing is turning into a hilarious circus–even if some of the conclusions drawn are unfounded.
Because it clearly wasn’t a “youthful indiscretion.” Unless you count a whole decade as one “indiscretion.” It’s no secret what went on in that whole scene in the '70s.
(FWIW, I don’t feel that Arnold’s actions back then have any bearing on his ability to govern the state now. Not that I think he has the ability to govern the state now…)
Oh, this brings back memories. I worked in the NEA mailroom during the Serrano/Mapplethorpe “scandals”. At least two-thirds of all the mail we processed during that time had to deal with one or the other.
Yeah, and that’s what makes this so funny. Were Arnie a Democrat or had those photos been taken by ANYBODY but Robert Mapplethorpe it wouldn’t be nearly so entertaining.
The reference was to the words used by Rep. Henry Hyde, the chairman of the Committee to Impeach Clinton, to describe a years-long affair he had in his forties that broke up the woman’s marriage. Since the word “hypocrisy” has been brought up already, that is. One might also point out that what a man did before 40 is no impediment to voting for him for President, as long as he’s of your party.
Oh, I knew what you were referring to with those exact words. I guess I was responding more to all the folks out there (not necessarily on this thread) who seem to think that this was just one naughty incident in an otherwise white-bread existence. A lot of people want their politicians to have squeaky-clean pasts, and will really stick their heads in the sand in order to maintain that illusion.
It’s just kind of funny that people will pledge all sorts of support for someone like Schwarzenegger, and then get all surprised and indignant when they find out his father was a Nazi or that he was part of the “scene” in the '70s. Considering his family background and his career path, neither of those things is surprising. And as unpleasant as it may be to think about it, both of these things probably contributed to his success.
Schwarzenegger has been pretty candid about these things in the past, too, so I don’t blame him. I blame the people who think that our politicians and their ancestors should have lived entirely blameless lives.
No disagreement at all with those sentiments. The problem for us voters remains, though, of being sure that those lessons really have been accepted and learned, that the job applicant in question really has grown in the ways he says he has, that he really is an adult now. I can’t say that confidently about either Schwarzenegger or Bush, though.