suddenly, she doesn’t seem so bad

Keep drinking, Hillary — it suits you.

x in atlanta

Wished I could’ve made it to Variety Playhouse Thursday night to see the seminal punk outfit otherwise known as X. Why is that tired adjective still being employed, and why only for punk bands?

Ironic, considering …

sem·i·nal: Of, relating to, or having the power to originate; creative.
adj.

As for X, this song ranks somewhere among the top 20 most seminal songs ever recorded:

bloggers are strange

A debate between yours truly and a certain gay blogger has been proposed by the Georgia Podcast Network.

Though no offense was intended, I’m not much interested in debating products or pop singers or my sexuality. My response was dismissed as “obsessive” and I was warned to “save the snark for the podcast, or have future comments of yours along these lines deleted.” I guess I’ll live, though I’m moved to delete any future comments on the Malcontent that mention “snark.”

You’ve been warned.

don’t ask me, i’m just the spokesman

It’s not what Scott McClellan wrote — the Iraq War was propagandized? I had no idea — it’s that he was in a position to write anything at all.

Bush loyalists are busy trashing their former colleague, but there’s no need to insinuate McClellan was overmatched — anyone who watched one of his press briefings could conclude that.

He seemed perpetually out of the loop and wasn’t credible pretending otherwise. McClellan was exactly what he appeared to be: a career functionary promoted to a position the Bushies considered irrelevant, a la former FEMA director Michael “You’re doing a heckuva job” Brownie.

If Bush/Cheney thought the public had a right to know what it’s government was up to , they wouldn’t have tabbed a hapless bureaucrat like McClellan as their messenger.

the insidious influence of gay men and middle-aged white women

They are Hillary’s most loyal supporters and “Sex and the City’s” biggest fans. Clinton fell short, thank God, but nothing could stop the promotional blitz accompanying the film adaptation of that mediocre sitcom about aging sluts.

The only way the movie will live up to its hype is if Carrie Bradshaw stops writing that godawful sex column; the junior high Jersey Lolita from “Welcome to the Dollhouse” — the one who introduced Dawn Weiner to finger fucking — had more insight.

politically correct conservatives

Right-wing nut Michelle Malkin, who wrote a book defending the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII, has successfully bullied Dunkin Donuts into dropping an ad she claims demonstrated solidarity with terrorists. Seriously.

So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin Donuts’ spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company’s ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.

I’m no fan of “murderous Palestinian jihad,” and I don’t know Rachael Ray, but I’m guessing her choice of accessory had little to do with the Gaza Strip.

Not that Malkin cares; the Coulter wannabe is employing the same kind of thuggery attributed to the PC crowd, manufacturing outrage while ignoring intent.

At least now she can return her focus to more pressing matters, such as Barack Obama’s *refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin.

*Turns out Obama caved. Instead, he should’ve found the biggest, most garish flag lapel pin on the market, worn it daily and then questioned the patriotism of those donning less prominent pins.

great moments in screenwriting

“Broadcast News” is a cinematic anachronism — an accessible treatise on personal and professional standards. The scene where a jealous Albert Brooks attempts to dissuade Holly Hunter from compromising is a standout:

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I’m semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing… he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance… Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he’ll get all the great women.

all the right enemies, not enough friends

The Clintons hate him. So do the Bushies. And he’s a favorite target of the unctuous “watchdogs” at Media Matters.

He’s also opinionated, combative and more than a little sensitive. How could I not like Chris Matthews, host of “Hardball,” the only cable news show worth watching?

Enjoy it while you can. His contract at MSNBC is about to expire, and the network appears inclined to dump Matthews in favor of a cheaper, younger talking head — someone more compatible with rising star Keith Olbermann.

The ex-sportscaster (and former Fox employee) is lauded for his wry skepticism, though I find the act painfully contrived. A real cynic has little in common with rank partisans, and Olbermann is as ideologically predictable as a Daily Kos diarist. And his relentless sparring with Bill O’Reilly can’t obscure how much the two have in common; as reporter Aaron Altman observed in “Broadcast News,” “Let’s never forget, we’re the real story.”

Not to say Matthews lacks ego, but at least he’s honest and informed. Hendrik Hertzberg mounts a compelling defense of “Hardball” in The New Yorker, including this must-see “teaching moment”:

product identification

I hate millennial metaphors:

She was still AOL; Obama was Facebook. Clinton was the PC; Obama was a Mac.

That’s more tired than Mike Hampton after a nap (sports metaphors: trite, but commercial-free).

A MALCONTENT EXCLUSIVE: hillary goes long

Hillary states her case:

“It could be two years from now, and probably before, and we’ll be in the midst of a depression unlike any we’ve ever known. By then, the noble uneducated white working person in this country is unlikely to have health insurance. Who knows, maybe the president will just decide they don’t deserve health coverage. Maybe it’s revenge on his part, or just incompetence.

“You know, that same inexperience could lead us to the brink of destruction. We might all be forced to surrender the rights we treasure as Americans just because our president naively negotiated them away in exchange for a no-fly zone over his vacation home in Riyadh.

“Well I don’t take vacations, and I don’t think those rights are negotiable, because if that happened, I could never be president.

“It should be obvious to everyone by now that I’m losing because I dared be born a woman. But what if Iran was allowed to impose their religion on us, and who knows, maybe we’ll have a president who thinks that’s a good thing. We’ll be beyond the point of any return, and you’ll say, ‘I wish we had someone here fighting for us.’

“And you’ll have a friend, a much smarter, but less educated Caucasian friend, who’ll say, ‘We did have that person here, that woman here, fighting for us every waking moment, even at 3 a.m. She fought hard. She deserved to win. But the people turned their back on her, and now the president, who’s not a woman, turned his back on us.’

“And who knows, maybe our new religious leaders will force me to do something that hasn’t happened in a Democratic primary since 1968. Of course, I’d fight them, but women won’t be allowed to fight anymore, sort of like now. Well I’m here to tell you I’ll keep fighting for you no matter how much ‘they’ try to stop me.”

who are “they,” and why does anyone still respect this man?

He sounds like a 13-year-old girl who’s been forced to miss a “Hannah Montana” concert. It’s just not fair!

Former President Bill Clinton in South Dakota today delivered a harsh critique of how his wife has been treated during her presidential bid, telling the crowd that he has “never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running,” and that, “she will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.”

Are the Republicans in on this conspiracy, ’cause that wouldn’t make any sense now that the Clintons are best pals with Fox and friends. Must be all those elitist types who hate simple white folk like Hillbilly.

“And I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running. Her only position was, ‘Look, if I lose I’ll be a good team player. We will all try to win but let’s let everybody vote and count every vote.’”

To be fair, if anyone’s an authority on treating Hillary disrespectfully, it’s Bill.

a convenient feminist

Camille Paglia is a serious feminist. As such, she refuses to take Hillary Clinton seriously.

Hillary has tried to have it both ways: to batten on her husband’s nostalgic popularity while simultaneously claiming to be a victim of sexism.

Well, which is it? Are men convenient sugar daddies or condescending oppressors? …

For all her claims of media bias and ill treatment by her male fellow candidates, Hillary has got off absurdly softly in this campaign. No one — neither her rivals nor mainstream journalists — has had the guts to explore or even list the bursting catalogue of past Clinton scandals, in which Hillary was nearly always hip deep. …

Charges of sexism have become Hillary’s rote strategy for evading scrutiny. But by entangling the noble movement of modern feminism with her own knotty psychodrama, Hillary is reinforcing hoary stereotypes about women. Will every losing woman candidate now turn on the waterworks and claim to be maimed by male pride and prejudice?

Contrast Paglia’s assessment with the dippy empowerment schtick proffered by Arianna Huffington and remind me why anyone takes that former cult enabler seriously.

the taking of subtlety 123

I’m actually glad Hollywood is remaking the 1974 heist classic, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” The hype certain to surround a summer blockbuster starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta might bring the original, rarely aired on TV or cable, a new audience.

No doubt it will compare favorably to the 2009 release. LRH’s second-favorite homosexual inherits the Robert Shaw role, which is sort of like Hillborg holding the same Senate seat once occupied by RFK. Shaw, who played Quint in “Jaws,” was cooly menacing as “Mr. Blue” (Quentin Tarantino paid hmoage in “Reservoir Dogs”); Travolta’s character sports massive tattoos and a handlebar mustache, because he’s a bad guy, and bad guys are always conspicuous.

At least they are in *Tony Scott films. The small penis responsible for “Top Gun,” “Days of Thunder,” “The Last Boy Scout” and “The Fan” has a singularly abrasive style, relentlessly loud and consistently vapid. I doubt fans of the first film — grimy, clever and subtle — will recognize the remake, though I’m sure it’ll be forgotten within months, just like most of the movies directed by Ridley’s less talented brother.

*True, Tony Scott directed “True Romance,” though I think Tarantino’s script deserves most of the credit. 

developer-speak

Carter wants the library land because it’s in the midst of his high-end project. He called the building “a gap in the experience“ at his future shopping mecca.

As in, “there was a gap in my experience at the mixed-use development. Between Eddie Bauer and Natural Body there was this … well I don’t know what it was. It was all weird looking and there were lots of books inside. Hello, I was looking for Portrait Innovations.”

Cosidering how metro area developers always seem to have the upper hand, I don’t like the Buckhead Library‘s odds.

be wary of converts

I’ve never trusted wholesale transformations, particularly among political figures. Think pulp slanderer David Brock, or Communist scion David Horowitz. Notice how each refuses to demonstrate even the slightest understanding towards people who think the same as they once allegedly thought. Shouldn’t they retain some empathy, or at least a few of their prior views? One would assume, though reason is rarely profitable.

Arianna Huffington is best-known among the ideological Zeligs. A former Gingrich acolyte, she’s moved to the left of Pelosi, and her opinions remain malleable:

But the greatest triumph of Clinton’s campaign — a complete triumph — is the example she has set for the next generation. And not just for young women; her dedication, perseverance, and indefatigable drive make her a role model for young men as well.

Just what we need — another generation of self-serving liars. Arianna, a Clinton critic of formerly good standing, and Hillary would feel right at home among that group. You can’t believe a word either says.