Stocking Stuffer: From eMeg Elf to Parking Rage
Frankly, we don’t give a damn that the boys at Craigslist think Meg Whitman is a “monster,” cuz she’s the only candidate for governor classy enough to send us an eCard for the holidays.
eMeg’s holly jolly web message has all the essentials of the classic political jing-jing-a-ling greeting card: pine boughs on the mantle and a carefully positioned poinsettia, not to mention a bright red sweater direct from Mrs. Claus’’s closet.
That said, our Holiday Special Event Planning team has a few upgrade suggestions for her production crew. For starters, where’d they get the lighting guy – the night shift at Candlestick Park? He sure didn’t do the boss lady any favors by letting her forehead shine like the Christmas Star, or leaving the right side of her face in a shadow suitable for Darth Vader.
Starshine Roshell, the popular third wave feminist columnist and Calbuzz Health, Beauty and Girly Stuff Consultant, also notes that poor eMeg’s tired eyes look like she’s been doing hard time at Guatanamo.
“What, her makeup person never heard of frownies?” Starshine said.
All that aside, we greatly appreciate Meg including one of us (the coal-in-the-stocking guy is still pouting) on her holiday list, along with three or four million of her other closest friends.
Best wishes for the New Year – and let’s do dinner soon!
Open and say ahhh: As Calbuzz spends countless hours in closed-door caucus hashing out our position on the Senate health care bill – Tastes Great! Less Filling! – the noisy debate between principled progressives and hard-headed moderates pragmatists about whether the legislation would do more harm or good for the nation’s troubled health care system rages on.
Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, offers a strong critique from the medical front lines for the former view here while the lefty Progressive Change Campaign Committee has put up a TV ad in Wisconsin attacking Obama as a sell-out on health care, in an effort to pressure liberal Senator Russ Feingold, who’s been critical of the bill, to oppose the measure.
All of which caused John Harwood’s head to explode.
Chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC, Harwood leveled a realpolitick blast at liberals that had some ‘60s veteran Calbuzzers breaking out the love beads and lip synching “Purple Haze.”
So much of the commentary that I’ve heard has been really idiotic. Liberals who want universal health care ought to be thanking Harry Reid for getting this done rather than talking about what’s inadequate in the bill. I’m not saying the bill is a good bill.
But if you’re a liberal and you want universal coverage in this country, and think that you can do better, that Harry Reid can do better than he’s done, that the White House can do better, they ought to lay off the hallucinogenic drugs because we’ve had a vivid demonstration of the limits of political possibilities on this issue.
Ohhhh…man…I took 500 mics and now I’m hearin’ weird shit on the electric television…
Ahem. An interesting under card debate to the main event is the question of how big a broken campaign promise is represented by Obama tossing the public option under the bus.
The Man himself claimed in a Washington Post interview that he “didn’t campaign on the public option.” But Sam Stein, Arianna’s resourceful political go-to-guy, did a super job of exhaustively examining the record on the issue, turning up a batch of pro-public option statements by Obama, along with a long string of reports reprising his support, which Big O’s mouthpieces never pushed back on during the campaign.
One of the best things written on what the president’s performance on health care reveals about him, his beliefs and values, besides our own analysis of course, comes from Drew Westen, who’s big time underwhelmed:
What’s costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.
Press Clips: The Ross Douthat Fan Club was once again agog this week when the Drew Pearson of the New Millenium managed to squeeze Pochahontas, Jedi Knights and Leszek Kolakowski into a 750-word riff on pantheism, the virgin birth and the works of Eckhart Tolle. On the seventh day, Ross rested.
Must-read of the week: The WashPost’s wide-ranging investigative feature on the Salahis, a tale of one obnoxious couple’s struggle to find fame, fortune and free dinners in Our Nation’s Capital. Worth the price of admission: The previously untold anecdote of how they caused a scene, when it came time for everyone to take their assigned seats at the famous state dinner, by faking they’d just learned of a family medical emergency.
Tiger Beat: It’s bad enough that Tiger Woods has lost his good name, his wife’s affections and millions in endorsements (not to mention his mom being really mad at him). Now he’s lost his column in Golf Digest. Having been fired from a few columns ourselves back in the day, we finally
found something that made us shed a tear for poor Elwick.
Today’s sign the end of civilization is near: Every gentlewoman of our acquaintance knows to check her purse for wallet, keys and ice pick before walking out the door, in the event she gets into a beef over a parking spot. Leon Trotsky call home!
“The noisy debate between principled progressives and hard-headed moderates”? You’ve got the frame wrong, brothers. The debate is between principled, realistic progressives and fantasy-addled moonbeams. The moderates have all left the building. Have you seen a Olympia Snowe lately?
I haven’t seen a moderate anywhere in sight in a long time.
Conservative Democrats, yes.
Timid Democrats who fear the corporations will pull the plug on campaign donations, in full view.
Conservative Republicans in high dudgeon, all to often.
Frightened Republicans who figure the conservatives are coming for them, check.
Holy rollers aplenty who wrongly ignore our national history and stated goals of religious tolerance, and therefore believe it is their job to push their beliefs on the rest of us.
There is nothing moderate about any of this. It is driven by cable news and corporate cash. It panders to fear and and intimidation and to the worst in our national culture.
I saw President Obama in an interview lately say that the reason he’s about to achieve the health care reform our nation has sought for 100 years is because he let Congress hash it out rather than trying to force through his own vision. That may be true. Unfortunately, without a unifying vision, we may end up with little reform at all. Which is a much smaller accomplishment than it could have been.