"Are Mormons religious fanatics?" asks The New Republic in a TNR Online debate following Damon Linker's cover story "A Mormon in the White House?" Columbia history professor Richard Lyman Bushman points out that Linker assumes they are, making rational debate impossible, as "the unquestioned belief in the potency of fanaticism makes facts unnecessary." In other words, Linker is a fanatical anti-fanatic.
Linker responds, "disappointed" that Bushman won't play by his rules: "Instead of answering the questions I pose, you dismiss them as a product of my overheated and paranoid liberal imagination...For the record, I don't consider Mormons to be fanatics." And thus TNR reveals its real motive: to stir up trouble with a shocker headline. Not like the publication that wrote about Mitt Romney and anal fisting.
An honest question would have been "How does Mitt Romney's religion influence his politics?" — without any assumptions about this religion's fanatacism. After all, Mormonism has far more similarities than differences with the evangelical Christianity of President Bush and most of Congress. Of course Romney's beliefs would affect him as president, but is his belief in the imminent return of Christ any different than that of most Left Behind-reading evangelicals? If he believes the church president is a prophet, how is that different than a President who recognizes the Pope or prays directly to God? Chris Matthews (quoted in a TNR blog) pointed out on Hardball that he worked for a Utah senator whose faith "was irrelevant to his public life."
David Bell, a blogger at TNR's Open University who drops more scripture than Jon Meacham, argues that it's okay to just ask whether Romney is a puppet of the Mormon church president. But that sounds less like a question and more like a Cavuto, and besides, it could easily be answered by checking Romney's record. The New Republic's tactic is as intellectually dishonest as asking a Christian politician if he'll obey Paul the Apostle and "not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man." Mormons aren't necessarily religious fanatics -- just like TNR doesn't necessarily hate Mormons. But it's funny how the asking the question implies a particular answer.
from drudgereport.com
Check out the choice photo Drudge included in his Nancy Pelosi "I AM THE MOST POWERFUL WOMAN IN AMERICA" spread today, gone now but preserved for posterity here. Drudge clearly wants us to remember her San Francisco roots and remind us that America's just a ball gag away from Fred Armisen's costume in this SNL sketch. Yeah that's right, bitch, it's "Palomino," and she's gonna make you scream it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about but are vaguely titillated, join us after the jump.
AP
Is John McCain really the straight talker depicted in the media? Sometimes, says Todd Purdum in his Vanity Fair profile of the presidential hopeful. But then he ruins it by delivering a safe conservative opinion, as Purdum shows with a cavalcade of examples.
Scene: McCain, in a talk at Iowa State, says, "I think that gay marriage should be allowed." Later, after his strategist whispers to him: "I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal."
Scene: McCain: "I think the [border] fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."
Scene: A former aide: "Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff. He just can't fake it well enough."
"I'm willing to negotiate everything," Purdum quotes McCain in a statement that echoes beyond its context. Salon's War Room says the piece so thoroughly demolishes the image of McCain as an uncompromising renegade, it could hurt him as badly as his support the Iraq troop surge. But by showing how McCain fumbles at double-talk, the piece could just as well reveal that McCain is still a gritty realist who will never comfortably wear the right-wing costume.
from CNN.com
...not that you'd know it from Fox News, says Salon "War Room" proprietor Tim Grieve:
Which news network can do the most to trivialize the Democrats' takeover of Congress today? We thought CNN had the crown when we saw its on-screen "Shift of Power" countdown clock, but then we turned to Fox News, where Major Garrett's report focused on the fact that television reporters will be allowed to report from the House chamber today -- and that he just saw Tony Bennett roaming the halls of Congress.As the House and Senate convened and Dick Cheney swore in the senators who will create the new Democratic majority, CNN carried the events live. Fox didn't, choosing instead to go with an extended, two-part report about a "murder mystery" involving the wife of a University of Pennsylvania professor, a press conference from Denver about a murder case there and a "Because You Asked" feature with Fox anchor Bill Hemmer.
There's no question that the handover is news — Dems took over both the House and Senate for the first time in a dozen years — but it's not exactly new news — we sorta knew it was coming. And anyone could be forgiven for looking at this photo of four old white dudes, currently on the front page the NYT website, and thinking things were still pretty much the same.
A change of power in Congress? Doesn't bleed, doesn't lead [War Room]
Democrats Take Control of Congress [NYT]
Pelosi elected first woman speaker [CNN]
Why, asks the NY Times, is the porn industry suffering slowed growth? The quick answer goes like this:
The long answer uses basic economics. The situation: Video sales have plummeted and Internet revenue can't catch up. The logical explanation: The Internet made free porn plentiful by removing porn from the physical boundaries of videos, and by forcing sellers onto a playing field leveled by Google and link lists. Now any porn site that wants to charge has to give some content free.
As many could attest, it's far harder (and riskier) to drive to an adult video store and buy a few DVDs than to surf some porn sites in the privacy of home. That's why, as the showtune says, porn now feels acceptable for "normal people." If it was as simple as moving the profit online, profits would be booming. But that assumes that Internet behavior is the same as real-world behavior.
Stats are hard to come by, but presumably the Internet attracts younger viewers than VHS did. That younger bracket grows up considering porn not as a rare thing found in the woods or Dad's sock drawer but as a commodity. And plenty of kids get their hands on more porn than the earlier generation dreamed of. Supply creates demand.
But as with mainstream music and movies, kids see porn as an ephemeral product that's okay to copy for free. In fact, many go out of their way to spread files through Bittorrent or to post cracked passwords for pay sites to message boards. As in the field of software, movie and music piracy (where pirates attach their callsigns to files they spread), a status cult drives these Rubbin' Hoods (Ed. Term of art) to pass out porn without financial incentive. Unlike the RIAA and MPAA, porn makers won't find many lawmakers willing to publicly campaign to curb piracy.
Meanwhile, the supply side is diluted with user-generated content (Ed. an interesting spin on supply-side economics: Supply creates demand in the same stroke as it satisfies it! Er, pun not intended). While no "YouTube for Porn" has dominated the market like its mainstream namesake — perhaps because there are already so many: XTube, PornoTube, SensualTube, Spankwire — the typical porn cast and crew are replaced by two guys, a camcorder and a web template, and and a disconcertingly limitless procession of gullible females. And that's why the $658-million drop in video revenue was only replaced with $341 million online, and why cable and pay-per-view, though booming, are still secondary markets.
The Times notes that sex toy sales to women are still growing healthily. Naturally — you can't replace those with a Quicktime file.
