2) The next piece of video is isn't quite so amusing. In yesterday's Delaware Senate debate, Republican (Tea Party) candidate Christine O'Donnell rejects the idea that "government shall make no establishment of religion" to use opponent Chris Coons' slightly mangled but essentially correct statement of the First Amendment's so-called Establishment clause.
Conservative pundits have leapt to her defense, with Rush Limbaugh for one, saying:
There was a story that was written in such a way to make the reader believe that Christine O'Donnell did not know that the First Amendment prohibited the government from establishing a religion. … That's not what she was expressing incredulity over. She was incredulous that somebody was saying that the Constitution said there must be separation between church and state. Those words are not in the Constitution.
Bull. Watch the video. She twice expresses exactly that incredulity. It is true of course that the term "separation of church and state" appears first in a letter from T Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, and is not in the First Amendment. But that's not where O'Donnell reacts. She reacts to the idea that "the federal government shall not establish any religion".
And what bothers me isn't so much her ignorance--we are all ignorant to some extent, The World being a Very Big Place (TM)--but her smug certainty that she is right. Look at the mocking faces she's making during the bump (I can use this sophisticated broadcasting jargon due to my own experience as a radio personality). It's this same attitude that infuses her ignorance of evolution and her "mice with fully-functioning human brains" stuff.
3) Mark Sherman at the HuffPost reports on SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas's wife "extending an olive branch" (via voicemail) to Prof. Anita Hill, whose testimony in Thomas's confirmation hearing made him out as a disreputable, sexist pig.
In a transcript of the message provided by ABC News, which said it listened to the recording, Thomas identified herself and then said, "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day," Thomas said.
Sounds good to me. So I'm extending an olive branch to all my enemies: Let's be friends. Starting with your apology ...
5 comments:
You forgot about the private militias Republicans are employing to harass reporters at public events. Glenn Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/19/miller/index.html
I'm sorry that you are such a pigheaded dolt! Now can we be friends?
I don't understand why you care about her ignorance on this issue, when it's your side's economic ignorance that is much more damaging to our way of life.
Or, maybe that's just it. You are trying to change the subject.
Hi Rod! Been a while.
But again, not her ignorance as much as her smug satisfaction with it. And surely you know scientific literacy is something I care a lot about!
As far as economics, it's such a big complex thing that no one really understands anymore. But as to "my side's" ignorance, it wasn't "my side" that ran things into the ground in 8 years, after taking over a government that was producing a surplus with which to pay down some debt.
Further, any real efforts by "my side" to fix things in the last two years have been seriously undercut by the other side's decision that "it's okay to ruin the country as long as we can ruin Obama."
I mean...is there any shock that Rush and his ilk are sort of...totally full of crap and spouting skewed manipulated nonsense to the lowest-common-denominator masses?
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