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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Tweety quote from today.
"I'm impressed with how far women have come in the last 40-50 years."
Rea-fucking-lly? He was referring to an Obama comment about how Obama wants more women in politics. I'm all for having honest, qualified men and women in politics and every other field of endeavor. But 40-50 years is so far behind the curve it is obscene.
How does this moron still have a job. His Carter speech writing days are long gone and so should Chris Matthews be.
Laffy Kat
(16,330 posts)He keeps forgetting the Democratic part. Matthews is a shill for Clinton.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)He only started using Democratic to soften it once he considering running for POTUS
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)frogmarch
(12,143 posts)I was fresh out of high school and wrote a letter to Western New Mexico University in Silver City, saying that I was interested in becoming a forest ranger and asking for information on related classes there. In the reply I received from the University, I was told that the University offered many such classes, but that because I was a female, I should forget about becoming a forest ranger and instead marry one (YES, I was actually told that!) or else become a secretary at a ranger station.
That wasnt the only time in my life I was told in so many words to know my place and understand and accept that it was a mans world. The 50s were absolutely awful for women, and even the 70s, like the 60s, werent all that great.
The idea of a woman POTUS would have been considered absurd in those olden days. So, yeah, Im with Tweety. We women have come a long way.
Laffy Kat
(16,330 posts)floriduck
(2,262 posts)He was happy it happened so fast. My point was that it never should have taken that long. I think we agree. But I why should it take that long to be satisfied with that??
frogmarch
(12,143 posts)watched the show and heard for myself what he said, I wouldn't have missed the point.
malaise
(267,448 posts)Laffy Kat
(16,330 posts)But I think Democratic Socialist is less threatening to some people. That's all.
winstars
(4,213 posts)it in context...
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)When I was young I was told I couldn't get birth control without my husband's permission. I couldn't have an abortion in my state. I was passed over for a promotion because I was told " men are the heads of families and need promotions more than you do" I could not get a mortgage. My credit was dependent on.my husband.
In many ways we have made huge strides but the right is constantly trying to drag us backwards. I expect any dem candidate to make women's rights a cornerstone of their campaign.
Laffy Kat
(16,330 posts)UTUSN
(70,430 posts)Tweety and BARNICLE are insufferable boys from Catholic school (= misogynists). Back when I used to monitor him closely, when he worshipped RAYGUN and cheerled the FAKE impeachment and *lambasted* GORE every day during Coup 2000 and kissed Shrub and McCAIN ass, whenever he let his wife guest he and BARNICLE would snicker while she was talking (not to mention whatever other females). He's more "enlightened" now (cough cough).
Here's my dated material:
Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first three or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade of hair coloring he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD".
Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate.
Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.
Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]"For the ... FIFTY ... people who watch this show[/FONT]... (Hardball, not SNL). In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself -- manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.
"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized by the Liberal Elite, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, promenading arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime around 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published. Throughout the year of Campaign 2000 he savaged the Dem candidate daily and went on to years of bromance over Shrub, renouncing any Democratic heritage. He said his parents were cloth coat" (Rethugs), and that basically what first drew him to the Dem side was Irish-Catholic pride over JFK. Not ideology, not idealism. He said the reason he joined the Peace Corps was specifically to avoid going to Vietnam.
How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" -- an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby" . So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's MSNBC show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around the audience, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind, kneejerk jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see, THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with YOU Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil, devastated and spent, was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???!" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect.
How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody, with the insinuation that there was a CLINTON connection. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it (Name/Surname)?" She wouldnt confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger named by Tweety, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident.
"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned to Africa in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL had passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning.
But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY".
But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."
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