Don't fence me in

Digby's got a thoughtful piece up on the concept of "fencing". It was originally written about by Hudson at DKos and can best be summarized as:

[the] process of ritual humiliation that's become a standard part of the Republican playbook over the last few years, the purpose of which is to "fence off" voters from feeling comfortable identifying with the Democrats and candidates who are widely seen as socially marginalized objects of derision --- effeminate geeks.

He goes on to give examples of this tactic working to spectacular effect on both Al Gore and John Kerry. Digby goes back to Hudson for this quote:

In the Bush-Kerry campaign, "fencing" mostly took the form of playground insults and other humiliations:

Kerry looks French. Kerry spends a fortune on haircuts. Kerry is vain and pompous. Kerry has funny hair. Kerry's voice is funny. Kerry reminds people of Lerch on The Munsters. Kerry wears Lycra--fluorescent-striped Lycra. Kerry rides a fancy European bike. Kerry looks fruity when he windsurfs. Kerry wears expensive suits, ties, sunglasses, shoes and belts. Kerry asks for French mustard when he orders a hot dog...

And then Digby goes on to point out:

I think this tactic plays into many people's anxiety about changing social and gender roles in our fast moving society. A lot of folks out there are genuinely freaked out by the rapid pace of change and because of it are very susceptible to rigid stereotypes. They just feel more comfortable on the side of the fence where the macho high school boys and the girls who love them are. It's very hard to even get them to peek over and see what's on the other side.

He wants to know, what can we do about this? How do we either undermine this "fencing" or work on the public to get them to see it for the immature, assinine tactic that it is? Can we drag a good portion of the American public out of a high school mentality?

Your long, national civil liberties nightmare will soon be over

via Fafblog:

After months of petty partisan mudslinging over "individual rights" and "unlimited executive power," Samuel Alito has finally been given his proper place on the nation's highest court. It is the greatest honor a jurist can receive: no longer a creature of flesh and bone, Alito has been reborn as lifelong Justice of the Supreme Court, a pure and ethereal conduit of the Constitution. Even as we speak he is being anointed by his fellow jurisprudents in the Supreme Court Building, where he will bodily ascend into the empyreal Tenth Sphere of the Law to commune with the wraithlike, undead spirits of the Framers to perfectly comprehend the true meaning of the Constitution before passing through the eye of a black hole to become the Star Child.

Interesting

( For those wanting further details on the casting/directors/editors/etc. for Order of the Phoenix just clicky here. )

Yes, Mr. Apuzzo. That is me beating you with your own idiot stick.

Well, if the Oscars had a "best post demolishing a witless conservative hack," I think this could be the only nominee...

I could never, in my wildest dreams, have nailed the close to this discussion like that. It's ... sublime. It's like looking into the solar corona of hackery, eclipsed only by the lunar body of cluelessness. Even when you go into the comments on his own right-wing site, you read things like: "I too believe Hollywood is filled with perverts and socialists. But an Oscar for Episode III? Are you high?"

I am usually very leery of criticizing fellow artists, and there are quite a few people who I disagree with politically -- Warren Bell for example, over at The Corner -- who I will tell you right now, is a helluva screenwriter.

But Jason Apuzzo, although he may well be a fine man, father, husband, uncle, businessman, friend, patriot, devoutly religious ... in my opinion Mr. Apuzzo has just proven himself to be, in this Feith-ian context,"the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

The stupid of Apuzzo, it burns, but Rogers at KungfuMonkey makes it all better. Read the rest, just don't drink anything when you do.

Fear of Girls

Mercy? You want mercy? I'm chaotic neutral!