Clinton's Hypocrisy on Michigan and Florida Pushes Latest Hagee Comments from Media Scrutiny

I was all set to write about Hillary Clinton's completely self-serving, fraudulent and hypocritical speech yesterday setting herself up as the champion of disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan. I was going to talk about the hyperbole of linking the issue with events like Selma and the 2000 presidential election and lay out the history of how Clinton signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate in any state" with a primary or caucus before February 5, other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. I was going to talk about how then Clinton Campaign Manager Patti Solis Doyle said in September 2007 that the campaign believed that "Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process" and how Clinton herself said in October 2007 of the Michigan primary: "It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything." I was even going to quote Judge Judy's famous exhortation, "Don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining."

I was going to point out the inequity of rewarding states for violating party rules they agreed to, and the chaos that could result in 2012 and future primary seasons if there are no repercussions for states moving their contests earlier and earlier in a race to be first. I might even have noted that Clinton is asking to have votes counted in Michigan when she was the only major candidate on the ballot (not exactly a fair election, unless, of course, you are a big fan of the Soviet Union).

I was going to argue that it was clear that Clinton was only taking the position on seating the full delegations from Florida and Michigan because she is about to lose (or already has lost, depending how you look at it) and thinks she needs the votes and delegates won in those tainted contests. And finally, I was going to note that Clinton's false sanctimony on the issue is exemplary of the very inauthenticity, slipperiness and lack of moral center that her numerous and vociferous detractors regularly accuse her of exhibiting.

But I decided I'm not going to write about Clinton today (at least any more than I just did). It's time to move the focus of the coverage of the election away from Clinton and to the two candidates who will actually contest the election in November. The chorus of Clinton supporters saying she has a "right" to stay in the race are only arming the Republicans in the fight for the White House. For every minute Clinton is in the news making self-serving remarks like she did yesterday, that's one minute that is being diverted from the all-but-inevitable John McCain-Barack Obama matchup. That means that the outrageous comments made by McCain and his supporters get pushed to the periphery.

Exhibit A: Rev. John Hagee. Sure, McCain hasn't had a longstanding relationship with Hagee like Obama had with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but what McCain did with Hagee is actually worse. McCain knew (or should have known) about Hagee's extreme and bizarre views, and yet with that full knowledge in hand, he not only actively sought Hagee's endorsement, but said he was proud to have it, even after McCain was made aware of some of Hagee's statements.

We already knew that Hagee called Catholicism "the great whore," and that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment to New Orleans for the city's embrace of homosexuals.

This week, Hagee's latest off-the-wall remarks came to light, as a sermon emerged in which he said that Hitler was sent by God to trigger the Holocaust so Jews would be forced to move to Israel. (Audio is available at this link.)

In April, on ABC's "This Week," McCain admitted it was a mistake to seek out Hagee's support, but he didn't back down. He said he was "glad to have his endorsement" and added, "I admire and respect Dr. Hagee's leadership ... I admire and appreciate his advocacy for the state of Israel, the independence of the state of Israel."

Right. McCain admires and appreciates a man who said in a 2006 book that "the Holocaust was the fault of Jews themselves -- the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive."

The way McCain has flip-flopped on many of his major views from his 2000 run for the presidency to this try at gaining the White House, it should come as no surprise that he is happy to be in bed with a dangerous wack-job like Hagee. McCain is the man who, in 2000, called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance" and criticized Bob Jones University, but who, this time around, bowed down to these very same folks, speaking at Falwell's Liberty University and Bob Jones University and courting the support of Hagee and other fundamentalist preachers.

But instead of covering McCain's flip-flop on right-wing fundamentalists, tax breaks for the rich, torture, and a host of other important issues, the media is airing Clinton's mock outrage over the delegates in Michigan and Florida. I'm not immune. This article that complains about the coverage of Clinton spends half its space doing just that.

If Clinton wants to stay in the race, fine, I get the importance of her run to many voters and the fact that she came within a hair of winning the nomination. But if she cares at all about beating McCain in November, she has to stop the completely insincere grandstanding, especially when her assertions are so obviously contradicted by her own statements and conduct from last year, when she figured she would win the nomination easily.

Let the voters get to know Obama: The more he talks about issues, the more his numbers seem to go up. Let the voters get to know McCain: The more his views are given a mass airing, the more it becomes apparent how closely he has voted with Bush, how much he wants to continue Bush's policies in key areas like the economy and Iraq, and how much his views have flip-flopped since 2000 (showing that he is no longer as independent as people seem to think), and the more he will be revealed as an unattractive candidate to Americans sick of the Bush administration and its policies.

It's time for Obama and McCain to take the spotlight. And it's time for Clinton to exit the stage, gracefully, I hope.

“The Bachelorette,” the Five-Year-Old Patient Zero of TV Dating Competitions, Returns

[NOTE: The following article will also appear as my regular television column for WILDsound.]

Ten brides-to-be, wearing wedding gowns, will climb a 15-foot slice of wedding cake smack in the middle of Times Square in New York on June 3. No, Vera Wang has not moved her bridal store to the top of the giant confection. WE tv is promoting the new season of its show “Bridezillas,” which launches on June 1, with a contest. The network is giving $25,000 to the woman who can make it to the top the fastest.

When I heard about this silly event, and how eager 10 brides were to humiliate themselves in public, I was reminded of how far reality competition shows have penetrated not only into the prime-time television schedule, but into the American consciousness. So it was not lost on me that I read about WE tv’s stunt on the same day that “The Bachelorette” (ABC, Mondays at 9 p.m. Eastern) premiered its latest season.

“The Bachelorette,” in addition to being part of the first franchise of modern dating competition programs, is also one of the few in which a woman is the central figure being pursued by a bevy of suitors. (Tila Tequila’s “Shot of Love” is another, but not all of the contestants seeking to be with her are men.) When Alex Michel rejected Trista Rehn for Amanda Marsh in the final episode of the inaugural season of “The Bachelor,” Rehn was given the chance to turn the tables and sift through 25 guys to find her true love, and “The Bachelorette” was born. This campaign marks the fourth season of the show (there have been 12 editions of “The Bachelor”), and the woman in question is, once again, a former “Bachelor” contestant, 26-year-old DeAnna Pappas, who was one of the two finalists for Brad Womack last year. In a “Bachelor” first, he ended up picking neither of the women. So now Pappas has taken over the rose-distribution powers for this season.

I won’t pretend that I’m a fan of most reality television shows, nor that I have seen more than three episodes of “The Bachelor.” But as much as I hate to admit it, I watched the debauchery on “Rock of Love” (both seasons), which featured Poison singer Bret Michaels looking for love in a house filled with strippers and women who could easily pass for strippers. I wanted to catch the season premiere of “The Bachelorette” to kind of examine the ground zero of what the genre has wrought.

The whole “The Bachelor” / “The Bachelorette” franchise is the Rosetta Stone of reality dating competitions. Premiering on March 25, 2002, the show established the template for a tidal wave of programs to follow. You can draw a straight line from Michel, the first bachelor, asking a woman if she would accept his rose (signifying that she could stick around and participate in a group cat fight for the right to date him) to Michaels on “Rock of Love” asking a groupie wannabe if she was willing to wear a backstage pass and remain in the house to “rock my world” (translation, stick around and participate in a group cat fight for the right to date him -- while drunk and topless). The elaborate elimination ceremonies (accompanied by overly dramatic music), confessionals to the cameras, arranged dates, quests for one-on-one one time with the star, elaborate pre-commercial previews, and so much more, all go back to “The Bachelor.”

So what did I think? Well “The Bachelorette” certainly doesn’t sink to the same low-brow levels of “Rock of Love,” “Shot of Love” and “Flavor of Love,” for example. For one thing, on “Rock of Love,” very little felt real. Most of the monologues, events and relationships seemed choreographed by the writers. If an article was published tomorrow that proved that the whole thing was a fake, and that Michaels was in a long-term relationship but just did the show as an act to resurrect his career, I would have had no trouble believing that the report was true.

But “The Bachelorette” feels a lot more plausible. Pappas is either an actress of Streepian proportions, or she really thinks she can find love on this show. And that level of authenticity makes the goings on more engaging. There are some sweet moments (not an adjective that springs to mind in most dating shows) as Pappas interacted with her suitors, and by the time the roses were being distributed at the end, I couldn’t help myself from rooting for her to keep and dump certain bachelors. (Cutting a lot of contestants the first day, in this case 10 of the 25, is another show trait that has been adopted by many of the “Bachelor” knock-offs.) I was happy to see Pappas, for example, send scary-but-buff fitness trainer Greg packing. His seemingly drug-induced rant as he left, which included shredding his shirt in an “Apocalypse Now” Martin Sheen-in-the-hotel-like moment, only verified her good judgment.

And it was nice to see a contestant take some heat for not wearing a suit to the initial cocktail get-together, instead of, say, a contestant being urged to get naked (although that, eventually, happens in the first episode of “The Bachelorette,” too, although in this case, it’s just one of the guys who decides to show off his wares on his own).

In other words, I completely see the fun people find in a show like “The Bachelorette,” especially for female viewers who get to indulge in a fantasy of dressing in fancy clothing and being courted by 25 men, most of whom are exceptionally good-looking and successful.

And yet I couldn’t help being disturbed by the show far more than any trashy fun I could derive from the proceedings. Throughout the two-hour premiere, Pappas hammers home the point that she is in search of true love and ready to settle down with the man of her dreams. She admitted to looking for a “fairy tale.” No harm there. But she also repeatedly said that she believes in the show as the method to fulfilling her goals, noting that she fell in love with Womack on “The Bachelor,” even if he didn’t return her feelings.

So here is a movie-star gorgeous young woman, who is also personable and engaging, first agreeing to go on a television show and compete with 25 other women for the affections of one man. And then, after having her heart broken twice (once in the finale, and again in the reunion episode when she tried and failed again to woo him), she goes back into the fishbowl of reality television to try and meet someone else.

Some might call Pappas a romantic. I would call her mentally ill.

I’m sorry, a fun and exceptionally beautiful woman has no shortage of ways to meet men, and nearly all of these paths are more responsible and have a likelier chance of success than talking to them while multiple cameras and microphones watch and listen in. The idea that a woman who should have zero trouble finding an army of potential suitors in the real world would go on a television show as the primary means of meeting her future husband is insane. I thought people went on reality television to be on television, not to actually find love?

“The Bachelorette” can wrap the show up in as much talk about true love that it wants, but, in the end, this is a NASCAR race of the heart, with people tuning in to see the crashes. The program is saying to the audience, “Come watch this silly woman try and find love in an ass-backwards way! You know it’s gonna be great drama when things go south!” But what’s worse is that the show is also sending the exact opposite message, sucking in viewers (mostly women) to the idea that she just might find her husband on the air. After all, Rehn ended up marrying the man she chose on “The Bachelorette,” so why can’t Pappas? But a better question is, while Pappas could meet her Mr. Right in this bizarre way, why would she want to?

The whole mess of why she’s there makes it impossible for me to enjoy the dumb fun that is buried in the program. Trust me, I get that I’m overthinking this, but isn’t it about time we start thinking at least a little about these things?

There is also an argument to be made that “The Bachelorette” reinforces stereotypes of women and unrealistic expectations in its audience, but I’ll leave that discussion to the sociology majors to debate. It’s enough for me to know that the whole spectacle made me uncomfortable, and in a worse way than the raunch-fest of “Rock of Love” made me ashamed to have watched it.

Something tells me the “Bridezilla” brides clawing through cake in Times Square in two weeks are loyal fans of “The Bachelorette” and will tune in for the next seven weeks to see if Pappas finds her true love. I would respectfully suggest to them that they, and Pappas for that matter, might want to consider some healthier pursuits.

As Kennedy Faces Tumor, Remember All He's Done for This Country

The headline hit me like a stake through the heart: Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor.

I have always found it appalling how conservatives use Kennedy as a punch line. Yeah, the guy had his troubles, from Chappaquiddick to alcohol abuse and several unsavory family incidents in between. But when history looks back on Kennedy's life and career, his problems will be a footnote to a much larger and more important story on perseverance, strength and accomplishment.

Here is a man who lost his oldest brother in World War II and his remaining two older brothers to political assassination, leaving him at the age of 36 with the awesome responsibility of taking on the leadership mantle for a high-profile political family often likened to American royalty. Can you imagine how conservatives would react if anyone threw eggs (as they do all the time at Kennedy) at a conservative politician with a parallel history of loss? The outrage would be monumental. Rush Limbaugh would shatter a sphygmomanometer (it's one of these) and Bill O'Reilly would call for a federal investigation (but it would take him multiple takes -- interspersed with verbal attacks on his producer -- to do it).

When Kennedy's career does come to an end, what he should be remembered for is the courage he showed in being a consistent liberal voice no matter how unfashionable the times held such conviction. When you consider how conservatives pillory Hillary Clinton for operating as a spineless political animal, you would think Kennedy's steadfast defense of traditional liberal values would earn him respect, even if the right wingers disagreed with his politics. Maybe I'm giving his opponents too much credit.

I know that to me, personally, during times when it was unfashionable, Kennedy was a beacon, a constant reminder that there was no shame in being liberal. When Ronald Reagan was at the height of his popularity, Kennedy was one of the few voices of dissent, rejecting Reagan's trickle-down economics and tax cuts, opposing things like oil subsidies tucked into the tax-cut legislation.

Even more importantly, on October 11, 2002, 13 months to the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, only 21 senators had the sound judgment and moral fortitude to defy the fear-mongering and false patriotism of the administration and the fear of political reprisals to vote against the resolution authorizing George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq. Kennedy was one of those 21 senators.

To put the issue in perspective, here is a list of Democratic senators from blue (that is, fairly safe) states that voted in favor of the war: Joe Biden (Del.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Thomas Carper (Del.), Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), Diane Feinstein (Calif.), John Kerry (Mass.), Herb Kohl (Wisc.), Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Robert Toricelli (N.J.). Clearly, some of the senators, like Lieberman, made a choice based on their beliefs that giving Bush war power as a tool against Iraq was a smart move. But you have to figure, given the political and social climate at the time, that more of the "yes" votes were made to protect against attacks in future campaigns.

Clinton and her supporters have argued that Barack Obama's opposition to the war was meaningless because he didn't have to actually cast a vote in the Senate on the resolution. Well, Kennedy did have to make a decision, and unlike Clinton and nearly 30 other Democrats, he voted against the war, a stand that has been more than vindicated five-plus years later.

As stalwart as Kennedy is in supporting liberal causes, he has not been afraid to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans. He might be a symbol of modern liberalism in the senate, but he has behaved as a flesh-and-blood human being, not some kind of single-minded ideologue. His friendship with ultra-conservative Utah senator Orrin Hatch is well-known in Washington. And it was just this past year that Kennedy teamed up with conservative senator John McCain (yes, he is conservative, voting with Bush 43 of 44 times in 2007) to produce a compromise bill on immigration.

And despite Kennedy's early struggles with his personal demons, he did eventually get them under control, living a healthier life, settling down with a wife, and comporting himself like one of the elder statesman in the senate.

I hope Kennedy successfully fights this tumor and suffers as little as possible. The man has suffered enough in his life. The right-wing crazies like Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Ann Coulter may want to turn Kennedy's life into a joke. I hope that as he battles this latest setback, he is given the respect he has earned through a life of public service. We have a much better country because of Ted Kennedy. I just hope that people remember that in the weeks and months ahead.