I am not a View watcher, but I am given to understand that Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the agitated blonde in this clip, is considered a reliable regurgitator of this week’s conservative talking points:
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Presumably this is yet another attempt by the RNC and/or the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer to find some tarball that will stick to Shirley Sherrod’s reputation, but really — the Hatch Act? I vaguely remember it being invoked against Democrats during the early years of the Clintons, and later against Teresa Heinz Kerry, but it didn’t get a whole lot of traction then, either. And it’s not as though Hasselbeck were liable to run across this not-exactly-a-barnburner topic during her wide-ranging political reading. Heck, half the policy wonks of either party would probably assume the ‘Hatch Act’ legislated ‘Never mention Orrin’s Mormonism outside of the state of Utah.’ And having the Blond Spokesmodel whine about “Is it rich versus poor, or black versus white?”… is that a place to which America’s Property Party really wants our collective imaginations to go?
Also, if a couple of professional comedians can provide more intelligent political analysis than the entire Politico bench…
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Comrade Mary
ARGH! I’m posting from my backup computer while the other is being defragged, so I can’t hear a damn thing, but I think I saw the world’s most disgusted expression cross Sherrod’s face when Little Miss Survivor stopped flapping her gums. I wasn’t imagining that, was I?
Yutsano
In both of those comedians’ defense, they are also some of the smartest political voices out there. I’m glad to see Mrs Snuffleuphagus up there as well, she beats the tar out of her husband when it comes to defending a point. And also remember Elizabeth’s three big claims to fame:
1) She starved herself in the Australian desert on Survivor
2) She married a two-bit quarterback
3) Other than The View, her only major gig is fashion design.
She is a horrible representative of the right. But she looks pretty. Honestly I’d take E.D. Hill, at least she can argue her way out of a paper bag.
@Comrade Mary: I’m interpreting that look as “What the HELL is wrong with you chile?” She shows a lot of restraint there I must say.
Steeplejack
Ugh. Really. That clip was tough to get through, even at a mere two minutes. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is a clown. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar came across as the voice of reason, but I feel sorry for them that they had to do it at such a basic level.
One interesting part was how the audience was clearly on the side of Goldberg and Behar (loud applause). Could this possibly mean that there is a non-Tea Party, non-Palin America out there panting for someone to bring it hard with the truth? I like to think so.
asiangrrlMN
Will not watch. I detest her and her faux celebrity status. She can DIAF for all I care.
How’s the late-night shift doing?
Earl
I barely made it through the video, but how would criticizing a past administration apply?
Wouldn’t W blaming Clinton for everything be Hatch Actable?
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: The best part is he tries to go for the attack then BACKS OFF when it’s obvious Shirley is regarding what she’s saying as total bullpuckey. I haven’t seen a doubling back like that in a long time. And yeah the audience for The View does tend to trend to the liberal side of things, but it is taped in good ol’ sociaIist New York City. But even for Elisabeth that was hella weak stew.
@asiangrrlMN: I be off for two days before the final countdown begins. I haz stories but I’m going on a late night munchie run and will return shortly to spill the details.
Viva BrisVegas
Is it a chamois or is it a towel, it’s a shamwow!
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Oooooh! I may not be here when you return because I have to get up relatively early for me (8 a.m.). Then again, I may still be here. Who knows?
@Viva BrisVegas: Snert. I like your version better.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Feeling a bit cranky tonight. Got home from work after a miserable shift a little before midnight and couldn’t find a suitable open thread in which to vent my spleen. And no late-night peeps with whom to commiserate. Have been catching up on the various threads I haven’t read and consoling myself with a bottle of champagne, which has helped my mood a little.
And the ongoing heat wave. Did I mention that? Prediction here in NoVa for 97° tomorrow and 100° on Saturday. Fuck me.
Mood only slightly lightened by listening to Dr. Lonnie Smith doing “Trouble Man” on the Hammond B-3 organ. (Damn it–can’t find a YouTube version. Okay, here’s Marvin Gaye’s original.)
Shorter version: grump, grump, grump.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: More champers? Then life can’t be all bad, right? Sorry that you had a shitty shift at work. Glad it’s over! I can’t even imagine three digit heat. I am sweating in sympathy with you already.
Marvin Gaye. Mmmmm, he’s smoove with a v. Listening to him always gets me in the mood.
Steeplejack
Okay, looks like I’m out. Palate-cleansing song on which to close: Danilo Perez’s “Across the Crystal Sea.” Jazz piano with an orchestral background.
the farmer
Hasselbeck is a dolt. The Hatch Act has to do with federal employees participating in elections and campaining etc. It doesn’t prohibit them from expressing opinions at something like an NAACP speaking engagement.
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asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Night. I’ll be following you soon.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
Actually, the Hatch Act was in the news just three years ago when Waxman was investigating whether Karl Rove and former GSA Administrator Lurita Doan (“Come to the dark side, we have cookies!”) was using the General Services Administration for partisan political purposes.
.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I’ll hold off on the tales until I know for sure you’re around. I don’t think I’m going to find my pillow any time soon just because I don’t want to. So nyah.
Enjoying what I call a Bourdain indulgence. I can explain that as well. Yeah I’m being a horrific tease tonight.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Hustlebuck.
That’s all.
Eljai
There’s no way I would have watched that video if I didn’t have at least 2 glasses of cheap chardonnay under my belt. But it was entertaining to see the expression on Shirley’s face as pretty, skinny girl strained to squeeze the talking points out of her overloaded memory banks.
Yutsano
ZOMG Bernanke is a sociaIist!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38359794/ns/business-stocks_and_economy
Kat
“Is it black-white, or rich-poor?”
Somebody should have asked her why she couldn’t work that one out for herself.
In the US, it’s always been about both.
But from the time of Columbus and Jamestown on, ‘rich vs poor’ is why ‘red, black, & yellow vs European white’ became such an entrenched cultural issue.
I threw ‘European’ in there because the class war didn’t start here. (Give the author 3 or 4 paragraphs to get going, and you’ll see what I mean.)
Lysana
Hasselbeck is the second-dumbest host that show has. She’s a right-wing stooge, but she at least knows the world is round. Sherri Shepherd is a stooge, a homophobe, and thinks the world is flat.
Tattoosydney
Elisabeth Hasselbeck makes me want to type bad words.
I will restrain myself by noting that she is a dimwitted, one dimensional, knee jerk, Barbie lite arsehole of the highest order who can bite my shiny white arse.
I have serious respect for the “liberal” regulars on the View, who genuinely do come up with decent, thoughtful analysis of US politics (although much of it would be in the “well…. duh” category if it weren’t being said on national television on that show and apparently almost nowhere else on any network).
How Whoopi has restrained herself from smashing her glass and carving “bigot” into Hasslefuck’s forehead is beyond me.
Mark S.
You know the chamber is out of bullets when conservatives start trotting out the Hatch Act. Here they were a couple months ago with the Sestek thing. But legal experts, of course, are no match for the combined brainpower of Hannity & Hasselbeck (there’s a law firm from Hell).
Tattoosydney
@ all:
How are you all? It’s 7pm Friday and I am heading home to open a bottle of Portugese red and get stonkered.
Malron
Hasselbeck reminds me of how much I’m attracted to flaky, uninformed conservative trophy wives.
Mark S.
Huh, the Survivor they had in Australia was the only one I ever watched and I don’t remember Hasselback at all. It’s funny how I remember some of the knuckleheads who got sent home early but her not at all.
Art
Who cares about Ms. Elizabeth, here’s a pug signing the Batman theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrIp3k5pJQM
kommrade reproductive vigor
I’m not watching but I wish Sherrod had asked her to explain what portion of the Hatch Act she had in mind.
“Well, um. Er. You know. The Hatch Act thingy. That says … uh…” [Frantic signals to go to commercial.]
Strange that the fReichtards are insisting that this isn’t about Sherrod but they can’t leave her alone. Hmmm. I wonder why that is?
Napoleon
I am not going to watch that clip but my dad was a federal employee and the Hatch Act is actively campaigning for an candidate/party. Stuff like putting out yard signs or knocking on doors.
El Cid
Yes.
The Wurlitzer is aiming to use Sherrod for a broader attack on the black farmers’ successful settlement against the USDA for decades of racist discrimination.
El Cid
Also, anyone remember ‘LOGAN ACT! LOGAN ACT! NANCY PELOSI WENT TO SYRIA!’?
Allison W.
Nope. there are certain people who I will not listen ’cause they make me angry – Liz is one of them.
El Cid
By the way — Sherrod’s quick railroading by the USDA feels pretty familiar to the same black farmers with whom Sherrod won a lawsuit against the USDA for its historic racism.
It should be remembered that one of the reason the right wing wants to go after the latest stage of the Pigford settlement for black farmers v USDA is because Obama was a heavy backer of legislation to authorize paying the farmers their settlements.
When Rush Limbaugh et al fully get spun up with this theme of the black farmers’ settlement being a bunch of Democrat race pimps stealing your tax dollars to give to a bunch of shiftless Negro hustlers who weren’t even farmers, you’ll see Part II of all this.
WereBear
Ah, the heartland! Here I thought Amurrica loved the small farmer, symbol of all that is good and sensible and hardworkin’…
Yet another instance where any pretense to sense breaks down.
Linda Featheringill
Hasselbach always stirs up such conflicts within me because she says such nonsense but looks so pretty while doing so.
I wonder if she is bi.
I feel that way about only 10-15% of the adult female population, so the numbers are about right. Maybe I’m picking something up at a deeper level. I’m just saying . . .
Napoleon
@El Cid:
The fact that they were ready to go with that tape right when the NAACP asked the Tea Party to renounce racist makes it look suspiciously like the clip was sitting in the can ready to go. He must have been holding it to release right before the USDA issue came up. But the NAACP suddenly presented a target of opportunity so he released it then.
BTW, I think you can infer from that that Andrew B. is actively coordinating with people in the Republican party or some other organization because I have serious doubts that he has such deep knowledge of what is coming before Congress that when someone brought him that clip he thought “Hey, this would be great to release right before that vote on the USDA settlement that may come up 4 months from now.”
Who ever gave it to him was actively trolling for stuff to use against the black farmers and when they got it they gave it to Andrew B with instructions.
Michael
Even in light of the fact that given the opportunity with Ms Hasselbach, I’d hit that thing like the fist of an angry god, I still don’t want to hear her talk.
I find it far more edifying to watch midget porn than to listen to her.
WereBear
@Linda Featheringill: Not that you might not be right; it’s just that my take was that she’s confused and clueless about a lot of things.
Including the various levels of her own identity.
Comrade Javamanphil
If Hasselback had any self-respect she’d go make an honest living in something less sleazy like porn.
Nikki
That’s what all the reparations talk is about. As soon as funding the Pigford settlement comes up for a vote, the reparations chatter will escalate.
Michael
OT, but if you want to see the proof that someone is a fucking moron, look no further than this at Nutroots Nation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/22/AR2010072204531.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Yeah, replacing Southern/Midwestern blue dogs with spit-foaming teabigots will make things soooooo much better.
ETA: My personal turn had nothing to do with anything any progressive activist had to say about anything. I found them ridiculous. My turn was based on conservative failure, hypocrisy and power-mongering.
PurpleGirl
@Kat: If no one has said it yet, that would be a good topic for a posting. (Haven’t read through the thread yet.)
demo woman
@Michael: Wasn’t it DeMint who say the same thing but coming from the right?
MattMinus
I’m pretty sure that the Hatch act makes it illegal for government employees to be Democrats.
Wormtown
@Viva BrisVegas: Excellent!
debbie
Whoopie certainly charts her own course. Recently, she’s defended both Roman Polanski and Mel Gibson.
JD Rhoades
@WereBear:
“Family farmers” are like “the troops”: only beloved in the abstract. Let them go against the wingnut line, and suddenly, they’re “phony soldiers” or as we have now “phony farmers.”
Napoleon
Clinton’s had their Christmas card list and Obama has his e-mail policy. A taste of things to come.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/07/republicans_fail_to_subpoena_w.html?hpid=politics
Shalimar
@Michael: I’m hoping Markos means that he can list 20 who would hardly be any loss at all. As someone who lives in Bobby Bright’s district and sees him vote against Dems on important legislation over and over, I want to agree but can’t. Bright and others like him suck, but the Republican who would replace him is supposedly Bachmann-level crazy so I can’t see how that could be anything other than a really bad thing.
JenJen
Well, here’s a clip of Billo the Clown and Megyn Kelly pondering the question of whether Sherrod violated the Hatch Act, so yes, Anne, I’d say that this is an emerging meme, and Hasselbeck is a part of the disseminating crew.
Kelly strangely disagrees with O’Reilly, by the way. But judging by this more recent video of Sherrod speaking about HCR last spring, I don’t think Fox News is done with her. This entire story has hurt Fox News, and they’re going to extract a pound of flesh from someone for it. Looks like that someone is going to be Shirley Sherrod. Can’t say I’m surprised, unfortunately.
JGabriel
Mark S.:
Sadly, Hannity & Hasselbeck is already in development as a morning show on Fox to compete against Morning Joe and GMA. Palin has already committed to giving her interviews exclusively to H&H once she’s President.
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Shalimar
@Napoleon: Wow. They didn’t care when the Bush administration intentionally dismantled safeguards for the email system and had no policy at all that we could see, but now it is extremely important to get to the bottom of something that sounds 1% as bad. I wish politicians exploded every time they said stuff this hypocritical. The world would be a better place.
russell
This all comes out of the NAACP’s statement that some folks in the Tea Party are racists.
There are two ways to respond to an accusation of racism in your ranks.
1. Take an honest look, clean house where needed, and move on
2. Dig in the weeds to find something you can use to say “Oh yeah, you do it too!!”
The conservatives have, true to form, gone for the four-year-old approach.
Hal
Hasselcrack thinks this is her job. She is the conservative one, and therefor, her duty is to ask questions that attempt to displace responsibility. Do not acknowledge an injustice, especially when it’s just another black person complaining about racism.
But, I do love the way she stiltedly asks Sherrod if she violated the Hatch Act, clearly demonstrating she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.
I wonder who have her that question to ask?
MarkJ
@Napoleon:
Actually, as a federal employee you can campaign for a political party, put yard signs up, donate your own personal income to a party or candidate, and basically exert all your normal individual political rights.
The Act bans federal employees from engaging in political activity at work, using public funds to support a candidate or party, be a candidate for political office, or use their official authority to interfere with elections, or use their authority as a federal employee to solicit funds for a party or candidate.
So long as you are off duty and using non-federal funds the Hatch Act does not prohibit you from participating in political campaigns or expressing your opinion.
Wilson Heath
Hatch Act in short for most federal employees as best I can recall with 1/2 a cup of coffee: you may volunteer for partisan campaigns, GOTV, express views when not from the authority of your position. You may not be a partisan candidate, be involved beyond a certain level in partisan campaigns or high levels of parties, and you may not solicit donations for partisan campaigns.
I’ve thrown around the idea that Citizen’s United could invalidate some of the Hatch Act. I believe the unconstitutional condition argument has already been tried — all previous attempts to invalidate it have failed.
JohnR
“if”? Hell’s Bells – professional comedians have been providing the most intelligent political analysis for a very, very long time – probably since before we were fully human. “Deep-thinking, Serious Official political analyticalistically analysis organizations” like Politico are basically wankers looking to get their hand-lotion subsidized. Banal, mindless regurgitation of slightly misunderstood Conventional Wisdom is their stock in trade. Remember, thinking is hard work.
brantl
@JGabriel: Which she was, at a lunch meeting, and asked all of her employees to participate, a clear violation of the Hatch Act.
muddy
@debbie:
Yes Whoopi did, and Hasslebeck argued on the side of right, which gave me a horridly dissonant feeling. Bizarre for Whoopi to defend partner abuse and child rape. Probably the only times Hasselback said anything right, but I am happy to congratulate her for those.
I am also happy to say I saw these in transcripts on a blog and did not have to watch the show. I did try one time but could not understand them, I put on the CC and it said .
Ed Drone
@Napoleon:
Actually, yard signs are OK. Door-knocking or phone-banking, not so much.
And your yard sign cannot say: “Dept. of Defense worker says ‘Elect Jack Acid’” — You can express an opinion, but cannot connect that opinion to your employer. Your opinion is yours, not the government’s, and any attempted connection is a violation of the Hatch Act.
That’s why Northern Virginia local elections used to be (and may still be, I don’t know) non-partisan — “Arlingtonians for a Better Congress (ABC),” or something like it, was the Democrats’ moniker for a while. This allowed feds who lived in the communities to run for local offices, as “ABC” wasn’t a national political party. The rationale was that it encouraged a sense of community responsibility on the part of the federal employees who made up so much of the population.
Ed
celticdragonchick
@WereBear:
Especially at Reason Magazine and at The Agitator…where Balko lost control of the thread dealing with Ms Sherrod. It seems the glibitarians hate …really hate,,,those non-Galty small family American farmers and especially the freedom hating, tax slave whip holding people like Ms Sherrod who help them get their gubmint aid.
All farms should be tilled and managed by the invisible hand of the market, or Cthullu or what the fuck ever.
BTW, Bill O’reailly started the Hatch Act talking point on Wednesday Night.
Woodrowfan
I’m a former govie and my wife still is. We can both vote, write letters to the editor, put bumper stickers on our cars, wear campaign buttons outside of work, etc. We have had yard signs. But now, as a former govie I can run for office, go door-to-door (which i did for the 1st time in 08), etc.
One of my wife’s coworkers is a teabagger and attended that teatard fest in Nashville. No problem., But she had to be told that wearing the teatard buttons and such in the office was out, and no bumperstickers or signs were allowed to be displayed in her cubicle.* Bumper stickers and such on cars in the parking lot at her office are fine.
on a side note, despite the RW stories, you can have a Bible or other religious books at your desk in a federal office, wear religious jewelry, talk about your faith, etc. You can’t go around trying to convert others.
celticdragonchick
@Napoleon:
There is nothing even remotely resembling that level of coordination…or animus for that matter…on the left.
celticdragonchick
@Hal:
Bill O’Reilly started that meme two days ago.
Wordsmith
@Comrade Mary:
OMG, NO! I just happened to catch this and I damned near came close to hitting the neighbor’s house with my coffee!
I think the thought going thru Ms Sherrod’s head was along these lines: Lord, please…..don’t let me hit this little girl and embarrass my husband on national TV.
jayjaybear
I can’t watch the View, at all. I go hoarse every time from repeating “Shut UP, Elizabeth!” over and over and over.
jayjaybear
Oh, and one thing about Whoopie. 90% of the time, she’s a party-line liberal. The other 10% of the time, she will defend a fellow Hollywooder until her teeth fall out. That’s the invisible line that has her taking up for Gibson and Polanski.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Mary:
That reminded me of the expression that crossed Dr. Stephen Chu’s face when he realized that the ranking Republican on the House Energy Committee didn’t know where oil came from.
Only even more horrified.