Plenty of ups and downs to go over the next year-and-a-little-bit, but I’d say Scott Brown is (a) a graceless lout (b) someone who has an objectification problem and (c) will have some work to do with women voters.
I’d also say that I keep on being stunned by — I don’t really know how to put this actually…
…just poleaxed at yet another reminder of how just badly brought up the Republican bloc seems to be these days.
I’ve never met Scott Brown’s parents, and I don’t wish to say ill of strangers about whose trouble and strife raising a family I know nothing. But my mum would have flensed me verbally with all the immaculate Oxbridge tones and wit at her disposal if I’d ever have said something like this:
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) was interviewed on a local talk radio show Thursday morning. And he had an interesting response to a recent line from Democratic frontrunner Elizabeth Warren.
At a Democratic primary debate this week, Warren was asked how she paid for college — in contrast to Brown having posed nude for Cosmopolitan.
“I kept my clothes on,” Warren replied. “I borrowed money.”
This morning, one of the hosts asked Brown: “Have you officially responded to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about how she didn’t take her clothes off?”
Brown began laughing lightheartedly, and gave his reply. “Thank God,” he said, with more laughter.
“That’s what I said!” the host responded. “Hey look, can you blame a good-looking guy for, for — you know.”
H/t TPM, where you can check out the audio if you have the stomach for it.
Count me gobsmacked, but also, as an Elizabeth Warren fanboi, delighted. Opposing Martha Coakley, Brown romped over one of the worst campaigns I’ve ever experienced (as a volunteer in MA on and off since 1976). Not going be that easy this time, and the more unforced errors like the above he commits, the happier I am.
But again, there is a kind of wonder here that transcends political calculation. To (very loosely) paraphrase Ben Franklin, somebody had to work really hard to achieve that fine level of dumb.
Flanderin Hippolyte, Jeune homme nu assis sur le bord de la mer (also as (Étude de nu), 1855
arguingwithsignposts
Anyone have a pic of warren from college?
What an idjit
Svensker
You know, call me an unliberated woman but…
When I first heard this, I thought WTF?! But then when I heard Warren had opened it up with her own slam at him for putting himself through college by modeling, I thought his riposte was justified. If you’re going to slap, you gotta expect to be slapped back.
I’d be happy to have someone explain to me why I’m wrong.
geg6
Well, between this and his earlier attempt to pimp out his daughters, I’d be surprised if a single woman in MA votes for this lout.
And honestly, I find Elizabeth Warren to be very pretty, but not someone who is completely wrapped up in her looks. I’ll bet she was a stunner in college but was too smart for boobs like the frat boys Scott Walker was so obviously one of or wished to be.
jsfox
It would have been great while Brown was attending the schools of hard knocks called Tufts and Boston College School of law he had acquired some class. Alas I guess there are things even two of the most elite institutions for higher education cannot teach some.
Randall
I love Elizabeth, but she insulted him first. He has every right to take his clothes off for money.
Morzer
It’s hard to blame Brown, slimy toad though he is, for zinging back on this one. No-one cared about the Cosmopolitan pictures when he was running against Coakley and the vast majority of voters will most likely think that this was six of one half a dozen of the other, given that Warren gave a somewhat self-righteous response to the original question. If you throw elbows about someone else stripping to get through college, you can’t really claim too much moral high ground if they snark back at you.
SenyorDave
@Svensker: As much as I loathe Brown, I have to reluctantly agree. Although Warren’s remark is more of a generic gentle jab, while Brown’s is a personalized nasty gotcha (my guess he had on a morning drive jock who would make similar remarks).
But unless there is more to it, Warren opened the door.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Svensker: I’d say she teased him and he insulted her. Disproportionate response. I get the sense that Warren unnerves Republicans, much as Obama did as a candidate, and that’s a good thing.
Gex
The same way Monica Lewinsky helped Clinton with “real men” this sort of thing will help Brown.
ETA: With some MA men.
Gin & Tonic
One of the strongest negative comments my mother would ever make about someone isn’t nearly as pithy or as good-sounding in English, but translates to “poorly brought up” or “uncultured.” Her phrase was what I first thought of when I read about Brown’s remarks earlier today.
Kristine
@Svensker: Subtle difference, I think. The fact of having posed nude vs the not-so-subtle hint that no one would want to see you anyway. The former criticism could be labeled common-sensical, but the latter is a slam, plain and simple. A matter of degree.
adolphus
I have to join those who say Warren struck first and they both zinged each other pretty good. I don’t see a lot here to get my boxers in a bunch about. It’s a little early in the cycle to be getting danders up. It’s gonna get so much worse.
geg6
@Svensker:
Modeling is one thing. Posing nude in a national magazine and running for and winning the “Sexiest Man in America” contest is quite another.
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/scott-brown-nude-in-cosmo
And this:
MattR
@Svensker: I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think “yeah but she’s ugly” is a winning strategy with a lot of people. I also wonder if the radio host would ever have said “Hey look, can you blame a good-looking woman for, for — you know.” with the implication that there is nothing to apologize for.
SenyorDave
@Gex: Don’t think it will hep or hurt. Warren should stick to pointing out to Mass voters that Brown still votes consistently with the GOP, which is now a far-right fringe party.
Villago Delenda Est
If Brown has any handlers, they have destroyed their future careers by letting their guy fuck up this badly.
SenyorDave
I think its a no-win for Brown or Warren.
BlueDWarrior
I think it’s time we pull the ol’ “Cosmo von TruckNutz” moniker back out from the wayback machine.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Honestly, no-one’s going to think about this extremely minor spat in a year’s time.
LT
Think Progress started off their response to this by saying “Warren was wrong to say what she said, but…” That is so stupid.
Fuck you and thank you, Scott Brown. You just pissed a lot of people off in the way we like.
Villago Delenda Est
@SenyorDave:
Actually, the moderator in their debate last night opened the door, and Warren played on it.
Then centerfold boy took it to exiting new plateaus of fail.
MattR
@Morzer: They won’t think of this specifically. But I do think this incident can help push voters to have a general sense that they don’t like Brown which will have an effect when election day finally rolls around.
Anne Laurie
Well, Senator Cosmo has opened himself up to the rebuttal that the loan agencies were willing to take a chance on Warren, but Scotty figured his… ummm… figure was better than those figures… a wise man plays to his strengths, and planning ahead wasn’t Young Scott Brown’s talent.
Guess these young shock-jocks beat Dennis & Callahan to the “get”, but I’m sure the old bulls have big, fat, extremely obnoxious plans for the next 13 months.
Sasha
I’m not too rankled by his comment. Against a male opponent, his reply would be kinda funny.
But Warren ain’t that. Stupid unforced error on his part.
Villago Delenda Est
If Brown were smart (it’s obvious he isn’t) he wouldn’t have risen so readily to the bait, even the mild thing that Warren said.
Warren gave him an opportunity to fail. He grasped it with both hands.
Crashman
@Anne Laurie: God, I hate Dennis and Callahan. I stopped listening to all of EEI because of them.
LT
@adolphus:
Wow. Really? She was ASKED abut him posing nude for Cosmo. HIm posing nude is already out there, it’s already something he did that people know, and that a lot of people understandable give him shit about. Warren made a joke about it. Brown was then asked about Warren’s joke – and made a 7th-grade cringe-inducing really fucking stupid and just plain mean response.
That’s a big fucking difference.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Morzer: probably not, but a great deal of Brown’s appeal is that he’s a nice guy, a Republican, but not one of those Republicans (see also Snowe, Olympia). Every chip in that facade hurts him. IMHO.
snoey
Warren didn’t bring it up, she was responding to a question about Brown’s posing.
That said, the best response is to just let it lay there like an extra juicy beer’n’beans fart and not make it about ourselves by calling more attention to it.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@arguingwithsignposts:
She’s a fairly attractive 60-ish year old woman — I can imagine what she looked like when she was younger…
djork
I kind of have a crush on Warren, so I’d have to disagree with Brown.
LT
@Svensker:
You’re not an unliberated woman, you’re a knucklehead. “Opened it up”? She was asked about it. Brown has been the butt of jokes about this a hundred million times.
Bartleby
She criticized his conduct; he made fun of her looks. Do you people not see the difference?
Svensker
@Sasha:
That’s where I am. As a politician he should have known better than to do it, but I would have totally said the same thing if someone had zinged me like she did.
She was teasing, he was mean? People gotta put their big people pants on if they’re going to punch first. Hopefully Warren will respond with humor or nothing at all, rather than taking to the fainting couch.
pragmatism
she is going to chew him up in the debates. can’t wait.
trollhattan
I read somewhere he has a truck.
Time for Scotty to take a cue from Failin’ Palin and simply refuse to speak to anybody without a Fox sticker on their forehead. It’s only thirteen months, after all.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Svensker: few people in our political (and media) world seem to me less likely to look for a fainting couch than Elizabeth Warren
burnspbesq
Scott Brown understands his base perfectly. He said exactly what every male member of Red Sox Nation under the age of 50 was thinking.
Scott Brown’s base is the sons, nephews and cousins of my college classmate who missed a week of class in February 1977 because he went home to Charlestown to throw rocks at school buses.
wrb
@LT:
This is key.
There has been a lot of comments drawing a false equivalency.
Svensker
@LT:
And her statement implied that there was something wrong with his having modeled to earn money. Was there something wrong with it? Should we think less of a man who has done male modeling? Why? Because male modeling is kind of, you know unmanly, or har har har?
I think she made a cheap shot. He answered back. I don’t see the issue.
slag
Steve Benen adds some more laughable context:
Apparently, the school of hard knocks is a really expensive one.
Culture of Truth
So a female candidate for Governor once did some modeling decades earlier. Chris Christie is asked about it, and dismissing his female rival, says, “I kept my clothes on.” She says, in response, “Thank god.” Funny, or outrageous?
LT
Next we’l have a BJ thread with women in it supporting Rush Limbaugh’s ‘I like the womon’s movement…from behind’ because, well, Elizabeth Warren!
Han's Big Snark Solo
Okay, let me see if I have this right.
1) Warren is asked in a debate, in a question that references Scott Brown posing naked, how she paid for her college. She responded by saying that she didn’t take her clothes off.
2) Brown, in essence, says Warren is ugly.
And you guys don’t see a problem with that? Really?
OT – How many have questions about what ELSE Scott Brown did to pay for college? I would be totally unsurprised to find he was, on occasion, paid for sex. And mostly by men. He says he went to the “school of hard knocks” which is laughable, he went to Tufts. Posing naked doesn’t qualify as hard knocks, but prostitution might…
slag
@Svensker:
Yes. Elizabeth Warren was implying that she was very unmanly har har har for keeping her clothes on. You’re so right on.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@slag: Brown isn’t exaggerating when he talks about the school of hard knocks. One of his step-fathers used to beat the crap out of him, IIRC. but if he’s trying to paint Warren as a Trust-Funder, Ivy League legacy, it’s just going make more people learn that she started waiting tables at 13. He’s getting some bad advice.
Amir Khalid
Haven’t seen the context of the phrase, but by itself “I kept my clothes on” doesn’t particularly sound like a dig at Scott Brown. And by itself Brown’s “Thank god” response doesn’t particularly sound like a dig at Warren, either. This seems to me like the media wanted to add some drama, so it chose to interpret this trivial exchange of banter as a squaring-off between the two likely opponents in the election proper.
“Is this a thing, or not a thing?” as David Letterman might ask. I’d answer: “It’s not a thing.”
If there’s anything to tut-tut over, it might be Brown’s misstatement that Warren went to Harvard as a student, when in fact she didn’t. But there’s no page-clicks in that.
Culture of Truth
If asked to respond to Brown, Warren should just say, “If this were a beauty contest, Scott Brown would probably win. Fortunately for the people of Massachusetts, it’s not.”
Ohio Mom
I read Warren’s remark as a (perhaps too) subtle assertion that she has *always* had better judgement than Brown. And that’s an important message.
Svensker
@slag:
You know, you can laugh at Scott Brown for being defensive about his childhood, but it seems like a really, really rough one. I don’t like the guy’s politics, but making fun of him for being poor and figuring out a way out of his awful family life seems very shitty. The guy was bounced from home to home, was on welfare, was sexually abused, was in trouble with the law. Why are we making fun of him for capitalizing on his looks to help him get out of that mess?
Which is why I cringed a bit at Warren’s jibe.
Svensker
@Culture of Truth:
Thank you.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@slag:
Brown added, “You know what, listen: Bottom line is, you know, I didn’t go to Harvard, you know,
Warren didn’t go to Harvard, either.
Svensker
@slag:
No, I’m not saying Warren is manly.
I’m saying, why is it OK to laugh at a man for modeling? We’re supposed to be liberals who give people all kinds of latitude, but there seems to be a lot of snickering going on about this male modeling. Why? Is it because modeling for men is so GAY? Or what? What makes it funny and acceptable to laugh at male models? I need this explained to me, as well.
Lysana
@burnspbesq:
I will thank you not to slander Red Sox Nation in that fashion. As a member, I can assure you that Warren has support within that network of fans. Seriously, accusing baseball fans of being backward-thinking because they’re baseball fans? And Massachusetts ones at that??
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Painting Warren as a trust funder is a big mistake…
Woodrowfan
Brown’s comment would have been OK if he was teasing a buddy in the locker room, but against a woman he doesn’t know AND in public, tacky, tres’ tacky.
Chuck Butcher
She knew what she was doing when she said, “I kept my clothes on…” and he knew what he was doing. The question held the slam, all she had to do was say, “I took out loans,” and let it go. Both shots were deliberate and meant to be construed as humor rather than the slams they were. His response was less helpful to him than her’s was for her but they played the game and nobody is bleeding.
LT
@Svensker:
Apparently YOU have an opinion about it, so I reckon others have a right to, too, then, don’t they? And who mentioned modeling?
And what does any of this have to do with his response? If he had answered “Is there something with me posing nude to pay for college?” we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I think we may be being a tad harsh on Senator Zoolander. It isn’t his fault, he is a victim of his own limited intellect.
Tom Levenson
@Certified Mutant Enemy: University of Houston, I believe. Rutgers Law School..i.e., not exactly silver spoon stuff.
Non-rich parents too.
@Svensker: Still doesn’t get over the “you’re ugly…” side of things. The point isn’t that Brown doesn’t have a real story to tell about his childhood. It’s that he replied to Warren by saying, in essence, she’s her looks, and those looks ain’t good enough.
That’s what gets me about this: it’s one more way in which a Republican male tries to delegitimize a Democratic female opponent by suggesting that her appearence is a measure of her worth. I’m waiting for the “strident” trope to come along.
Svensker
@Ohio Mom:
I agree with you completely, that’s what she was doing. But, again, why was it bad judgement on Brown’s part to do male modeling?
gogol's wife
@Svensker:
I haven’t read the comments, but I agree with you. She opened the door for it, and he walked in. I put this in the same category as the painted rock and Christie’s weight, under “not at the top of the list of why this person shouldn’t be elected.”
slag
@Svensker:
He wasn’t being defensive about his childhood. He was being defensive about his adulthood. And Warren wasn’t mocking his manliness. She was mocking his tackiness. Which he then further demonstrated. As far as I can tell, his childhood wasn’t part of that debate. He brought that up after the fact. Probably because he knew that he had stepped in it when he attacked her appearance and wanted to justify his behavior.
Steve
Could someone post the actual question Warren was asked when she gave that answer?
Tom Hilton
The jerk store called, and they’re running out of Scott Brown.
(They ran out of Hank Williams Jr. yesterday.)
Svensker
@Tom Levenson:
See Chuck Butcher’s answer above.
I know people will have varying opinions about this. I KNOW all the liberal women in my family will be up in arms about it — expecting lots of ZOMG posts on FB tonite.
Whatevs. I think it was a minor slap fight between equals and absolutely no big deal. She was ungracious to him, he was ungracious back. Both did it with humor.
I hope she beats the shit out of him in the election.
Thus ends my involvement in the defense of Scott Brown.
Han's Big Snark Solo
@Tom Levenson:
Exactly!
It all goes back to the sexist, “Women are only good for cookin’ and cleanin’ and makin’ babies” meme of an era that should be long behind us.
Epic Fail for Senator Zoolander!
Linda Featheringill
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: #9
So her very existence drives them to extreme reactions? hee-hee.
Elizabeth is a very, very intelligent person and also seems to have a lot of understanding about people. Can you imagine trying to lie to her? How far do you think you’d get?
MattR
@Svensker: IMO, it is not that he is a male model. It is that Warren used her intelligence and hard work to make money to get through college while Brown used his looks.
MattF
Well, it’s a back-and-forth in a political campaign and it’s revealing some things about both of them– no joke intended. Neither of them comes out shining with glory, but Warren comes out ahead, both on headlines and on substance. “She made fun of me, so I insulted her back” isn’t a winning strategy.
Tom Levenson
@Steve:
“Have you officially responded to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about how she didn’t take her clothes off?”
LT
@Svensker: Would you stopo? NOBODY mentioned modeling.
Ian
While the joke is in bad taste, the outrage at Scott Brown here kind of reminds me of Fauxrage. Lets not make mountains of molehills. There are plenty of other things to go after Wall Streets favorite senator.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
But will those guys actually get off the couch / out of the sports bar to go, y’know, vote? Because every Massachusetts woman who’s ever been told that she’s ‘too pretty’ to need an education, or that she must’ve got her job because of her looks, or that the promotion she worked so hard for would’ve been a lot easier if only she was, well… Women over 50 are pretty reliable voters, IIRC.
Which reminds me: Anita Hill, now a professor at Tufts, has a book coming out soon!
Tom Levenson
@Svensker: I don’t see how Chuck Butcher’s comment bears on what I’m saying. Not snark — I really don’t think that his assessment of the tactics has anything to say about what Brown’s actual words mean. (I’m not sure I agree with CB’s take, but that’s not point.)
Brown had choices about what to say in response to what he saw as a jab. He could have said that he didn’t see how trying to pay for school was such a bad thing. He could have said that Elizabeth Warren herself has written about the importance of avoiding future-strangling debt. He could have said what he did after his gaffe, that he was a very poor kid from a broken home who did what ever he could to advance himself. Instead, he called Warren ugly.
That’s the nut you have to deal with, not whether or not Warren made him say something both nasty and stupid. He’s a grown man, with agency, and a lot of power; he owns his words.
LT
@Ian: I don’t think there’s anything odd of wrong about people not wanting to vote for cruel, shallow assholes. Pointing out that Scott just exposed himself as one is informing the electorate.
slag
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah. But you’re not appreciating the value of good sentence construction:
gogol's wife
@Tom Levenson:
And she’s a grown woman. I am not a fan of Brown, and I am a fan of Warren based on what I know about her so far, but when asked about this, she shouldn’t have said “I kept my clothes on,” which at first glance (to my low-information eyes, since I forgot he modeled nude) implied that he sold his body on the street. Once she chose to say it that way, she should be okay with his equally impolite response. I doubt that she is upset by his response in the slightest. If she is, she shouldn’t run.
Tom Levenson
@Ian: Not outrage. Mild pleasure.
As I suggested in the post, Brown has one state-wide campaign under his belt, in a special, with very unusual circumstances; his entire prior political career was spent running in a GOP district for a job everyone knew was essentially powerless. Now, depending on a primary that is Warren’s to lose, he has to go out and sustain a real campaign for a year against a talented opponent who is likely to be reasonably well funded. This is a challenge, and I’m pleased so far in the evidence of his difficulty in meeting it.
J. Michael Neal
@Woodrowfan:
This. “Tacky” is the perfect word to describe Brown’s joke. Warren’s was borderline, but it didn’t offend taste.
That said, a tacky comment is silly to get worked up over. It may be a mild expression of why a lot of us don’t like Scott Brown, but isn’t the disease itself. Color me unimpressed with this whole argument.
Tom Levenson
@gogol’s wife:
Pleased, rather, I’d guess.
Amir Khalid
@Tom Levenson:
If Brown is trying to score points by disparaging Warren’s looks, then he’s being incredibly stupid. It’s a petty and pointless thing to attack. She still has appealing looks at her age, but nobody thinks of her as running on them.
She was in her fifties when she got famous, if I’m not mistaken. And it was for her expertise on personal finances in America, as well as her advocacy in that area. That, her formidable communication skills and her considerable personal charm are why people like her.
smintheus
Is the implication that Brown also turned tricks to pay for college?
Ohio Mom
@Svensker: That’s a complicated question and maybe I’m a hypocrite on this. I’ll think about it. But my first reaction is, even if he was a consenting adult and what he did was perfectly legal, and in the end, the photo wasn’t risque at all (you see almost as much at the beach), it wasn’t modeling for art’s sake, it was modeling for exploitation’s sake.
In Yiddish, there’s a word “menshadik.” It means behavior that is admirable and that you’d want your kid to grow up to emulate. I don’t think I could ever use that word to describe posing for a magazine centerfold, or whatever it was Brown posed for.
opal
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
Randall
I doubt Elizabeth is too upset with his insult. It will add quite a few more votes to her column. And she is smart enough to jab him and hope for something like this to happen.
Svensker
@LT:
OK, I said I was quitting but you are irritating me.
WARREN mentioned modeling. SHE said it. She said “I didn’t take my clothes off”, which implies BROWN did, which goes back to BROWN modeling. See how that works. And then everyone (including you if I recall) are all like, tee hee, tee hee, everyone makes fun of him for that so why can’t she? That being modeling.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I heard on the down-low that Senator Zoolander has taken his staff’s advice about what to do if another spat like this comes up: Stick with the old standby of, “nanny nanny boo boo, I’m rubber and you are glue, anything you say bounces off me and sticks to you!”
That’ll show her!
trollhattan
@Anne Laurie:
Hopefully it has a chapter entitled, “Phone ettiquette–is it still necessary?”
MattR
@Svensker: The question that was asked at the debate was something to the effect of “Scott Brown posed for Cosmo to pay for college. How about you?”
eemom
jeez. I was gonna say something but there’s nothing of this particular dead horse left to beat.
Svensker
@eemom:
I’m sure you and Suzanne could come up with something….:)
Linda Featheringill
@smintheus: #85
Which might make him very defensive?
Monala
Two things I find more objectionable than Brown’s “Thank God!” remark:
1) His attempts to portray Warren as an elitist Harvard trust fund baby. His campaign later made a statement saying just that. However, she graduated from a state university, while Brown attended a 2nd tier private college, Tufts.
2) Brown’s speaking ability. “You know… you know… whatever… you know.” I know Boston Mayor Menino slips in a “youse guys” now and then, but c’mon. Brown’s on the national stage.
slag
@Tom Levenson:
Exactly right. It’s pretty clear that Scott Brown got to where he is through his supposed charm and good looks. And this classic example of a disproportionate response was very telling about who he actually is under there. He’s afraid of her. And he’s now shown himself to be the kind of guy who gets mean when he’s feeling insecure. She wasn’t mean; he was. That’s the bottom line.
Margarita
Neither side covered themselves in glory with this little exchange. My initial reaction to Warren’s quip the other day was a bit of a cringe. Never get in a pissing contest with a teabagger.
Culture of Truth
He “owns his words,” fine. But he didn’t call her “ugly.”
Mary
Regardless of what Warren said first (and I definitely cringed when I read her comment), it’s just extremely annoying that there is this very common tendency among large segments of society to blatantly use a woman’s appearance as a reason not to take her seriously. What you think someone might look like naked really has nothing to do with anything else abuot them.
I have a whole rant about people using sexual attraction and/or repulsion as a basis for discrimination (short version – lots of people think LGBT folks don’t deserve equal treatment simply because they are sexually repulsed by the idea) but my head hurts and it’s time to go drinking.
FlipYrWhig
FYI, I haven’t found the actual question yet, but here’s a paraphrase:
Source.
She was asked specifically about it. She didn’t bring it up out of the blue.
Tom Levenson
@Culture of Truth: OK — “Thank God” Warren didn’t take her clothes off couldn’t possibly be glossed as calling that from which you laud the deity for shielding you as ugly.
Gotcha.
FlipYrWhig
@Monala: If Tufts is “second tier,” your top tier must be _extremely_ narrow.
harlana
@Randall: @Randall: my understanding is that she responded to a direct question, but i’m paraphrasing here: “how did you pay for college, did you take off your clothes like Rick Scott?” to which she responded, no, she borrowed the money. she did not just throw that out there, the question was pretty specific.
harlana
show me where she struck first? people seem to believe this, this is not the story i heard or read about
SiubhanDuinne
Maxfield Parrish must have been an admirer of Hippolyte Flandrin, n’est-ce pas?
harlana
and how dare anyone defend this asshole? are you serious? republicans are fucking hypocrites and they deserve to be trashed with nasty things about their past that they preach to other people about as being evil. fuck ’em.
yeh, yeh, ad hominem. fuck that, too. it’s all true.
they deserve it. they earned it. they own it. they need to deal with it and move on. if we can’t, how can they?
slag
@Tom Levenson: Actually, COT has a point. Maybe Brown was thanking god that she didn’t pose nude for a magazine because, as a woman who’d done that, she’d be far less likely to be even remotely close to a Senate seat and he would consequently be deprived of this vigorous demonstration of democracy in action. It’s possible.
gravie
Just more of the right-wing bull about powerful women. “Hillary Clinton has cankles.” “Not enough Cialis in the world for a date with Nancy Pelosi.” “Janet Reno must be a man.” And on and on and on. Given the history of right-wing contempt for women who actually don’t give a damn if you “want to date them,” I’m not willing to give him a pass.
Cat Lady
I’m way more offended that I have a Senator that wore pink leather shorts. That’s a crime against humanity, IMO.
Most importantly though the Bruins are raising their banner in an hour. Real hockey’s back!
harlana
@gravie: And Christie is morbidly obese, but he’s so bold and brave and refreshing!
burnspbesq
@FlipYrWhig:
Not just his/hers. In the circles I traveled in in high school, Tufts was a pure safety school. Nobody who had any options went there. I got in, and went to Washington & Lee instead. The other kid from my high school class who got into Tufts went to Rutgers instead, because Tufts didn’t offer her enough financial aid.
FlipYrWhig
@burnspbesq: I was applying to colleges in 1987, and Tufts was on all the “highly competitive” lists then. Scott Brown isn’t that much older than I am, so I’m assuming its status was similar when he was looking at schools.
Alex S.
I’m agreeing with the Both Sides Do It! people. It’s good to see Warren engaged though, much better than Coakley, but Brown won’t be easy to beat. He’s smarter than people assume. Luckily, Warren is a surprisingly good speaker and campaigner so the seat should go to her because it’s Massachusetts. But she shouldn’t go for cheap shots.
Arclite
@arguingwithsignposts:
My thoughts exactly. She’s still attractive at 60+. I’m sure at 25 she was smokin’ hot.
This whole thing is silly tho. She jabbed at Scott, he jabbed back. That’s politics.
Villago Delenda Est
@Svensker:
OK, full stop. You’re operating in the Scott Brown FAIL/STUPID mode here.
Warren was asked, explicitly, and framed by the moderator mentioning Scott Brown’s photo spread, how she paid for college.
She did not bring it up. The moderator did.
This has been mentioned, repeatedly, throughout the entire thread. That Warren was responding to the moderators question that mentioned Brown’s modeling.
opal
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ditto for Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Alex S.
Also, her attack might be the start of something sinister but effective. She might try to portray him as someone who likes to sell himself (to magazines, to donors, to corporations).
burnspbesq
Whatever Elizabeth Warren’s yearbook photo looks like, it can’t be more cringe-worthy than Rachel Maddow’s. Or Liz Phair’s. Gaaahhhh, it’s the Attack of the Molly Ringwald Clones.
JPL
Warren answered a question and Scott demeaned her appearance and then said blah, blah, blah I couldn’t go to Harvard cuz of the parents problems. Guess what, Warren did not go to Harvard either and she worked hard to achieve her success.
Scott can return to his law practice and demean folks all he wants.
burnspbesq
@FlipYrWhig:
It was highly competitive in 1973. It’s just that the survivors of that competetion pretty much all wanted to be in the Ivy League or at Amherst, Williams, or Middlebury.
smintheus
@Alex S.: Nevermind Warren portraying him that way, Brown himself said he had no scruples about raising money any way he could: “I did whatever I had to do”.
Keith G
@Svensker: This.
Warren fucked up and even though she is portrayed as a non elitist, she sure sounded like one.
What a foolish thing.
JPL
@Keith G: I didn’t hear Warren demean Brown’s appearance. She was asked a question about his posing in the buff and she answered. I would agree if she dissed his appearance. Brown has shown over and over that he is willing to sell his soul to advance his interests.
BTW..new Brown blog without the paintings.
Hungry Joe
That’s all well and good, but as Trollhattan pointed out:
Scott Brown has a truck.
Svensker
@Villago Delenda Est:
I disagree. She didn’t have to say “I didn’t take my clothes off.” She could have just said, “Finding a way to pay for college is tough for anyone. I’d like to make that easier for today’s kids,” or some such blather. Instead, she did a little dig. He dug back. Pfffft.
Keith G
@JPL: Of course she did not. But by saying ..I managed to do X while keeping my clothes on..one can sure come across as sounding judgmental and superior.
Unfortunately a lot of men and women are paying the bills by taking their clothes off and they do not need Warren to accidently rub their face in it. She made a rookie mistake, but a silly mistake nonetheless.
If a Rethug talked like that, some of you would be all over her/him.
JPL
@Svensker: He dug back…how…she’s not attractive and she went to Harvard?
She is attractive and she teaches at Harvard but her law degree was at Rutgers.
He could have laughed it off but he dissed her appearance and her intelligence.
Scott Brown has already proved that he sells out to the highest bidder. He thanks the Koch brothers every day.
LT
@Svensker: “I disagree. She didn’t have to say “I didn’t take my clothes off.” She could have just said…”
What unfunny fuckaloos we haver here.
Keith G
@LT:
Why are you going there? Or maybe, where are you going with that?
Mnemosyne
@gravie:
Yep. I’m not outraged at what he said. More like a bored sigh. “Is that all you got, Brown? That tired old routine?”
If his snappy answer to her jab is, “She’s ugly!” then I don’t think there’s much to worry about.
ETA: Damn you, gravie! You tricked me into quoting your forbidden word!
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Let us withhold all judgements until we see Ms. Warren’s pale white naked body, shall we, hmmm?
.
.
Keith G
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: And the goth tatts she has covering her torso.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Keith G:
Egad – sacrilege, my good man! I like my white women white.
.
.
RalfW
@Morzer:
Egggggs-actly.
opal
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
You’re a grown man whose hobby is trying to piss people off on a blog. With dots.
Think about it.
DaGicker
I have to agree with Warren in characterizing Brown’s modeling as a negative but not for moral reasons; rather because it is not evidence that he has a brain or knows how to use it.
SiubhanDuinne
@opal:
Oh my, yes.
EIGRP
Perhaps Brown is gay. That’s why he said thank god she didn’t take her clothes off.
It is irresponsible to speculate he’s gay? It would be irresponsible NOT TO.
Eric
LT
@Keith G:
Where’s the where there?
P.S. What she said – in response to a question about nudie centerfold senator guy – was funny. Not even that funny, but just a simple, “Ohgosh, well I sure didn’t get all nakedy and show my hooters off, goodness!” Why does this make people here pout?
Keith G
@LT: Certainly.
Still, many things that are funny are better left unsaid.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@offal:
I thought about it, and can report that I do not try to piss people off on a blog. Especially with dots. I have explained my vision problem here before, so I can also reliably report that you are a heartless moron as well as a racist ratfucker troll. Think about it.
.
.
opal
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
You’re right. I take it back.
“Grown man” was an overestimation.
You’re an angry, babbling infant trying to piss people off on a blog.
With dots.
Wilson Heath
Don’t tell Mrs. Heath, but I actually find Warren quite fetching. Every time I see an interview with her I’m drawn in.
Lyrebird
@Svensker: Wow, we see this totally differently! Fainting couch? It’s not about Warren’s feelings, it’s about the feelings of every female voter old enough to have some permanent face-creases and some cellulite. Plus, many of them have husbands, many of whom have managed to transition there definitions of hotness & who like to see their wives unclothed. Many of ’em may have Tom’s same reaction, even though their wording might not be as artful.
As for Warren herself, how many of Jon Stewart’s guests does he ask to kiss? (I don’t know how to find the episode, but prolly y’all do.) Djork’s in great company in my opinion.
The more Brown shows off this petulance and junior-high-school maturity, the better… Go E-Dub, Go!
Catsy
@Svensker: There’s a difference. When Warren took a shot at him for the nude modeling, she was attacking his judgment and character for doing so. Brown’s response was a personal attack on her appearance.
Not all attacks are made equal, and these two things are not the same.
jmtz
Also….Brown is a hypocrite…he’s a member of the party of prudes…the “abstinence only” , anti-contaception, only have sex if you want a baby, be ashamed of your nakedness party of prudes.
Elizabeth …not so much.
Jamey
Scott Brown has shitty taste in dames. Prof. Warren is one of the most desirable women I know of.
priscianusjr
@arguingwithsignposts:
priscianusjr
@arguingwithsignposts:
Ian
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
..
..
I disagree. You are racist!
..
..
Did the dots make you believe me? Or do you only need them to see your own posts? Or is this doug playing a trick on us?
Ian
@Tom Levenson:
I agree entirely. It is not your post (I agree on all 3 points) it is the people going over the top on the defense of Elizabeth Warren on the comments.
People are going to say negative things about her. Because she is a liberal female advocate. Those people suck. Let us not devolve into the anything negative is inflammatory mode that so defines our redstate brethren.
Frank Tien
This whole “I paid for college by posing for Cosmo” myth needs to be debunked.
Scott Brown had already graduated from Tufts University – a very expensive private school. He posed for Cosmo while attending Law School at Boston College. So right off the bat his “I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if I hadn’t posed nude” story is BS since he went to college and graduated before this happened.
Cosmo hasn’t admitted how much they paid Scott for two pages including a non-exposing nude shot, but having friends who posed for Playboy during this same time, I can assure you that none of them made enough money to pay for their college degree and we went to a state school. BC Law school at this point costs $42,000 a year in just tuition and fees. That doesn’t include putting food in your mouth and a roof over your head.
Scott’s did it for college excuse needs to be backed up with hard numbers for the guy. Or he just needs to admit that he posed nude cause he liked the attention. But that’s not the perfect pity story.
lonelypedestrian
Not the smoothest moves and a little mocking for sure. If Warren had not explicitly stated that she kept her clothes on she probably would have been accused of avoiding the question.
Any rumor that she did pose nude in her college years would be far more destructive for her than Brown. The fact that Brown is a Senator and women with comparable experiences are no where to be found in American politics gives you a look at the double standards in place. Female politician’s past behavior, family arrangements, appearance, and dress are scrutinized differently and held to different standards than male politicians.
BadDogMom
Hold on – let’s get our facts straight. Warren did not attend Harvard; she attended U of Houston and Rutgers law school. She is a PROFESSOR
dms
Just for the record, the painting is by Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin (no E), and was painted in 1836.
I guess your “Pretentious Art Douche” was fair warning.