Mr friend Kyle Buchanan wrote a detailed breakdown of why he’s planning to support Obama over Clinton. It pretty much sums up the way I’ve been feeling as well.

Hey everyone! As many of you know from talking to me, I’m supporting Barack Obama in the primaries. There are a truckload of reasons why, and since some of you are on the fence (or willing to be persuaded), I thought I’d take the time to whip up an email outlining some of the best arguments for supporting Obama in the primaries and beyond. Here are three of the most important: electability, accountability, and possibility.

(And yeah, I really did write this. No form emails for KB!)

ELECTABILITY

This is my bluntest argument, but it's an important one: I not only believe Obama will beat John McCain, I believe Hillary will lose to him.

In a matchup against McCain, all of Hillary's perceived strengths are neutralized. Experience? McCain has more of it. Ability to command an army? He was IN one. Not only that, but McCain is widely noted for his ability to lure independent voters (even Democrats) while Hillary (with sky-high negatives in polling) will not only lose Democrats, she'll incite Republicans to show up — and in a year when they're demoralized, no less! We can't afford that.

Unlike Hillary, Obama can draw new voters into the Democratic party and keep them there — just look at Iowa. That's the reason that so many Democratic officials in red states (Sen. Claire McCaskill, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius) are endorsing Obama, not Clinton. They believe that only Obama can win in red states and southern states that the Democrats have not traditionally been competitive in (and I believe them — I know plenty of Republicans beguiled by Obama). Hillary would be routed easily in those places, and that's why McCaskill and Sebelius denied her those highly coveted endorsements.

Additionally, polling trends are breaking Obama's way. According to Gallup, Clinton's national polling results have declined literally every day of the past week, by one to two points each day. Meanwhile, Obama's results have climbed every single day by one or two points. She's lost six points; he's gained eight. Do you want to vote for a candidate who lacks national momentum?

Out of the last four official primaries, Obama won more delegates than Clinton in all but New Hampshire. Yes, he even won more delegates in Nevada, despite Clinton's narrow popular win. Make no mistake, this contest will come down to delegates awarded by each congressional district, not a statewide popular vote. That's another reason that your vote and volunteering are so important — they can have a tangible effect in each small congressional district.

ACCOUNTABILITY

I'll grit my teeth and vote for Hillary Clinton if she ends up being the nominee (make no mistake — we cannot afford to put another Republican into office right now), but I have been massively disappointed by how her and her husband have run their campaign lately. And I was a fan of theirs! Among the things that have offended me: their scorched earth strategy to tar Obama as "the black candidate," for Bill Clinton to smear Obama's South Carolina win by comparing him to Jesse Jackson, for Hillary to sit and smile as Robert Johnson launched nasty slurs against Obama while introducing her, for her to say nothing when her own pollster, Sergio Bendixen, advanced the offensive canard that Hispanic voters have "not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates"…I could go on and on. Time and time again, they have shown themselves willing to play the race card and — most troubling — to disenfranchise the Democrats' most reliable base, African-American voters. We need someone who is going to bring in new Democrats, not alienate the ones we already have.

It's notable how many times Hillary has been asked to apologize for remarks that her surrogates or Bill Clinton have made, and how many times she has refused to do so. You may argue that it is not Hillary herself who is saying these offensive things, but she IS the presidential candidate, and she could easily rein in people like Bill, Bendixen, and Johnson if need be. She refuses to do so.

She also advances outright lies about Obama's record. She slammed him on voting "present" during abortion issues, even though she knew that Planned Parenthood itself had coordinated with Obama on those very votes. In fact, Clinton has long distorted Obama's "present" votes without noting that it is a quirk of Illinois legislature (a few other states have this option as well) that allows lawmakers to address the constitutionality of a bill without endorsing it. So why would she say that? Because she doesn't care if it's a lie as long as you might believe it. Don't you want a candidate you can trust?

POSSIBILITY

This is an exceedingly rare and valuable time when we can actually put a true Democrat into office — the winds of change are at our backs and we must take advantage of them. National Journal just rated Obama as the #1 most liberal member of the Senate [This one is iffy. -g], and I have no doubt he would advance a truly progressive agenda at a time when the world (and the climate) need it most. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, did not even rank within the Top 10 on the National Journal's list. She has voted for anti-Democratic bills like the Patriot Act and she not only authorized the War in Iraq (a vote she refuses to apologize for, unlike John Edwards), she gave Bush similar authorization for an invasion in Iran. Why would we run such a hawkish, conservative Democrat when we don't have to? And make no mistake, you know Hillary would pick a VP even more hawkish than she in order to offset any idea she might not be tough on national security. Obama was against the War in Iraq from the very beginning. Imagine if we'd had his leadership back then, instead of Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton compromising party ideals with an eye toward their Presidential run!

I should also refute one of the biggest falsehoods launched by Hillary Clinton's campaign: that she has more experience than Obama. As of this year, Obama will have twelve years of legislative experience to Hillary Clinton's eight. The only way Hillary has more experience is if you count her years as First Lady — and if you do, then what exactly are you including. Hillary's own pet project, health care reform, was a resounding failure (and now people want to let her have a second go-round at it?). If you accept that she advised her husband on certain policies…well, let me allow journalist Patrick Healy to elucidate: "During those two terms in the White House, Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti or Rwanda. And during one of President Bill Clinton's major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal dragged on."

You'd also have to blame Hillary for allowing Bill to sign the vile, homophobic Defense of Marriage Act. She supported it then and to this day she won't fully repudiate DOMA.

Obama has a Clinton-encouraged reputation for being all talk and no substance, but that's a falsehood propagated by people who don't really follow Obama. I encourage you to check out his thorough positions at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/ . Not only does Obama have concrete, well-researched opinions on a host of issues, but he delivers them in an inspiring way. Make no mistake, that inspiration is important. We have been disenfranchised and disappointed by politicians for so long that many are resigned to it — but what if we didn't have to be? What if we actually looked forward to the State of the Union? What if our best and brightest minds wanted to work for the government instead of shunning it? Can you imagine the advances we would make?

I can. That's why I am doing everything in my power to volunteer for Barack Obama.

I encourage you to make the choice along with me — to talk about it, to donate, and to spread the word.

I’ll be working the phones for Obama this weekend and I encourage you to do the same.

The creator of the excellent geek webcomic xkcd gets political :

Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. When putting together tech policy (to take an example close to home for xkcd) others might have gone to industry lobbyists. Obama went to Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons (under which xkcd is published) and longtime white knight in the struggle with a broken system over internet and copyright policy. Lessig was impressed by Obama’s commitment to open systems — for example, his support of machine-readable government information standards that allow citizens’ groups to monitor what our government is up to. Right now, the only group that can effectively police the government is the government itself, and as a result, it’s corrupt to the core. Through these excellent and long-overdue measures, Obama is working to fight this corruption.

Obama stands against bad governing not only in his support of specific practices like open data standards and basic network neutrality, but in his work against corruption from day one. He’s sponsored legislation to restrict gifts to Congress by industry representatives (which also carried a whole slew of anti-corruption measures that were a breath of fresh air). He’s fought against vote fraud. He’s been pushing for election and lobbying reform from the start, and in his campaign he’s refused to take lobbyist money.

Clinton has done nothing of the sort, and when questioned seems baffled that anyone would have a problem with what is, by any reasonable standard, bribery. I find her basic lack of integrity troubling, and I think as president she would continue fighting to maintain the status quo. It’s vital that we start the work of picking up the messes left by the irresponsible governance of the current administration, and, as they say, you don’t get out of a mess with the same kind of thinking that got you in.

Elsewhere, Shepard Fairey of “Andre the Giant has a Posse” fame has produced this print to show his support :

My brother-in-law Kevin just sent me an email that pretty much sums up where I stand on the primary :

So here’s the deal. I’ve decided to switch camps and vote for Obama. I just don’t feel Edwards is going to do it and I have such a seething case of Clinton backlash right now, i.e. Bill and his Jesse Jackson comments, I am committed to doing whatever I can to help him beat Hillary. The Clintons, in my opinion are Rove Lite and on some days not that less filling. They seriously must be stopped. I have had it with the Democratic elite and them ramming candidates down our throat. Most importantly however, I feel I won’t sacrifice the ideals of an Edwards vote with a vote for Obama. I think it goes without saying I don’t have similar feelings for the Clintons.

Last night, I was sincerely moved, at some points to tears, when I heard Obama speak about uniting all Americans. I believed him. That’s why I decided to volunteer my time to his campaign. I went down today to the Obama headquarters in Pasadena and worked the phones for a bit. They set me up so I can do it from home. It was really exciting, calling people who were on the fence and some already Obama supporters. They were Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. I haven’t been this optimistic about political renewal since I turned 18 and voted for Dukakis.

So it goes without saying that I’m involved in the Obama campaign now, and I’m asking those people who I’ve shared common views with regarding Edwards to reconsider voting for Barack Obama in the primary. I hope you don’t find this pushy or at all off putting, but I deeply believe that in this election we have a chance to get our system back and I think Obama is the President to make that happen.

I still think that Edwards would make the best candidate of the three, but after losses in Iowa and South Carolina, he’s already missed his chances to shine. If he couldn’t do well in the state he spent the bulk of his money trying to win or his home state, then there’s no way he’s going to win the Super Tuesday states.

If I was ambivalent about whether Clinton or Obama won, I’d probably still vote for Edwards, but I have some pretty strong opinions about the top two candidates. I think Obama’s campaign has already shown itself adept at organizing people and attracting independents, so I think he’s easily the most electable candidate for the Democrats. Clinton(s), on the other hand, is boring, predictable, divisive, dishonest, and running on a record that was mediocre at best. With the current thinking that Edwards is only staying in the race to “play kingmaker”, I don’t feel like seeing my vote for Edwards turn into a 50/50 chance that he might throw his lot behind the candidate I like. So I’m going to cut out the middleman and vote for Obama.

Besides, even before I read this, I’ve been warming up to the idea of John Edwards as a crusading attorney general in the Bobby Kennedy mold.

The primary is getting exhausting. It’s bad enough that anti-McCain smears get in-depth rebuttals by the media while anti-Obama smears get turned into debate questions. Now we have to deal with a fight on the Democratic side so nasty that it could drive voters away from the party and once again prove that Democrats have a supernatural ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That said, despite how nauseating I’ve been finding the campaigns, there are some stark differences between the candidates. Here’s where I stand on the top three Dems.

Hillary Clinton – Right now, my approach towards the Democratic primary is ABC, Anyone But Clinton. She seems like a good enough person and I honestly believe that she’d be much better than any of the Republicans running for president. That said, I despise her campaign. I’m not to the Andrew Sullivan-level of irrational hatred, but I think the reasons for voting for her are largely bogus and the reasons to vote against her are mounting every day.

For starters, Clinton’s biggest selling point has been her “experience”, but as Timothy Noah wrote at Slate, Hillary’s claim of experience is incredibly dishonest :

[D]uring her husband’s two terms in office, Hillary Clinton did not hold a security clearance, did not attend meetings of the National Security Council, and was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. During trips to Bosnia and Kosovo, she “acted as a spokeswoman for American interests rather than as a negotiator.” On military affairs, most of her experience derives not from her White House years but from serving on the Senate armed services committee.

Even if she was able to claim Bill’s experience as her own, what is there to brag about? NAFTA? Welfare reform? Dont Ask, Don’t Tell? The Communications Decency Act? Easing media ownership laws? Defense of Marriage Act? If she wants to run on her husband’s record, then it’s worth pointing out that the Clinton Administration wasn’t the progressive paradise that she’s promising.

During the Clinton years, there was one big “accomplishment” that she can claim…her failure to enact universal healthcare. Considering that one of her biggest promises on the stump has been universal healthcare, I’d expect the “most experienced” candidate to have a better pitch in this regard than “second time’s the charm”. If Hillary can learn from the mistakes she made in 1994, who’s to say the other candidates can’t also learn those lessons?

Of course, another point against Hillary is that I don’t think she’s truly taken the lessons of the Clinton years to heart. She came into Washington in 1992 and the GOP establishment destroyed her and her husband. She was seen as arrogant for trying to use her position as first lady to strive for universal healthcare, demonized as a corrupt witch for Whitewater, and had to sit idly by while the GOP leadership in Washington dragged the nation through impeachment. Yet though all of that, she and Bill are still naive enough to believe that they can triangulate their way towards legislative victories and trust people who have shown them nothing but contempt.

Yet once Hillary became a Senator, for all of her talk about the “vast right-wing conspiracy”, she was foolish enough to give the benefit of the doubt to people who have proved themselves to be untrustworthy. She voted for the Iraq war, the bankruptcy bill, declaring Iran’s revolutionary Guard a Terrorist organization, etc. She’s obviously not as bad as the Republicans in this regard, but for somebody who’s been through the bullshit she’s been through, I’d expect a little more skepticism.

For all the futile centrism of the Clinton approach to governing, that same “play nice” act doesn’t seem to apply to her fellow Democratic candidates. After New Hampshire, she claimed to have “found [her] voice”, but the last two weeks make it clear that her campaign’s new voice is just as vile and two-faced as the old voice. This good cop / bad cop horseshit she’s been playing with her surrogates is shameful to watch. The worst part is, it’s probably going to work. If they get Obama to argue back, then they can subvert his post-partisan appeal by making it look like both sides are being nasty. Or they might just get lucky and some of their slander will catch on.

The best thing I can say about Hillary right now is that if she becomes the nominee, we’ll have a Democrat who isn’t afraid to bring a knife to a gun fight.

Barack Obama – I’ll cop to being won over by his speeches, being inspired to the point where I start to believe that he’ll be able to unite people behind a progressive agenda. When the excitement of his speeches wears off, however, I can’t help but think that Obama’s insistence that he can unite Americans behind him is as naive as Clinton’s that her experience will enable her to get universal healthcare through Congress.

After watching Edwards’ campaign fail over the last few weeks, Obama’s become my de facto candidate of choice (ABC, remember?). Unfortunately, looking at the polling over the last couple of contests, I think he’s screwed. He does great with independents, but that doesn’t win him the Democratic nomination. I’ve long assumed that Obama is more liberal than Hillary, but that really isn’t based on anything more than a hunch. It certainly isn’t supported by the substance of his stump speeches.

But I still suspect that Obama’s got a lefty radical side that we’re not seeing on the campaign trail. I was clicking around a few political sites when I found this photo that really struck me :

Drawing a flowchart titled “Relationships built on self interest” that connects corporations, banks, and utilities and draws a line showing the flow of money to elected officials? This is the kind of stuff that only John Edwards has been talking about in this campaign, yet it looks like Mr. Kumbaya was teaching “Rules For Radicals” classes. Where has this Obama been?

Downplaying his liberal past (and present?) isn’t doing him any favors among Democratic partisans. While it hurts him that Clinton has been out-polling him among Democratic voters, the real kicker is that Obama got his ass kicked in Nevada. Like Iowa, the primary seemed tailor-made for Obama. Since Nevada allowed same day registration, Obama should have been able to mobilize a lot of independent voters to the essentially open Democratic primaries. Also, like Iowa, the fact that it was a caucus should have delievered Obama a lot of “second choice” support, but with Edwards only getting 4%, the assumption that Edwards supporters would automatically go to Obama now seems discredited. Doing poorly in that caucus doesn’t bode well for the rest of the primary campaign.

Which is a shame because he’d be a better president than Hillary.

John Edwards – At this point it’s a foregone conclusion that he can’t win the nomination. I still think he’d be a great president, but the media blackout of his campaign made it an uphill battle. Assuming he loses in South Carolina as bad as he did in Nevada, then I’m guessing he’ll drop out. Or maybe stick it out until Super Tuesday. In fact, the same media who spent the last year ignoring his campaign is now finally paying attention, but only to wonder aloud whether or not he’ll play “kingmaker”.

I hope he sticks around. It would be easy for Edwards to follow the standard losing campaign playbook and use a concession speech to drop out and maybe endorse either Obama or Clinton. Considering that Edwards has been bringing up issues that the other mainstream candidates would rather avoid addressing (like the stranglehold corporate lobbies have over our democratic process), it would be a letdown to lose his advocacy on the campaign trail. If Obama or Clinton want the support of the remaining Edwards voters, they should earn it by addressing the issues that Edwards has made the centerpiece of his campaign.

Turn on CNN. This is the nastiest debate I’ve ever seen. Obama and Hillary look like they’re about to punch each other.

Hi all, Ross Lincoln here, after a long absence. This post is a product of a desire Greg and I have expressed for some time, of using his fine blog as a means to hash out some of the debates we have from time to time (and a product of my desire to swear in public. Hooray!) In a bit of Sportsmanship, Greg’s opted to let me go first, so here it is, the first in what I hope will be many such arguments between Greg and myself.

Today’s topic:

Is there a disturbing pro life bent in certain recent popular movies, or am I perhaps reading too much into things?

In a totally unsurprising coincidence, given that we’ve already lived in previous years through both Armageddon and Deep Impact, and both Capote and Infamous, there were two different comedies about pregnant women in 2007. Here are my short and to the point reviews:

Juno: I really like this movie. Aside from some way-too-witty-for-its-own-good dialogue in the first half, and an annoyingly undeveloped love story that felt tacked on even though I know it wasn’t, it’s actually a really sweet movie with really interesting characters and some goddamned great dialogue (even if the dialogue is just a little too too for part of it.) I especially like the depiction of people with very high intelligence, who are still of normal emotional maturity for their age, which is to say, very emotionally immature. Also, I totally have a crush on Michael Cera.

I’m kidding about that, I swear. But you have to admit that when you hear that very thought expressed by almost every girl you know, it becomes seductively mantra-esque.

Knocked Up: Knocked up is an extremely crappy movie. There’s really no other way to put it. It really sucks. My opinion of this movie has declined significantly in the months since I first saw it, and I left the theater annoyed and let down. I can’t say if it’s the movie’s many deep flaws, or if it’s having endured hearing so many people, people who really should know better, telling me that it was the funniest movie they’d seen in years (an experience identical to the aftermath of Wedding Crashers, by the way. God, that movies sucks too.) All I know is that I only kind of liked it last spring, and after months of reflection, I might now hate it.

Yes, I know Seth Rogan is hilarious. No argument there from me. Yes, I know the interaction between the stoner friends is “funny,” if you happen to think obvious jokes about people too high to think straight haven’t been done to death. And yes, I know there are some really funny jokes. And yes, I agree that the treatment of the relationship between Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann is kinda of good.

But look – even if a tropical archipelago composed of beautiful island paradises, each island filled with sexy genders-of-your-choice hotties, suddenly popped up in the middle of a lake in the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion, it wouldn’t change the fact that you’re surrounded by miles and miles of uninhabitable, deadly radioactive shit.

The thing is, the movie isn’t called “Wacky Stoner Pals!”, or “Well Meaning Yuppie Couple Examines Their Marriage.” Its called Knocked Up, and the two things the movie needed to get right, namely the character development of the woman with the titular condition, and the relationship between her and the man who helped make her intractably titular, it totally didn’t get right.

In other words, Seth Rogan and his wacky stoner pals? That’s the archipelago. The rest of the film? That’s the exclusion zone. And the film’s unnecessary sexism and frankly, it’s crypto right wing bent when it comes to pregnancy? That’s the nuclear power plant.

Which brings me to the subject of Abortion, which both films, by simple fact that they’re about pregnant women who don’t live in the 50s, had to address. To help me in this discussion, I’ve invited an incredibly convoluted allegory to explain things.

Imagine, if you’re still with me, that the funduhmentalist book censorship advocates grew tired of staged book burnings and woe-is-me appeals to local School Boards, and started blowing up libraries and shooting librarians instead. Pretty cool, huh?

Now, imagine further that these same fanatics, and their nonviolent allies (who somehow remain suspiciously nonjudgemental of the frequent violence committed to advance the cause,) demand total fealty from their political party, to the extent that anyone running for office on that party’s ticket has to promise, or at least strongly allude the promise, that if elected, they will support SCOTUS justices who advocate the repeal of the first amendment, just to have a chance of being considered for the nomination.

Do you think, if my little imaginary world were real, that we would be obligated to speak respectfully of these people, treating their insane ramblings as being motivated purely by morality? And would this portrayal be opposed, natch, to the capriciously secular ethics of sophisticated, elitist Librarians?

“Sure,” we might hear, “the cosmopolitans might technically be right about the law, and sure, they have a point about access to information being a necessity for life in a free state, but we all know that they’re entirely motivated by a selfish desire to read whatever they want, sometimes just for the pleasure of reading itself!”

“Therefore,” I’d anticipate hearing, “whatever the technical rightness of their position, they ultimately fail to understand the unique morality of those whose faith motivates them to a higher calling, which just so happens to be the negation of basic rights and freedoms for the majority of the nation. Which we have to respect because their opposition to freedom of thought is motivated, as we’ve seen, by a morality I think we can all agree is superior to the suspect motivations of the Secular Elites in the Library Industry.”

Or words to that effect.

Here’re the questions I really want to get to:

1) In this over-allegorical little world, do you think that, in a movie where the subject of easy access to learning and information cannot be avoided, there would be tremendous pressure from punditry, from advocacy groups, even from inside the studios themselves, to make absolutely certain that the pro-censorship people are not offended?a

2) Would we have to see the pro censorship position treated with kid gloves, its advocates and beneficiaries, if they’re shown at all, portrayed universally as basically decent, well meaning goofballs?

3) At the same time, in any instance where the the opposite view is espoused, would librarians or people who support the Librarian position have to be portrayed as intolerant, morally bankrupt, high minded jerks, or as shallow, self centered sociopaths?

I don’t know what your answer to these convoluted questions are, but you’ve probably guessed that my answer to each is an intolerant, morally bankrupt, high minded “yes”.

Or at least, it is if the depiction of abortion in movies can be used as an accurate predictor.

Which brings us back to Juno, and to Knocked Up.

In the blog entry on Pandagon that inspired me to write this post here, more than one person mentioned Fast Times at Ridgemont High. For those who aren’t interested in seeing that terrible, awful movie, there’s something in it that you would never see today, not for all the money in moneyland.

No, not Judge Reinhold in a hit film. HI-OOO!

One of the characters gets pregnant and decides to abort. Well, really not so much “decides” as “makes what the movie clearly implies is the only reasonable option, considering her age and means.” She isn’t punished in any way for having the abortion, there’s no tender moment where we’re subjected to her crying for the snowflake she’s killing, no scene where the guy realizes HIS child is gone. It’s just treated as a thing. Not a fun thing, not an easy thing, not a thing she undertakes lightly, but definitely not a thing about which she should feel guilty about in any way. In other words, a consequence-free abortion.

It’s self-evident why that could never happen today.* And I’m not suggesting that either Juno or Knocked Up should have had an abortion. They’re about pregnant women. Pregnant women need to be somewhat “keeping my baby” or there’s no movie. But there are plenty of ways to deal with the abortion question without running out of the room, story-wise, screaming ‘EW EW ICKY POO HELP!”

Juno at least acknowledges that Abortion is actually something to consider, and that there are these things called “clinics” where people go to have them administered. The moment she learns she’s pregnant, she does what most sane women in her position (high school aged, not fabulously wealthy, doesn’t feel ready for parenthood) would do, and immediately declares her intention to terminate. Obviously we know she’s not going to, but it’s the extremely jolting way she decides not to that really sticks in my craw.

I have no idea what went on behind the scenes but my understanding is that Diablo Cody, the writer, sold the script with a 40 page spec and developed it with a script doctor prior to filming. Maybe the way it happens was borne out of necessity, in order to keep the film’s running time down to manageable length, but it’s almost as though she was ordered to avoid any suggestion whatsoever that abortion might be a positive decision.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s what happens (SPOILER ALERT):

On the big day, Juno heads over to the local Clinic (“Women First,” IIRC) where out front, there’s a lone christian standing in the cold, wearing suspiciously thrift store chic winterwear. It turns out Juno knows Lone Christian from school and they have an awkward chat, wherein Lone Christian, a lovably awkward ABA, nervously begs her not to go through with it, admonishing Juno that the fetus likely already has fingernails as Juno nonchalantly disregards her and goes in.

Inside, Juno encounters the following:

* A vapid, disinterested, idiotic receptionist who clearly doesn’t give a single shit about Women, nor consider them to be First. She says inappropriate things and, while talking to Juno about the way the clinic’s condoms flavor her boyfriend’s “junk,” answers the phone with a monotone tribute to Janine “Ghostbusters, Whatayawant?!?” Melnitz.

* A dimly lit, coldly decorated interior that feels about as welcoming as a Bail Bondsman’s office.

* A group of fellow patients who bear expressions suggesting they’re trying out for the scarlet letter awards.

* A brief, ironic montage of fingernails reminding Juno and the audience that her baby has them too!

For those of you keeping time, that’s all in the space of roughly 5 minutes.

The combination of (subtle, but very apparent) guilt and unwelcoming ambiance pushes Juno to make her narratively necessary decision, and she runs out without saying a word. As she flees into the parking lot, the camera lingers sympathetically on Lone Christian Girl, who endearingly shouts after Juno, in an earnest, high pitched voice, “Jesus thanks you for this choice!**”

Now I admit that my experience with Planned Parenthood and other choice providers is limited, though I do have some. And in my (admittedly limited) experience, choice facilities are clean, respectful and surprisingly comfortable places to be. One thing my (admittedly limited) experience doesn’t include is a bitchy, idiotic receptionist, a brutal, cold aesthetic, and a room full of Hesters hoping to god that Reverend Dimmesdale doesn’t up and tell everyone the truth.

On the other hand, I do have considerable experience being around Pro-Lifers, and one thing I can tell you is that the vast majority of them are not super cute, well meaning (and just south of stylish) goofballs. Yes yes, there are a few well meaning pro-lifers out there who, much like Juno’s, really are basically decent human beings trying to do what they feel is right, and treating their subjects (Women seeking Abortion) with respect. But the simple fact is, and I say this knowing that I’m damning a lot of people by association, such well meaning people are usually outnumbered 100 to 1 by belligerent assholes who seem to think the best way to convince a woman not to have an abortion is to call her a whore, preferably with a hint of violence in their voice.

Now maybe, as Diablo Cody imagined it, it was a slow day and the Pro Life Fanatics went to the creation museum for the afternoon, but for me the scene felt false. I can only speculate, but in my mind, either Diablo is pro life, or she was “encouraged” to truncate the scene, and to make the pro lifer as sympathetic as possible. But who knows, right?

Even so, as oddly jarring as the scene was, it still wasn’t nearly as noxiously offensive as the treatment of Abortion, or “smushmortion,” as it was cowardly referred to, in Knocked up.

Knocked up made more money than Richard Roberts during pledge week, so I assume you’ve seen it. But in the interests of thoroughness, in Knocked up, there are exactly two very curt discussions of Abortion; the combined running time of both scenes is somehow less than half of the aforementioned scene in Juno, and they’re both so unreal as to approach broad satire, if not outright science fiction.

The first, where Seth Rogan tells his friends about the pregnancy, is only retarded, it isn’t really annoying. I buy his friends supporting him if he’s decided to be with her and help raise the kid. Obviously, because my friends would do the same and I hope, given similar circumstances, that I would too. But I guarantee you that in reality, every single one of them would be thinking it, and at least one would ask outright if she’s going to terminate. I guarantee you further that they wouldn’t use a wussified little baby euphemism like “Smushmortion.”

That’s right folks, apparently, America’s ready to see Seth Rogan’s (implied) erection, a casual depiction of a booze-fueled one night stand, constant illegal drug use and an all-up-in-the-camera close up shot of a fully dilated ready-for-birthing vagina***, but somehow we’re still t0o meek and delicate to hear grown adults, in a comedy about fuuuckin’, use the word “Abortion.”

And did I mention that while pot is still a very illegal intoxicant, Abortion remains, for the time being, safe and very legal?

But hell, using such a baby little word, in a rated R movie no less, is bad enough. Compared to the second scene that refers to abortion, it’s practically a 1970s movie.

I’m referring to the scene where the Pro-Choice position is actually articulated. Only, instead of articulated, I mean “offensively slandered,” because the only character who actually suggests, outright, what every single sane, non funduhmentalist in the audience is thinking, you know, how maybe Katherine Heigl ought to at least consider a smushmortion, does so in one of the most offensive slurs against the Pro Choice position I have ever seen.

How else can you characterise Katherine Heigl’s bitchy, ’sophisticated’ mom telling her she should just abort, like one of her relatives did, because “then you can have a real baby later!”? (Never mind that she goes to her mom first. For the record, half of my female friends, and my girlfriend, as I am writing this, call bullshit on that little detail.) Do I even need to say that the average Pro Choicer doesn’t actually think about the world, or birth control, in disturbingly eugenicist terms? Do I even need to mention that the reason Pro Choicers call it “Choice” is because we support the freedom to choose, including the freedom to choose to keep the goddamned baby?

Instead, we get the only character in the movie suggesting abortion making the pro-life position out to be essentially selfish and utterly morally bankrupt. Now I know there are plenty of people out there who might have abortions for reasons that personally make you uncomfortable, but if you don’t have the fucking balls to come out and declare yourself against sexual freed- I mean, in favor of sweet precious life(!), maybe it might not be necessary to look like you’re defaming the vast majority of the likely audience of your fucking movie. You know?

And that’s what’s really bugging me. There is no moment where Katherine Heigl’s character, despite her recent promotion, burgeoning successes and obvious incompatibility with the babydaddy, seriously considers an abortion. Again, I know the movie is called Knocked Up, and therefore she needs to have the baby. But getting me, the viewer, to that point shouldn’t require insulting my intelligence, not to mention my morals.

As I see it, both films could easily have portrayed the decision to Abort as a reasonable choice. They could have depicted planned parenthood (and similar organizations) as they really (usually) are – organizations staffed by dedicated professionals who really are risking their lives to help secure a constitutional fucking right – and still provide a funny scene in which Katherine Heigl pulls a “Papa Don’t Preach,” or Juno convincingly decides to have the baby instead of abort it – without making their decision an obvious sop to the pro life crowd.

Maybe it’s simple the artistic vision of both movies, (each quite obviously aimed at a decidedly non funduhmentalist viewership by the way,) that they opted to present the issue in terms as favorable to pro-lifers as possible, but I think it’s a sign of our times, and I suspect it’s not going to get better.

Thoughts?

* Speaking of things we’d never get away with today, I want to pour one out for Better Off Dead. Imagine someone today trying to make a lighthearted romantic comedy where the central running joke is that the main character is constantly foiled in his attempts to kill himself, and a secondary running joke involves his best friend’s pathetic attempts to score drugs in a suburban wasteland that has absolutely nothing seedy about it whatsoever.

** Or words to that effect. I can’t quite remember the exact line.

*** I don’t consider any of these things to be bad, incidentally. Just like I don’t consider a discussion of Abortion to be bad. Hell, bring on the full frontal Seth Rogan. Kidding, kidding!

---

My turn. -Greg

Dude, lighten up. It’s a movie.

First of all, I can’t believe you’d write a book-length post about movies that would be improved by a realistic depiction of abortion without mentioning “Look Who’s Talking”. If there was any movie that could be improved by a trip to Planned Parenthood…

I agree with you about the pro-life movement, but I think you’re being a little obsessive when you accuse a comedy of having a “crypto right wing bent” just because it doesn’t line up perfectly with your political leanings. As I wrote about Knocked Up last year :

I’m pretty sure they didn’t cover this because abortion isn’t funny. When you’re making a comedy, having a scene in which a pregnant woman agonizes over whether or not to have a baby is sure to be a laugh-killer.

It’s interesting that you bring up “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, because that movie and “The Last American Virgin” are perfect examples of what I’m talking about. In both movies, the decision to have an abortion is treated with care and it brings the movie to a screeching halt. For movies that are supposedly comedies, these scenes are incredibly unpleasant to watch.

Neither Juno or Knocked Up are documentaries, nor were they made to advocate a particular political position. Their purpose is a entertain people. Of course, that’s not a conclusion you seem to have even considered. The bulk of your post seems to believe that the scripts were deliberately watered down. Are you really so angered by the abortion clinic scene in Juno that the only two possibilities you can imagine are “either Diablo is pro life, or she was ‘encouraged’ to truncate the scene”?

Even if their respective makers are adamantly pro-choice, if there’s a conflict between treating the decision to keep a baby in a thoughtful and realistic manner or making the audience laugh, the filmmaker’s allegiances should lean towards the latter. I’m not necessarily saying that these two choices are mutually exclusive, but if you’re convinced that agonizing over whether to have an abortion can be funny, I look forward to reading your screenplay.

Moving onto Knocked Up, I also think you’re overreacting :

I’m referring to the scene where the Pro-Choice position is actually articulated. Only, instead of articulated, I mean “offensively slandered,” because the only character who actually suggests, outright, what every single sane, non funduhmentalist in the audience is thinking, you know, how maybe Katherine Heigl ought to at least consider a smushmortion, does so in one of the most offensive slurs against the Pro Choice position I have ever seen.

How else can you characterise Katherine Heigl’s bitchy, ’sophisticated’ mom telling her she should just abort, like one of her relatives did, because “then you can have a real baby later!”?

You did realize that part was a joke, right? That line was supposed to sound callous and heartless, thus the humor. Most of the people in the theater laughed when I saw it, though I suspect they didn’t view the scene as Judd Apatow’s subtle attempt to subvert Roe v. Wade.

Going back to what I was saying about entertainment being more important than politics in a comedy…

There is no moment where Katherine Heigl’s character, despite her recent promotion, burgeoning successes and obvious incompatibility with the babydaddy, seriously considers an abortion. Again, I know the movie is called Knocked Up, and therefore she needs to have the baby. But getting me, the viewer, to that point shouldn’t require insulting my intelligence, not to mention my morals.

Insulting your intelligence? Hell, The Graduate ends with Elaine running off with the creepy guy who fucked her mom and ruined her wedding. Sometimes when you go to the movies you have to suspend a little disbelief.

As an aside, what’s up with this statement?

Never mind that she goes to her mom first. For the record, half of my female friends, and my girlfriend, as I am writing this, call bullshit on that little detail.

Ummmm…my sister is pregant and went to our mom first, so let me “call bullshit” on the fact that women don’t confide in their mothers.

Reading your takedown of these movies, I was constantly struck by the rage and bitterness you have towards people you disagree with :

On the other hand, I do have considerable experience being around Pro-Lifers, and one thing I can tell you is that the vast majority of them are not super cute, well meaning (and just south of stylish) goofballs. Yes yes, there are a few well meaning pro-lifers out there who, much like Juno’s, really are basically decent human beings trying to do what they feel is right, and treating their subjects (Women seeking Abortion) with respect. But the simple fact is, and I say this knowing that I’m damning a lot of people by association, such well meaning people are usually outnumbered 100 to 1 by belligerent assholes who seem to think the best way to convince a woman not to have an abortion is to call her a whore, preferably with a hint of violence in their voice.

What is this based on? Since you admittedly have “limited” experience with Planned Parenthood, where are you seeing this 100 to 1 assholes to well meaning pro-lifer ratio? The internet? Church? Work? It seems to me that if you spent more time with people you disagree with (besides people who piss you off at work) you might start to realize that a lot of otherwise decent people hate abortion. Just like not every homophobe is Fred Phelps, not every pro-lifer is the caricature you make them out to be.

If you truly believe that Juno and Knocked Up “present the issue in terms as favorable to pro-lifers as possible”, then I’d suggest that the movies did a horrible job of pandering to the fundamentalist crowd. Two of the highest rated movies of 2007 are about women who have unprotected sex and decide to have a baby out of wedlock, yet neither film treats the characters like promiscuous nymphs. They’re just normal people who accidentally get pregnant and make the choice to keep the baby.

Also, both movies are also funny as hell.

The other night while watching a CNN report on Ron Paul’s racist newsletter, my wife made a good observation. If you give Ron Paul the benefit of the doubt that the written-in-the-first-person and published-under-his-name racist ranting that (among many other things) refers to African-Americans as “animals” were written by other people…then is this really the kinda guy who should be President? If Ron Paul is so irresponsible that he let his quaint little newsletter “accidentally” turn into vile, right-wing extremist rag, then what does that say about how competent he’d be in overseeing something as large and complex as the executive branch of the federal government? The guy can’t even keep hate speech out of his photocopied little mailing list. On top of that, if Ron Paul turned his newsletter over to the kind of people who would write this shit, then what kinda neo-Nazi conspiracy theorists can we expect to see in a Ron Paul administration?

Once again, this is all assuming that you believe Ron Paul’s story, which I don’t.

Describing a Photoshopped picture posted in the comments at DailyKos :

“It’s funny because Hillary is eating a baby but Hillary wouldn’t really eat a baby so it’s brilliant satire.”

Jonathan Swift would be proud.

Andrew Sullivan jumps into the fray to defend his sworn enemy :

Anne Rice – a quintessential Clinton supporter – makes her case for Clinton. Notice how she uses the name “Hillary” all the time. To me, that’s a sexist double-standard.

The must explain why every other post on Sullivan’s site drips with contempt for the Clintons. It’s because Sen. Clinton is such a sexist :

Seriously, though, if Andrew Sullivan wasn’t so shrill in his Clinton hatred, he’d probably realize that referring to someone in an informal manner isn’t patronizing if that’s the way they prefer to be addressed. For someone who claims to be anti-PC, he seems to be going out of his way to find reasons to bash Hillary and her supporters.

Is Obama the latest victim of the Bradley effect?

UPDATE : Probably not. As Matt Yglesias pointed out in this graph, the polling numbers for Obama and Edwards were pretty accurate. The only big surprise was Hillary’s last minute surge in support.

I’m fascinated by the way the Clinton campaign is dealing with the challenge of changing their message in the four days between Iowa and New Hampshire. Hillary’s newest line seems to be that all three Democratic candidates are agents of “change” (anyone tired of hearing that word yet?), but that she’s the only one who can actually accomplish that change. It’s a twist on her “demand it, hope for it, work hard for it” line, but her rhetoric doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

For example, here’s a revealing line in her latest stump speech from Ezra Klein :

Clinton now has this line where she says (slight paraphrase, as I’m hand-transcribing), “Let’s be serious about change. Change isn’t voting for the PATRIOT Act then criticizing it. Change isn’t saying you won’t take lobbyist money then appointing a lobbyist as head of your New Hampshire campaign. Change isn’t bragging about passing the Patient’s Bill of Rights when it never passed. Change isn’t talking about your opposition to the Iraq War then voting for more funding.”

Those are attacks on, in order, Edwards, Obama, Edwards, and Obama. But what’s interesting about the charges is the direction in which they point. On each of the relevant issues there, Hillary is on the wrong side of her own rhetoric. She voted for the PATRIOT Act. She voted for the war. She takes lobbyist money and defends their contributions. And she voted for the PBR, and also couldn’t pass it. None are issues that give her any advantage.

An even more telling example of the pot calling the kettle black is this contradiction in Hillary’s depressing (as Obama put it) claim that Obama and Edwards offer “false hopes”.

I suppose that in pure campaigning terms, Kevin Drum’s right and Hillary Clinton’s complaints about Barack Obama and John Edwards raising “false hopes” was a gaffe. But I think it’s an interesting theme, and sort of wish she would explore it in a more rigorous and thorough way.

The trouble is that as is, she’s raising essentially the same hopes as her competitors — hopes of fundamental change in health care and energy policy…It’s true that high aspirations and inspiring rhetoric won’t produce fundamental policy shifts. It’s also true that getting really outraged won’t produce fundamental policy shifts. But neither will Clinton’s years of experience — you can see it in her own list of legislative accomplishments as Senator and First Lady, there’s just nothing in there of remotely the sort of scale that she’s now promising.

So if it’s true that Edwards and Obama are raising false hopes, then so is she.

While some may consider Hillary’s “false hopes” line a gaffe, the truly depressing thing seems to be that it’s a pretty accurate reflection of her feelings.

Hillary was asked about Obama’s rejoinder that there’s something vaguely un-American about dismissing hopes as false, and that it doesn’t jibe with the careers of figures like like John F. Kennedy and King.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Clinton said. “It took a president to get it done.”

Ugghhh….this reminds me of the Mr. Show sketch in which they tried to solicit hate mail :

When David Cross said “Abraham Lincoln, a white man, set them free” it was satire, but that barely seems worse that Hillary’s denigration of the work of Martin Luther King Jr. by insisting “It took a president to get it done”. I don’t think this is some sign of latent racism on her part, but further proof that she’ll say just about anything to get elected. Is it any wonder why Hillary’s campaign is in a tailspin?

The Clinton implosion continues. In the past two days, Hillary Clinton has expressed anger and sadness. Granted, some of you might argue “Her supposed ‘anger’ during Saturday’s debate was completely exaggerated.” or “Hillary didn’t burst into tears the way the Republican leader in the Senate does every time someone mentions Iraq.”, but that’s all beside the point. I don’t know if we can afford to have a commander-in-chief that expresses emotion (in public!).

As an aside, if Hillary really wants to compete with Obama, she needs to stop acting so stiff and be a bit more “likeable“, but not in a way that exposes her to any criticism. At least, that’s what I gather from the punditocracy’s ‘”conventional wisdom” that insists that she open herself up to voters but treats her like a emotionally-fragile bitch when she acts like a normal human being.

I’ve always been skeptical about the Obama phenomenon. Maybe I’m just jaded from 2004, but I really doubted that Obama could actually turn his enthusiastic support into actual votes. Needless to say, Obama’s victory in Iowa was pretty damn impressive. As I look around, I see indicator after indicator that Obama’s popularity goes beyond a fluke primary win in a midwestern state. For example, check out how many people have sat through his Iowa victory speech in the last three days :

Those numbers are on the low end. As of Sunday night, the top three videos alone have been viewed almost 800,000 times. Not bad for a 13-minute stump speech, especially compared to the 25K views that the Edwards and Clinton speeches got.

Okay, so my predictions were mostly wrong, but there were a lot of genuine shockers last night.

Obama – Despite any pre-caucus polls predicting a victory, his win was a remarkable achievement. I’m still shocked that he was able to drag his coalition of young people and undecideds to the caucuses.

Amazing speech, but I’m still leaning towards…

John Edwards – A strong finish, but he wasn’t able to sneak up the middle between Obama and Clinton. His campaign gambled so much on Iowa that even with a strong second place finish the lack of a win pretty much ends his campaign. He’ll definitely try to use his victory over Clinton to gain some momentum going into New Hampshire, but Edwards’ chances of winning are all but dead. With Obama’s victory, I thin Edwards is going to start bleeding support, which will be more bad news for…

Hillary Clinton – Yikes. What a disaster. Front runners aren’t supposed to come in third place in a two-person race. Though Edwards beat her by a hair, a mathematical fluke adds insult to injury by making her loss seem worse at first glance, even though there aren’t that many delegates between the 29% and 30% showings of Clinton and Edwards. She needs to destroy Obama to regain her footing, but Obama’s got the momentum now and doesn’t have to worry about retooling his campaign strategy in the next four days. To be honest, I’m relieved to see her lose because I think she’d have the hardest time beating…

Mike Huckabee – It was an easy call, but I still can’t see him winning the nomination. The campaign against Huckabee by the GOP establishment is going to be nasty and he doesn’t have the rural, conservative voters to fall back on in New Hampshire. It was easy to see why Iowa Republicans preferred his folksy personality to the robotic Ward Cleaver of the race…

Mitt Romney – He did better than I expected, but considering the amount of money he’s sunk into this race, his loss was a huge blow. I could still see him turning things around in NH, but mostly because the Republican establishment wants a candidate who won’t rock the boat and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be…

John McCain – He should have been the “not one of those religious nuts” candidate, but couldn’t catch up in time. I predicted he would win mostly because I expected a bigger loss by Romney and never in a million years would have guessed that McCain would be splitting the “not a front-runner” support with a surge from….

Fred Thompson – Where the hell did that come from? Were the second rounds in the caucuses filled with people saying “He’s an actor like Reagan!”. Very weird. Speaking of weird…

Ron Paul – Impressive finish. He even kicked Rudy’s ass. When I saw that he came in fifth place, the first thing I thought of was Joe Lieberman’s boast that he was in a “three-way tie for third place”. So it looks like Paul’s got some “Joementum” now.