I was a little late to the Janelle Monae bandwagon, but I picked up her LP, and I’ve been completely addicted.  Monae has pulled off a task that very few can, which is to be both super poppy and arty weird.  And don’t flap your gums at me about Lady Gaga, who has a self-consciously weird public persona, but whose music isn’t even in the same category of ear-catching freshness.  My mind went to Roxy Music when I first heard it, but also to Prince and to Outkast.  It isn’t a surprise that her big single is with Big Boi, therefore.

So here’s my Genius Ten.  Leave yours in comments, or comment on whatever you like.  As usual, this is an open thread.

Original song: “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae (featuring Big Boi)

1) “The Cell” by Eryka Badu
2) “Beep Me 911” by Missy Elliott
3) “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” by Gnarls Barkley
4) “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You” by Sharon Jones
5) “Nothing Even Matters” by Lauryn Hill
6) “Adore” by Prince
7) “Who’s Loving You” by The Jackson 5
8) “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye
9) “All I Could Do Is Cry” by Etta James
10) “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston

Videos below the fold.

And a little disco to get you going this morning:

It’s so hard to decide what my favorite moment in wingnuttery was today.  Was it this story from the Rachel Maddow show, as reported by Chris Hayes?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Or was it the Daily Caller, eager to find a new low to sink to, calling the men of Journolist ugly?  It’s so hard to decide!

On one hand, the Iowa Republican party declaring that they want to instate what they call the “original” 13th amendment in a sad effort to kick Obama out of office is about as classic as wingnuttery gets:

*It’s winking at racism without coming right out for it---the actual 13th amendment banned slavery, and so this is a way of suggesting that wasn’t a super important thing to do, certainly not on the level of stopping people from accepting titles from foreign rulers.  Playing footsie with racism with plausible deniability firmly intact is one of the top three favorite wingnut things to do.
*It’s about creating implausible schemes to attack the President’s right to hold office for the sole purpose of riling up their followers, giving them more shit to mutter about angrily, particularly after they’ve had a few.
*They get to take a swipe at scientists, intellectuals, and the idea of peace itself without coming out right for it.  The scheme is there to suggest that the Nobel prize is the equivalent of taking a title such as “Duke” or “Baron” from a foreign crown.  They may play off like it’s just an unfortunate side effect that this would strip the citizenship away from the hundreds of American Nobel prize winners who have been rewarded for science, literature, and peace-keeping efforts, but make no mistake.  If this scheme worked out, they would enjoy showing those smarty-pants what for thinking they’re so special.
*This is stupid, ineffectual, and kind of crazy---much like freaking out over fluoride or black helicopters.  Whatever the appeal of that is to wingnuts, it’s obviously there.

But the “men on Journolist are so ugly!” nonsense is also fucking awesome, for many reasons.

*The complete lack of self-awareness, so beloved by wingnuts.  In general, I think that it’s a bad idea to put your picture up when you’re calling someone else ugly, because you invite scrutiny that pretty much no human, especially online, can really endure.  But it’s especially tone deaf when you’re Mark Judge and your hair styling choices jump right out at scrutinizing viewers.

I’m not one to make absolute fashion rules.  (*cough*) But I will say to the balding men of the world that all attempts to distract from your receding hairline are bad ideas: combovers, toupees, hair plugs, growing your hair long in the back.  And of course, Judge’s assumption that making your hairline tall will somehow distract from its backwards drift.  This is not usually something I’d bring up, but there’s a real glass house/throwing stones problem going on here, and Judge would have been wise to think about that before taking this story on.
*The beating a dead horse aspects.  This is just another attempt to dwell on the non-scandal of Journolist, which at this point simply amounts to making an enemies list for an audience that responds more to hate than they do to actual ideas, of which most conservative pundits have none.
*The sad sack attempts at being funny, which almost always cause me to move from being annoyed to pitying the would-be jokester.  Simply pointing and laughing at people isn’t a joke.  Burning motherfuckers is an art, and we all know how conservatives feel about artists.  (Especially if there’s a threat of them winning the Nobel prize, though there sadly isn’t one in burning motherfuckers.  Yet.)
*And there’s always something nauseating and unnerving when conservatives even come close to talking about things tangentially related to sex and feeling good, like if someone’s attractive or not.  For instance, Judge has taken it upon himself to evaluate the hawtness of a bunch of male journalists and college professors, no doubt as a shield against accusations of sexism for when they inevitably do the hits-trolling follow-up “Women of Journolist Are So Ugly” post.  Unfortunately, this has put him in a situation that is just a teeny-weeny bit gay.  So he spends time on page two trying to cover up for that by making it clear he’d totally fuck Sarah Palin if he had a chance, and Andrew Sullivan---a for real gay dude---would not.  The result was typical of conservatives trying to play like they’re not sexual miscreants, which is to say that it makes you long for an old-fashioned screed against the evils of sexual liberation:

Palin is a triple threat: a pretty jock who is also incredibly sexy (pretty and sexy are two different things). In high school she was the kind of girl that the school newspaper nerds – the future Journolisters – despised. Pummeled with so much raw beauty, athleticism and sex appeal – and she’s nice, too, goddamn her – these fearless chroniclers of reality were left sputtering – and seething.

Due to our sexual bitterness, therefore, the left immediately started camping out at abortion clinics to scream invective at sexually active women that weren’t having sex with us, tried to restrict access to birth control out of angry revenge, and obsessively tried to keep sex education out of high school classrooms so another generation of cute high school girls that got all the boys were duly punished with unplanned pregnancy. 

Oh, wait.  Sorry. Why don’t we go back to talking about how the real 13th amendment didn’t repeal slavery at all?

Julea Ward was a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, and a devout Christian.  The requirements of the program she entered complied with the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics.  In part, a counselor is required to engage with clients who may possess values, whether cultural or religious, that differ from theirs.  (PDF Link, Sections A.4.b and C.5.)

The short version of this story is that Ward didn’t want to counsel a gay client because it made her feel uncomfortable, and the school responded by expelling her:

The dispute that led to the litigation started in 2009, when Ward was enrolled in the practicum in which she was to engage in actual counseling. Faced with an appointment with a client whose file indicated past discussion of a gay relationship, Ward asked to refer the candidate to another counselor rather than engage in any counseling that could “affirm the client’s homosexual behavior.” Since this was two hours before the appointment, the supervising counselor canceled the appointment, but set off disciplinary hearings that eventually led to Ward being kicked out of the program.

Eastern Michigan’s counseling program—like many others—requires its students to practice in ways that are consistent with the counseling association’s ethics code, including requirements that bar behavior that reflects an “inability to tolerate different points of view,” “imposing values” on clients or discrimination based on a number of factors, including sexual orientation. The counseling association does permit referrals, but they are supposed to be for the good of the client, not for the comfort of the counselor. Typically, a referral that would be seen as legitimate might involve a counselor referring someone to a colleague with expertise on a particular problem.

A federal judge upheld the expulsion, which but for the religious aspect would have been largely uncontroversial.  Of course, she’s a.) a conservative Christian; b.) represented by the Alliance Defense Fund; and c.) the government is involved, which means that it’s time to start wailing about the end of religious freedom as we know it.

Hot Air (discussing a similar case in Georgia where a conservative Christian student was asked to be sensitive to the needs of gay clients):

It sounds to me like the ACA wants a “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule for religion.  That runs square into the First Amendment, especially for a state-run school.  The ACA’s idea of who comes first doesn’t get to trump the restriction on freedom of religious exercise.  If clients get off-put by Keeton’s approach to counseling, they can look for another counselor.  Now, the ACA can decide not to certify her; as a private organization, they have that prerogative.  If they do that explicitly based on her religious belief, however, they may have a problem with that in court, especially as it will block Keeton’s ability to make a living.

Well, here’s the problem.  Professional certification guidelines are, generally, constitutional.  One of the requirements of the degree both the Georgia and Michigan students are pursuing is that they treat clients equally and respectfully, and don’t impose their personal beliefs on their clients.  It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the requirements of the job they voluntarily pursued.  Sorry that they don’t want to do the job because of their religion, but it’s really not the school’s problem.

Erick “Everyone’s Fucking Goats But Me, Really” Erickson has the following to say:

In Michigan, a federal judge has upheld the expulsion of a graduate school student for believing homosexuality is morally wrong.

No.  That’s not what happened.  You have a First Amendment right to believe what you want without the government barring you from believing it or forcing you to believe something else.  You don’t have a First Amendment right to grant yourself a blanket exemption from the religion-neutral requirements of the professional degree you voluntarily chose to pursue. 

I understand why conservative Christians push these suits - it’s an effort to dominate and define the culture around their needs.  But what’s telling is that these students chose to go into a profession whose requirements were readily accessible before they ever set foot in a classroom.  You can read the ACA’s Code of Ethics, you can talk to counselors about their jobs.  They shouldn’t be confronted or expelled because of their religious beliefs; they should be confronted or expelled because they went in intending to be bad counselors and are shocked - shocked!!! - when they’re treated accordingly. 

UPDATE:  Julea Ward would probably have a stronger case if she could, you know, keep her story straight.  More below.

Here’s the video that the ADF produced to present Ward’s TV movie pitch side of the story.

The opening line:

“Julea Ward, a graduate student from Eastern Michigan University, followed her conscience and respectfully denied instructions to counsel an individual regarding a same-sex relationship in which he was involved.”

Ward, 25 seconds later:

“Now, I had never refused to counsel homosexuals, I had simply refused to affirm their lifestyle.”

From the ADF’s writeup on Ward:

A few days later, Julea came into the clinic early for an appointment with a potential client. Looking through his file, she learned he was seeking counsel about a homosexual relationship. She also saw that a previous counselor had affirmed his homosexual behavior – something Julea was unwilling to do.

Before meeting with the client, she put in a call to her adviser.

“What should I do?” she asked. “Should I meet with this client, and refer him if it becomes necessary … if he’s looking for affirmation for this homosexual relationship that he’s involved in? Or, should I not meet with him, so that rapport is not established, and simply have him assigned to another counselor?”

You see, I’ve been completely unfair to Ward.  She didn’t refuse to counsel homosexual clients at all!

She just refused to counsel homosexual clients if there was any chance their homosexuality would come up in any way, shape or form, which is totally different, because nobody ever goes to counseling to talk about their relationships. 

Once again, I’m forced to question if conservatives are capable of remembering that they gave women the vote nearly a century ago.  The new faux scandal on the right is that President Obama is going on “The View”, and the reason that this is supposedly a disgrace is pretty blatantly argued as “bitches ain’t shit”.  For all the right wing romanticizing of housewives, it’s pretty fucking interesting that they object so strenuously to the President taking time out of his schedule to speak directly to housewives, who, last I checked, have the right to vote.  But to make the whole thing even more obviously about straight-up sexism, the way the “scandal” is being debated involves pitching a show aimed at a female audience against the Boy Scouts.  Glenn Beck, CNS, Fox News, Laura Inagraham, etc.---they’re all faux angry because the President is speaking to adult women about politics instead of to male children. 

I honestly can’t think of a better example of the conservative attitudes towards women than anger that the President appears to believe that adult women are more adult than minor children who happen to be male. 

It’s an interesting sign of modern conservatism that some of the people are themselves women that are pushing this idea that boys are a more important audience than grown women.  S.E. Cupp and Laura Inagraham are mentioned on Media Matters.  Broadsheet quotes Antoinette Kuritz using female names to emphasize how silly “The View” is:

“Being on ‘The View’ trivializes the President and the office. Does he go on before or after Brittany, Paris, or Lindsay? Or even Julia? Does he sit between Joy and Elizabeth and bait one while pandering to the other?”

Did I mention that there are people named Sally, Mary, and Ann in the audience?  Do you detect a theme of unseriousness here?  Do we need to spell it out for you? (V-A-G-I-N-A-S.)

This is why I can’t take conservative “feminism” seriously in the slightest.  The main theme of conservative “feminism” is, “Most women are too stupid to breathe, much less have rights.  And you can trust me when I say this, because I’m a woman.” As logic, it’s self-contradictory, but it’s emotionally satisfying.  It says that the truth of female inferiority is so obvious that even some women have to admit it.  And the women who argue this get to feel good about themselves because they’re at least smart....for women. 

“The View” can be a very silly show, but no more so than any other political talk show that encourages “fair-and-balanced” over smart and factual.  That they do celebrity coverage shouldn’t change this---so do all the supposed hard news networks.  Fox is particularly egregious in calling the kettle black on this one, since they openly reject real news for scandal-mongering and stories about how sexy ladies are bringing down society.  “The View” has different segments, some which don’t even pretend to be hard news.  So what?  The NY Times has a Style section.  At least “The View” doesn’t do what the NY Times does, and relegate important political stories about feminist issues to the Style section.  A lot of the ongoing outrage over “The View” is that it dare exist at all, since the premise of the show is that its intended audience---mostly female, mostly staying at home (at least during the day)---is interested in political talk and actual debate and even sometimes analysis.  Hell, I think if Obama decided to come on to a show purely about homemaking so that he could condescend about his wife’s decorating preferences while avoiding all political talk the squawkers wouldn’t be raising a peep. 

It’s interesting to me that the Daily Caller has chosen right now to hump the “OMG liberals talk to each other!!!!!!” non-story, since this is right on the heels of a legitimate media scandal---Andrew Breitbart’s smear campaign against Shirley Sherrod, and how it was shamefully taken seriously long enough to get Sherrod fired, when it should have been ignored right off the bat, due to Breitbart being a known liar.  Even worse, there’s still an aching silence where media and government mea culpas for taking the ACORN lies seriously should be.  CNN did blow the doors off Breitbart’s latest racially motivated smear campaign, but there is still a lack of follow-up coverage exposing Breitbart and his entire crew for being the racist fuckwit liars they are. 

The timing of the Journolist faux scandal could be a coincidence.  The Daily Caller realized that they were getting a lot of hits with this, because above all other things, movement conservatives are motivated by resentment.  Simply having a list of people they could enviously deem the “liberal elite” and obsessing over the fact that they talk to each other is basically enough to get movement conservatives riled up.  The rationalizations for this whole non-scandal mongering are paper thin; the ugly reality is that the theme of the Daily Caller expose is, “The cool kids think they’re so cool, but we totally eavesdropped on their conversations.  So there!” If there was any doubt in my mind before this that the whining about the “liberal elite” was pandering to jackasses who are jealous that other people who aren’t jackasses live well, this wiped it out.  Screeching about the “liberal elite” is about as transparent as screeching about the evils of hipsters who think they’re so cool because they bother to keep up with new music whine whine whine. 

Still, I worry that this whole thing is being parlayed into an attempt to play the “both sides” card, which is conservatives’ last ditch cover story when they’re exposed as dirty motherfuckers.  Indeed, reading whining from the likes of Roger Simon about how a listserv is the end of journalism after the disgraceful Sherrod episode convinces me that this is exactly what conservatives are aiming for.  But there is no “both sides” here.  The right wing noise machine shamelessly pushes blatant lies into the public discourse, the mainstream shamefully reports on them, and the Democrats shamefully ask “how high?” when known liars like Andrew Breitbart tell them to jump.  The Sherrod thing only ended up well because of a couple of lucky breaks, as Ari Rabin-Havt explained on a panel at Netroots.  Most of the time, the truth doesn’t come out until much later and then is summarily ignored.  And we’re supposed to think that a bunch of liberal journalists using each other as a way to sharpen their thinking, get information, and vent is some scandal.  I’m beginning to think that the Daily Caller and Politico folks are mostly offended that the journalists on the list still think there’s value in journalism that reports on real issues and explains actual policy to the public.  Why do that when you could be riding fake scandals, smearing innocent people, and passing off Beltway gossip like it’s news? 

Luckily, it does seem to me that, for once, the mainstream media is actually doing its job here.  The real scandal---Andrew Breitbart’s shamelessly smearing of an innocent woman and the Obama administration’s shameful cowering in front of bullies---is getting big time media coverage, whereas the non-scandal is mostly being ignored (from what I can tell).  I’d like to say I think this bodes well for the future, but honestly I doubt it.  Things just broke the right way this one time, but it’s almost surely coincidence.  Hell, I doubt that even Andrew Breitbart is really over, even though in a right-thinking media environment, he would be. 

You didn’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you?  Not when I’m fairly obsessed with “Mad Men”.  I wrote a piece for Alternet before the premiere with some speculation about season four.  A lot of what I predicted remains to be seen, but my biggest prediction, which is that the season finale of season three hinted at stylistic changes on the show, seems to be panning out.

The finale of season three signaled a shift in the world of “Mad Men.” Viewers have no doubt that when the curtain comes up, the advertising industry players will find themselves living in the nascent days of the Swinging Sixties of our collective imagination: miniskirts, the British Invasion, the birth control pill, desegregation, and of course, the creative explosion in advertising.

(Yes, I’m aware that Peggy got an Enovid prescription in 1960, but at the time, that would have been off-label use. By late 1964, though, millions of married women and even some single women were switching to the pill.)

As I predicted, the energy of the show went up a couple of notches, as did the height of women’s hair.  Matt Zoller Seitz noted that along with the faster pacing of the show, the characters speak to each other more forcefully and with a bluntness that they didn’t have before.  This doesn’t strike me as accidental; Weiner is trying to suggest that the changeover from the 50s mentality to the 60s mentality brought with it this energy, freedom, and frankness.  The last scene, where Don decides to drop the mystery man act and instead portray himself as a brazen, exciting guy who is a bit of an asshole, reinforces how much this is all intentional.  The meditative “Mad Men” may be over, replaced with a faster-paced show that reflects the faster pace of the time the show is set in. 

GD wrote about the season premiere at Ta-Nehisi’s place, and an interesting debate broke out in comments about Don Draper’s tantrum with the Jantzen people.  Was it a sincere moment of overwhelming anger, or did Don plan for it after the Advertising Age article made him realize he needed to remake his public image?  Answering that question struck me as the linchpin of the episode.  On one hand, we’ve seen sparks of Don’s temper before, such as when he yelled at Rachel Mencken in the series premiere, or when he stomped out of a meeting with the new British owners.  In most cases, his temper tantrums actually resulted in him getting his way, either immediately (as with the Brits) or after he smoothed things over (as with Rachel).  But all this is just more reason I think that Don may have planned this bigger, more explosive temper tantrum.  After all, his previous tantrums weren’t nearly as over the top, and he rarely ended them with a delighted instruction to a secretary to capitalize on what just happened.  Last season, Don spent months bowing and scrapping to Conrad Hilton, and he got shit for it.  He’s realizing this is a new era, where the advertisers are going to be the stars and the clients are going to line up to be a part of it all.  So he staged the temper tantrum, and attacked clients that we know for a fact are having meetings with every advertising firm in town.  In other words, he made sure that when he exploded, he did so in a way that the news would spread all over town in minutes.

But what is really telling is something that a commenter at Ta-Nehisi’s blog pointed out---the B plot is all about feigning conflict to get attention.  Don scolds Peggy for the Sugarberry ham stunt, but just a couple scenes later he’s pulling a similar stunt in order to attract attention to the firm.  Of course, the actresses who got into the ham fight really did end up having a fight, and I suspect that’s because we’re meant to assume that Don is going to start inhabiting this new role he’s created for himself just as thoroughly.  But as a stunt, it will work.  There will be fallout, but the primary objective of drumming up business will be achieved. 

I had mixed feelings about Don’s conclusion that he should create and trumpet conflict, and use gossip as a marketing tool.  On one hand, it was delightful to see him get his mojo back after what had obviously been a trying year for him.  On the other hand, we were also witnessing a fictionalized version of the creation of the celebrity-centric culture that has grown particularly tawdry in recent years.  In Don’s glowing account of the way they got away from Sterling Cooper, I could hear the end game of that kind of journalism, which is a nation of assholes enjoying Lindsay Lohan’s personal crisis, as if she’s not a human being who deserve sympathy instead of abuse.  I heard an impeachment trial over an adultery.  But perhaps I’m overthinking it.  The era of holding your cards so close to your chest didn’t do much for people’s well-being.  The benefits of a culture based around individual stories and even gossip have been profound, as well---the second wave of feminism was able to ride the use of personal stories documenting sexism straight to massive social and policy change for women.  The high note of rock music as the episode went out was there to encourage us to view this new personability with enthusiasm; we’re meant to feel its liberating effects.

Sam Seder interviewed me for the Young Turks. Check it out!

Is there such a thing as a negative IQ? The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck goes for the gold standard. Via The Advocate:

The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck says she knows why lesbians come out later in life: there are simply no available men.

Her theory is that older men tend to date younger women, “leaving older women with no one,” she said.

My question - someone willing to say something so asinine on the air cannot possibly have any close gay or lesbian friends. She needs to invest in rent-a-lez or some such before opening her piehole.

My good friend Joe Sudbay of Americablog and I were interviewed by former Air America radio host Sam Seder while we were at Netroots Nation (you can see me in the background, but my vid isn’t available so far). Joe’s is up, so take a peek.

Also, Joe interviewed Sen. Harry Reid:

AB has a good post up today, ”Why didn’t Robert Raben demand that Clinton’s DOJ defend a law seeking to overturn Miranda?”

***

BTW, I also just put up a FB album called NN 2010 The Homosexual Agenda, ”An album of activists, bloggers, and allies gathering to collude on how to overthrow the enablers of the equality status quo.”

It’s a stream of photos from one of the parties that Greg Rae of Living Liberally and Mike Rogers, organizer of the National Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative, threw for LGBT bloggers and allies while at Netroots.

It may look like just a party, but think about the LGBT online political power in the room. We’ve been meeting in groups offline for some time, with this conference being one of the most prominent non-LGBT related ones. It dispels the notion that we’re all just a bunch of online armchair critics sitting in Cheetos-stained PJs spouting off. Nearly every person in that room is on the same page strategically (and we know exactly who isn’t), and believe the approaches we are taking are compatible.

Right: With Palm Springs, CA Mayor Steve Pougnet (who is challenging and will defeat Mary Bono Mack), Mike Rogers, Rep. Jared Schutz Polis.

We are human beings who do care about the LGBT and progressive movements, and our roles to play in helping move equality forward. Our progressive colleagues at NN certainly recognized the unprecendented LGBT attendance and cross-pollenation of ideas that Netroots Nation provides, and that we are committed to pushing the envelope. It’s sad we have to with a self-proclaimed LGBT-friendly administration and Congress, but there you have it. Sitting back and waiting for change isn’t cutting it.

And because of the work of Mike Rogers with the National Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative pre-conference this year, we had representation from a wide variety of LGBT Beltway legacy orgs and news orgs who sat down with bloggers to bridge some of the communication gaps that are painfully apparent as everyone tries to navigate the new power and communication structures that have quickly emerged and continue to evolve. We’re past the head-in-the-sand time. Now perhaps the White House might think about sending someone to attend next time around.

One of the feminist bloggers who attended my panel on electing more progressive women to office approached me afterwards and was crestfallen that there was only one panel on women in politics and noted how prominent LGBT issues were at this NN. I told her that I’ve been to all but the first NN, and have seen tremendous growth in LGBT influence at NN after starting with just a handful of attendees and no panels on our issues. Building the coalitions and actively pushing your way in the door is the only way to be heard above the many voices and inertia the progressive movement has had toward LGBT (and women’s) issues to date.

***

One last note: I get mobbed by fans/readers at this event; my fellow bloggers call me a “rock star” (ahem, Joe Sudbay). The rock star thing is hilarious.

I do get fan mobbed at NN. Maybe not like Markos, but it’s true that I cannot make it down any corridor without several people wanting a photo of/ with me or an interview. I am very appreciative of being able to meet readers, many of them are lurkers, not commenters. It’s quite humbling when many of these people are actually pols, other bloggers and activists much more important than I am (IMHO). I still don’t get it. That whole ‘imposter syndrome” thing, I guess. But since I am really just an average person working an average job in the real world, it is disconcerting to recognize how popular my online work is to so many. So thank you all; I enjoy meeting and speaking with you. 

I can at least report to my wife that no one hit on me in Vegas. I don’t think she has anything to worry about; I’m a rock star without the sex appeal, LOLOLOL.

I’m still boggled that right wingers have convinced themselves that they have a right to have a snit over the fact that some liberal journalists had a listserv.  The whole concocted controversy gets stranger by the minute, and not just because some wingnuts are using Journolist to replace the made-up Protocols of the Elders of Zion as the focal point of anti-Semitic propaganda.  For instance, Andrew Sullivan threw a hissy fit because some folks on Journolist made some fun of him because he pushes the “Sarah Palin faked her fifth pregnancy” nonsense.  I fully expect before the week is over for conservatives to take umbrage if it’s discovered that someone said something mildly critical of Richard Nixon on the listserv.

The fundamental argument justifying the fit is that liberal journalists don’t have a right to speak to each other in confidence, a right that conservatives apparently get to enjoy on the grounds that they’re specialer than us.  I imagine that if this all works out for them, they’ll be delighted to know they have a new line of attack on liberals.  It’s way more than listservs, after all.  Liberals communicate with each other in private in all sorts of ways.  Now that they’ve managed to make this fact controversial, there’s no end to the possible scandals.  I’ve made a list of what we can expect next, in terms of created controversy.

Scandal will erupt when it’s discovered:

*Many liberals are married to or dating other liberals, which often includes actual sexual congress going on behind closed doors.
*Liberal homes are often installed with telephones, and most phones made from them go unrecorded. 
*To make this worse, most liberals nowadays carry their phones with them. At any point in time, they have access to confidential conversations with other people who are often also liberal.  And just to add to the wickedness of it all, many also employ text messaging.
*Liberals are permitted to enter restaurants that serve dinner to people without recording their conversations.  No doubt many of these liberal take advantage of this to discuss politics over dinner with other liberals.
*Did you know there’s no law against liberals having cocktail parties?
*To make it even worse, many liberals working in media or politics have offices where they work with other liberals, and therefore have unfettered access to unrecorded conversations with each other. 
*But it turns out even those who don’t work in physical proximity with other liberals often use instant messaging services to conduct conversations with each other as if they worked together.  Not only does instant messaging create a scandalous veil of privacy over these communications, but it’s also rumored that they use improper grammar and spelling. 
*Liberals are permitted to both purchase books written by other liberals or check them out of the library.  Either way, they brazenly read those books quietly, and enjoy thoughts about them that they aren’t forced to share with other people. 

Taken to its logical conclusion, the only form of communication we’ll be allowed is blogging, but only if every reader reports their thoughts straightaway in comments.  Maybe also Facebook, but only if all the privacy controls are turned off.  And then they’ll have to create new rules to explain why it’s scandalous to allow us even this.