The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Bill Folman: Finally! A New Euphemism!
- Terry Krepel: Newsmax Tries to Rehabilitate Bernard Kerik
- Rachel Simmons: What Kind of Girl Power is This?
- Michael Seitzman: The Argentine Affair: The Movie
| Bill Folman: Finally! A New Euphemism! | Top |
| We've had a lively potpourri of sex scandals recently, but none can match the transformative power of the Mark Sanford affair. Finally, we have a new euphemism for extramarital relations and an artful one at that: "hiking the Appalachian trail." For those of you doubting the coolness of this new entry into the American erotic-political vernacular, I offer the following sample conversation between two political insiders. POLITICAL INSIDER #1: "Have you heard anything from Senator Smith?" POLITICAL INSIDER #2: "The senator? Not much. But rumor has it, he's been hiking that old Appalachian trial lately." POLITICAL INSIDER #1: "Well, I'll be damned!" POLITICAL INSIDER #2: (snicker) POLITICAL INSIDER #1: (snicker) See! Try it for yourself, and you'll see how much fun it is. More on Sex | |
| Terry Krepel: Newsmax Tries to Rehabilitate Bernard Kerik | Top |
| Newsmax has long been a booster of Bernard Kerik. When the former New York police chief was nominated by President Bush to be homeland security secretary in 2004, Newsmax was quick to accuse the "leftist media" of mounting "an unprecedented, full-scale attack" on Kerik by writing "journalistic hatchet jobs" about this "heroic cop" who "will do an outstanding job of protecting the homeland and thus reflect credit on the man who picked him, President Bush." But as I detailed at the time, the mounting allegations against Kerik -- among them an affair with his book editor (and others), mishandling of taxpayers' money, links to a mob-controlled construction company, nanny problems, general thuggish behavior and even an outstanding warrant against him -- eventually forced Kerik to withdraw his nomination and Newsmax to back off. But that was more than four years ago, which can only mean one thing: It's time for Newsmax to start rehabilitating Kerik's reputation. The current effort began with a March 29 article , headlined "Bernard Kerik Wins Round in Court," touted how Kerik "won a victory in court last week when a judge threw out several of the charges in his federal indictment." But the article obfuscates on the number of counts dismissed and the number remaining. In fact, as the Associated Press reported , a judge "dismissed one count of the 15-count corruption and tax fraud indictment against Kerik" and "removed some elements of a second count." An April 3 article by Jim Meyers cranked up the rehabilitation, calling Kerik a "highly decorated former New York City Police Commissioner" in the first paragraph. Meyers also writes that Kerik "was President George W. Bush's nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security before he withdrew his name from consideration," but fails to mention the charges he faces on, as the previous Newsmax article noted, "wire fraud, mail fraud, and making false statements." Nevertheless, Meyers approvingly repeated Kerik's assertion that "failure to renew the Patriot Act would place Americans in "serious jeopardy" and could lead to a 'catastrophic attack' in the U.S." On April 23, Newsmax published a column by Kerik bashing members of Congress who support investigating allegations into alleged acts of torture conducted under the Bush administration because, among other things, it would "politically persecute President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and others." Kerik's tagline on his column is laughably vague, stating on that he "retired as the 40th police commissioner of New York City and was in command of the NYPD on and after Sept. 11, 2001." No mention of his standing indictment on numerous charges of corruption and tax fraud. But for Newsmax, an indicted felon (or, really, even a convicted felon ) is perfectly qualified to speak as long as he's attacking Democrats. A May 16 article claimed that Kerik "won another round" in court when a judge ruled that "charges that Kerik lied to the White House during his brief bid to be secretary of homeland security must be tried in Washington, D.C." Newsmax did not explain how this could be considered a "win" for Kerik since the purpose of dropping them was so they could be refiled in Washington, a venue hundreds of miles from New York. Indeed, that's exactly what happened . And Newsmax tried to spin that away too. More on that later. Meanwhile, a May 22 article again approvingly quoted Kerik, this time his claim that the arrest of four men in a plot to blow up a synagogue in New York proved that the Patriot Act works. The same day, Newsmax published another column by Kerik reliving his 9/11 experiences and attacking "those who attempt to make believe that the events of 9/11 never happened, criminalize the prior administration, or try their best to ignore the threats we face by radical Islam today." As with the previous Kerik column Newsmax published, nowhere is it mentioned that Kerik is under indictment on numerous charges of corruption and tax fraud. After Kerik was re-indicted in Washington on the false-statement charges, Newsmax cranked up the whitewashing. A May 26 article by Dave Eberhart painted Kerik as a "9/11 hero" victimized by overzealous prosecutors who "appear to be indictment shopping," claiming that the Washington indictments were filed "after similar indictments had failed to stick in New York." Eberhart went on to assert that the dismissal "apparently angered the federal prosecutors who decided to open up a new indictment against Kerik in Washington, including charging him with crimes already dismissed by Judge [Stephen] Robinson." But the charges dropped in New York by Robinson were done specifically so they could be filed in Washington. The judge essentially told prosecutors to do exactly what they did -- as Newsmax itself reported on May 16. Eberhart also claimed that "the judge overseeing the case has dismissed key charges and questioned the handling of the case by the Justice Department's Southern District of New York office." But, as Newsmax did before, Eberhart makes things look better than they actually are by obfuscating the actual numbers involved. There's no specific mention of the 15 counts on which Kerik was originally indicted, of which one count and part of another had been dismissed. That still leaves 13-plus charges, including the ones dropped in New York and refiled in Washington. Eberhart then asserted that "the unusual handling of Kerik's case by federal prosecutors has drawn parallels to the recent acquittal of Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens had been charged for not properly reporting renovations to his home residence." But contrary to the Stevens case, which was dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct (not because he wasn't guilty ), Eberhart has offered no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in the Kerik case beyond comments from Kerik's attorney, and he's not exactly objective on the issue. Such a vociferous defense virtually guaranteed that Newsmax's rehabilitation of Kerik would continue. And so it did: Newsmax published a May 31 column by Kerik asserting that the U.S. should not use "touchy feely politics or depend on the United Nations" in dealing with North Korea -- despite Kerik having no demonstrated expertise in world politics -- followed by a June 7 column weighing in on President Obama's speech in Cairo -- even though Kerik has no demonstrated expertise in Middle East politics. In between, Newsmax slipped in a a June 4 article that deviated from Newsmax style by fully and fairly describing the numerous charges against Kerik. Despite the Newsmax tagline at the end implying that it's an original Newsmax product, however, it's actually an Associated Press article -- which explains the fair and balanced tone. Don't expect much more of that kind of honesty in the future, though -- Newsmax has an indicted felon to rehabilitate. A version of this article appears at ConWebWatch . | |
| Rachel Simmons: What Kind of Girl Power is This? | Top |
| In " The Code of Miss Porter's ," Vanity Fair's Evgenia Peretz offers a rare glimpse of life inside America's most exclusive girls' boarding school. It is a story of girls' empowerment, but - at least as this article tells it* -- it is a power premised on hierarchy, hazing, and projecting a ruthlessly "perfect girl" persona at all costs. Head of School Kate Windsor apparently declined to view the behavior of the Oprichinki as bullying. This is unremarkable, as far as many schools go. Girls grow up in a world that largely depicts female aggression as comedy, and euphemizes their cruelty as a "rite of passage," developmental phase or "girls being girls" ("You can't sue a school for girl drama," an '07 alum told VF). What's intriguing is that Windsor seems to have taken it one step further. She suggests that such behavior is appropriate training for life. As she marveled to Peretz, "We create these rites of passage where girls actually get anxious." She actually called the rituals "awesome," exercises that teach girls how to "prepare for the unknown." Taking an approach to psychological aggression that is as outdated as the saddle shoe, Windsor draws the line of intervention at "physical harm." As anyone who has spent a few minutes with upper middle class girls knows, throwing a punch is the last way they'd try to take down a peer. To be sure, Miss Porter's has not ignored bullying. I was an invited speaker there in 2003, and I was enchanted with the headstrong, bright young women, so much so that I hired one of their teachers to work at my summer Girls Leadership Institute. I found then-Head of School Burch Ford to be an exceptionally wise, devoted educator, clearly passionate about girls' leadership and sympathetic to targets of psychological aggression. If her comments to Vanity Fair are to be believed, Ms. Windsor, by contrast, conflates her school's responsibility for dealing with bullying with the current regrettable trends in overparenting and overprotection. This is a dangerous misread. A school's commitment to the social-emotional welfare of its students does not, by definition, gut them of resilience. But if MPS leadership now sees aggression and intimidation as appropriate training for life, it would follow that enduring it as seen as a badge, rather than seeing its existence as an outrage. The antidote to helicopter parenting is not a free-for-all in which only the fittest survive. Teaching girls to be tough can be accomplished in more humane ways, and certainly not at the expense of hurting or beating someone else. Resilience is not about being better than or stronger than; it is something found within the self in response to the daily stresses of life - not stresses that are artificially designed. When the aggressive dynamics of girls become the basis for how young women negotiate the world, a new, disturbing glass ceiling is created. In my new book, "The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence ," I trace the migration of girls' social habits into their behavior in classrooms, extracurricular activities and athletic fields. For example, instead of resolving conflicts on sports teams directly, girls often import the silent treatment of their lunch tables onto the field, refusing to pass a teammate the ball when they are angry. Sports fields and classrooms are training grounds for how girls will take on the world as young women. Aggression in the workplace and a willingness to win at any cost become the very behaviors that limit female potential. A school like Miss Porter's is at the forefront of girls' empowerment. Ms. Windsor should not be reinforcing this brand of leadership. If this were a story about boys, we'd call the "rituals designed to produce anxiety and intimidate" hazing, pure and simple. Because we're talking about girls, the toughness Windsor is promoting falls under the ever-expanding umbrella of "girl power." The Oprichinki, according to an '07 Ancient, "don't inflict real pain, just the anticipatory fear of pain." That's not skill building or skin thickening. It's bullying. * Admittedly, drawing conclusions about Miss Porter's from a magazine article feels like writing a movie review without seeing the movie. | |
| Michael Seitzman: The Argentine Affair: The Movie | Top |
| Okay, here's the pitch: A Republican Governor from South Carolina disappears. For days. Nobody notices at first. When they start to ask questions, journalists are surprised to find that the Gov's wife doesn't seem upset and his staffers are oddly calm. Police aren't even called in. The FBI isn't informed. Didn't I tell you this would be a big movie?! Well, after four days, his staff tells us he's off hiking the Appalachian Trail. Naturally. He loves the outdoors. Makes perfect sense that the Governor of South Carolina would inexplicably disappear, skip Father's Day with his kids, and go on a hike in the woods by himself. By this point, the audience knows that this wasn't just a hike. Something is very, very wrong. Maybe he was kidnapped? Blackmailed? Drugs? Whatever it is, it's big. Very big. So, next thing that happens is that the Gov's car is spotted at the airport! Oh, man. This is getting serious. A reporter stakes out the terminal, finally catching the Gov... on his way back from Buenos Aires! Amazing, right?! It's like The Bourne Identity! The Governor was in Argen-frikin'-tina, baby! Can you say "Big Tentpole?!" Okay, now we're ready for the Big Reveal! Here it comes! Get ready! Hold onto your ass... HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR! (sound of crickets) You're passing? Are you crazy? What's not original? Did I mention Argentina?! Do you know how many Evita jokes we're going to tell! Okay, wait. I have another idea. A reality show starring Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Mark Foley, John Ensign, and Ted Haggard. They're all stuck in the jungle together, eating bugs and wiping their asses with palm leaves. The host is Rush Limbaugh. It's called.... More on Argentina | |
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