It’s kind of like following O.J. slow-mo escape, but more interminable, and lot more ominous...
I. No, Matt Damon is not a hypocrite because he mocked Brett Kavanaugh on SNL.
Why is this so hard to grasp for those not in show-biz? Actors act. They don’t have to believe in or live by what their roles stand for? Damon said earlier last December, speaking of the situation where he was falsely accused of harassment or sexual abuse…
“If you make the same claim to me today. it would be scorched-earth. I don’t care if it would cost me $10 million in court for 10 years, you are not taking my name from me, you are not taking my name and reputation from me, I’ve worked too hard for it, I’ve earned it, you can’t just blow me up like that.”
Now conservative pundits are writing that Damon is a sell-out and a hypocrite for helping a TV satire show attack Kavanaugh for standing up for his name and reputation. Morons. Damon didn’t write that script, and very few actors, especially fading, aging leading men like Damon, can afford to demand that they personally agree with the vehicles they appear in or the characters they play. Even actors who have the money and clout to do that usually kill their careers. [See: Foster, Jody; Clooney, George; et al.]
II. Ethics Hero Senator Grassley calls out Ethics Dunce Bernie Sanders on his manifest dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Bernie Sanders, who has no decency, had the gall to demand extensive FBI investigations to justify a position he already too long ago. Grassley, nicely ripped him a new one, to use vulgar parlance, and was completely justified in doing so. Here’s the letter:
Bingo.
III. If there was an ethical and objective mainstream news media, this would be widely publicized.
Rachel Mitchell, the outside counsel hired by Republicans to question Christine Blasey Ford last week reported that Ford’s allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is “weak.” .”A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove,” wrote in a memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained by The Hill on Sunday night. “But this case is even weaker than that.” Among the points that led to her conclusion, based on Ford’s own testimony:
1. Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happen.
2. Dr. Ford has struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as the assailant by name.
3. When speaking with her husband, Dr. Ford changed her description of the incident to become less specific.
4. Dr. Ford has no memory of key details of the night in question–details that could help corroborate her account.
5. Dr. Ford’s account of the alleged assault has not been corroborated by anyone she identified as having attended–including her lifelong friend.
6. Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of the alleged assault.
7. Dr. Ford has struggled to recall important recent events relating to her allegations, and her testimony regarding recent events raises further questions about her memory.
8. Dr. Ford’s description of the psychological impact of the event raises questions.
9. The activities of congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford’s attorneys likely affected Dr. Ford’s account.
But her testimony is still “credible,” say the ACLU and Terry Moran, and she’s a woman who must be believed, so Kavanaugh is obviously guilty.
Honestly, I don’t know how progressives and Democrats can look at themselves in the mirror.
Ethics Alarms 
“Honestly, I don’t know how progressives and Democrats can look at themselves in the mirror.”
That would require mirrors that reflect their images.
For progressives, it’s all about lenses, not mirrors.
-Jut
funhouse mirrors
III. Of course the media have covered the Mitchell memorandum. They’ve found a guy who used to work for her to slam it! What bias?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/409325-rachel-mitchells-former-colleague-blasts-kavanaugh-memo-as-disingenuous
They reported the memo by putting someone on screen to slam it, and then they stopped talking about it — 15 minutes of coverage, all negative, and then silence.
“Honestly, I don’t know how progressives and Democrats can look at themselves in the mirror.”
To paraphrase Harry Reid, they want to be able to say, “Kavanaugh wasn’t confirmed, wasn’t he?”
I think Ford is a liar, I don’t believe any of her story anymore.
The cynical partisans who are directing the Democrats’ strategy have known all along that Ford’s story is full of holes. That’s why they have now switched the story from what happened to Ford to how much Kavanaugh drank in college and whether he talked about sex with his friends in high school.
Part of the strategy was always to get Kavanaugh in front of the committee, ask him insulting and humiliating questions, and try to catch him saying something that they could call it a lie. Or not even a lie: Front page headline today is that the FBI is investigating whether Kavanaugh was once involved in a college bar fight, because that would mean that he’s definitely the sort of person who would commit a rape and then black out.
Ford will be laying low until after the full Senate votes, to make sure nobody asks her any tough questions.
I kinda hope she tries that. The FBI has been known to…umm…INSIST…when people tried to avoid talking to them.
II. Senator Grassley earned himself the Gotch Academy Seal of Rhetorical Excellence for that letter.
I think you meant “money and clout”.
Not “mony and cloud”??
A fun article.
https://apnews.com/b83b844f551b4fd999c0013784abe51d?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP
Sure, actors act, but Damon isn’t an actor on SNL, nor was he the host. Adam Driver was the host, and Damon was a ringer brought in because he bears some resemblance to Kavanaugh (much like Alec Baldwin has played Trump and Larry David plays Sanders).
There would have been no harm no foul to Damon’s career if he had not taken this role. He’s got a $170M in the bank (googles) and according to the IMDB no new movies coming out until 2019, so nothing to promote.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/episodes/season-44
> Adam Driver hosts Saturday Night Live on September 29, 2018, with musical guest Kanye West.
All that adds up in my mind to this being a role he wanted to play, because he personally agreed with its message.
That would make him dense at the least and lacking in self-awareness, if not the hypocrite he is being portrayed as.
As for Kavanaugh, I would prefer not, but I would prefer everyone be a bit more honest about the whole affair.
Of course he was an actor. What else would you call it? That’s comic acting, but it’s still acting. Do you think Vincent Price was a hypocrite since he was a nice man and played maniacs? Dixie Carter was a hard right Hollywood conservative who plaid a left-wing uber-feminist on “Designing Women.” Who cares? They are acting.
Hmm. Here is a layout of all the episode’s sketches: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/season-44/episode/1747-adam-driver-with-kanye-west-296564 Damon appears in only one sketch.
He’s neither a member of the company, nor the host of the evening. He’s a very special guest star.
Are you asking me to believe that had Damon, 47, who ten years ago was rated as one of the most bankable stars, who in 2017 was the 16th highest paid actor, whose “$5,377,755,432 worldwide aggregate box office (rank #15)” now entering his George Clooney years, turned this role down he would have jeopardized his career?
Doubtful.
If anything the notion he was jeopardizing his career by not taking this part lends credence to the belief he needed to virtue signal cover for his Weinstein remarks.
He was either coerced, or hypocritical. He didn’t have to take this role because he was an “actor” anymore than Sean Connery or Daniel Craig had to take another role as Bond.
I didn’t say that at all. Actors act. Exposure is good. That’s why actors take featured parts on SNL. Some actors are choosey, some are not. The role isn’t the actor. Audience members can assume what they want. What does Larry David’s casting as Bernie Sanders say about how David feels about Sanders, Hillary, socialism? N-O-T-H-I-N-G. He sounds a little like Sanders, and like all performers, wants to perform. Would Tina Fey be a hypocrite if she liked Sarah Palin? In my theater company, I revived and directed “The Cradle Will Rock,” which is socialist/Communist agitprop. Did a great job on it too. Personally, I think the show’s politics are cretinous, but its a good show. I will never judge a performing artist based on what shows or roles he chooses to do, or what words he or she memorize. I will judge them on what they say and do as individuals.
For what it’s worth, Damon was hilarious. Most of SNL’s political sketches have no laughs for anybody but anti-Trump partisans. They are anti-Trump screeds and there is very little effort to make actual impersonations; instead, they just play broad generic villains. This sketch would have been the same old nasty thing if not for Damon, who actually captured some of kavanaugh’s character and whose facial expressions in his reaction shots were perfect.
I agree: for once, like the old days, it was pure comedy. SNL didn’t have the guts to do Ford, which shows its weakness and bias, but that’s not Damon’s fault.
Besides, he looks like Brock Holt.
No bias in the media and definitely no bias in academia.
Dr. Carol Christine Fair, an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown, said white Republican senators, specifically Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, who defended Kavanaugh in a fiery speech, “deserve miserable deaths.” Fair went on to say in her Saturday message that the living should “castrate their corpses and feed them to swine.”
https://www.foxnews.com/us/georgetown-professor-says-white-gop-senators-deserve-miserable-deaths-after-kavanaugh-hearing
This is mass insanity. How did we let people like this get in a position to warp young minds?
Well, she’s not a full professor yet. Perhaps this will cook her goose as far as tenure.
Jack, I’d recommend deleting this if he doesn’t want a ton of spam.
Yup, good catch. Actually the blog’s spam-catcher should have done it.
Might, might not. She IS at Georgetown.
Which is really depressing. I wrote a check for three years of Georgetown for my daughter (who graduated in three years, praise Allah) totaling 60K in early 1990s dollars. Which would have been worth something by now if we’d put it into the stock market. Of course, I’m afraid every college and university has gone into the lefty toilet by now.
dragin_dragon wrote, “Might, might not. She IS at Georgetown.”
I agree. I’m guessing that the college won’t do any publicly it would likely incite the wrath of the social justice warrior cult.
dragin_dragon,
Aside: I’d be really interested in hearing your honest personal opinions about the separate Ford and Kavanaugh hearings regarding the Ford accusations. If I missed your post steer me in the right direction.
Here is my opinion about Ford.
OK, personal opinion. Ford was not lying. She actually believes Kavanaugh did this. However, let digress a bit. There is a widget called “implanted memories” and this looks very much like that. She cannot remember where or when it happened, how she got there or how she left, and she can only remember a few of the people who were present. BUT she CAN remember quite clearly that Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her. My guess, either someone told her it was probably him or his name was mentioned to her in a negative context, and she supplied the rest. Lots of stories I could tell you about implanted memories. Some of ’em made national headlines.
Thanks dragin_dragon.
A few years ago, I was exasperated by a relentless negative ad about a candidate for governor or something. I yelled at the TV that I was sick of the guy.
I then realized I was played. I fell for exactly what his opponent wanted. My opinion was based not on the candidate’s merits, but his oponent’s unfair and obnoxious portrayal.
That is the Democrat’s strategy. They want the public to be sick if all the fuss Kavenough is causing. They calculate that they can tip public opinion just far enough against the nominee, while keeping enough distance to avoid they themselves being turned against.
They want the public to think that Kavenough is comprised and unable to effectively serve the bench with half the legislative body opposing him. They are relying on the now naive belief that legislators are professionals with the long-term interests of the nation at heart. Their opposition is cynically calculated to look legitimate on its face (giving victims a voice), while using dirty tactics to delay and smear.
And here’s the kicker: anyone who calls them out can be easily dismissed part of the problem! Those who call “Have you no decency” are the ones putting politics before victims. They are the “adolescent conservative male chauvinist” pigs getting unjustly angry at being unseated from power to allow underrepresented populations a fair shake.
The whole opposition to Kavenough is based on having facile answers several layers deep to prevent critical evaluation of the situation. They are hoping people get sick everything Kavenough, before they get sick of Democrat slander. They want people kill the message, but spare the messenger at fault.
Rich in CT wrote, “They calculate that they can tip public opinion just far enough against the nominee, while keeping enough distance to avoid they themselves being turned against.”
Overall I agree with you but I don’t think the Democrats care one damn bit about turning people against them that already disagree with them, they regard their opposition as deplorables that don’t deserve anything, including rights. They’ve shown that their strategy is to permanently brainwash one more blind ideologue into their ranks, if their attacks only recruits one into their ranks, they deem the strategy a success. They know full well that the rest of the political left will keep their traps shut and rationalize whatever they’re doing because these are unique times that require unique strategies – the ends justify the means.
I think Kavanaugh was spot on about the Democrats coordinating a political hit job to publicly destroy his character with slanderous allegations. The Democrats colluded and concocted a plan to publicly assassinate Kavanaugh’s character based on personal attacks and absolutely unprovable predictions targeting the public on a pure emotional level, their goal was to turn a majority of outspoken American people against Kavanaugh on an pure emotional level. Ford, the liar that she is, was plugged into the mix as the pinnacle of the emotional attacks thus ensuring the public wrath of the #MeToo crowd. Everything the Democrats said and did was to invoke the wrath of the social justice warrior cult to attack Kavanaugh.
I understand freedom of speech but…
Why are members of Congress exempt from defamation lawsuits? They are intentionally abusing this protection on an epic scale.
Why do we protect members of Congress and the media from intentional defamation lawsuits when it’s so blatantly obvious that they are intentionally slanderously and libelously attacking those they disagree with and they are doing it for purely political purposes?
Are my questions exactly what Progressives want me to be asking so they can justifiably start stripping people of their individual rights as a direct result of them abusing their rights?
Is this the slippery slope that Progressives are manipulating us into?
So that they can speak freely when debating in the House or Senate.
Michael Ejercito wrote, “So that they can speak freely when debating in the House or Senate.”
…and speaking freely in debates must have some kind of ethical standard that I don’t understand that somehow “requires” intentional slander.
If I speak freely and intentionally slander someone I can end up in court. I’ve been hearing that we are supposed to hold these people to a higher standards than the general public, why is this different?
They made the rules… and as they have always done, they exempt the Establishment Elite from those rules.
Why is Congress allowed to conduct insider trading? How do we get dual application of the Law where the Elite are concerned? Look deeper, and you will find that Congress is exempt from a great many of the laws that they oppress us with. Do they have Obamacare?
Some laws they exempted themselves from:
The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act (FOIA)
Ethics in Government Act of 1978
Affordable Care Act
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Investigatory subpoenas to obtain information for safety and health probes
Protections against retaliation for whistleblowers
Prosecution for retaliating against employees who report safety and health hazards
The list goes on, but I think my point is made.
From this article: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/10/the-brief-shining-moment-of-lindsey-graham/
“The probability is that, in the end, we will have to consider some pretty radical measures when it comes to dealing with the Left. Their ideology is the most pernicious and destructive force ever visited upon humanity. It is inimical to life, to social order, to the continuance of distinct peoples and cultures, and to all that is healthy and decent. To paraphrase Nietzsche, it is a revolt of everything that crawls on the ground against everything that has height. We must not just defeat this ideology electorally, we must make sure that it never gains a foothold again. This will almost certainly require radical measures of the kind that were enacted in post-Communist European countries.
“To wit: We will have to consider banning some of their organizations and parties. Left-wing professors will have to be dismissed from universities (as happened in post-Communist eastern Germany), and their pet programs eliminated (as has now happened with “Gender Studies” in Hungary). The curricula of K through 12 schools will have to be completely revamped and, again, some instructors barred from teaching. There will also need to be some kind of regulations imposed upon the media, to stop one individual or entity from owning multiple outlets and promoting one agenda or perspective. And a new “fairness doctrine” will have to be imposed to keep journalists honest.”
Slowly, day-by-day, the *meaning of the present* dawns on those who formally dedicated themselves to their benightedness.
Turning against the Post-War Liberal Order is a fraught and complex endeavor! It involves a revamping of the way we see things.
It is wonderful — inspiring! — to watch you grow up, Zoltar. Maybe you’ll become a power-child for New Conservatism? (There may be money in it too as we could, with your permission, start a Go Fund Me. How would half a million sound, eh?)
All jokes aside, the implications here are quite strong and demanding.
As they marched through the institutions, let them be dragged out…
This is an object not of the next month but of the next decade and generation. It connects to a larger (and more important) project of renovation of the Occident.
power-child = poster-child 🙂
I disagree; I think it is precisely because they fear losing public support that that they resort to manipulation and trampling of rights to keep in power.
Jack wrote:
I think it is wise to see them performing within a wider social context. And at this moment, in our ‘wider social context’, a rather large and extremely unethical action was carried out (the Democrats and their destruction of a man’s reputation and life-work) that has far wider implications, socially and culturally. Not only can they and do they condemn someone through the media-system but they also have been de-platforming people whose political opinions they do not like. There is a larger situation in which this is all playing out.
Matt Damon as an individual made a choice to align himself with an entire structure that is said to be *entertainment*, or strictly such, but which is one element in a larger cultural war. I did not find his skit very funny, myself, and that is perhaps because I would choose to weaponize the sympathy that Kavanaugh deserves for being treated in that way.
Matt Damon, in the context of this particular present, is not ‘just an actor’ or a hireling. He is a participant within a larger structure that seems to be comfortable with dupery and trickery. As I write in other places, it is a collusive *system* that is part of how America is politically controlled, and how perception is manipulated.
Actors may act, but producers produce. And these high-profile actors are collusive within the system of production. And what is produced is no free of moral and ethical implications, it seems to me. One may imagine oneself *free* to produce whatever one desires to, that is, artistically. But one is not free from ramifications of one’s productions.
I don’t know how progressives and Democrats can look at themselves in the mirror.
They don’t use mirrors. They face one another through a glass, darkly.