Election "Sex" Scandal

Time for a political rewind. 

What did we learn about gender, morality, and electability in our last presidential elections? Let's play a little game and find out.  We're going to take the official transcript of a conversation that was reported between a talk-show host and a presidential candidate. But rather than simply reprint it, let's make a tweak in the candidate's gender and, coincidingly, make adjustments for gender-specific anatomical references. What follows, then, is the transcript between Billy Bush who was host of "Access Hollywood" at the time and a presidential candidate dogged by controversy and high unfavorability ratings.
  Hillary Clinton: You know and ...

Unknown: He used to be great. He's still very handsome.
Hillary Clinton: I moved on him, actually. You know, he was down on Palm Beach. I moved on him, and I failed. I’ll admit it.
Unknown: Whoa.
Hillary Clinton: I did try and fuck him. He was married.
Unknown: That’s huge news.
Hillary Clinton: No, no, Harry. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on him very heavily. In fact, I took him out furniture shopping. He wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took him out furniture...I moved on him like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And he was married. Then all of a sudden I see him, he's now got the big phony pec implants and everything. He's totally changed his look.
Billy Bush: Sheesh, your guy's hot as shit. In the purple.
Hillary Clinton: Whoa! Whoa!
Billy Bush: Yes! The Hillary has scored. Whoa, my sister!
[Crosstalk]
Hillary Clinton: Look at you, you are a pussy.
[Crosstalk]
Hillary Clinton: All right, you and I will walk out.
[Silence]
Maybe it’s a different one.
Billy Bush: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s, it’s him, it’s —
Hillary Clinton: Yeah, that’s him. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing him. You know, I’m automatically attracted to handsome — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
Billy Bush: Whatever you want.
Hillary Clinton: Grab ’em by the cock. You can do anything.
Billy Bush: Uh, yeah, those quads, all I can see is the quads.
Hillary Clinton: Oh, it looks good.
Billy Bush: Come on shorty.
Hillary Clinton: Ooh, nice quads, huh?
Billy Bush: Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good quads. Go ahead.
Hillary Clinton: It’s always good if you don’t fall out of the bus. Like Ford, Gerald Ford, remember?
Billy Bush: Down below, pull the handle.
Hillary Clinton: Hello, how are you? Hi!
David Hasselhoff: Hi, Mrs. Clinton. How are you? Pleasure to meet you.
Hillary Clinton: Nice seeing you. Terrific, terrific. You know Billy Bush?
Billy Bush: Hello, nice to see you. How you doing, David?
David Hasselhoff: Doing very well, thank you. Are you ready to be a soap star?
Hillary Clinton: We’re ready, let’s go. Make me a soap star.
Billy Bush: How about a little hug for the Hillary? She just got off the bus.
David Hasselhoff: Would you like a little hug, darling?
Hillary Clinton: O.K., absolutely. Bill said this was O.K.
Billy Bush: How about a little hug for the Bushy? I just got off the bus.
David Hasselhoff: Bushy, Bushy.
Billy Bush: Here we go. Excellent. Well, you’ve got a nice co-star here.
David Hasselhoff: Yes, absolutely.
Hillary Clinton: Good. After you.
[Break in video]
Hillary Clinton: Come on, Billy, don’t be shy.
Billy Bush: Soon as a beautiful man shows up, she just, she takes off. This always happens.
Hillary Clinton: Get over here, Billy.
David Hasselhoff: I’m sorry, come here.
Billy Bush: Let the little guy in here, come on.
David Hasselhoff: Yeah, let the little guy in. How you feel now? Better? I should actually be in the middle.
Billy Bush: It’s hard to walk next to a gal like this.
David Hasselhoff: Here, wait, hold on.
Billy Bush: Yeah, you get in the middle, there we go.
Hillary Clinton: Good, that’s better.
David Hasselhoff: This is much better. This is —
Hillary Clinton: That’s better.
David Hasselhoff: [Sighs]

Now, as it was with The Donald's spouse Melania , would Bill Clinton try to justify the discussion as "locker room talk"? Would a female Democrat surrogate have stepped in and claimed that she had "heard worse" in varsity gym? Would Hillary have had a snowball's chance in hell if, thereafter, several men came forward and reported having their penises groped? No. It would have been game over.  But even without those allegations, our initial question about gender, morality, and electability is answered. What's distasteful for a male candidate would be a career ender for a female candidate.

PBS “Macbeth” With Patrick Stewart: Example Of What Pisses Off GOP

With House GOP’s still hungry to gut all funds for PBS, it was as interesting time to watch the network's version of “Macbeth” starring (“Sir”) Patrick Stewart. The production is an excellent example of why Republicans would want to sabotage the network and its programming.

Shakespeare’s play is rife with adult themes; those only hinted at in the text are brought to blossom in this modern interpretation…and then some. Macbeth and his Lady have a sensually charged relationship. Said hungers then choose power as a new conquest. They unite in murdering the king and placing Macbeth in his place. And that brings us to another adult theme; murder and violence.

In the PBS production, some of this is revealed symbolically - lots of blood stains on hands, face, and anywhere else - and some of it more graphic. Now, if this were a horror film or murder mystery along with the usual cheesy performances and expendable characters, the gore and loss of life would be unmoving par for the course. But because the world of director Rupert Goold has the weight of reality, characters (even immoral ones) that we are deeply invested in, and emotional dimension, the violence unsettles. Rather than Wile E. Coyote racing off the edge of a cliff, this feels like the father in Nebraska who inexplicably shoots his child. This brings up the third element that Republicans largely object to.

PBS’ “Macbeth” is a study in emotional illness. But when it's “Morning in America”, picture-perfect nuclear families sparkle the landscape, gays do not exist, rape never necessitates abortion, citizens acquiesce to the  "moral majority" of their priest-politicians and there is certainly no such thing as skyrocketing mental illness. And because there isn’t, there’s no need for universal healthcare to treat it.

Lastly, this “Great Performances” production did not come from one of the Big Media companies that can now donate unlimited monies to both parties while tightening their stranglehold on the market. One can rest assured that, had this been a FOX Entertainment vehicle - desexed of naughty parts, supercharged with thrilling car chases, and featuring  Johnny Knoxville as a more “Christianly” Macbeth - it would be coddled as wholesome, American entertainment.

So, there you have it. Sex, violence, illness, and decentralized media: four things that don’t exist in a GOP utopia. But lest we leave it at that, there is a fifth and far most powerful one.

Stewart and the rest of the exceptional cast play characters awash in immense moral ambiguity. We hate Macbeth for his tyranny. We empathize with him for his madness and see ourselves, all too clearly, in moral concessions made for short-term gain. For Macbeth, it was rulership over an entire country. For us, it may be ignoring a waiting car to sneak in on a good parking spot. But the seed of selfishness is the same, no matter how large one may let it grow. The fact that this is universal struggle undercuts any single person, group, or nation's assertion that they alone own the moral high-ground. When any political party deludes itself into thinking that it does anyway, they stand on the precipice of a cliff. The fall is always a long and ugly one.

Hence, Republicans are frequently dealt a seismic crack in the hot nucleus of their imaginary planet. Pitiful excuse making and denial follows in the wake when a representative has homosexual relations with a page, a president manufactures “evidence” to incite war, and a senator divorces his wife as she lay stricken in a hospital bed. We expect such bad behavior of Democrats for they are a study in moral ambiguity. But it is for their denial of the same that Republicans are the hypocrites.

Animated Video: Math As Propaganda

There are facts which can be used to engage is useful debate. Then there propaganda disguised as truth which is meant to forward a predetermined agenda. When done with a willingness to learn and possibly change, debate can be respectful, intelligent, and clarifying. It can be a constructive process that reveals areas of agreement upon which advances for the common good can be made.

When it comes to military spending, these are some possible subjects worth debating:

• How big a military do we need in order to maintain and increase national security?
• What would an effective barometer be to assess effective or wasteful military spending?
• Should the military's budget undergo cutbacks in tandem with those happening elsewhere; why or why not?

If we would have the courage to let truth usurp knee-jerk response or what we might like to believe, the answers could provide American citizens with a much firmer grasp of reality.

On the other hand, Cartoonist Mark Fiore provides a satiric example of propaganda used to promote opinion and agenda. Specifically, we're introduced to fake math as a tool in deceit's box of cheap tricks. Like all political manipulation, it is particularly vile when committed under the rouse of piety or patriotism.