The Bush I-Clinton Roadshow Takes the Low Road in New Orleans at Guess Who’s Expense? (Hint: Women, of Course)(UPDATE 1X–FULL VIDEO)

On Tuesday night (January 27)  as I passed by the TV, I saw Greta Van Susteren introducing a segment near the end of the show  called ” The Best of the Rest.”

There they were, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton laughing it up on Monday in New Orleans at the National Association of Auto Dealers conference.  Greta has spent quite a lot of time featuring this duo; you can check out several videos at the “On the Record” site. However, the video I saw has not shown up on the site…buried, I guess.

First, here’s the only report that I can find on the event:

Bush, Clinton offer morale boost for auto dealers at New Orleans conference

by Jen DeGregorio, The Times-Picayune

Tuesday January 27, 2009, 7:18 AM

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneFormer Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton embrace during their address at the National Association of Auto Dealers conference in New Orleans on Monday.

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, who were in New Orleans on Monday to speak to members of the National Automobile Dealers Association, tried to assure one of the nation’s most troubled industries that it would survive an economic maelstrom that has swallowed more than 2.5 million jobs in the past year.

But survival will not come without sacrifice, they said. Clinton and Bush evoked the image of Hurricane Katrina to describe the level of perseverance they said will be needed to carry the nation through a recession that has been widely compared with the Great Depression. Citizens must pitch in to help one another as they did after Katrina, when countless volunteers descended upon New Orleans to help rebuild and donated millions of dollars to a relief fund headed by Clinton and Bush, the former presidents said.

SNIP

While Bush and Clinton focused on the economy, they also made time for some banter and shared personal anecdotes about their time in the Oval Office.

Clinton and Bush sat down for a casual chat with outgoing association Chairwoman Annette Sykora, who quizzed them about their victories and regrets in office.

SNIP

Both men sang the praises of President Barack Obama, saying his administration already has set the right tone to weather the economic crisis by encouraging an era of responsibility.

“We are bound together, and divorce is not an option, ” Clinton said.

There’s something missing in this report…the bit that Greta showed.

Greta prefaced the video with a big grin and much enjoyment over what Bush said and added that Clinton had a great quip after that.

I didn’t even hear the Clinton quip because I as so ticked off at what George H. W. Bush decided to deliver to the audience.  I was fuming from Bush’s rendition of how he was confronted by women protesters over reproductive issues.

According to Bush, he was irritated when he was in his limo and some women got right up to it waving a sign saying “Stay Out of Our Wombs.”  He mused about he couldn’t understand how they even got that close…then wisecracked (sic) “Believe me, that’s one place I wouldn’t want to go”…

Well, the audience ERUPTED in UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER from the audience!  I’m assuming the majority of  the audience was men.  Clinton was laughing, too, and delivered his line. The camera didn’t catch the reaction of Chairwoman Sykora, who was off camera in the video.

As I mentioned, I have no idea what Clinton said, but Greta thought it was very funny and, in fact, thought the whole segment was a laugh riot. Which makes me wonder about Greta.  We’ve got a former President mocking women about their intense feelings about controlling their own bodies and she thinks that’s funny?

I guess I should be grateful that she showed it since the newspaper report from The Times-Picayune chose not to report on it. WHY didn’t they?

As for Clinton…I wish I knew what he said.  Then again, maybe I don’t want to go there…

Frankly, writing this at the end of a day when I learned that Barack Obama dumped money for birth control from his bilious “stimulus package” to please Republicans, that video makes me even angrier than when I saw the clip on Tuesday night.  It seems like a gratuitous slap in the face considering that the bill was going to pass anyway.

But “3-Card Monte” Obama seems set into his groove.  One minute he gives the OK for family planning groups working overseas to talk to women about abortion, the next he’s robbing access to low-cost birth control to women in need here in the U.S.   What does he really think of his own wife and daughters?  Apparently he’s willing to sell women cheap when it comes to “bringing us together.”

This guy seems to like playing with women, keeping them on a string, giving them a little bit, then taking it away. He’s shuffling around issues as we expected because he has no consistent core values.  Keeping an eye on all his moves will be difficult.  All I’m sure of  is that women will ultimately lose the game with this guy. The misogyny exhibited in the campaign in the form of demeaning gestures, the behavior of Jon Favreau with a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton, and the apparent comfort with the likes of Ludacris’ video support is now in firmly in place at the top of our government.

What a inspirational role model for all of us…NOT!

By the way, apparently Medicare drug plans stopped covering  “sexual performance” drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra back in 2007 except for treating certain medical conditions like pulmonary hypertension (saving a CBO projected $2 billion between 2006 and 2015) . Let’s see if the Obama crowd reinstates coverage and gives women ANOTHER insulting slap. Nothing would surprise me at this point…

UPDATE 1

Many thanks to Harold who found a video of the exchange…from his comments!!  I will try to embed the video when I get back later…

Clinton laughed and said something along the lines of “I cannot afford to make a joke like that. You know what people would say if *I* made a joke like that” and he continued a while like that, then made a pretty stupid joke himself which I forgot.

Harold, on January 29th, 2009 at 9:02 AM Said: Edit Comment

I found the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXuRlcUjoAE

Here is the video from the link provided above…but it’s from CNN, not Greta’s show.

So, the woman was “the ugliest” woman Bush I had ever seen… what a PIG he is…and Clinton just goes along for the ride.

On Being “Disagreeable”

~~By kenosha Marge

I seldom listen to anything Obama has to say, perhaps because he seldom has anything to say. Political rhetoric is not worth my time or effort. Spare me the high-flying phrases and simplify all our lives by saying something of substance.

We know this will not happen. What savvy politician would actually say something substantive when his adoring fans don’t require it from him? The adolescent mindset of a good share of our population annoys and at the same time scares the hell out of me. Is this what much of humanity has become, perpetual adolescents screaming for Elvis or the Beatles?

Since the Rick Warren controversy began there is no escaping what passes for an explanation from President-elect Barack Obama. His advertising agency phrase about being able to “disagree without being disagreeable”  is played endlessly on television. Perhaps because the big Zero is off in Hawaii on vacation and thus the poor, pathetic 24-hour news folks didn’t have anything else to run.

“Disagree without being disagreeable,”  for some reason that utterly puerile phrase, one among many, stuck in my craw. I wondered if the wordsmith extraordinaire Favreau took time out from groping cardboard cutouts to write that phase. Inquiring minds and all that.

I intend to be very disagreeable about Rick Warren. He is the happy face the Obama Administration has chosen to put on bigotry. Our lefty friends tell us he isn’t as bad as Falwell or Pat Robertson. Sorry,  lefty friends,  but I find it simply amazing that you now are willing to settle for someone who isn’t as bad as whoever. Not being as bad as is a sad little excuse not worthy of adults. Damn, there we are back at the adolescent mindset.

I have a new yardstick for what I find tolerable these days. I ask myself would I accept this Warren fellow if George Bush chose him? Would I find his folksy manner acceptable if he was the choice at a Republican Inauguration? In other words, would I be as accepting if we weren’t talking about a Democrat? Because if you are willing to make excuses for a Democrat that you wouldn’t make for a Republican then it’s not about choice or character or about bigotry so much as it is about partisanship. And hypocrisy.

Beneath the benevolent corpulence of Rick Warren beats the heart of a misogynistic, homophobic, creationist. Not someone you could believe would have a place of honor at the Inauguration of a Democratic President. Not someone you would expect liberals to embrace. Not someone acceptable to the progressive community.

Au contraire,  mes amis! Our lefty friends are working so hard to keep from being annoyed with PEBO that they are abandoning or ignoring every belief they ever had. PEBO wants to give a religious bigot a place of honor at his inauguration? Fine and dandy. He’s just trying to bring all those nasty fundamentalists that want to deny civil rights to other citizens on board the Soul Train. Women can board so long as they are submissive to their husbands. Gee whiz folks, sure lacks something I looked for in a progressive movement. Like progress maybe?

How about this from “Not Your Sweetie” about Rick Warren:   Women Obots in Shock: Warren Hates Women Too?

Take marriage. At his Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband’s “leadership” even when he’s wrong on important issues, such as finances

Never mind if she’s an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids’ college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be “yes, dear.” Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?

According to PEBO and his suppine supporters we should all just hold hands with Regressive Religious Bigots like Warren because we can disagree without being disagreeable.

Maybe they can do so. I cannot. Some things in my creed are not subject to negotiation. I don’t choose to make nice with bigots. I don’t choose to play well with others when the others are smiling purveyors of evil.

In my world Rick Warren for all his bonhominie and pretense of being a good Christian is an evil man. I consider all bigots evil. Those that would restrict the civil rights of some citizens will always make my list of evildoers. A Democratic President-elect is honoring this man at his inauguration? I can find nothing in this fact to be agreeable about. I can find nothing hopeful in this. And so, I do not intend to be agreeable.

Taking Our Power, Taking Our Lives: Women Under Threat (Updated 1X)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

The news about  Bettyjean’s tragedy, the assaults on her daughters Denise and Louisa at the hands of a violent man and a useless legal system, has made me reflect on some of the threats I’ve received and about how many other women have gone through similar experiences.  Most of my life, I never really felt threatened, until the last few years.   The threats I’ve had directed at me recently have been unprovoked anger and verbal that has taken me totally by surprise, because the circumstances would not normally trigger such violent responses. They were disturbing when they occurred and even more disturbing as I recall them tonight.

I’m just about the only one around here who walks my dogs, and being from the East and used to pooper scooper laws, I always pick up.  In these parts, there is no such law and sometimes a stray or an inconsiderate dog-walker will allow their dog to leave a mess on someone’s property.

A few years ago I peeked out of my front door window to see a neighbor opening my front gate, a man whom I had seen a few times but knew little about, except that he was an ex-Marine and was now working in some sort of dispatch job for the city.  I opened the door to a barrage of verbal abuse and accusations about how my dog had left a poop on his property. Totally taken aback, I informed this guy that “I picked up.” This didn’t stop him one bit–he called me a “bitch” and told me I shouldn’t walk on “his street.”  Of course, this made me angry…very angry. I stepped outdoors and stood nose-t0-nose with this ranting man. I went into Marine-mode.

“Listen, SIR, you have no right to accuse me of anything, SIR! SIR, it’s a public street, SIR, and I can walk anywhere I damned well please! You’ve got a damned nerve, SIR, talking to me like this…You may talk to your wife that way, SIR, but you can’t talk to ME like that!”

By this time he had turned and was hurrying away. I left him with this salvo: “You just throw your dogs into the backyard, SIR. You don’t even know how to take care of them!”

A few weeks later the dogs were gone and I found out he had separated from his wife. They’re back together now, but Grandma is around an awful lot keeping a watchful eye on the couple’s little girl.

Another altercation occurred while I was out with Slick one Saturday morning, looking at some things at a garage sale. Suddenly, a big white pitbull mix, which I had seen looking out the screen door of a nearby house quite often, suddenly sped out of the house, jumped me, then went after Slick.  No one at the sale moved a muscle, but the guy inside the house ran out as he heard me screaming to get his dog off Slick.  After getting his dog under control, he didn’t offer one word to see if me or Slick had been hurt. Instead, he laughed at me and mocked me for being upset!  When I told him he should watch that door, he immediately got defensive and nasty. The lack of common courtesy, at the very least, got me so ticked off that I called animal control to report the attack. If the guy had treated me like a neighbor and had expressed some concern about the welfare of me and Slick, I probably wouldn’t have picked up the phone. But it was his total disregard for the attack on me and Slick that really angered me.  Animal control went to the house, then told me that no one answered the door. They guy was HIDING and wouldn’t face up to what his dog had done.

A few weeks later, I was walking quite far from his house, when the same dog came running down the hill toward me ready to jump me and Slick again!  The guy came running and this time, laughed at me and asked me why I was screaming again! Obviously, this guy had no empathy or respect for me or Slick, so I called animal control again.  A lot of older people stroll in the neighborhood and this sort of thing could wind up in someone seriously hurt. This time animal control left a notice. Since that event, the door seems to stay closed.  Apparently, the guy got fined and that got his attention, not an actual attack in action!  But once again, there was a complete lack of respect and concern from this man.

Last week, I had another confrontation as I walked by a house I usually pass on our short walks at night.   Tammy and her husband were out putting up Christmas decorations. I’ve known Tammy for quite awhile on a casual basis and have talked to her about our dogs quite a few times. (By the way, their German shepherd doesn’t get walked very much, either).  But, on this night when I walked by, her husband, in keeping with the season,  jumped up and charged at me, screaming about how my dog pooped on his front yard. No thought about a simple inquiry, no, this guy was fully ramped up. As he screamed at me, I whipped out a handful of plastic bags and told him “I pick up!” I had seen some old poop on his front grass, but it certainly wasn’t from me! He assumed it was ME, though, and told me he didn’t care about “my plastic bags.” He called me a bitch. I then found myself with my fistful of bags in front of his face, telling him that I came from the East where we had pooper scooper laws and I knew how to walk my dog. He said he didn’t care about the East, around here, it didn’t matter…and I shouldn’t walk up his block any more!  (Sound familiar??) I got so in the guy’s face that he started to back off, and warned me not to threaten him!  Well, I just told he had a damned nerve accusing me of something he had absolutely no proof I was guilty of, and that he was an idiot if he thought he could tell me I couldn’t walk on a public street!  I then asked him point blank if he was on drugs or if he was drunk.

At that point, I turned to Tammy and said, “You know me, you know I’ve always picked up!” and she turned away and said, “I’m not getting involved!” I was taken aback and really wondered why an adult woman couldn’t tell her husband that he was way out of bounds. I got the feeling that something was wrong in that relationship. Coincidentally, yesterday I found out from one of their close neighbors that the whole family was dysfunctional. Tammy’s father was an alcoholic and her sister, whom I had met several times, had nearly killed herself a few days ago by going on a drinking binge.  It seems that Tammy must have repeated the pattern and, judging from what he did to me,  she married a guy with the potential for some pretty violent behavior.

What ties all these stories together? Men with irrational anger, nasty language, demands for me to curtail my normal activities–in other words, abusive men who become hostile instead of approaching a problem with some degree of civility.  It’s more than being uncouth, it’s an attitude toward women they don’t even know that manifests in behavior that is completely off the wall. It’s as if they all thought that they had a perfect right to be abusive right from the start.  Sensitivity? Empathy? Simple politeness? Normal behavior? I think not…Not with these guys…all of whom backed down as soon as they were surprised by a woman, and an older woman at that,  who gave it right back to them.

What’s especially upsetting is that I’ve had to feel that I was FORCED to get so aggressive in return. But something told me that if I didn’t these guys would just be getting the reaction they wanted–a sense of power over me and a satisfaction that their macho behavior had intimidated me. At the time of the first incident I was really rather surprised at my own reaction…the sense of power I had when I challenged this guy who came onto MY property and verbally assaulted me.  Somewhere along the way to getting older and wiser, I had figured out it out…no more taking it from anyone anymore, least of all bullies who had something screwed up in their approach to women.

Women put up with an awful lot of this sort of thing and sometimes it really goes beyond verbal assault into the realm of a real threat to life. The so-called protections of marriage or committed relationships don’t seem to apply when things get violent.  What’s given a benign name of “domestic violence” is really just, plain VIOLENCE.  It galls me that there’s a sense of being diminished as a human being simply because a person is somehow “related” to the abuser.  How is this different than a an owner abusing an animal?

Down here in “the Borderland” we have a lot of  animal abuse and “domestic violence.”  The two seem to go hand in hand.  But after what we’ve been through this year, with the misogyny ladled out to us with the help of the media, the Democratic Party, and their pre-ordained nominee, it’s clear that “women hate” is perfectly acceptable. Latest example? The fawning story in the Washington Post about Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau.

Now, he has transformed into what one friend called a “Washington political force” — a minor celebrity with a down payment on a Dupont Circle condo, whose silly Facebook photos with a Hillary Rodham Clinton cutout created what passes for controversy in Obama’s so far drama-free transition.

Yes, it’s all so silly. All so silly.

So now Bettyjean’s daughters suffer at the hands of a man whom they once thought they could trust. But, their trust has been cruelly betrayed this man AND the depraved indifference of “the system.”

As a child, I spent a lot of time in Lodi, NJ. It was my father’s hometown. His immigrant parents settled there and ran a mercantile. My father, his three brothers, sister and half-sister all grew up there. His sisters remained there all their lives. I recall visiting every Sunday. My Aunt Lucy lived in a building next to the old Lodi Modern Bakery on  Main Street, a short block from the old plant with the smokestacks that still stood there then. My Aunt Florence lived upstairs in the same building. The smells of the bakery permeated their apartments.  Aunt Lucy, as the oldest of all the children, was the matriarch of the family. We saw our uncles and cousins there when they came back to Lodi to visit. We would sit at the kitchen table and watch the adults play canasta and eat Aunt Lucy’s marvelous food.  Her stuffed artichokes were the best I have ever tasted. Aunt Florence always ate with Aunt Lucy and never cooked as far as I know. But she was the one who would stop by the Sorrento bakery and pick up the Italian pastries before hopping the bus to visit us.  We all went to the annual “Feast” and enjoyed being part of what was basically an Italian enclave of close families.

In my childhood memories, Lodi was a wonderful place. I haven’t been back in years, but it seems like it’s just like anyplace now…just like any other place in America and or anywhere in the world where violence against women – or the lurking threat of violence —  is part of our lives…

…We must take back our power and take back our lives…

***

UPDATE

Report on the arraignment of the attacker and his comments

Man in shotgun case barred from contacting ill wife

Thursday, December 18, 2008

The man who is accused of shooting his wife’s sister in the face with a shotgun told a judge this afternoon that he wanted to see his terminally ill wife “before she dies.”

But a judge ordered George Hartwig to make no contact with his estranged wife, the shooting victim or any family members.

“That sucks. I didn’t even point a gun at her,” Hartwig said, referring to his wife, Denise Richardson, who is dying of ovarian cancer.

Hartwig was formally charged at the hearing in Superior Court in Hackensack with the attempted murder of 41-year-old Louisa Rodas of Hackensack. She remained in critical condition this afternoon.

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