I have to give credit to Nora Ephron here. At least she admits that their views of rural folks is about on par with Obama’s. Especially when it comes to bigotry:
Here’s another thing I don’t like about this primary: now that there are only two Democratic candidates, it’s suddenly horribly absolutely crystal-clear that this is an election about gender and race. This may have always been true, but weeks ago it wasn’t so obvious — once upon a time there were eight candidates, and although six of them withered away, their presence in the campaign managed to obscure things. Even around the time of Ohio, when there were primarily three candidates, the outlines were murky, because Edwards was still in there, picking up votes from all sectors.
But now there are two and we’re facing Pennsylvania and whom are we kidding? This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don’t mean people, I mean white men. How ironic is this? After all this time, after all these stupid articles about how powerless white men are and how they can’t even get into college because of overachieving women and affirmative action and mean lady teachers who expected them to sit still in the third grade even though they were all suffering from terminal attention deficit disorder — after all this, they turn out (surprise!) to have all the power. (As they always did, by the way; I hope you didn’t believe any of those articles.)
To put it bluntly, the next president will be elected by them: the outcome of Tuesday’s primary will depend on whether they go for Hillary or Obama, and the outcome of the general election will depend on whether enough of them vote for McCain. A lot of them will: white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them. And McCain is a compelling candidate, particularly because of the Torture Thing. As for the Democratic hope that McCain’s temper will be a problem, don’t bet on it. A lot of white men have terrible tempers, and what’s more, they think it’s normal.
I spent the weekend listening to one commentator after another saying that Obama has it locked up, it’s a done deal. I dunno. Hillary is the true whack-a-mole and if she survives on Tuesday, it will be a whole new ballgame. And it will be all because of white men. Plus ca change.
You get the feeling she doesn’t like white men huh? Or is that just me?
But its ok to let those feelings out now because of the PC society we live in. Other races….you best not dare to say such things. But the wicked white men….anything goes because they all know you are nothing but a bunch of hicks who cling to their guns, their religion, and their hatred of anything not like them.
Either way, I believe that if those 90% of blacks stopped voting for Obama and instead switched over to McCain or Hillary THEY would have the power. Not the evil whites. So rail against that Nora!
But at least with this article we get a classic example on how Democrats think. If we white men judge Obama or Hillary on their merits and character, and decide they are not the best person to lead this country we are immediately deemed to be either a racist or misogynist.
Nora Ephron is a sixty-something year-old self loathing jooish woman. She’s a Wellsley grad who has been through three unsuccessful marriages. Having been raised in the comfort of Beverly Hills, what do we expect from this elitist female dog? Like all liberal elites she has disdain for the common man – can anyone say Marie Antoinette?
Gender and race?
pfffffffffffffffffffffffft…………….
This Nora Ephron is a tool and a fool.
I thought vision, ideas and a commitment to America, were more important qualities to look for.
And maybe someone who would issue a ban on progressive aggressive tax policies and folly.
And earmark pork and folly.
“something the dummycrap congress promised, but only incresaed”
Jeffrey Nihart
The jig is up. We’ve been found out. Give up, white guys.
This is one of the most childish hate filled screeds I have ever had the misfortune to read. I so regret having wasted the time to do so.
According to Nora, white men have all the power because they are the only ones who have NOT lined up like sheep into a designated racial/ethnic/gender group (at least among the Democrats). Also very telling that, in her mind, no white male is capable of being FOR either candidate, only giving into either their racism or misogyny to vote AGAINST one or the other. She has a really dim view of the ability of either of the candidates to inspire even the party faithful (this is a primary after all) to go along with her appalling opinion of men. PS. Why any man WOULD date a woman with this kind of opinion of them is another question.
Two commies and a democrat, soon to be whittled down to a democrat and a commie. Hmmm, when the time comes, I’ll vote for the white guy and HOPE he can CHANGE!
You are a huge moron. Pick up a history book and you’ll see that the Democrats of today are much closer to the Right then the Republicans even were 20 years ago. There is no left in the political arena of this country. There is only the center and the right. Also, your joke isn’t funny. All three candidates are criminals, although two of them are much more fascist-oriented than the third.
Interesting comment.
Nixon started the EPA
JFK was against tax increases because he knew that tax increases would defund the federal budget.
LBJ ramped up the Vietnam war.
Clinton the Bosnian war.
The early democrats were against civil rights and freedom.
But it was the progressive left that inspired Hiltler and Stalin.
And if your comment that progressive Hillary and the empty suit Obama; are centrist and closer to the right;
well your could not be closer to wrong.
The antiwar and “green” groups are all progessive socialist lefties.
You lost any web cred where you began with the name calling.
Jeffrey Nihart
I thought that there is only Left and Center now.The right hasn;t had anybody in power since Reagan.
We got 2 Socialist vs a Liberal. Not anyofthem areon the right in my eyes.
I agree they are all criminals. they are all in the Senate and 2 are from Chicago the most corrupt city in America and the other is married into a mafia like family in Utah
Jeffrey Nihart,
Clinton and McCain both voted for the use of force in Iraq. Both stand for big business and big business is certainly not green. The real antiwar greenies are Kucinich, Nader, etc for your information. Don’t care about my “web cred”. Who uses the phrase “web cred” anyway?
Any astute student of history knows full well that the tipping point of the Great Depression was the stock market crash of 1929. What many people don’t is that the Great Depression never needed to be a depression. It could have and should have been a recession, and in fact, it could have been relatively mild. What turned the Great Depression into a depression was two critical government responses that had the effect of perpetuating an economic downturn into a crisis.
The first was the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act.
The second was the ill timed tax increase imposed by Hoover.
Finally, there was Hoover’s tax policy. Today every fool, right or left, knows that imposing a tax increase in an economic downturn is like kicking a wounded man in the stomach.
Yet in the dark days of 1932, with unemployment at 20 percent, Hoover perversely signed an increase that reversed the multiple cuts by his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge.
Hoover more than doubled rates at the bottom of the tax schedule. He also increased the top marginal tax rate to 63 percent from 25 percent. The effect was predictable. That tax error has haunted economists ever since.
It seems the Democrats don’t care much for economic history because they are determined to make the exact same mistakes of the early 1930′s. They are all falling over themselves to be more protectionist. They are against NAFTA, CAFTA, and the free trade agreements with Colombia, Korea, and Panama. Even though our weakening economy needs all the markets it can find right now, they are determined to cut off the international markets it desperately needs.
The Democrats have only small differences with the Republicans of the early ’30′s on taxes. While those Republicans were determined to raise every single tax bracket they could, the Democrats are simply determined to raise most of them. It should be nothing less than uncanny and disturbing that these Democrats are determined to reverse tax cuts the same way that those Republicans were. While these Democrats promise income tax cuts for the so called middle class, they are also calling for capital gains tax increases and a reinstitution of the so called death tax.
This populist message has absolutely no roots in any economic theory. In fact, Barack Obama recently stated that the reason he wants to raise capital gains taxes is simply in the interest of “fairness”. On that end he will be right. He will certainly go a long way toward making the economy equally miserable for everyone if raises taxes on capital at the exact time the economy needs investment most. Hillary Clinton has equally nebulous reasoning. She says she wants to raise capital gains taxes because that is what Warren Buffet says for her to do.
This is the issue that johan is ignoring in the election for the office of President.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it johan.
Jeffrey Nihart
Okay, guys… don’t get your knickers in a twist here. Ephron’s a feminist type screen writer/director. The majority are romantic comedies, BTW. Not to mention she’s also a Wellesley girl, raised in Beverly Hills. Very little association with “rural America” anything but to suck up their cash for film residuals.
So… being an ex film production person, and recognizing the critter with witch… er *which* we deal… here’s my take.
I’d say she made a desperate attempt to be cute in an Erma Bombeck’esque sort of way… and failed miserably. And, of course, being Hollywood – and the partner of a few failed marriages (including Carl Bernstein) – she embellished to the extreme to make a point.
So… oh stellar group of “he-men” here, please don’t rise to the occasion and give her any cause to support her case! She’ll just add that white men have no sense of humour to her beefs.
Just ignore her. She’s been reduced to HuffPo as her most exposure of late and hitting hard times. “Bewitched” was her last attempt at the big time cinema. She’ll be paying for that for years! Long after Nicole Kidman rebounds.
Yes, you are probably right MataHarley; her career swirling around in the toilet bowl is probably punishment enough for this sort of article.
Still, the fact that if we were to substitute “black men” or “Arab men” or name your non-white ethnic group in here; she would have been hounded into the Pacific. The unending double-standard does get tremendously wearisome after a while. I wish I had half the imagined power that some of these quacks ascribe to “white men” in the U.S. Yes, my mother taught me long ago that the world isn’t fair, but part of me keeps hoping…
You are as powerful as you feel, Machiavelli…. caucasian or not, regardless of gender. Do not fall prey to enforced classism and divides. They only exist if we acknowledge them, and behave with different standards for each other.
And Nora? Quintessential NOW type of woman. Personally they all piss me off…. Before they came around, I was revered, put on a pedestal, had doors opened, and treated just wonderfully. When they decided to make the genders “equal”, I had to take a superiority cut…. LOL
Here I was all set to bash Nora Ephron’s hatemongering…. Until I read this from Johan:
Put down the bong Johan. You have had enough. Clearly you need to step outside and get some fresh air. That’s the most absurd thing I have read in weeks. And that’s saying something.
P.S. Johan: I don’t need to pick up a history book to enlighten me about the politics of 20 years ago. I was in the White House Political Office at that time under President Reagan. I saw history being made in person.
This would be, and rightly so, astonishing if it were titled “Black Women” and was written by a white male.
But while this is repugnant it isn’t astonishing, for it perfectly fits a well honed liberal meme: white males are inherently racist.
Nonetheless, she arrives at a truth though her logic is deeply flawed.
And that truth is that Obama is unelectable.
There are those like myself – a white male – who won’t vote for him because of profound philosophical differences: I think he is tainted, perhaps drenched, with Marxist tendencies; a practitioner of identity politics and the politics of victimhood; an advocate of isolationism in a dangerous world; a simple politician with no stature as a statesman; a panderer to the populace; an opportunist without a moral compass; a big government elitist who believes the proper role of Washington is to solve problems best left to individuals; one who believes that individuals are inherently flawed and must therefor be shepherded to the promised land as he defines it; a big spending liberal who believes that Government is more efficacious in the allocation of resources than markets; a purveyor of class warfare who believes not in equality of opportunity but in equality of outcome; that the full might of the government should be brought to bear to achieve those equal outcomes, said outcomes to be foisted on the many by the chosen few; a worshiper at the alter of multiculturalism who believes that diversity is a preeminent end in and of itself rather than a means to a better end.
And there are those who are black, Hispanic, Asian, female, First American (as he puts it) and so on that won’t vote for him for the same reason.
And there are those who will vote for him simply because he is black.
And there are those who won’t vote for him because he is black.
The last two presidential elections have been very close, with the 2000 election ultimately decided by some 500 voters, Bush’s margin of victory in Florida.
If he wins the nomination, which he is likely to do, we will hear more such musings about how white males who don’t vote for Obama don’t do so because of racism. And many liberals will believe that to be an effective strategy, that they will be able to “shame” white males into voting for Obama. And they believe – it’s as logical as night follows day with them – that white males will be grateful for the opportunity to begin to cleanse themselves of their hateful racism.
And white liberal males will dive head on into the cleansing waters such an opportunity offers. For the rest of their lives they will perform cocktail party conversational contortions to make it known that they voted for Obama. For all of eternity, their bona fides will be established.
As evidenced by the performance of this simple civic duty, they are not racists. Their spirits will be buoyed. They’ll stand taller, stride confidently, chests puffed out. But, like Obama’s Big Mama, they’ll still be wary of pants sagging, doo-rag wearing, dread locked, menacing looking young black males who pass them on the street.
There will still be neighborhoods they won’t go into.
And, via the egregious racism of diminished expectations, they will believe that blacks are inherently inferior, that affirmative action is necessary for their success, that pathological behaviors like skyrocketing out of wedlock births and out of proportion to the population incidents of criminal behavior must be excused.
But in the end, the tack of white-males-as-racists isn’t necessary to capture these voters. They’re liberals, after all. They were going to vote for him anyways.
White males comprise some 36% of the voting population. And here’s the deal: Overwhelmingly, non liberal white males are not racist.
They don’t share the forty acres and a mule diminished expectations for blacks that liberals regard as a trait of the race.
They are robust individuals. Family men. Husbands, Sons, and Brothers. Hard workers. They strive for a better lot for themselves and their families.
They sacrifice.
They go to churches that preach salvation and not separation.
They learned many of life’s lessons at an early age. Be responsible to and for yourself. Your word is your bond. Be on time. Look both ways before crossing the street. Protect the weak. Be humble. Prayer works. Do your job the best you can. Help others. Friends are valuable. Love your country and honor those who served. Accept responsibility. Set goals and strive for them. If you fall down, get back up. Stand up to the bully. When your back is to the wall, fight.
They are far from perfect, but they are virtuous.
But, mostly, they are independent. They don’t like elitists calling them names and telling them what to do.
And a wide and large swath of that 36% won’t respond favorably to the racist, sexist rantings of Nora Ephron and her ilk.
Having been effectively backed to a wall, these people will choose not to vote for Obama not because he is black, but because they are white.
I told you why I wouldn’t vote for him. And I thank Mz. Ephron for helping to keep him from being elected.
Okay , I will admit when I first read her post ,my mouth dropped wide open. I read it again a few minutes later and I got what she meant. She isn’t trashing the whole white male race, she is talking about alpha men,male chauvinist elitist twits. Men and woman alike, don’t like men who behave like that. If you read some of the 1200 plus responses to her blog, you will see that she proved her point about there still being people behaving racist and backward in this country.If you frequently read her blog you know she purposely antagonizes the readers sometimes just to get a rise out of people.
I hope I made a little bit of sense here and you read it again .She is probably sitting in her loft reading some of the garbage comments on here & laughing her head off.
Punky
well theve killed him hes gone from tv or just demonized hes gone from politics or just demonized hes not allowed to go to schools of higher learning no more sports most blue collar jobs have to be saved for this or that minority forget anything in health care just watch that burger king ad if you cant discover life on a new planet that girl is going to slap you out of your chair or that black guy is going to call you a stupid honkey or that v-8 ad im tired of being poked in the head no the white man is dead