dagblog - Comments for "Callista Gingrich // Lady Gaga ~~ A Brief Comparison"

Wowsa! This needs to be made

Aunt Sam — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:25:37 +0000

In reply to (No subject)

Wowsa! This needs to be made into a poster! Maybe their Xmas card!

(No subject)

Donal — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:03:09 +0000

In reply to Callista Gingrich // Lady Gaga ~~ A Brief Comparison

Cool, glad it was useful.

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:43:21 +0000

In reply to Naw, I'd be an awesome first

Cool, glad it was useful. Looking forward to seeing you on the campaign trail.

Naw, I'd be an awesome first

erica20 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:14:41 +0000

In reply to Maureen Dowd is a huge

Naw, I'd be an awesome first lady, crazy eyes and all! :^)

I'm not a big Maureen Dowd fan myself--I wonder how she managed to make a career out of driving down the silly trail and never coming back, column after column.

You have really made me think about why it is that some of this type of humor seems ok to me while some does not. Certainly a little of it goes a long way (the Dowd problem) and it has to come off as not serious or it is just mean. And you are right about the putdowns of women, it got downright weird regarding both Clinton and Palin. But life would be pretty dull without a little ba-doom-chuk (which is supposed to be the drum sound at the end of the joke) every now and then.

Jon Stewart does a great job of it.

Anyhoo, on to other things, like the SOTU. I'm glad you came to Callista's defense--it turned out to be a thought-provoking discussion. And long! The original post is more than 6 months old.

1) I will go to the mat for

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:47:00 +0000

In reply to "What a buttload of

1) I will go to the mat for Newt or Callista to marry whoever they want. That is being progressive. Old people fall in love with young people and vice versa all the time - no need to blame it on gold digging.

2) Obviously some people find Newt charming all the time, and many people find him charming some of the time. Nor is he physically attractive by normal standards.

3) My speculation was based on how easy it is to speculate and draw opposite conclusions.

"What a buttload of

Ethanator — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:17:37 +0000

In reply to Try reading the Kinsey Report

"What a buttload of speculation and anger towards a woman you know nothing about."

Rich coming from the commenter who then engages in three paragraphs of pure speculation about a woman you, also, know nothing about. But, if you want to go to the mat defending a woman who (and this is not speculation) married a much older, physically unattractive and charmless man with a repellent personality and a repellent political ideology, have at it. I guess being a progressive these days guns blazing support for the right to own black people as property and for Newt Gingrich's (by all accounts) closest personal and political advisor. Strange times indeed.

Try reading the Kinsey Report

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:11:01 +0000

In reply to "...She met a guy she liked,

Try reading the Kinsey Report - it came out in the 50's, but is still pertinent.

Unfaithfulness is a fact of life. We have social strictures that work against it - marriage, public condemnation, divorce - but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist - far from it.

1/2 to 2/3 of American men have have at least one extramarital affair in their life. From Kinsey's time, the % of women has risen from 6-26% up to 21-54% in 1984 up to perhaps 2/3 of the rate of men in 2012.

Nevertheless, 80-90% of people contend adultery is always wrong. Which means we're horribly unrealistic, idealistic or both.

What bothers me most is the " she saw a powerful guy with a zipper problem and decided she could ride his ass to minor fame and/or a boatload of money". What a buttload of speculation and anger towards a woman you know nothing about.

I can easily speculate that the ripe time to marry Gingrich would have been before he lost his Speaker job and retired from the House in shame. I can speculate that if Callista were only concerned about money, she could have walked a lot earlier than 12 years into marriage. I can speculate that she actually is Catholic, having converted her husband, and with the amount of church going she's done, her relationship with a married man caused her a lot of internal grief.

In short, I can speculate that Ms. Gingrich is human, as most people are, and not the robotic bitch you assume she is based on an affair that millions of other Americans likewise do, which also presents any women who marries up, or someone significantly older, as simply a loveless gold-digger.

Of course she was single during that time - she didn't take vows, Newt did. That Newt didn't have kids by his 2nd marriage puts the affair largely in a "who cares" category - just another switch of boyfriend/girlfriend, and over 40% of marriages end in divorce.

Values-wise on these issues, yes, you might as well switch registration to GOP - not a significant amount of daylight between.

Maureen Dowd is a huge

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:17:29 +0000

In reply to I don't think this piece is

Maureen Dowd is a huge example of what's wrong with news media these days.

Read Bob Somerby at Daily Howler for about a bazillion examples. (ok, Gail Collins is doing her best to catch up, what with 40 mentions of Romney's dog).

This "can you believe it" "humor" happens over and over with women in the public gripes me - Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Michelle Obama's muscles, Howard Dean's doctor wife, Fred Thompson's wife (Joe Scarborough: "do you think she works on the pole?").

Regarding 'sexual shenanigans', unfortunately the schadenfreude (smiley) in America of other people having sex applies to all ages, not just those past shelf life (other smiley) - it's a nation of tittering 7th graders on this subject.

Where I live, older women will often dye their hair blue or green or orange or pink. I found it ironic that Lady Gaga can have space age hair but not Callista.

Regarding your Marty Feldman eyes, 1) I imagine you're glad that you're not in a position to be a photo accessory for a famous spouse, 2) if you look at other pictures of Ms. Gingrich, she doesn't suffer from Graves' disease or other ocular malfunction - it's simply an off moment in a camera shoot.

This fellow, with his more

Erica — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:57:27 +0000

In reply to Well there is something of a

This fellow, with his more formal attire and makeup, seems like a better visual match for Mrs. Gingrich.

And perhaps closer to her age as well.

Ah, but the heart wants what the heart wants, eh?

Heh, from his latest photo, I

tmccarthy0 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:17:53 +0000

In reply to Also, Newt's a wealthy man.

Heh, from his latest photo, I think Newtie needs more than a good trainer. It seems he has shed 666 layers of old skin to show us the truest form of a Newt.