Grade This! - July 29, 2005
The week’s wrap-up: Tucker Carlson’s failed “Situation,” a weird week in justice, and selling out of romance at Wal-Mart.
Friday July 29, 2005
Wal-Mart: Banning Music, Books, and Even Love
First it was Sheryl Crow’s 1996 release, Tuesday Night Music Club, then it was Jon Stewart and The Daily Show’s bestseller, America the Book. Now, Wal-Mart’s put the kibosh on love. Last Saturday, the Roanoke, VA Wal-Mart store cancelled its “Singles Shopping” program, in which shoppers could place a red bow on their carts to invite conversation from fellow seekers of love amidst the sweatshop-produced wares. It is unclear whether the “flirt points” posted in sections of the store were intended for single shoppers or the walking sexual harassment lawsuits known as “store managers.” With the program’s cancellation, the chain loses its best opportunity to be a family-building facility since Natalie Portman gave birth in a Wal-Mart in the classic movie “Where the Heart Is.”
Multitasking both practical and romantic needs: B
The ongoing hypocrisy of pushing couple-hood while underpaying employees, censoring CDs and discriminating against women: F
Where the Heart Is: A+
Amy Schiller, Brandeis University
Eye for an Eye
While we’re busy mulling over the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court and the infamous french fry decision, justice moves on. And it’s looking as if she’s lost her mind. But at least in a very poetic sorta way.
First there were the noisy 11-year-olds at St. Francis Xavier’s Catholic Primary School who just would not shut up. In response, a volunteer working at the school gave the offenders some strips of masking tape and told them to tape their mouths shut.
Then there was Robert Bell from New York, who was accused by some high school hooligans of swiping a cell phone. In retaliation, they chased him down and cut off his thumb, probably to keep him from ever text-messaging again.
Or take a Kansas high school student who was convicted of battery for intentionally vomiting on his Spanish teacher. His punishment? He has to clean police cars that people have thrown up in for the next four months. Ick.
But that’s nothing compared to the fate of Vardan Kushnir, Russia’s most infamous spammer. Russia has no anti-spam laws, something than Kushnir took advantage of by spamming 37.6 million Russian-speaking Internet users. So in retaliation, last Monday, someone broke into his home, killed him, and ransacked his apartment. The police have no clues who did it, and strangely enough, aren’t in a rush to find any. Apparently, the central message coming out of Russia on this one is that the punishment somehow fit the crime.
Poetic Justice: A
Illegal Vigilantism: F
Reconciling the two: Um … C?
Andrew Fong, Harvard University
Fighting Terror One Unethical Random Search at a Time
“If you x, y, z then the terrorists have won!” The right loves to yell it — as loud as they can. Yet, in the war for our freedoms, the right is very quick to give up those same freedoms. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, the body in charge of New York’s public transportation system, has implemented a policy of randomly searching commuters on buses and trains. (New Jersey Transit and several others have followed suit.) The strange part is that some people seem eager to offer up their bags for searches without being prompted. This, of course, makes such searches seem relatively ineffective. In addition, though the NYPD assures the public that there will be “no racial profiling,” in the first few days of the new policy, one South Asian Queens man was stopped several times in one day.
Fourth Amendment: A+
NYPD’s Claim that Random Searches Will Not Lead to Racial Profiling: D
Letting the Terrorists Win By Sacrificing Freedoms in the War for
Freedom: F
Evan Marshak, Cornell
Swift Boat Machine Kicks Back into Gear in Ohio
Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who is the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election in Ohio’s staunchly Republican second congressional district, is doing so well in his bid for the seat that Republicans are reaching back into their bag of dirty tricks from last year. An advisor to Jean Schmidt, Hackett’s Republican opponent, questions Hackett’s service in Iraq, where he served as a civil affairs officer in the Marines. Apparently, that’s just not dangerous enough a job for the Republicans. Said the advisor: “I understand Hackett did not participate in combat at all.”
Fortunately, Hackett’s responding, well, a little bit better than John Kerry did. He challenged his critics to “leave your wife and three kids and go sign up for the Army or Marines and go over there and fight. Otherwise, shut your mouth.” Hackett, a vocal critic of the war and strong supporter of gun rights, is connecting with voters in the district: this week he gained the endorsement of the conservative Cincinnati Post. Hackett’s job is made substantially easier by the breathtaking deluge of Republican scandals in Ohio, which may well break the corrupt state GOP’s decade-old grip on power. Republican Gov. Bob Taft sports an approval rating of 17 percent.
Hackett’s record of military service: A+
President Bush’s record of military service: C
Vice President Dick “I Had Other Priorities” Cheney’s record of military service: F
Revitalizing progressives in conservative-leaning districts: A
Gubernatorial approval ratings of 17 percent: Incomplete/No Credit (you usually get 30 points just by showing up)
Josh Patashnik, Harvard University
Snotty young man shuts up, but what happens next?
Here’s the deal with John Roberts. Asheesh Siddique’s contention that Roberts’ legal views are far right was more than borne out by memos highlighted this week from his days as a young lawyer in the Reagan Administration. On critical issues, especially civil rights, young Roberts was brashly, arrogantly, snottily, sardonically to the right of such far-right Federalist icons / Justice Department superiors as Ted Olsen and Brad Reynolds. But he apparently made the decision early on not to utter too much of this right-wing legal stuff in public, and there’s a good chance (and a good case, actually) for keeping under wraps Roberts’ communications as a more mature lawyer working in the Solicitor General’s office in Bush I. There’s also an excellent chance he’ll be able to keep his extremist views hidden during his confirmation hearings in September. Question is, with the DC / establishment legal community so in love with this decent, swell guy, who of strong credibility will come forward to testify, based on what is available in the record, what are the odds that this guy will likely shred the Constitution as we know it?
Roberts’ memos – brashness: A
Roberts’ memos – consistency with U.S. Constitution: F
Holding out for a hero / Waiting on a miracle: A-
David Halperin, Campus Progress
Karma, bay-bee
MSNBC is moving Tucker Carlson’s show, “The Situation with Tucker Carlson,” from prime time to the far less popular 11 o’clock slot. Apparently fewer than 200,000 viewers per night tuned in on average to the undoubtedly thoughtful and well-produced program. MSNBC President Rick Kaplan tried to spin the failure by saying the show was intended for an 11 p.m. time slot all along. So I guess the whole promotion and advertising thing was just an expensive and useless fake-out, which, come to think of it, also describes Carlson’s masquerading as a qualified analyst.
Carlson going head to head with Jon Stewart, doomed to defeat yet again: A+
Carlson continuing to have a show on a political analysis channel: D
Media continuing to hurt America: F
Amy Schiller, Brandeis University
The Shaft on CAFTA
We got shafted on CAFTA through a series of shady deals and closeted phone calls, but I couldn’t put it any better than the Progress Report, which posted:
“There is a reason some votes are not called until the dead of night. Everyone knew the House vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was going to be a close one. ‘As the showdown neared, the sales effort became more intense. It included a personal appeal by [President] Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who were whisked to the Capitol by motorcade Wednesday morning to ask House Republicans to support the president’s legislative priorities.’ The vote began a couple minutes after 11:00pm. ‘When the usual 15-minute voting period expired at 11:17 p.m.,’ the nays had won by a mere 5 votes. But proponents of the bill, who had made it clear that they were willing to do ‘whatever they need to do to get’ passage of the legislation, were not ready to admit defeat. Employing a tactic that Vice President Dick Cheney once called ‘the greatest abuse of democracy,’ House Republican leaders held the vote open for an additional 47 minutes. During this time, they worked furiously to round up votes, browbeating representatives in a manner reminiscent of the 2003 Medicare vote. One representative—Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA)—was brought into the Republican cloakroom where no less than the president himself gave him the hard sell via cellular telephone. In the waning hours of the morning, the House passed CAFTA by a vote of 217 to 215.”
CAFTA: D
Bribing votes with promises for future pork legislation: D-
Republicans going into and coming out of the closet: B+
Kim Teplitzky, Temple University
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