Monday, April 21, 2008

Michael Moore on Hillary Clinton then and now

Michael Moore on Hillary Clinton on the Today Show on January 6, 2005:

COURIC: What about Hillary Clinton, do you think she has a chance?

Mr.MOORE: What--she’s a star. Absolutely she has--absolutely she has a chance.

COURIC: Many people think she could not--even if she won the nomination could not win the election because she’s so polarizing.

Mr. MOORE: I don’t--well, talk about polarizing, how about George W. Bush? They don’t worry about--they never ask themselves that question. `Geez, I don’t know, should we run Bush again? He’s kind of polarizing. A lot of people don’t like him,’ you know? It’s like, you know, we--our side has got to knock that off. Hillary Clinton is beloved by millions of Americans. I’m not saying, you know, she should necessarily be the one. But, you know…

Michael Moore endorsing Barack Obama today:

I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does—AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can’t win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry “Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.

But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come—but it won’t be you.

I quoted Moore in 2005 and held out for Hillary for a long time. I’d say it a little gentler but at this point I have to agree with Michael’s sadness.

Credit Card University

Phil Tedesco at TPM Café does a nice job of summarizing this piece in the Business section of yesterday’s NYTimes on paying for college without home equity:

A number of families, for example, are dipping into their retirement savings to finance their children’s education. This story focuses on how expensive private schools are and cites empirical research that the prestige of an undergraduate degree does not impact a student’s future earnings. State universities look like bargains in this story, offering the same education for way less money. But we’re increasingly privatizing the costs of “public” universities. State universities, receiving ever less state funding, are increasingly turning their students over to financial-services companies, who are, of course, happy to oblige.

He goes on to tell of a Higher Education Watch report finding that aggregate funding for public colleges and universities fell by 7.8% and that a number of states have decreased their contributions by as much as 25%.

He critically catalogues the ways colleges and universities have gone about finding money to make up the shortfall and finds them “at least partially to blame.”

Yes, well, of course, they are. But someone’s got to pay now don’t they? And what we’ve got is no one willing!

So I was particularly gratified by Phil’s final sentence, which I will put in bold to give it the emphasis it deserves:

Nevertheless, colleges are put in an impossible situation--they need to keep their schools solvent and affordable, and the state is giving them ever less money. The real culprit, I think, are states residents who refuse to fund public education.

Harvey Fierstein Times Talk

On the ride home yesterday we listened to the podcast of Harvey Fierstein’s April 1 Times Talk celebrating the 25th anniversary of New York’s LGBT Community Center and Fierstein’s latest Broadway show, A Catered Affair.

He discusses his Broadway productions in detail beginning with the background and development of Torch Song Trilogy and ending with a scene from A Catered Affair. In classic Fierstein form, he holds nothing back.

Like many gay men of my generation, Torch Song was an important marker for me. In the early eighties I was a segment producer for one of the first gay television shows on cable, OUR TIME with Vito Russo. Harvey was one of our interviews: