A Little Of The Old In And Out



In: Ron Howard. Ron Howard, one of the more principled men in Hollywood, appeared on the Howard Stern show this morning reminding us once again why we have stuck by him all these years. From Marksfriggin:

"Howard told Ron about how he told JJ Abrams that he was going to make $79 million this past weekend and JJ said that he would blow him if he did make that much. Ron got a laugh out of that. Artie asked Ron if people in Hollywood are bullshitters about stuff like that. Ron said they are when it comes to blow jobs.

"Howard asked Ron about some of the people who are hard to work with in Hollywood like Val Kilmer. Ron said there were good days and bad days with him.

"...Howard asked Ron about this play that Bryce was in and how she was naked in it. Ron said she had her clothes on for the first 10 minutes but then it was off for the rest of the play. Ron said he brought his dad to see the play and he didn't know how nude she was going to be for that amount of time. Ron said when the show was over his father said it was courageous and she will never have to be afraid again. Ron thought that was very cool of him to say."

Best of all, Ron joined the guys in razzing Gary for flubbing his pitch at the Mets game. Ron also was game enough to answer a question about his sex life, admitting that he married his high school sweetheart and has never had sex with another woman:

"Howard said it's amazing that a guy in Hollywood like Ron has only had sex with his wife. That's remarkable. Ron said that it is pretty shocking. Howard said there's a certain beauty and a certain sadness to that."

So why is the Catholic League giving him such grief?



Out: Nancy Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi's new role in the President's health care fight notwithstanding, the conversation will not be changed: what did the Speaker know about waterboarding when she was on the House Intelligence Committee? Frankly, the insistence of the grassroots Progressive movement to prosecute -- and/or have a touchy-feelie approximation of the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission on torture -- is stupid politics.

A President, even one as dynamic as Obama, only has a certain amount he or she can accomplish before mid-term elections empower the opposition. Prioritization is key. Wasting one's political capital, the Mother's milk of a Presidency, on a practice that has already been outlawed is the height of fucking stupidity. Quixotic. This is self-sabotaging Daffy Duck logic at work here. Wouldn't we rather that Obama focused evenly on the economy, health care and our international position rather than possibly lose ground on any one of those all-important issues by fixing a left-eyed gaze on torture in order to gain some misbegotten revenge against Bush-Cheney. But why can't we do all, the Progressives, invariably, ask -- because, we can't do all well. And besides: some hypocisies might just be revealed. From TheHill:

"Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), an influential Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has threatened to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) before the Senate for an investigation of abusive interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration.

“I don’t want to retry Nancy Pelosi — that’s not my goal — but if you’re going to accuse these people in the Bush administration of being evil and committing a crime, then if she was told about [interrogation tactics], I want to know what she was told,' Graham said during a break in a hearing on Bush-era interrogation practices.

"Graham spoke to reporters during a Judiciary subcommittee hearing titled 'What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration.' Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, convened the hearing.

"Liberals have pressed for Democrats to move forward on an inquiry on whether Bush officials violated domestic and international law by torturing terrorist suspects.

"Democratic leaders have resisted the rush to investigate, however, amid questions of whether Democratic leaders such as Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) were briefed on and acquiesced to such techniques.

"Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), another leading Republican on the issue of torture, has said that Pelosi should have objected to interrogation practices when briefed on them when she served as a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence."

Reason #2,875 to just leave the damn issue alone. It is already dead, except to those who are fixated on revenging themselves upon the out-of-power Bushies. But then we never underestimate the talent at which the Democratic party has in rat-fucking itself out of power (Averted Gaze).