In response to RE: Are You Claiming....:

Commenter Tifuk just says I'm flat-out wrong, and that the reactions were in fact pre-recorded.  I saw this claimed (as a speculation) on Slate, and New York claims it to be some kind of fact (though they don't claim how they know this).

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I've escalated this into a red-hot Twitter war, but on The Conversation.

Sorry, I can be a genuine prig.  I have an overdeveloped Self-Rightneousness Complex in my hippocampus.

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If only Liberals would tell the truth about climate control...

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins pinned an article on TheRoot.com describing the effects of climate control on the black community.

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In response to RE: Are You Claiming....:

 Because they were all subject to an inherently mortifying action,  being made the butt of a joke in front of a large group of people.  Same reason that children are universally mortified when their names come up in the bullying circle at the playground.

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 Today, Crossroads GPS released an "informercial" about Obama's new non-profit Organizing for Action, which they've dubbed, Organizing for Acce$$:

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I attended my first AIPAC Policy Conference in 1993, as the official liaison from my youth group to the pro-Israel organization. 

It was a lot of fun. Some of the highlights were: observing the carping between the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Jewish Democratic Council (which continues until this day); hearing Rep. Newt Gingrich bring the house down after a robotic address by Vice President Al Gore; and meeting a young Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then just an earnest staffer for Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-FL).

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In response to Of Ace and Seth MacFarlane's 'Boobs':

I'm somewhat agnostic on the "boobs" controversy itself, but I'm completely with you on the value of take-no-prisoners satire without sacred cows.  I generally see MacFarlane himself as less than a pure practitioner of the art: like many others, he claims the mantle of irreverent humor, but he keeps plenty of sacred cows quietly and carefully protected in his pasture.  Even when The Simpsons was at the height of its wit and relevance, it did the same thing.  

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In response to Are You Claiming....:

That not only was the bit pre-recorded (obviously), but that the reactions of Naomi Watts and Charlize Theron were also pre-recorded?

And staged?

Are the people visible in the background of these pictures...

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Bill Keller of the NY Times wrote an op-ed over the weekend which, while still taking some shots at the GOP, managed to lay some of the blame for "the large mess we are in" at the President's feet.

The piece is titled "Obama's Fault" and that more or less sums up the theme. Keller's opening paragraph sounds like something Charles Krauthammer might have written, "The White House spent last week in full campaign hysteria, blitzing online followers with the message that heartless Republicans are prepared to transform America into 'Les Misérables' in order to protect 'millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, vacation homes, and private jet owners.'”

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In response to Of Ace and Seth MacFarlane's 'Boobs':

 That not only was the bit pre-recorded (obviously), but that the reactions of Naomi Watts and Charlize Theron were also pre-recorded?

And staged?

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