A couple of random bullet points on the whole Garance / Matthew Madcap Scrap at Tapped:

• Check out a week-old post from The Moose titled Order.  It's a short summary of the core challenge social liberalism faces in trying to assemble a majority coalition.  It's the larger framework in which the Garance / Matthew debate exists.

• Bill Clinton did an immense amount to rehabilitate the Democratic brand among the white working class, and almost all of that improvement was pissed away in the single instance of L'affair Lewinsky.  Understanding that is understanding the imperatives of this topic.

In some ways, reading this was like eating beef ice cream.  There was the yummy Matt-flavor of cleverness, humility, and amusement, but it was in a place where it really didn't belong. 

I do like the idea of pushing <i>a la carte</i> cable as a liberal issue.  Except I'd rather dodge the French bullet by calling it "Family Choice Cable" or something like that. 

I don't see any need to engage in any V-Chip dissing.  Clinton did things right, dammit!  Or so I'd have us imply. I don't know if most people have any complaints about the V-Chip -- I imagine they've pretty much forgotten it exists -- so best not to let them feel like they should have any complaints.

You'd probably do well to pick a target other than Fantasia.  Somebody a little more alien and demonizable.  Maybe a rapper.

That beef ice cream post (#4) was me, by the way.

Your Steven Johnson dis was cutting. Your GTA dis was pretty good too, although it wounds my heart to say so.

The restaurant was a bit long-winded. Cut straight to the next paragraph. I liked your channel choices with the Family Channel / MTV and ESPN / Bravo.

"But what if you're allergic to nuts?," beautiful!!

but on Johnson's view that people are allegedly getting smarter, I find that difficult to take seriously

-dc

Clever, promoting restricting by giving people a choice, not bad, but to use your analogy, the restaurants give you a break on price when you order fries and a drink with your burger, it's more expensive to get just the drink and burger. 

Well, not exactly that speech (for instance, I don't think he called for expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act) but he certainly gave a speech condemning Hollywood's glorification of single motherhood.  Perhaps precocious Matt is too young to remember it, but surely any discussion of this topic is not complete without acknowledging it:

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0406_Quayles_Murphy_Brown.h tml

Key quotes:

"Right now the failure of our families is hurting America deeply"

"It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of a father, by bearing a child alone"

He got a lot of flack from the left at the time for the speech.

By the way, my nomination for a similarly irresponsible lyric is Eminem rapping "I can't figure out which Spice Girl I wanna impregnate" in "My Name Is". (There's plenty else to complain about in his lyrics, of course). 

Matthew Yglesias:

Everyone knows that children are better off with two parents and mothers are better off with husbands.

Except for lazy drunken husbands, and abusive husbands of course. And lesbian women with children have never been shown to be worse parents than husband and wife, so the word husband was ill-advised to begin with. But wait, we can't agree homos rear children as well as heteros, despite lack of evidence to the contrary; indeed we can't agree what murder is. Or the beginnings, or origins of life, for that matter.

  Matthew, did you have a red-state pseudo-epiphany while watching Steven Johnson on John Stewart? Tired of simpering liberal apologists for bad behavior? Or are you still just beating that dead horse, finding America's middle?

I reared 4 kids with Vice City, one is in HS, two in college, and one with a BS in chemical engineering, is currently in medical school, soon to be finishing his chemical engineering doctorate, after which he will cure cancer while you continue to blather on about how I should rear my children. Are you claiming the people who reared kids watching Nascar are better? Or are you just making the elite complaint that too few children really read their Virgil before  reading  Dante?  Well, your mother will be proud you are at least thinking like a parent, if primitively. Time to pop the question, Matthew.

As for TV: you are trying to appease whiners, who don't really love America's greatest invention, TV. If you don't like TV, red-staters, do what the effete blue-staters do: lie and say you don't watch it.

 HBO is here to stay. And you're going to see offensive stuff if you turn on the tube. Let's face it, the truth has become deeply offensive in the US since 9/11. 

See, I wouldn't argue that "Baby Mama" is glamourizing being a single mother--it talks about the difficulties, and that's actually a pretty good message to get out there. However, it does give us an excellent target that will appeal to soccer moms: deadbeat dads who don't pay their child support. These men carelessly spread their seed around and when the girl gets pregnant, and does the right thing by keeping her baby, they bail out.

 Additionally, the song can also be used to push for increased access to contraception. If a young woman has reliable access to birth control pills, she probably won't become a baby mama.

Everyone knows that children are better off with two parents and mothers are better off with husbands.

Yes, BUT, this misses the point that children having babies is the major evil, followed by families scarred by violence or sexual abuse that are only held together by economic dependence, co-dependence, or fears of violence.  It also misses the point that perhaps 30-40% or more of good American families have a single parent - divorce rates are high and not likely to go lower soon.  These people should not be made to feel left out of the ranks of good families.

I don't think the US benefits from saying and supporting only traditional two parent families as the right way to do a family. 

Families are love, care, and mutual support.  They come in lots of flavors, including two male, two female, and only one parent varieties.  In some cases, siblings alone make good families, and a very large number of people will testify that have made strong families among non-relative friends when they are estranged from their genetic parents - as many gay, lesbian, and other people have done involuntarily or voluntarily.  Many factors can divide a genetic family, and those factors may be entirely valid.  All these types of families can provide a strong environment for raising children who contribute to a society we can be proud of.

I general though, this liberal can support almost everything you have said,  It will take care however to ensure that these beliefs are not twisted into the tortured reading that the religious right wants to put family values into. 

I do, however, think Fantasia is a poor choice as a target of opprobrium because, well, she will hit back and will hit back with a force that most politicians will be unprepared for.  She will hit back in a way that is likely to humiliate any poll looking to use her to advance his/her career.  And she will hit back with enough force to knock an aspiring speechwriter onto his/her literary ass and leave her/him gasping for breath.  I've watched this woman, and she ain't dumb, and she's got a mouth full of honey and razor blades.  It's probably better to pick a dumb target, like Fifty Cent or something.

Firstly I had to do a google to get an idea of what "the Green Line at Gallery Place" meant. Wow! Maybe I should head over to The Note and brush up on all those insider cool journo code words.

"Family values!!!"

"Everyone knows that children are better off with two parents and mothers are better off with husbands. We need to be encouraging a culture of marriage and a culture of responsibility in this country, and we don't need Hollywood and the music industry confusing our kids about right and wrong."

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"A lot of people think the American family is in crisis nowadays, and I think they're on to something. This is the greatest country on earth, full of great moms and dads trying to do their best. But we all know it's never been harder to raise kids in this country."

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"Seriously, I think we all know how it is you get smarter kids. It starts with good parents, and it continues with good teachers in good schools. And that's why we've got to keep reforming education in this country. We got off to a good start a few years ago when we started demanding accountability from teachers and administrators, and making sure that when schools let kids down someone steps in and make changes."

What a fkin' crock of Republican phony hypocritical self serving bullshit. Fking bullshit. Nice sounding, 'we love America and families and save the little children' fking bullshit.  Somebody check on Matt's money sources.  He's probably signed up for a DLC internship. Dare I ask if he's getting pointers from Monica.

All this based on a song and used toward a goal of not having to buy shit on cable that he doesn't really want. Unfking believable! Holy Mary mother of the Son of God, King of the Universe, why did he leave out good Christian values under assault in America?

I don't follow music. I'm also old enough to understand that music is about generations. The current generation always seems to come up with music that the prior generation doesn't understand, appreciate or accept. Hey, Frank Sinatra was a rebel who endangered family values. Elvis doin' those gyrations giving the poor innocent little children wicked thoughts and destroying the family. Did I do the Holy Mary line? Maybe this song that's got Matt so upset about cable is a response to the years of girl-woman hating rap and hip-hop that's so pervasive. Maybe it's as significant an indicator of kids real values as the Three Stooges hitting each other with hammers.

You want family values? Make sure people can make a living wage in America and don't have to compete with little more than slave labor in the worst regions of the world. You want better education? Make sure teachers get a decent pay. You want to have strings attached? Give the teachers bonuses for improvement in their students.  You want to test people and punish those that don't meet some government set scale that has so many thumbs on it it looks like a crown of thorns, do it to our political leaders. Bush hasn't improved America? Recall him. There's no tested improvement in Iraq? Fire the scum that put us there are still in control. Hey, but now I'm in the bullshit land that Matt lives in.

You don't like it that giant corporations don't give "consumers" anything but a sucker's choice? Break them up! Allowing a consolidation of media was a disaster brought on this nation that we suffer from every day. Geezuz!  We get a "fair and balanced" mantra that any rapper would cringe from the over-sampling, but it's based on the removal of the "fairness doctrine" which was an honest attempt at fair and balanced. Media consolidation, NAFTA crap and WTO corporate directorship superiority over and insulation from the concerns and views of average citizens of the world are far more of a danger to the family than anything you've written about.

Give people an opportunity to succeed and a sense that they have that opportunity. A true right to the pursuit of happiness. Do that and family values will take care of themselves.

Fk! You're a cheap old fart with a face you probably stole from some kid, Hannibal Lecter style.

Hey Matt, don't take any of this personal. For the most part I admire you and what you write, but this is bullshit. Pure stinking bullshit with a few roses thrown on top for cover.

I think you have just proven that bashing pop culture figures to score political points is always going to come off as sanctimonious Lieberman crap.  Speaking as a parent I really don't want to hear politicians letting me know they are holier than singers and video game makers.  Lose the singling out of pop culture stuff and you've got some decent inserts into a speech, especially on the a la carte cable stuff.  Though I don't think the "I know it sounds French . . ." line is really necessary either -- the whole French bashing thing is so D.C.

Matthew, who didn't think the Iraq war was a corruption, is afraid Vice City is going to corrupt our youth.

 It's the hookers, isn't it Matt. The violence is OK, but the hookers make it a sin. Remember Matt, the problem with American pop culture is the sex, not the violence.

 Attaboy, now you're traingulatin' red-state America.

We need to be encouraging a culture of marriage and a culture of responsibility in this country

Who should be promoting it?  The government, society in general, the media?  And at whose expense?

I really tend to laugh at this silly debate of what a "bad" effect sex and violence in our pop culture has on society.  It is buying into the erroneous notion that pop culture isn't reflecting what is going on in society, it is driving it.  The tail wagging the dog.  To throw out a hypothetical.  Let's say there is a study about rapists that shows 90% of rapists drink a quart of milk or more, per day.  Does that mean that dinking a large quantity of milk leads to violence against women?  That is the same kind of bad science going on trying to blame society's problems on pop culture.

I empathize with parents, I really do.  Most parents are wonderful people doing their best to raise a family.  But in a way society has tried to abdicate parental responsibility.   In the past 20 years more and more laws have been passed to "protect children" from the harmful effects of pop culture.  How can anybody argue against protecting children?  I won't but I will not support an effort for government to be our nannies either.  This will sound harsh but if a couple decides to have kids they should realize that it will be a great sacrifice on them personally and on their professional careers.  And if they don't feel they have the time our energy to expend on the responsibility of parenthood maybe they should think twice about having kids. 

<p>&quot;It's a confusing and outdated system in an era when you can listen to music on your TV, watch movies on your computer, and play games on both.&quot;</p><p>This is a good line. I have some issues with the structure of the speech- there's a bit of jumping back and forth that probably needn't be. Some revisions and that'd be ameliorated, I expect.</p><p>&quot;There's an idea out there called &agrave; la carte cable. It sounds French, but the idea's as American as apple pie.&quot;<br /> </p><p>I imagine this would play very well.<br /> <br /> &quot;if you want a steak, you order a steak. If you want a salad, you order a salad. If you want some soup, you order soup. If you want soup and a salad then you order both. If you're really hungry, you can get all three.&quot; </p><p>This just made me hungry. The idea gets across without going all the way through the list. The point of &quot;Get what you want&quot; will also go over nicely, I bet. Maybe change from &quot;A restaurant&quot; to &quot;Applebee's&quot; or something (if'n you're gonna pander, really pander).</p><p>&quot;Cable today is kind of like a restaurant where if you want a steak, you also need to get a soup and a salad...&nbsp; But what if you're allergic to nuts...&quot;</p><p>Same thing with this passage.</p><em />

If you want to criticize a popular song for sending a bad message, I would choose Beyonce's "I Need a Soldier."  As if there weren't enough young black men out there either in gangs or considering joining them, do we really need one of the most beautiful (not to mention rich) young women in Hollywood saying that "you'd better be 'street' if you're lookin' at me?"  When I first heard that song I couldn't believe it.  And does any serious person actually believe that Beyonce would be caught dead with the sort of guys who consider themselves "soldiah?"

I think that is a loss leader type behavior... conceivably there are similar issues with various cable channels (NBC, Bravo; ABC, ESPN)

Kudos to you for the child-rearing you did, however you did it.  Sounds like your kids are great and a credit to your efforts.  As someone looking at it from the outside, it seems that most methods work, as long as the parents show their kids that they are trying hard to love and parent them.

 I hope we can have this discussion without it being us versus them.  You raised your kids without trying to control their access to HBO or Grand Theft Auto?  Kudos to you, you and your kids are bolder and more resilient than many.  Others who want to restrict it?  That probably works, too.  Many parents seem to be askign for tools, help, even nominal moral support in guiding, restricting pulling their kids away from things they think are the wrong direction.  I may be naive too, but I say our approach is to offer people what they say they need.  If you want more restrictiveness, use it, if not, don't.

I understand that libertarians hate this speech, but it isn't for you. Its designed for swing voters who have doubts about Democrats when it comes to cultural issues, but if those doubts could be allayed they would vote Democratic based on economic issues.  What Matt and the unfairly-maligned Lieberman for that matter realize is that it is much better to allay those fears through rhetoric and symbolic policies than it is to cave in on core issues such as gay rights or abortion. 

I would add that there are also issues, such as family leave policies, that would put forward a family-friendly agenda that even most of the Democratic core wouldn't find objecitonable.

I've gone back over and read this several times, and I'm still not always sure where Matt's sincere and where he's sending up the kind of Capra-meets-Clinton-and-Edwards political rhetoric. Bizarre and brilliant.

Yeah, really, Matt, you sound like you're 67 and never boogied down. 

I don't think the trick is to have Dems spout thinks they don't really believe-- like that every kid needs two parents and mothers do better with husbands.  You know, a whole lot of single mothers are single now because their kids' fathers took off, or were negligent or abusive, or were far more trouble than any kid.  A lot of kids are better off without their fathers. Sad but true.  And a lot of women are way better off without husbands. 

Hearkening back to some mythical 50s that never actually existed and dissing black music is really not going to win any fans.  Fantasia Barrino is someone you ought to be recruiting-- a bootstrap-yanking young single mom who has made a great success because she's talented and smart.  

The moralistic sorts who think Fantasia is sinful or doing bad by her child are going to vote Republican no matter what.  It's Republican to diss people because of the conditions of their lives.  It's Dem to offer opportunity and help and celebrate the achievements of people who have faced difficult times.  

The truth is that that great middle class you're seeking cares a whole lot more about economic issues.  Many of them are divorced. Many of them have children or grandchildren without both parents in residence.  Most of them are uneasily aware that poverty is one medical disaster or layoff away.  

Why buy into the Repub idea of morality?  You know what Christ was really about? Not throwing stones at Fantasia Barrino.  But about reaching out a hand to those in need. "That which you do for the least of my brothers, you do also for me." That's the Democratic idea of morality, and I sure prefer it, and I think most of our target audience will too.  Remember it's only a tiny percentage between the two parties, and most of those in the middle are not conservative "Family Values" types, but independents.  We need to appeal to them, not the moralists firmly entrenched in the Repub camp.

The speech sounds like a sellout.  I've always been amazed how many successful white men see "The enemy" and "The evil" being the least powerful people out there-- struggling single mothers, sometimes of color, sometimes on welfare. Don't fall into that sick, hypocritical trap.  Speak truth to power. That's what we're about-- not kicking the powerless. There's already a party eager to do that, and none of us want to belong to that. 

The sexual revolution was won.

Now, MY calls for appeasement?

Never!

Proud Veteran

I dunno about these "new readers" who didn't get it. I started reading Yglesias about an hour ago and I thought it was hilarious and clearly not his actual beliefs. Perhaps new readers are just a little bit slower than old readers.