The Queen Mum of Massachusetts, Vicki Kennedy, has invited Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren to a senatorial debate at the Kennedy Institute in Boston, sponsored by MSNBC. Scott Brown thought about it a little before responding to ol’ Vick’s pleasantries with a rider: He’ll do it, but only if (a) no MSNBC cameras are within 1,000 miles of Boston and (b) Vicki Kennedy doesn’t make an endorsement, because she’d definitely endorse Elizabeth Warren, giving her a marginal short-term boost in the polls!
The first condition about MSNBC… well, some people (on “the Internet left”) have been making fun of Brown for this. It seems like a quite reasonable demand on his part though! Sure, the moderator would be Tom Brokaw, the fairest princess of them all, but the pre- and post-debate commentary would be held down by a panel of MSNBC television hosts who spend six primetime hours each night begging for Scott Brown to lose or at least get hit by a car. Scott Brown would be a fool to walk into the MSNBC-sponsored debate just as Elizabeth Warren would be to walk into a Fox News-sponsored debate. Wolf Blitzer is the funniest debate moderator, anyway, and he’d have no problem fitting this debate into the 20 hours per day that his show airs on CNN.
It just seems like so very resolvable.
But then, this!
For starters, Kennedy has to pledge to remain neutral for remainder of the contentious Senate race for the seat held by her husband from 1962 until his death from brain cancer in 2009. While it is not entirely clear what this condition involves, an endorsement of a particular candidate would almost certainly be out of bounds.
No Vicki Kennedy endorsement (or “stay neutral pledge” whatever) before the debate that Vicki Kennedy is hosting would make sense. For the remainder of the race though — ha ha ha! What’s that? What is that? Have a little confidence, Scott Brown. What if your debate performance is so superior to Elizabeth Warren’s that Vicki Kennedy wants to endorse you? That marginal short-term boost in the polls could be yours.
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Scott Brown will likely just call Elizabeth Warren a "redskin" for the entire debate. That's pretty much all he has, really.
"Billy" or "Sonny"?
In honor of Joe Theisman, he will call her "Snappy."
Breaking newz?
Ouch.
In honor of Joe Theisman would be "Dopey". Just saying I have heard his football commentary and feel I am being generous. Oh and by the way Dopey!! Libel.
Given Theisman's recent ads for prostate-related products, "Drippy" seems appropriate.
He'd get a leg up on her with that.
"Jim Thorpe."
"Damn Yankee" or GTFO.
Also, no questions about banks or Afghanistan can be asked and Ms. Warren must wear feathers and a buckskin dress.
Hawt.
And her entrance music must be Cher's "Half Breed"
Or Paul Revere and the Raiders "Indian Reservation"
"Half Breed"? Obama could use that too, right?
Maybe even Bristol!
Surely Bristol has bred with more than half of Wasillia by now.
For starters, Kennedy has to pledge to remain neutral for remainder of the contentious Senate race for the seat held by her husband
Somewhere, Antonin Scalia and Ginni Thomas are laughing their arses off reading this (masking it as *cough*ing and followed with a fairly disingenuous "Ah, no, we don't find that funny at all.")
For neutrality's sake, maybe we should see if Switzerland or Sweden would consent to acting as moderator.
It worked pretty well for Korea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Nations_Supe…
Sweden's waaay too socialist for Brown's taste…. Ms Warren would probably be OK with it though, what with her being a marxist/communist/trotskyist, anti-capitalist stooge, etc.
This is for the general election, not the GOP primary. There are people in the audience that know the difference between Switzerland and Sweden.
Make her wear one of those rainbow clown afros too also.
Make Scott Brown promise to keep his pants on.
Oh yes, hot pink leather "Hot Pants"
Who will Ghost Teddy Kennedy endorse in this critical race?
He can't…he's too busy visiting hell to kick Briebart's ass. (It's sort of a community service thing for Teddy since he couldn't get into heaven without some conditions.)
Could you imagine Breitbart's horror when he got to the Pearly Gates and there's ol' St Peter greeting him and saying "Listen, Jesus is a little busy to pass judgement on you, so he sent along his assistant. Meet Ted Kennedy. I believe you two are acquainted?"
Post-debate headline: "Warren Scalps Brown."
That ,I would like to see.
Let's save it for November 7, 2012.
Brown gets to drive his pickup truck to the debate. Warren has to drive one of those little pedal cars that say "Fire Chief" on the side. http://img1.classistatic.com/cps/po/101231/159r1/…
This is a great race between the least cartoonish Republican and the straight up best Democrat. Why can’t all national races be this good.
This makes that Van Halen tour rider seem reasonable.
Funny story about that: David Lee Roth once explained it. He said they did that to make sure the contract was being read fully. If they found brown M&Ms in their bowl, they had the accountants audit the contract.
That's actually a pretty reasonable, and clever, request when put that way.
i'll bet david lee roth thought that brown M&Ms turned him gay
Yeah, but I'm guessing that explanation took a while for them to come up with – because just cold fucking with promoters has been an artist's perk since Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel in his weird toga.
Which rider is that? The band must end the tour with the same singer they began?
Brown's closing statement: "Paleface Professor speak with forked tongue. Send me back to Washington, I tell Great Half-White Chief not raise taxes. Ugh."
I'm sorry Scott, I can't hear a word you're saying when you're wearing a shirt. I hear you best when you're wearing nothing but pink panties.
And Warren has to do the Tomahawk Chop and sing the Atlanta Braves Warchant before she responds to each question.
Warren should accept this on the condition that she gets a guarantee of neutrality from the most popular Republican in Massachusetts — specifically Scott Brown himself.
But seriously this is why state legislatures need to take time away from censuring women for daring to speak on the floor and set up pre-scheduled debates for high offices in the state so the campaigns don't get to negotiate down to the most bland "debate" spectacle possible.
You mean the very same high offices the state legislators dream of holding for themselves one day?
I only hope there are no strictures on the number of incidences of the word "vagina." Or any of it's variants.
Vaginas want to be free~!
And Liz can't do no Injun Thunderthigh Dance.
She doesn't have to endorse anyone. She can basically make her preference known during the introductions:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Elizabeth Warren, professor at Harvard Law School, special assistant to the President of the United States, special advisor to the Treasury Secretary, and expert on bankruptcies, and Senator Scott Brown, who once waved his dick in front of a camera."
See? No endorsement!
Though diminutive, it is actually quite a manly appendage for a Republican.
Will there be a drinking game for this one? I'm just worried that if we have to take a shot every time Walker stresses the title "Professor Warren," the entire Wonkette commentariat will die of alcohol poisoning.
I'm made of sterner stuff. I'll take that challenge.
I dunno. "Kennedy Bump" sounds a little dirty.
Especially when it's Vicki doing the bumpin'
Will they handicap this thing? Like tie half of Liz Warren's brain behind her back?
If you want to make this really fair, the other half of her brain would then have to go wait (silently) outside at the taxi stand.
Brown will also only debate if he gets to see all the questions 24 hours in advance, and is allowed to throw out questions he doesn't like. Here are some of the questions he has accepted for the debate:
Sen. Brown, when you are re-elected, how can we, as your subjects, help you?
Ms. Warren, you call that a face? Really?
Sen. Brown, since the 2012 deadline has now passed, which presidential election do you plan on winning in a landslide?
Ms. Warren, are you still having abortions every month? Why don't you just shut your legs?
To keep things neutral, both candidates have to appear onstage with paper bags over their heads and with their voices electronically distorted. Also audience members must be bound and gagged and the questions must be drawn from the previous night's Jeopardy.
"Dear Vic: I will attend your gay party, but you can't say you know me. Also, too, you have to swear to God you will never ever speak about Elizabeth Warren ever in your life. Step Two, MSNBC is so uncool. Make them go away, they freak out my fan base. OK bye. – S"
It would be totally reasonable if Elizabeth Warren banned MSBNC from covering it. I mean, would you want Joe Scarborough and Donnie Deutsch dissecting your debate performance?
Kennedy has to pledge to remain neutral for remainder of the contentious Senate race
Only if Scott Brown pledges to stop acting like a total asshole all the time.
Scott's demands:
Elizabeth Warren will have to dress like the girl on the Land O' Lakes box.
Background must consist of photographs of Chappaquiddick.
Moderator must have IQ no higher than the average chimp (or Fox viewer).
An audience member must yell "You Lie!" every time Warren says anything.
After the debate, Vicki Kennedy must buy Brown a new piece of rental property.
"Moderator must have IQ no higher than the average chimp (or Fox viewer)."
So we're back to Blitzer, eh?
I can't believe Elizabeth Warren engaged in the Number One White People's Cliche of claiming to have (always, specifically) some legend of a Cherokee ancestor. It is about as embarrassing as posing in Playgirl, to make that claim with zero Tribal backup, or take opportunities out of the mouths of enrolled kids on that basis (which she didn't, but maybe one of the handful of Ivy League Native scholars might have benefited?) But then, nobody gives a good goddamn what Native Americans think or feel about anything, ever. Have you ever even seen one on Bill Maher?
I've got to agree with you there. Great respect for Warren, think she'll be a great senator and she'll represent interests that have hardly any voices in congress, etc. And in the overall picture the demerit of her spurious claim of ancestry in the past is insignificant when balanced against everything else she has on the plus side of the ledger. But it is an embarrassment and a sign of bad judgement.
Mind you, she was a Republican up until 1995, which is also when she ceased to be so identified as Native American on Harvard official material. So during the time she was a Democrat, she never did anything like that.
Those damn Republicans! Spurious claims of Native American ancestry are just what I would expect from that gang.
I will say that I was stunned at the number of law school compatriots I knew who claimed NA status on a fairly hazy basis. Not a huge raw number but common enough to make you wonder what was going on. Especially since none of them wanted anything to do with the one professor who was puebla Indian and hispanic and had done all her scholarship on issues of tribal identity and property. I, super white boy, wound up as her research assistant.
From what I've seen, this whole kerfuffle seems to be a classic case of the schools seeking to burnish their diversity credentials as much as possible without having to go through a targeted search. I heard a dean (at a hiring conference no less) admit that she was always mentally "checking boxes" when she interviewed anyone, and the message was pretty clear – if you had anything that would make you diverse, sell it.
Yeah, I know. I'm 1/32nd Alabama Coushatta myself, but I certainly wouldn't go around telling people I'm Native American, or go through the rigamarole necessary to be "enrolled".
Especially since it's those other Coushattas that have a casino.
A friend of mine from the Upper Great Lakes who is, to the eye, mostly-white, has significant Native lineage, and an underprivileged background that is the multi-generational fallout of how Natives were swindled out of both identity and land ownership up there. This friend went to the trouble of going to the Native community and reservation and establishing relationships, especially with elders. This friend got enrollment and certification from the particular Nation, was invited to be a member of an association of Native American writers, and has something solid to back up an assertion of Native status. If you don't have that, you should get out of line in favor of someone with those credentials or better.
None of that says Elizabeth Warren doesn't deserve to kick Brown's ass and take his seat, but I am just flabbergasted at the Cherokee-cliche thing.
Elizabeth Warren is 1/32nd Cherokee. So is the tribe's current Principal Chief – Bill John Baker.
Make of that what you will.
Given the Irish heritage in Taxachusetts perhaps Gerry Adams could be the neutral moderator for a Sinn Féin sponsored debate?
Scottie, tell them you're too busy pimping out your daughter to have time for no stinkin' debate!!
In my dream I saw the corpse of Teddy skulfuking Scott Brown.
Fine, no MSNBC.
What's WGBH up to these days?
Wait a minute, Elizabeth Warren? Isn't she the one who made that speech about "No one get's rich on their own in this country", or something? Well,that's just crazy talk. Maybe we should tie her, and Ms. Kennedy, to a chair for the remainder of the race? Also, his campaign's statement that, "….while we accept Tom Brokaw as a moderator, we prefer debates with local media sponsors, not out-of-state cable networks with a reputation for political advocacy.”, means he will definately stay away from Fox (news?) during, well, forever. Right?
Kennedy's photo needs some McCain's tongue licking, I guess.
NO BROWN M&M'S!!!!
I'm late to the party, but this reminded me of a joke. An old lady walks by her parrot cage and the parrot says "Stupid bitch!" The old lady tells him he'd better watch his mouth. The next day the lady walks by the cage and the parrot shouts out "You fucking cunt!" The lady decides to punish the parrot by putting him in the freezer over night. The next day the bird is back in his cage and the lady walks by. The parrot stares at her with a killer look. The lady says, "What!?" And the parrot says "You know."
When asked if she endorses Warren, Vicki Kennedy could just say "You know."
Follow up: When the lady opens the freezer door the next morning, the parrot says "Jesus, what did the chicken do!?"
Scott Brown sure is a wimp.
She will beat that pussyfart like a rented mule.
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