Oh wow. Dude, the mosque was on your itinerary. Bust out the good socks.
God, the comments at that link. What a bunch of morons.
I really like Pelosi's scarf. I bet it's very, very expensive, though.
She should have held out for a nice suit.
A commenter in the LGM post on this, the latest and most ridiculous of a series of ridiculous non-stories that the Powerline guys have promoted as showing the shocking perfidy of all Democrats, linked to someone who was throwing a fit that Pelosi was making the sign of the cross in the mosque, while praying at the tomb of John the Baptist. You go, right wing! Attack Pelosi for being Catholic!
How frightened they are.. Bet she can bite deer in half.
This and the Only Republicans Go to Syria thing make me think that we're entering a particularly surreal blogosphere moment.
Funny, I saw a picture of Pelosi in the marketplace with that scarf tied around her neck and was thinking of how smartly she was dressed so that she could use that scarf as a convenient head covering without calling too much attention to it.
I was just enjoying this FreeRepublic thread on Pelosi giving the sign of the cross in the mosque. They really don't know what to make of it. My favorite thing is that maybe a dozen liberal-hating avengers say really disgusting things about Pelosi's religion, enough so that it offends various believers who read the board, and don't appreciate the implication that going into a mosque or showing respect to Muslim hosts is an offensive or wicked thing to do.
I know we're not supposed to talk about it, but Pelosi really dresses well.
blogosphere moment s/b world history moment
Oh, I also liked the one where one person slammed Nancy for not being a 'liberated woman,' and another person spoke up and said, that's not fair, my mother had to wear a veil to Catholic church when she was growing up.
It's revealing of the doublespeak they use there. "Liberated woman" just means "good", and "Catholic" also means "good". There is some confusion on whether a veil means "bad" or just has no meaning. Nobody would think to suggest that maybe the Catholic veil for women and the Muslim veil for women, y'know, are the same basic thing.
At RedState, they're suggesting that her scarf was insufficiently lacey.
Hmm. I remember touring Jerusalem with members of the crew of an actual American warship some years ago and having to don appropriate coverings to visit the Western Wall. And we didn't even know we hated America.
Good. This is their equivalent for those discussions of whether Bush had some sort of neurological problem: a sure sign they're feeling powerless.
Jesus Christ how are they not too stupid to remember to eat.
13: There's nothing scarier than watching people frantically trying to solve the wrong problem.
Y'know, I try to avoid the trap of believing my political opponents are just too stupid to know better, but these links really aren't helping.
For God's sake, man, you're a law professor.
You say that like that's a good thing.
To be fair, the issue of whether or not to cover one's head while in a mosque is kind of a toss-up. Taking one's shoes off is a must (indeed, as my friend found out in Cairo, you'll get yelled at if you forget), but the head covering could go either way. Having just visited frickin' Al-Azhar without covering my hair, where I was treated with quite a bit of friendliness (it was my first time going into the women's section of a mosque; damn, that was awesome), I think it's not terrible to do so.
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that these people are fucking insane. Those comments are maddening. Pelosi is either really concerned about being respectful or just cautious. What's the fucking problem?
It's amazing to me that the sexism of the right can both indict women for being too feminist and then not feminist enough. Amazing.
Well I can think of another prominent-on-the-internet law professor who thinks women have an additional duty to dress modestly. And she claims to be a feminist.
Its amazing the power pictures have over some people. I once had a student tell me that W. Bush was a Catholic.
"He's not Catholic. Jeb is Catholic, though"
"No the president is Catholic"
"What makes you think that"
"I saw a picture of him with the Pope once."
In Russia my female friends were told they had to cover their heads on entering Orthodox churches - churches that aren't even used as churches anymore - because, as everyone knows, a woman's hair is an outward sign of her witchcraft. Damn those clever imams, infiltrating Moscow from afar!
"It's amazing to me that the sexism of the right can both indict women for being too feminist and then not feminist enough Democrats."
I think all politicians visiting another country in an official capacity have a responsibility to err on the side of being overly respectful and cautious and deferential to local customs. From what leblanc says in 20, she didn't have to cover her hair but given her role as a representative of our country, it was the right thing to do. How can they not get that?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Reynolds should be the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit tying FlowBee haircut systems to irreversible brain damage.
My favorite betting pool: who's genuinely not getting it and who's insincerely feigning outrage?
Oh, I'd bet that there's a fair amount of sincere outrage from people who know perfectly well that Rice and Laura Bush covered their heads in mosques -- prior knowledge of the characters of all three establish that Rice and Bush were being reasonably respectful in a foreign country, while Pelosi was kowtowing to tyranny like the dhimmi she is.
In order to be true to the free & liberated ways of my people, I must masturbate whenever I am in a cathedral, even if I am on a diplomatic mission.
No, the LGF line now is that Rice and Bush were in Israel, while Pelosi was in eeeeeeeeevil Syria, so it isn't the same thing at all.
Seriously, it's like they were all raised on a diet of lead paint chips.
John Doe's silence on the subject? Too appalled to speak?
The Freepers were unhappy about Laura's scarf too.
Law professors: Reynolds, Althouse, Dershowitz, Starr. Not a high bar there, like I said.
I like all the comments rejoicing about how the sight of Pelosi with a scarf on her head is sure to cause voters across the country to vote Republican in '08. Let them cling to that belief.
25: I think all politicians visiting another country in an official capacity have a responsibility to err on the side of being overly respectful and cautious and deferential to local customs. . . How can they not get that?
It appears they believe that the local customs in question are not only unworthy of any respect whatsoever, but that those customs should be actively disrespected in the most in-your-face way possible. To behave otherwise is self-evidently treason.
"raised on a diet of lead paint chips."
lead paint chips are their only chimperor, for diet.
It appears they believe that the local customs in question are not only unworthy of any respect whatsoever, but that those customs should be actively disrespected in the most in-your-face way possible. To behave otherwise is self-evidently treason.
Those freepers who were able to think of the scarf and such as 'local customs' seemed not to have anything against it. This exchange stood out to me:
No, I don't see removing the shoes or wearing the scarf as showing respect. Respect for a mosque means you believe what it stands for. I do not. I do not believe that Allah exists, and because of that a building where people worship him is just empty... when I remove my shoes and put the scarf on my head, I am NOT doing it because it is what Allah commands. I am only doing it because the man at the door says I must to enter... no different than if he wanted me to pay a quarter to enter the building.We have a differing of opinion of what respect means or doesn't mean. I too would love to see the Tomb of John but I could not do things required by a Religion that worships a false prophet just to do so.
He calls it a 'false prophet' but he obviously believes it to have some sort of power and fears its effect on him. He doesn't want to submit to Allah.
Can I say that it's a headscarf, which is not the same as hijab?
"Hijab" just means "bad." So does "burqa."
Where is it that I saw an ad saying "Bikinis Not Burqas"? John Doe? Too late—it's been co-opted!
The only chimperor is the chimperor of lead paint.
For God's sake, man, you're a law professor. A professional intellectual. Stop to think for a moment, I beg you.
Labs, are you stuck in, like, 2002 or something? How can this sort of shit from Reynolds surprise you? He's been doing it steadily for so long it doesn't even register with me anymore.
Who eats only lead paint chimps. He is chimpervious to their ill effects.
He's been doing it for so long, I stopped reading.
Why can't I stop? Why? Seriously, my life would be so much better.
Maybe you have obsessive chimpulsive disorder.
Why can't I stop making bad puns? Seriously, my life would be so much better.
He's been doing it for so long, I stopped reading.
Man, I was into not reading Glenn Reynolds before any of you cats.
I think this suggests an obvious follow-up for Michelle Malkin for her John Doe manifesto. To defy the scarfiness of mosque wear for women, she needs to show up at a mosque with a lot of women in lingerie and demand entrance in the name of freedom.
Seriously, my life would be so much better.
It would be a chimprovement.
50: So does that make me, who's never read Reynolds, even more trendy? Or must one have had one's ch(imp)erry popped?
"Why can't I stop making bad puns?"
compelled by the Chimp of the Perverse
39: I actually looked that up! My own Glenn Reynolds-bashing caused me to learn somehting, for once...
So does that make me, who's never read Reynolds, even more trendy?
I was making no claims as to trendiness.
CHIMPALE THE CHIMPOSTROPHER
No, but you were positively dripping with the insinuation.
58. A shot of penicillin will take care of that dripping insinuation.
I think I figured it out! This is all a "why fight feminism at home when we can fight it abroad" thing. Like, it's unfair that Pelosi's subservient overseas, when we can't keep that damn pest in line over here. Has nothing to do with the head-scarf itself, which would damn Laura and Condi too. This only applies to Insty, though, not the linked post.
The more I think about it, the weird right-wing attitude toward feminism reminds me of a psycho-jealous-abusive boyfriend, the kind who constantly says, "You're a whore!" and expects you to come crawling back to him for approval. When you then go and do exactly as you please, he keeps trying to insinuate that you could get back in his good graces, if you only...
There is some confusion on whether a veil means "bad" or just has no meaning. Nobody would think to suggest that maybe the Catholic veil for women and the Muslim veil for women, y'know, are the same basic thing.
There's a really strange semantic effacement that's endemic in some of these sites. Probably my favorite "wtf?" is how "moral relativism" is used to indicate that moral disagreement. "You're a moral relativist" = "Your universalizable moral propositions are wrong!" roughly 95% of the time.
Really, the crazy majority of the Righty blogosphere is AJ Ayer's "boo!" come to life.
61 gets it right. We should be grateful that they care about pseud-feminism when it's politically convenient.