#emilybazelon

Let me take a moment to introduce myself --  my name is Chris Riley -- I have been an organizer in the LGBT movement for over 20 years and am the Outreach and Engagement consultant for THE CAMPAIGN. I strongly believe documentary film is a creative, unique way to inspire and engage folks and bring people into the movement.  

This past week, I served as a moderator on an incredibly new, cutting edge piece of technology -- OVEE -- ITVS' new social screening platform for watching PBS and local television programs together, from anywhere.  KQED, San Francisco's public television station, and WDET, Detroit's public radio station, sponsored Tuesday's viewing.

                           We invited leaders and journalists in the LGBT movement for a Tastemasters viewing of THE CAMPAIGN.  Truly an innovative and engaging experience, I was inspired to see movement leaders (including Out & Equal, Equality Ohio as well as others) online from all over the country watching, expressing emotions (through emoticons), asking questions and giving feedback.  

The whole experience was very interactive and offered a personal aspect as Christie Herring (Director/Producer) and Marc Smolowitz (Producer) were able to introduce the film by webcam and provide live commentary in the chat box.  

Emily Bazelon, Senior Editor of Slate Magazine; Senior Fellow at Yale Law School and host of SLATE’s popular podcast THE POLITICAL GABFEST, provided analysis specific to the US Supreme Court DOMA decision throughout the film via the chatbox.  Emily also talked about a variety of strategies to achieve marriage equality for states that ban marriage for same-sex couples.  

The viewers (and myself) found the platform easy to navigate, enjoyed the live chat and thought the whole experience was moving, inspiring, innovative and informative.  Participants can share via Facebook or Twitter while watching to invite their friends! One of the informative tools OVEE offers is metrics from the viewing. After the screening we can see how many people participated (75), shared with their friends via Facebook and Twitter (28), and how many times emotions were expressed by emoticons (260), along with a whole host of additional information. 

OVEE now gives us a new way to engage people we may not be able to reach and offer them a way to see THE CAMPAIGN, hear from movement strategists, and find out how they can get involved. Stay tuned as we hope to use OVEE again as part of our national rollout of THE CAMPAIGN.

Anthony Kennedy, the swing justice whose vote is so crucial that the courtroom became absolutely silent each time he opened his mouth, doesn’t like this case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, any more, if he ever did.

--Emily Bazelon, Slate

This is the second sentence and the first wasn't a smooth ride either. I read this one several times. Sure, this bit--"any more, if he ever did"--is awkward but it also doesn't make any sense. How would anyone know if a Supreme Court justice "liked" a case yet to be decided? Well, apparently it can be inferred from the questions he asked during yesterday's arguments  but Bazelon doesn't know enough to tell us that first.

But "any more" suggests--Oh, I don't t know--that he told someone at a cocktail party that he liked Hollingsworth. But then there's "if he ever did." No one every assumed he did. It's just stupid. As though she didn't even glance at the copy after she finished it.

I didn't continue all the way through this article. But I can't help but notice that Emily Bazelon has recently written a book on bullying (of children, I suppose) because it's been reviewed by several reputable pubs.  Surely, anyone that has come across her writing on Slate would know enough to avoid a book by her. As has sometimes been pointed out by Slate commenters, she is well connected as the granddaughter of a famous judge, David Bazelon, so perhaps that explains the extensive coverage. She belongs to the affluent Mommy blogger school when she isn't filling in for Slate's other Supreme Court writer, so perhaps she isn't paid.

Somewhere in New Haven, Emily Bazelon keeps a secret diary.  After the kids are in bed, she opens the heart-shaped lock and tears the pages with her purple pen.

"I HATE JOE LIEBERMAN!!!"

So it was all sundaes and frosting yesterday for Emily when news broke that Lieberman won't seek a new Senate term in 2012.  This made her SO happy she found some choice bits from Slate and made sure they were posted at exactly midnight on 19 January.  The first news article about Lieberman that day would be hers, dammit!

She references Curtis Sittenfeld's piece on Obama (another political piece that sounds like it started in a Lisa Frank diary) in what has to be the most obvious way possible.  Bazelon, "loathes, loathes, loathes," Lieberman.

Her grievances against Lieberman are justifiable.  He does things that benefit the financial and insurance industries, he chastised Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, he was hawkish on the Iraq war, he supported efforts to limit some morning-after pill access.  

Personally, she calls Lieberman out as a shameless self-promoter.  I don't think even Lieberman's staff would disagree.  But what Lieberman's doing with his excess of ego and constant political manipulation is what any political moderate in this day and age has to do to be successful.  Bazelon's distaste with Lieberman isn't groundless, but she's myopic in calling out Lieberman when she should be calling out the system that produced him.

Let's compare Lieberman to his buddy John McCain.  McCain wasn't going to win any conservative purity tests and he certainly couldn't curry as much favor with the establishment as other Senators.  So he played the role of "Maverick," deal-maker, iconoclast to the hilt.  He swaggered in his support of MOR legislation and, more importantly, never shut up about himself.  In doing so, he became a new center of power in the party and leveraged it into a Presidential run.