"This is the theater!" — Patti Lupone goes all diva on an audience member.

"You heard the announcement! Who do you think you are?"

Then there's "LuPWNed! (The Patti LuPone Audience Freakout Remix)":

"[Sarah Palin] is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."

"Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

So said some unnamed McCain advisor, and Andrew Sullivan is powerfully enthused:

If McCain doesn't trust her, why should anyone else?

But the one thing we know about the adviser is that he is untrustworthy. He's stabbing Palin and McCain in the back. Why take his word for anything?

She doesn't have a "relationship of trust" with anyone, not even her own husband? Aw, come on, that just reads as implausible on its face. And "diva"? She's the candidate. She should be demanding, and she should be served.

Who is this weasel, calling her a "diva"? What are his political interests? I think they show through as he whines about Palin's future prospects on the eve of McCain's probable loss.

IN THE COMMENTS: jdeeripper said:

"Diva" is a sexist, homophobic code word, a dog whistle whose use is cynically calculated to play upon deep seated sexual fear and patriarchal hatred.

Simon said:

Why would we not assume that CNN is lying? Is there any reason - any reason at all - to believe that there was an unnamed source who spoke to "Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King [of] CNN"? That this unnamed source said what is alleged? That what is alleged is even true? Because we think that they're "professionals"? Who is still malingering under the sad delusion at this late hour that the media is throwing straight dice?

Not me. A controversial claim resting on attribution to an unnamed source, that serves the agenda of the agency? Why should I not think it's a lie? I say they made it up. Name the source and give us the video of them saying it, or tell us why we shouldn't think you're lying. You don't get to behave the way you've behaved and ask for trust.

"We believe Sondra is especially deserving of this honor because of the spirited way she campaigned for the title."

Oh, really? That's what divas do now? Campaign for recognition?

"Their lives overflow with dramatic possibility and struggle -- struggles that must be viewed through the prism of their gender."

David Lat defends his obsession with divas:

We will not apologize for having a weakness for divas. We have loved divas for our entire life, ever since we popped out of one's womb....

Every blogger develops his or her own idiosyncratic hobbyhorses and obsessions. Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, is obssessed [sic] with "porkbusting." Dave Kopel, of the Volokh Conspiracy, is obsessed with guns. The Wonketteers are obssessed [sic] with Katherine Harris.

And then there's this post, devoted to Janice Rogers Brown (who Lat thinks looks like Wanda Sykes):

During the Q and A, we got up and asked her (among other things): "Judge Brown, you're a fabulous judicial diva. But you're stuck on a court that focuses on administrative law. Do you feel that being on the D.C. Circuit cramps your diva style?"

Tee hee. And I love the use of all-caps in her answer: "I have NEVER thought of myself as a diva."

"Maybe goddesses have some hypnotic effect on policy wonks...."

Linda Hirshman responds to me and Mark Schmitt on Bloggingheads.

It's nothing. Just something I learned over in Scotland.

So Bob Dylan is buying a home in Scotland -- the "25 acre 10 bedroom Aultmore House at Cairngorms." The Aultmore House? Sounds like I should live there... A..lt...House. I belong there more. Well, I mustn't continue with these ramblings, lest Dylan think I'm crazy, and I'll never get an invitation. I'd like to see Scotland sometime. I never have. And I have ancestors from there. MacBeth clan.

Has Dylan ever showed an interest in Scotland? What is it about Scotland that goes with Dylan? I searched the Dylan lyrics -- you can search all Dylan's lyrics here. He's never once mentioned Scotland. You'd think with all his many songs and wide-ranging language he would have gotten around to mentioning it at least once. But then, has he mentioned a lot of countries? England: only 3 times. I wonder what country he's mentioned most often. I take a guess and get 7 hits. I tried a lot of others and none came close. See if you can guess, or maybe find one with more than 7. It turns out he rarely names countries. Even the United States. "But even the president of the United States/Sometimes must have/To stand naked." That's one of only 2. And only 1 for America: "I think I'll call it America/I said as we hit land." And that one's a dream that ends with him leaving (and desperate to leave):

But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin' the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin'
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, "Good luck."

So, good luck, Bob.

Post-Christmas musings about a real necklace and a virtual tiara.

Hi, everyone. Hope you had a nice yesterday, whether you experienced it as Christmas or Monday or anything else. Things were swell here. Other than that I received a necklace as a gift and then immediately proceeded to lose it! Since I didn't leave the house, the occasions for saying "It couldn't just disappear" and -- the classic -- "It didn't just get up and walk away" -- were many. It got to the point where it wasn't clear whether we were repeating the old clichés for humorous effect or whether it was nothing but the sincere expression of frustration. And now I'm blogging about it as if I think maybe my readers might have some idea where the thing is.

But you can help in another way. Start entering daily votes for me in the final round for Grande Conservative Blogress Diva. They've narrowed it down to four, not just two, which means it's not just me against Michelle Malkin. I think this is an advantage, since the vote for real conservatives is split among three, and the eccentric votes -- mine -- may be enough to beat any of three. I think I would have lain low and let Michelle have the tiara if it had been a contest between just us two. I mean, really. She's so much more the Conservative Blogress Diva than I am, don't you think?

(I'd much rather find the necklace!)

You'll have to decide...

... whether my encounter with Jonah makes me less or more deserving of your vote on the last day of round 1 in the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva contest.

"Even Judy Garland's most iconic on-screen ballad performances seem small compared with..."

The critics go nuts for Jennifer Hudson in "Dreamgirls."

And let me just say that I was writing about her by name the morning after her first appearance on "American Idol" in February '04. Here's another early post. And this:

I've been a big Jennifer Hudson fan since her first appearance on an audition show--February 3rd. (The topic is American Idol, people.) She was by far the best performer last night, as everyone seemed to agree, so here's my theory about her insane dress, that hot pink rhumba thing that a friend supposedly made for her. I say supposedly because when asked his name, she could only come up with a first name, and even that sounded like she just made it up ("George"). Anyone could see that was a ridiculous dress, so why did she wear it? Her bad clothes have been a topic of merriment on previous shows, so what I'm thinking is, the producers knew she would get through, probably by the vote of the people but if not, as one of the judge's selections. Four people are going through, and there is no question that one of them will be her. With that in mind, the producers had an entirely absurd dress made and convinced her to wear it for the sheer comedy of it all. She would agree to do it for any of a number of reasons: 1. She wants to be agreeable, 2. She has a sense of humor, 3. She likes to wear comic clothing, and (this is the real one) 4. She knew, and they told her, that by calling as much attention to her ridiculous clothes as possible, she was setting the stage for the future occasion when she would redo her image and suddenly look fabulous and receive lavish praise for her brilliant transformation.

And here's my reaction to her getting voted off the show:

American Idol: The Outrage. What the hell happened? That was the worst thing ever on American Idol. See my post from this morning for how I read the show last night: I thought Jennifer was the best. I thought the three Divas would be the final three. They were the bottom three! How could that happen? Jennifer was my original favorite, from the first audition. I can only think that the strong praise for the Divas caused people to think they didn't need help, and people speed dialed for two hours for favorites they believed were in danger. I must say they really revealed the results dramatically, telling George to join the safe group, causing him to walk over to the Divas (forming a group that was my predicted final four: George and the Divas), then telling him he'd joined the wrong group. Oh, the outrage!

Anyway... are you excited about seeing "Dreamgirls"? About the new season of "American Idol," which must be coming up soon? Do you picture your humble (diva) blogger going out to see "Dreamgirls" on Christmas? Do you picture me watching and blogging "American Idol" again this year?

Vote

Again.

Radio alert.

I'll be on Wisconsin Public Radio -- the "Ideas Network" stations -- at 8 Central this morning. I'm doing the "Week in Review" again. This is a show where listeners call in and can bring up any news story they want and two commentators respond -- presumably, from different sides of the political spectrum. I always count as the person from the right. (Can I complain if I keep asking you to vote for me -- daily -- for "Conservative Blogress Diva"? Why, yes I can, I say diva-ishly.)

So who do we have from the left today? It's Ed Garvey, of the Fighting Bob lefty website. Garvey was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1998. Longtime readers know my voting history: prior to 2004, I had only voted for three Republican candidates. I voted for Gerald Ford and his running mate for reasons described here. And once, I voted for Tommy Thompsons because the Democrats put up a candidate who was too far to the left. I'll leave it to you to guess whether this happened in 1998.

Anyway, the radio show should be up and streamable later today.

UPDATE: Go here to stream or download the show. (Scroll to the 8 am show.)

Intermission at the Overture Center.

Outside, there's a mist. The state capitol is enveloped in fog.



Inside, they've projected snowflakes on the wall:



On the night of the solstice, we're reminded of the cold depths that we are not experiencing. But we're here for the concert. It's the intermission, and we're milling around:



We're all here...



To see... Who are we all here to see? What singer would -- just by walking onto the stage -- make your humble diva blogress break down and cry?

It's Judy Collins.

Must we talk about Mary Cheney's pregnancy?

Andrew Sullivan has a big cover story in The New Republic about what the Mary Cheney pregnancy means for conservatives:

The more moderate conservatives... they took umbrage at any mention of the subject. Kathryn Jean Lopez, an enthusiastic supporter of the FMA and editor of National Review Online, wrote on the site's group blog, The Corner: "Unless Mary Cheney asks to be part of a political debate about this, there is no need to have a public discussion about her life. The New York Times raises the question of how/who, etc. That just seems outrageous to me. She is not the vice president. She is not the president. That's just uncalled for from anyone in the media/commentariat."

But the news of the pregnancy was confirmed by Mary Cheney, who did not object to any invasion of privacy. She is a public figure who has written a book about her private life. She ran a national Republican campaign. And her pregnancy is the kind of news that simply cannot be ignored or covered up--because it comes in the form of an actual human being, a child, who, thanks in part to Lopez, will be denied the legal security of two parents. And Lopez now wants it not to be personal. Sorry, but it is already personal.

Lopez's colleague, Jonah Goldberg, is a nimbler enabler of anti-gay discrimination. He rightly surmised that any discussion of this issue could only expose the incoherence or cruelty of the right's position on gay families, and so he advised saying nothing. He commented a day after the news about the absence of any mention of the pregnancy on The Corner: "I did like the radio silence around here." In a subsequent post, he wrote that, whatever the merits of the Virginia amendment definitively stripping Poe of any legal rights over her child, the question was moot once gay adoption had been conceded as a principle: "It's very difficult to make the lynchpin of your opposition to gay marriage 'the children' when gays have been allowed to either adopt, have, or otherwise maintain custody of children for a long time now. We are currently in a weird situation in that gay couples get kids all the time without the benefit of being 'married' while gay marriage opponents claim that gay couples shouldn't get married because it would be bad for kids. That horse left the barn."

This pragmatic, if somewhat callous, point is then accompanied by an actual stance: Goldberg says he now supports civil unions for gay couples. So why his complete indifference to something like the Virginia amendment? Here is his response: "What seems to bother a lot of pro-gay marriage obsessives is that I don't think it's the signature civil rights issue of our day. I just don't get that worked up about it, at least not anymore, and this lack of passion is interpreted by zealots as cowardice, strategic silence or bigotry. It's really none of the above."

It is not, he avers, "strategic silence"; and yet, only a day before, he actually congratulated his peers for their silence. Goldberg's final position, it appears, is that he simply doesn't give a damn. He can't be bothered to take a position. But then he splutters, hearing a rising protest from the social right: "I do agree with, or am intellectually sympathetic to, many of their principled arguments on this stuff (depending on which social conservatives and which arguments we're talking about)." Is that all clear now? Goldberg then approvingly quotes a reader who "gets my drift." The reader writes: "You take a reasonable stance on this Mary Cheney thing: none at all." And, yes, that is indeed Goldberg's position.

In fact, it is now the only coherent conservative position on a matter made impossible to avoid by the living, breathing reality of a mother and her child. Their position is nothing at all. Neither for amending the constitution to bar gay marriage nor against it. Neither for gay marriage nor against it. Neither supportive of Mary Cheney nor hostile. After two decades of debate, discussion, state initiatives, lawsuits, protests, custody battles, and on and on, the last coherent conservative position is nothing. On Mary Cheney, they are forced to take a stand. But any stand either attacks the base of the party or attacks someone they know and love. So they have no alternative but to stand very still, say nothing, and hope that someone changes the subject. It is as close to intellectual and moral bankruptcy as one can imagine...

One day, this will be the real conservative position on homosexuals as well as transgendered people: pro-family, pro-integration, pro-equality, and humane. One day, Mary Cheney's pregnancy may even come to be seen as a pivotal moment in that evolution. Derided by some gay activists, Cheney and her partner and their child may one day be seen as the real pioneers of a new world. Yes, this may be naïvely optimistic. But with a new life comes new hope--for Mary, Heather, and the rest of us. In the battle between ideology and reality, reality always wins. Eventually.

Jonah Goldberg responds:

Sullivan makes it sound like I actually addressed Poe or Virginia law. I did no such thing. I didn't mention or really even allude to them either. He makes it sound that I've suddenly endorsed civil unions ("Goldberg says he now supports...") when he well knows that this has been my position for years and I've taken heat from social conservatives for it. See here , here , here , here or Robert Knight's attack on me here. He treats my postings to the Corner as if I've set out to lay out my grand vision on gay marriage and then criticizes me for my lack of coherence (a variety of complaints the zig-zagging Party of Andrew should be permanently banned from ever offering). And he treats my whimsical, parenthetical aside about "radio silence" as some incredibly, absurdly, significant fatwah to the troops. My blog posts are not debated sections to some party platform of the Third International, each syllable pregnant with tactical and ideological import. The old Andrew would recognize this.

But the new Andrew has a fevered and extremist mind. He takes the positions of zealots of all stripes that if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. There's no space for not caring as much as he does, for not picking sides, for believing that the little platoons of life will fix problems without dragging the state into it or politicizing everything. So, even though I favor gay unions, shun the demonization of gays, ground my arguments against gay marriage firmly in small-c, skeptical conservative, Burkean arguments about the pace of change, and — as he knows — personally treat gays with nothing but respect, I am now nothing more than a nimble enabler of gay bigotry. Despite the plain and obvious meaning of my radio silence comment staring all fair-minded people in the face, he chooses to read my mind and paint me as some sort of Trotskyite strategist, terrified of exposing the internal contradictions of the "Christianist" movement. And, at the same time, he sees nothing wrong with demonizing me as morally stunted for taking a humane, rational, centrist position. Indeed, to the extent I have some grand strategy on the issue of homosexuality (though it is neither grand nor really a strategy so much as a sentiment) it is simply this: to vent some of the heat from the issue on both sides. But, yes, yes I am the extremist, cynically doing the bidding of other extremists.

Sullivan taunts. It's a political -- and bloggerly -- strategy. Mary Cheney's pregnancy is an occasion. He uses it. That's what bloggers do. There's an event. You note it, and then you play off of it, springing all your usual opinions, making them exquisitely timely all over again. Tagging other bloggers in the course of your writing is a good way to get them to link to you and boost your visibility. It isn't bad -- it's good -- if they are antagonized and they lash back the way Jonah did. This is the kind of writing keeps the political blogosphere going. (I realize Andrew's piece is in a magazine, but it's linked through his blog, and it operates by the bloggerly method.)

I'm in a rush this morning because I'm about to record a Bloggingheads.tv episode with Jonah Goldberg. Perhaps this subject will come up, but in any case I'll have more to say about it later. Meanwhile, talk amongst yourselves.

(And toss me another vote here, please.)

When divas attack.

Virginia Postrel -- who's competing with me in a diva contest -- paraphrases something I wrote like this:

Grande Conservative Blogress Diva frontrunner Ann Althouse attends a Liberty Fund conference and decides libertarian and conservative intellectuals are scarily like the 9/11 hijackers. (My response to her specifics is in the comments.) It does seem rather divalike...

What did I actually say?

I am struck ... by how deeply and seriously libertarians and conservatives believe in their ideas. I'm used to the way lefties and liberals take themselves seriously and how deeply they believe. Me, I find true believers strange and -- if they have power -- frightening. And my first reaction is to doubt that they really do truly believe.

One of the reasons 9/11 had such a big impact on me is that it was such a profound demonstration of the fact that these people are serious. They really believe.

Is the Postrel paraphrase apt? It does omit the fact that I made a closer comparison between libertarians and conservatives on the one hand and lefties and liberals on the other. And, in context -- what terse context there is -- you can see that I'm talking about the ideologues and hardcore fundamentalists of either stripe.

I mean to say -- and it's there to be seen if you are a sympathetic reader -- that I instinctively think of my fellow human beings as sensible and practical. We have some ideas and principles but we also watch how things play out in the real world and are prepared to modify what with think and correct our course when things aren't going well. People who embrace an idea with a death grip scare me, and they should scare you too. Look at history. Look what happens when people believe so deeply they lose sight of where their ideas are taking them and go along with their ideas even if they require other people to suffer and die. I don't trust the true believers and ideologues. I find them strange when they don't seem to feel the pull of common sense and human empathy. I don't want them to have power. They can sit around thinking and talking or praying and brooding, but I don't want to see what they would do with the world. That said, obviously, most people who are attracted to religion or politics of the left and the right are ordinary practical, sensible people. I still think that. It will still surprise me to encounter anyone in a death embrace with an idea.

Let's look at what Virginia said in the comments:

I don't know who was at this conference, and I've never read Frank Meyer, but I have been to dozens of Liberty Fund conferences and, more often than not, found them to be genuine conversations where disagreements are invited. The point is the conversation, and no one is invited to a conference in order to be "persuaded" or tested for ideological purity. (Lately, Liberty Fund has, however, been interested in including bloggers.)

That was true here, and I never said otherwise. But no one was invited to represent the liberal or left positions, and things were set up to create a sense that we were honoring Meyer.

But, and this may be why Ann is so uncomfortable, assumptions that go without questioning in some contexts--like Madison, Wisc.--do not necessarily enjoy such lack of scrutiny around a Liberty Fund table.

Well, that completely misunderstands what I wrote! I said that people at the table shared assumptions that would have been instantly challenged in my usual place of Madison, Wisconsin, and that I continually felt I needed to voice positions that were quite obvious and needed to be said and that would have been ignored if I hadn't taken on something of the role of resident liberal. By the way, if they had wanted to persuade me or proselytize, it would have been a horrible mistake to leave that vacuum, which I got sucked into. That left me feeling far more antagonistic than I would otherwise have been.

On the specific issue of civil rights, in my experience libertarians then and now have been divided about the question of public accommodation (as opposed to desegregation of government facilities like schools). Some, including myself, are acutely aware of the need to break the racial caste system that had been enforced through a combination of legal strictures and legally tolerated terrorism in the South. We are therefore willing to make the tradeoff in sacrificing freedom of association.

And, in that case, I won't classify you with the fundamentalists and ideologues who scare me. But you concede that you've got some libertarian friends who -- even today -- in the name of property rights, would have allowed private businesses to continue to discriminate based on race for as long as they felt like it. I was amazed to encounter people who not only thought that and admitted it, but insisted on fighting about it with idealistic fervor.

But, unlike our blog hostess, we explicitly recognize that such a tradeoff exists.

I don't know where that comes from. Explicitly recognize? Maybe that only means that I didn't write out a sentence in my post saying that I am capable of seeing something. So what? Obviously, I know that if you tell a restaurant owner he can't exclude black people that diminishes his autonomy and personal freedom. Telling people they can't rape and murder also limits individual choice, but I don't have to explicitly recognize that every time I write about it.

Others, most notably Richard Epstein among contemporaries, think that tradeoff has had too many negative consequences, including tangled arguments about whether private employers should be allowed to implement affirmative action. (He thinks they should be allowed to.)

As for the argument about whether economic pressures would or could have ended Jim Crow, it's hard to know how such a counterfactual would have worked out in practice; certainly there is some evidence, e.g., from the steel industry in Birmingham, that "foreign" (i.e., northern) firms resisted segregation. It's hard to picture a South full of segregated McDonald's, but one never knows. Certainly outsiders who wanted to integrate their customer bases or workforces were freer to do so than locals, who were subject to financial pressures (local banks could be nasty enforcers) and, in many cases, physical threats.

It can indeed be shocking to encounter such arguments for the first time, but that doesn't mean those arguments aren't worth thinking about, if only to understand why, other than knee-jerk "this is what everybody I know thinks" reasons, you believe they are wrong. The quality of the discussion at a Liberty Fund conference depends largely on exactly who the 16 people are and whether they are willing and able to enter into the spirit of the discussion.

I'm not encountering these arguments for the first time. I teach about them every year when we do Heart of Atlanta and Katzenbach v. McClung in Con Law. What is shocking is to encounter walking relics who are in love with the ideas that were used back in the 1960s to fight off the Civil Rights movement... and who aren't ashamed to declare their love publicly.

I'm not referring to everyone at the conference, it should be noted. Generally, people were smart, articulate, and decent. The conference was extremely well-run, interesting, and valuable. I don't want my following up on this point to cause anyone to think otherwise.

(To vote in the diva contest, go here. You can vote once a day.)

It's better than bad, it's good.

It's Audible Althouse, #75.

Oh, the travails of a conservative blogress diva!

Stream it right through your computer here. But everyone but the hardcore ideologues subscribe on iTunes:

More portraits on the red settee.

We discovered a great spot for glamorous photos. I've already showed you the one Chris took of me. Remember? (And let it remind you to vote for me for Diva.)

Here's one I took of my colleague Steph Tai:



Chris figured out the way to arrange things with the lighting on the face, but before I started copying his style, I was experimenting with the shadows produced by the ceiling spotlights. Here's one I did of Chris (including much more of the great poster):

Rein in your enthusiasm no longer.

It's time to vote. To understand why I should be the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, read this and this, including the comments, or use the comments section here to devise your own reason. You know there are so many.

UPDATE: The Anchoress, one of the nominees, links to all the other nominees, and just says to vote for your favorite. That makes her much nicer and more gracious than I've been, but does that make her more of a diva? That's the question you have to ask yourself, isn't it?

Grande Conservative Blogress Diva 2007.

Ooh, were you missing the chance to vote for me on a daily basis? Well, there's a new contest in town. I concede I'm not the most conservative. But I am a diva, and I am a blogress, and I can be your blogress diva, you conservative, you.

Please note that not all nominees are conservative per se. Some are libertarian. And others, while more centrist, distinguish themselves by their iconoclasm and the manner in which they take on the silliness of certain leftists -- and conservative pretenders, i.e., those who in the words of one of our nominees, "drives liberals nuts."

You know which one is me! And you know it's a very special thing I'm doing here. And you know I know what I'm doing. The voting hasn't started yet, so rein in your enthusiasm, but pay attention.

Audible Althouse #72.

It's a new podcast! It's about: how I don't want to be called "Ann," what it means to be "Conservative Blogress Diva," the Krash of Kramer, my message to Jerry Seinfeld, the effect of the Kramer Krash on Borat, dressing like Bob Dylan, anorexia, horrifying 80s music, plastic surgery for your kids, and... "Rigoletto."

Stream it right through your computer here. But all the divas and the guys who can sing a cute aria subscribe on iTunes:

ADDED: Here's the Wikipedia entry for the song "Sussudio" (which I revile on the podcast), which I see was "was ranked number twenty-four on VH1's '50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever.'" The other song I rail against in this podcast is "I'm the Only One" (which I was forced to endure while sitting in a dentist's chair this week): "Please baby can't you see/My mind's a burnin' hell/I got razors a rippin' and tearin' and strippin'/My heart apart as well...."

YET MORE: I'm not actually mad at people for calling me "Ann," just slightly annoyed at people who criticize me for calling myself "Althouse."

"How could we not adore such a strong-willed, right-wing judicial diva?"

Judge Edith Jones shatters David Lat's illusions.