It is rare on national television to have a guest refuse to speak and then just sit there, but that was the scene on Larry King Live with Carrie Prejean. It is always exciting to see legal technicalities and interpretations become the subject du jour for celebrity talk shows.
Just as a legal note, on this occasion, King may be right, but it is possible for the parties to mutually agree to bar any press discussion. A confidential settlement normally bars discussion of the terms of the settlement and not the motivation of the settlement. What Prejean is describing is an agreement for a gag rule. However, the pageant has released information, here. It would be strange for an organization to require “radio silence” and, if a gag rule was part of the settlement, it would be interesting to see which side insisted upon it.
Putting this aside, it is a matter of debate whether silencing an interview between Larry King and Carrie Prejean was a significant loss to the public discourse. Indeed, for those minutes of silence with Prejean and King staring at each other in silence, there may have been a net improvement of the overall journalistic content of the show. For that brief moment, a degree of sanity returned to celebrity cable programming. It was fleeting, however.
CEJ:
I agree, she milked this for all it was worth.
I have an idea, can you guys publicly denounce me and tell everyone that the left is afraid of me and hates me?
I can then run for political office and write a book. I will share all of whatever largess I receive from Regnary Publishing and Jack Abramoff.
All of you would also be welcome in my congressional house office. We will let “K” Street pay for the drinks and food.
Byron,
Your welcome; but did the “left” really “pick a fight” with Ms. Prejean, was she a victim of anyone (excluding herself)!
Buddha,
But… Football
CEJ:
thank you.
FFLEO:
“Any man that was not ‘man enough’ ended up in the rig ‘doghouse’ confinement and we all heard the stories of effeminate or unfit men taking a forced bath in an oil/wastewater pit with a swabbin’ brush as ‘its’ back scrubber.”
we called it doppin a “d . . . k” and by 1980 I think it was phased out. I had always heard that it was used as an initiation for the “worms”.
Gyges,
I had a similar experience last night. When I got home, my roommate was watching a show about how 2012 was going to be the end of the world which was being sponsored, no shock, by the latest Emmerich disaster porn “2012”. To say the “science” in this special was “science” is insulting to language and the fundaments of logic and perception. I’ve lived thorough both interesting celestial alignments and solar maximums. The net total effects I’ve noticed is that the alignments keep the astronomers busy. The sunspots? They cause the radio astronomy guys fits because they have to take things like the VLA offline and the NASA/Space Command guys fits because it inevitability kills a satellite or two. To your average guy or gal? It was a Tuesday. My roommate usually watches science shows with actual science in them. I asked him why was he watching E!.
I was informed it was the Discovery Channel.
As I worked later in my office, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people were watching that crap and taking it seriously because it was on “The Discovery Channel”.
I think my weekend is going to be a study in avoiding televisions.
When CNN does a story on PNAC, then I might start taking them seriously.
No; I just thought your turn of phrase given the *subject* of her video was funny!
CEJ:
I read it or at least part of it. Are you saying she is also a lesbian?
Byron @ 10:14:
“You guys on the left always pick a fight with someone the right wants to love and protect.”
Ms Prejean was a voluntary *beauty* contestant WINNER-Miss CA who became a *beauty* contestant LOSER-Miss USA (actually runner-up) she then chose the VICTIM status when she claimed “I only lost because I oppose opposite marriage!” Was she really a victim?
Byron @ 11:41: “…she is just personally, opposed to gay sex for herself.”
I’m pretty sure you did not read the *primer* linked to above; so could you please -um -er explain that statement? 🙂
Byron,
I am opposed to “gay marriage” as it is now ‘interpreted’. Perhaps my stance is a remnant of the Southern Baptist “beliefs” I had for 20 years—that I later shed 40-some-odd-years ago—and in conjunction with my conservative Republican views, in general.
Ms. Prejean had every right to state her opinion at the pageant and I think that Mr. P.H. is a putrid, pathetic individual who has the very same free speech rights to which Prejean is entitled. However, Ms. Prejean’s abjectly hypocritical behavior since then is fair game and open season for all, as long as libel laws remain unbroken.
You and I have both labored in the oil patches and therein we heard and saw it all. Although, I never observed any direct abuse, gays were disallowed as part of a crew and they “need not apply.” Any man that was not ‘man enough’ ended up in the rig ‘doghouse’ confinement and we all heard the stories of effeminate or unfit men taking a forced bath in an oil/wastewater pit with a swabbin’ brush as ‘its’ back scrubber.
Life can be tough and unattractive at times when 2 or more humans are involved and 1 does not ‘fit in’ with the others’ views or perceptions. I learned a lot about life in sports, the military, the oil fields, law enforcement, et cetera, all of those experiences molded me, and I would not have wanted any change whatsoever.
My work has several TVs up (sound off) tuned to various stations, one of which is CNN. They did a hard hitting report on “secret societies” the one in question… the Freemasons. Which is about as secret as the Elks Club.
When you do reports on the Freemasons, you no longer get to call yourself a News station.
She has some mental psychosis, the passive aggressive attitude is a symptom of a deeper set psychosis.. That is a disturbing interview when LK asked about her motivations, she finds herself a victim of her own judgments.. She is a text book case, sit back and watch her implode..
Elaine cuts right to the chase. Stories like this should be marginalized for political reasons but because they are trivial. Who the Hell cares what a beauty pageant contestant thinks? Honestly? See, they have “brain pageants” and they are called “schools”. If we were interested in her brain, we would not be asking her to wear a bathing suit but rather to solve differential equations. That being said, once in the public eye one should take care of what they say and how they say it. Everyone has a right to free speech which incidentally includes the right to make an ass out of one’s self. Prejean has no one to bitch at for her position other than Prejean. And again, she was competing for what? Who is hottest to the group of lecherous old judges? Why were they even asking her questions? The thin veneer of civility that a beauty pageant is not a meat show? A sex show sans the messy parts? Unless she’s a MENSA member, really and even then, who cares?
Filed under “Trivial Distraction” or “Bread & Circuses”.
Byron–
You said: “My problem is that free thought, speech and opinion is becoming less and less so.”
************
I guess I don’t see it that way. Prejean has been expressing her thoughts and opinions all over the airwaves–and in her new book, “Still Standing.” No one has muzzled her. She never would have gotten all this media attention and a book deal if she hadn’t been responsible for creating a cause celebre.
I would say that people from both the far right and the far left are often too eager and too quick to pounce on anyone who expresses opinions different from theirs. That we’re kept informed about all these trivial stories ad nauseam when our country is involved in two wars and is near economic collapse is probably a result of the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the anything-controversial-makes-for-good-ratings mindset.
Carrie was talking to god.
Great find JT!
Mike S:
I agree on the Anna Nicole Smith comparison. Prejean is a twit as far as I am concerned.
Elaine M:
that is their stupidity without first finding out what she was truly all about.
My problem is that free thought, speech and opinion is becoming less and less so.
Quite frankly the only reason I even know who she is, is because of all the hoopla created by that judge that asked her the question in the first place.
Quite frankly he should have asked her about apple pie and motherhood or her thoughts on greenhouse gases. This is a beauty contest, long legs, big hooters and pretty faces carry the day. Who even cares about issues in that venue? And frankly I don’t even watch, it is a monument to banality on the order of the Simpsons.
“I just cant wait until extreme right wing evangelicals takes over this country and puts PBS to good use – promoting pro-life, anti-gay, anti-welfare, anti-immigration, pro-religious views.”
Byron,
I know you’re trying to be ironic but that’s just what happened in the Nixon, Reagan and Bush years. You don’t remember Bill Buckley had a prominent PBS show? It balances out, but it is necessary to have an alternative to the crap on the air. HBO thus far has been the only good programmer of note and who knows how long that will continue.
As for Ms.Prejean, she is a hypocrite utilizing supposedly family values to promote herself, but too dumb to realize that her skimpy clothing and self-centered sexuality run counter to her professed beliefs. She was fired from the pageant not because of her answer on gay marriage, or because of the nude photos that turned up. She was fired because of her habit of missing speaking commitments. This past week alone she has missed two. My guess is she is closer to Anna Nicole Smith, than to Ann Coulter.
cej:
they are tastefully done works of art! What is the problem here? It is not like she had sex with someone in a subordinate position to her.
She appears to like heterosexual sex, she is just personally opposed to gay sex for herself.
It is just sex so what? Are we really so puritanical that an attractive woman is villified because of her sexuality? Quite frankly I dont see the problem. It appears that she is being raked through the coals because of a personal opposition to gay marriage. Had she said that gay marriage was great and that she was all for it none of this would have happened.
So now in America we cannot have an opinion that is in opposition to liberal orthodoxy?
Byron–
You said: “Personally, I think she has gotten the shaft for a simple comment of opinion.”
***************
Sure, she took the heat for her comment about “opposite” and other kinds of marriage. The “shaft” you speak off turned into a shaft of bright glowing “right wing” light that she basked in.
While she may have been castigated for her viewpoint by some proponents of gay marriage, certain conservative groups couldn’t wait to hold her up as some kind of martyr and “family values” heroine.
I say: Who cares what Carrie, a beauty pageant contestant, thinks anyhow?