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Hillary Clinton Joins Joe Lieberman to Resurrect the Culture Wars
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I guess this must be one for those of us who spent the 90s wanting to throw large objects through the television set as we watched that sanctimonious, finger wagging, judgmental scold Joe Lieberman on the floor of the Senate joining with the Republicans to derail the constitution over Bill Clinton's zipper:
Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Evan Bayh (D-IN), and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) called for a thorough review of the video game ratings process in the wake of "Manhunt 2" receiving a "Mature" rating. In a letter to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), the Senators detailed how the change in rating opened the door to widespread release of the game, which depicts acts of horrific violence.
Well that is just peachy. Do we suppose Hillary sat down and actually played Manhunt 2 on the campaign trail in order to arrive at this conclusion, or did she just take Joe's word for it, much like she did when she voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that others have quite rightly pilloried her for? Because Joe, you'll recall, was a useful idiot for the Bushies when they discovered Iran had no nuclear weapons program and they had to find another reason to bomb them into the stone age -- something they neglected to tell the public about. And despite the fact that Clinton's excuse for voting for the AUMF was that she had "bad information" from the Bush Administration on the Iraq weapons program, she decided to trust them -- and Lieberman -- and amp up the Iran war rhetoric.
One wonders at what point she will stop following Lieberman over the cliff.
I agree that the current ratings system and all its consequences needs to be seriously re-evaluated, but not in the sense that Clinton et al apparently do, which is that Manhunt 2 never should have been released.
The uncharitable amongst us might conclude that this is simply a cynical ploy on Clinton's part to pander to old people, upon whom her Iowa chances depend. I'm sure that's not the case. Which is why I'd like to resurrect a suggestion from last year that Clinton find her voice and condemn the violent religious intolerance expressed in the Left Behind video game.
Jon Hutson describes the game:
See more stories tagged with: joe lieberman, hillary clinton, culture wars
Jane Hamsher blogs regularly at firedoglake.com.
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