Bro embrace after hurricane
President Obama has taken credit for bouncing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the 2016 Republican presidential primary race.
It was, said the president, the bro hug the two of them shared when the president came to the Garden State to see the damage following Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
"[A]lthough I've got huge differences with Chris Christie," Obama told a Los Angeles Times reporter last week, "the fact that I gave him a bro hug or something right after his state had gone through this enormous disaster and we were trying to work together to help them, those things suddenly became weapons to be used."
He also took credit for bringing down Illinois state Sen. Kirk Dillard, who resigned in 2014, because, according to Obama, "he said something nice about me, and it then punished him politically, which I deeply regret."
The president added that he has tried to socialize with Republicans in the White House, but it was just a no-go.
"I would invite a number of Republicans senators in my first couple of years to come over to the White House for movies or some other events," he said, "and increasingly, what you found was, is that it was hard for them to do it without getting in trouble."
Perhaps, if he thought of compromising on legislation once in a blue moon.
Talking about those guys back then
Buried deeply in the new, 81-page manual for city employees of San Diego is a section forbidding "gender-biased" language. But the manual didn't stop at requesting employees not use such language. It included words that should not be used - words like "Founding Fathers."
"Mankind," "manpower" and "gentlemen's agreement" were also among the words included in the manual's "Bias-Free Language" section.
As should be the case with every organization everywhere in the country, the "Founding Fathers" reference didn't sit well with Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal watchdog organization in Sacramento, Calif. The organization sent a letter to the city demanding it rescind what it described as a clear infraction of the First Amendment.
"At a time (Presidents Day) set aside to honor American icons to whom we owe our constitutional freedoms," said organization President Brad Dacus, "it is offensive and indefensible that the City of San Diego is directing employees not to even mention the Founding Fathers."
After a few days, the city backed off the ban, saying no employees would be punished for using the phrase.
"We are glad to see the City of San Diego revoke this type of censorship and PC insanity," Dacus said. "You can be assured that we'll continue to monitor the city to ensure that such censorship does not continue."
She is woman, hear her roar
Which is more important - to make history by electing the first woman president of the United States or by electing the right person for the office?
Gwen Ifill, co-moderator for last week's PBS NewsHour Democratic Debate, apparently thought there was a possibility the former might have been more important than the latter. So she asked Sen. Bernie Sanders, "Senator, do you worry at all that you will be the instrument of thwarting history, as Sen. [Hillary] Clinton keeps claiming, as she might be the first woman president?"
Instead of being offended at the question and lambasting the questioner about how the best person always should be elected, he answered briefly that electing someone like him - a socialist? a septuagenarian? a senator from Vermont? - "would be of some historical accomplishment as well."
Clinton, who has made her gender status the centerpiece of her campaign, said she had said "many times, you know, I'm not asking people to support me because I'm a woman. I'm asking people to support me because I think I'm the most qualified, experienced and ready person to be the president and the commander in chief." Oh, and because she was endorsed by Planned Parenthood and NARAL and because women "are under tremendous attack," but not - oh, no, no, never - because she is a woman.
'We're all Africans'
Meryl Streep may be a wonderful actress, but she wasn't very good at defending an all-white jury at a film festival recently.
Asked how she could fully understand films from North Africa and the Middle East (as if it was impossible to detect excellence in film if you weren't a member of the population depicted in the film), she said she didn't know a lot about the region but had "played a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures."
The I'm-not-a-doctor-but-I-play-one-on-TV was not a good response, but Streep went on.
"There is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture, and after all, we're all from Africa originally," she said. "You know, we're all - Berliners - we're all Africans, really."
At least, she said, women are included on the jury, and in fact dominate it, "and that's an unusual situation in bodies who make decisions."
The Twitterverse had a field day.
Among the best was a comment by "indr."
"Meryl Streep," the post said, "just out-white feminism'ed even your worst white feminist."