Boston Legal on the PUMAs: "A Play in One Act"

I'm a big Boston Legal fan. It may not be, *ahem*, legally accurate, but then again, neither is Justice Thomas.  But, unlike his opinions, Boston Legal is actually fun. So while I was catching up on my TiVo'd shows over the weekend, I paid particular attention to Boston Legal. And it paid off.

Go back to your TiVo, if you record it, but DON'T go to www.utorrent.com (wink wink), and watch an episode called "Kill, Baby, Kill" (Nov. 17, 2008). The secondary plot centers around a woman who was fired from her job, says she, for voting for McCain: it comes out, though, that the real reason, at least per her employer, is that she was fired because she's dumb. What makes her so dumb, you might ask? Is she dumb just because she voted for a Republican?

No. She's dumb because she's a PUMA. At around 45:00, her employer explains the problem on the stand:

EMPLOYER: "Martha's never been the brightest bulb in the tanning booth, but when she talks politics I just cringe. For 16 months she just went prancing around talking 'Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary... and then she railed against Obama's inexperience all through the primaries, and then out comes some... moose hunter from Alaska... she knows nothing about Sarah Palin or about John McCain. What does that say about her? What does it say about someone who can be so arbitrary, so fickle? I'll tell you: she's an idiot."

Her employer fired her for being a PUMA! So what's the show's take on this? Is the employer the villain? Well, it's mixed, but producer David E. Kelley lets us know how he feels when the PUMA-client rails against one of the main characters, Shirley Schmidt, after her employer's tirade on the stand:

PUMA: "How dare you let him go off on me like that? You, of all people!"
SHIRLEY: "Now what's that supposed to mean?"
PUMA: "It means it was blatant sexism! I expected more from a person of your caliber!"
SHIRLEY: "Now hold on here!"
PUMA:  "Is that the kind of lawyer you are? Is that the kind of woman?"
SHIRLEY: "Honey, the sexist in all this is you!"
PUMA:  "Me?"
SHIRLEY: "Yeah, you claim to be a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter, but you walked into that booth and voted against everything Hillary stands for, and why? Because the Republicans added to their ticket someone they referred to at their convention as 'The Hot Chick'?"
PUMA: "So you just sit quiet and let me get brutalized on the stand?"
SHIRLEY: "I sat there for two reasons. First, there was no valid objection to be made."
PUMA: "And second?"
SHIRLEY [grinning]: "You ARE an idiot!"

Watch the whole thing. It's really quite stunning. And there, MadamB, is a "play in one act" that I can love.

Comments

[Pete]

Hilarious. I can't believe how much work that idiot puts in to her "plays in one act." Some of them had to be 5000 words long.

[scooter]

Watch online:
http://www.fancast.com/tv/Boston-Legal/94028/931509302/Kill%2C-Baby%2C-Kill%21/videos

[Citizen Cane]

While at issue of pumas, sexism and idiocy:

taggles1 12.02.08 at 9:45 am

"How bout we start a religion where castration is the only way for a man to be clean. He must have it chopped off if he wants to be accepted in society as a clean god fearing man. Or good for anything!

Chopped off with a blunt handmade tool and hope he survives."

http://pumapac.org/2008/12/02/profound-question-of-the-day/#comment-251237

I...

[Liz I.]

@Citizen Cane:

I saw that post. I am disgusted that this, and more, is accepted and promoted on the site with no sense of irony.

And what do the two images prominently featured today on Pumapac have to do with fighting sexism or injustice? Note the caption of this one:

http://pumapac.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/gay-obama.jpg

So, is being gay a bad thing now in the Pumaverse? Does it now equal sexual humilation? (The post, titled "Profound Question of the Day" (sic) asks: "Do you believe the sexual humiliation of boys and men is a karmic imperative?")

And then there's the Obama voodoo doll:

http://pumapac.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/obamavoodoo.jpg

For a lot of reasons, I can't accept even veiled threats of violence against a public figure. For me, PumaPac has now officially entered the territory of "the Secret Service should be monitoring this site daily".

Dances is still posting that President-Elect Obama isn't fit "to shine shoes." Mountainsong still calls Obama a "Kenyan Orangutang". And NewOrleansPuma is still calling for the denouncement and expulsion of anyone who dares voice a reasoned or independent thought all the while speaking in a fractured version of English which rivals Sarah Palin. (Does she drink while blogging? I hope so, because I find it sad that she'd write like that sober.)

NewOrleansPuma 12.02.08 at 1:01 am #72Mountainsong: Well that is another moutainsong wonderful interpretation of a classic traditional point: While we humans are constitutionally made for the Truth and its source as you name that source, we are as well marked by a tendency to be periodically and habitually by choice moving into habit if one is not careful and conscious to be drawn into the lies of darkness. That is as you well know the classic statement of what you in your mountainsong contemplations have so aptly described in your post. Thank you once again for your take on reality!!

I'm still curious as to how Darragh Murphey spendt $78,000 plus in August-September. And I'm still wondering when she'll file her overdue FEC report.

[Doug H. (Fausto no more)]

Meanwhile, Hillary took the podium yesterday and said she's happy to be President Obama's Secretary of State. That there wasn't a mass wave of PUMA head explosions tells me how far they've left Planet Reality.

[Citizen Cane]

@ Liz I.

I agree, Pumapac's lack of any intellectual and moral integrity has reached the highest level on a scale of evilness and paranoia.

@ Doug H.

That further proves that the aim of Puma astroturf has nothing to do with supporting Hillary, reform of Democratic party or even fight against sexism.

Puma “movement” was meant as Obama's swifboating in a dirty-trickster Roger Stone’s style and nothing else. I'm convinced that tension between both camps during primaries were provoked and spurred up by neo-con activists posing as democrats. Murphy was already debunked as one.

[Citizen Cane]

How can anybody still consider Pumas as “die-hard Hillary supporters” after that:

http://pumapac.org/2008/12/01/its-a-trap/

Murphy wrote: “Anyone here remember Hillary’s most shameful, horrifying, despicable, revolting, and disgusting EPIC FAILURE to reform health care back in 1993?”

… and than an ode to dear president Bush:

http://pumapac.org/2008/12/02/i-guess-we-really-have-been-at-war-the-past-8-years/

… what a disgusting travesty.

[Doug H. (Fausto no more)]

Oops, I did forget to mention the cadre of Ratfuckers at the helm. Now that Hillary's on the O-train, the wolves no longer need the sheep's skin.

[Mrs. Polly]

I cross-posted this at rumproast. The FBI divides the formation of hate groups into 7 stages, and PUMA is definitely hovering around Stage 4:

Here is the link to the paper “The Seven Stage Hate Model” by John Schafer:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/hate_groups/hategroup s355.html

Here are the steps, somewhat abridged:

“Stage 1: THE HATERS GATHER
Irrational haters seldom hate alone.10 They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities.

Stage 2: THE HATE GROUP DEFINES ITSELF
Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members’ status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate

Stage 3: THE HATE GROUP DISPARAGES THE TARGET
Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause.13 By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status

Stage 4: THE HATE GROUP TAUNTS THE TARGET
Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose. In this stage, skinheads typically shout racial slurs from moving cars or from afar.

Stage 5: THE HATE GROUP ATTACKS THE TARGET WITHOUT WEAPONS
This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive, prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets. Violence coalesces hate groups and further isolates them from mainstream society.

Stage 6:THE HATE GROUP ATTACKS THE TARGET WITH WEAPONS
Several studies confirm that a large number of bias attacks involve weapons.20 Some attackers use firearms to commit hate crimes, but skinheads prefer weapons, such as broken bottles, baseball bats, blunt objects, screwdrivers, and belt buckles. These types of weapons require the attacker to be close to the victim, which further demonstrates the depth of personal anger. Attackers can discharge firearms at a distance, thus precluding personal contact.

Stage 7: THE HATE GROUP DESTROYS THE TARGET
The ultimate goal of haters is to destroy the object of their hate. Mastery over life and death imbues the hater with godlike power and omnipotence, which, in turn, facilitate further acts of violence. With this power comes a great sense of self-worth and value, the very qualities haters lack. However, in reality, hate physically and psychologically destroys both the hater and the hated.”

This was written in 2003,and should be revised in light of the Internet. Like-minded, if you can call it that, people are better able to find each other now, but also better able to express their hatred to their targets without having to drive around looking for them. That may cut down on a lot of violence right there, at least the group sort.

The report is primarily skinhead-oriented, but does note the formation of everyday hate groups, such as hatred of an office worker. Plenty of groups hover around steps three and four, as does PUMA. Schafer calls these “immature” hate groups. Steps five through seven are attacking the target without weapons, then with weapons, and finally eliminating the target. That’s hate group “maturity”.

PUMA is primarily women, which is a hate-group novelty, and although white-supremacists have ladies’ auxiliaries, I’d say that women are unlikely to proceed en masse to physicality.

What’s worrisome is indeed the jennyforhillaries who are plunging themselves into PUMAland, and sounding distinctly Squeaky Frommesque. I think that a woman’s hate group would likely inspire individual acts of violence from a safe distance,rather than the young males’ preference for getting up close and violent with their perceived enemies. Also,it’s my hunch that since women often turn their anger inward, these individual acts of violence might be self-mutilation (Ashley Todd) or worse.

Participating in an anti-anybody group ought to come with a consumer’s warning label. I think of anti-Palin,Hillary, McCain, or Bush posts I’ve read, and there is name-calling, to be sure: Mooselini,Shrillary, Macsame, Chimpy--- but nowhere is there such continuing extreme denigration of the personhood of these people in such variety and with such vehemence.

It’s an ugly, ugly thing Murphy has started, cultivating this pernicious weed and cloaking it in happy songs.

[StrangeAppar8us]

Liz I. -- I'm really glad someone else noticed that NewOrleansPuma's literary constructions are becoming increasingly eccentric and convoluted. I'm certain she's drunk, but I've watched her style gradually deteriorate from inebriated to downright damaged. I'm amazed at the general absence of typos -- not sloppy, just incomprehensible free-form prose that seems to have become untethered from its meaning.

Then again, Dances, kat, mountainsong, Jenni and several others are exhibiting various degrees of nervous breakdown. It's difficult for the mind to cope with utter humiliation and defeat.

[StrangeAppar8us]

PS: Now the PUMAs are talking up "Boston Legal," because Denny Crane said Barack Obama isn't a natural born citizen.

Something for everyone, I guess.

[Bruce]

I missed this Boston Legal episode. But how accurate.

The PUMAs are all confused as to what to make of Hillary accepting SOS nomination. They want it but still trash Obama. Some think Obama put her in this position so he can destroy her. And so their insanity continues.

Good job David E. Kelley. Nice someone exposed the truth of PUMAs on a national stage.

[1-20-09]

Here's what the PUMA's remember about Boston Legal;

"Ex-DemInVA 12.02.08 at 7:31 pm

Did anyone watch Boston Legal last night? The character of William Shatner talked about Obama being bi-racial and not 100% black. He also stated on the show that OBAMA IS NOT A U.S. CITIZEN! Even the writers of Boston Legal know that Obama is not a U.S. Citizen."

Idiots!

[AltHippo]

Thanks, Mrs. Polly. This is one of the things I've been thinking about, too.

I was at the RBC May 31 meeting here in DC, the one where the Florida and Michigan votes were awarded for the purposes of the primary. I would say that parts of the PUMA contingency (though the name did not exist yet) were booing and catcalling in a way that suggested to me they wanted a physical confrontation.

During the summer I noticed that when the Palin rallies were turning violent the folks at Corrente were arguing that any reports of violence were overblown. This sort of denial concerned me, too. As did a comment by riverdaughter/goldberry at the Corrente site arguing that any violence by the former Hillary Clinton supporters was justified.

I don't think it's exaggerating to say that there's a potential for the PUMAs to act out in a harmful way. And, yes, the Jennifer4Hillary video seemed consistent with that premise.

[Ames]

1/20/09: sounds like the PUMAs are taking Shatner's character as the "message" part of the show. That's... an epic fail!

[EAccess]

riverchucky's latest:

"Come to think of it, the ring story is probably true. Unnecessarily large, tasteless and expensive. The kind of thing a Married to the Mob type would wear. It will look perfect on Michelle."

She's a miserable sack of crap.

[StrangeAppar8us]

Liz I -- BIG NewOrleansPuma in wig-out mode action today.

Too much to copy, but there are huge swaths of craziness here:

http://pumapac.org/2008/12/03/hope-you-can-deceive-with/

I've revised my diagnosis. This has ischemic stroke/tumor written all over it. Anyone as drunk as she sounds would be unconscious by now.

[StrangeAppar8us]

Liz I -- NewOrleansPuma or Dr. Bronner's Soap Label -- Which is Which?

"The 'crisis' in the economic system …happened when McCain had taken a significant move up in the polls. This was a manufactured crisis and a pulling back by those I call the 1%’s in order to turn the eye and the fears of the public in a direction other than McCain, who ironically was not supported by the same 1% nominal countyless so called Republicans because he certainly has never totally represented their interests..neither heretofore, I say, heretofore had Hillary Clinton. Her place in the world regarding the next linkage that will be used by Obama will be something I will watch carefully. Because financial incentives for so called economic development in certain countries and sections of the Tmiddle east, Palestinefor one,. as a so called “new” kind of diplomacy, money rather than war or guns and the mandates and requirement put to Israel to confirm and configure along with this will determine for me and for anyone to see just how much influence Hillary Clinton will have on anything coming out of the radical Fraud of a mouthpiece Obama.
For some years now , so called, what I call “freelance” private negotiators and groups, funded by the same 1% players have been noting this idea of economic incentives to somehow created”peace”…Tony Blair is now a member of one of these at a at least what is known initial salary of $1,000,000 dollars..and in my view, requirements given and agreed to by Bill Clinton re his world activitiy has more to do with attempting to remove him from this play than it does on anything having to do with Hillary Clinton as a Sec of State.
Watch carefully."

or

"Yet without the Moral ABC, after father-mother-wife murdered, ourself tortured- blinded, unable to remember our name 'Bronner or Heilbronner', this 76 word deathbed message, repeated 4 time, helped save our life in '46! In '86, 6 billion strong, it'll help rally-raise-unite all life All-One: "ATOM BOMBS CAN BE CONTROLLED BECAUSE URANIUM IS RARE! BUT HYDROGEN BOMBS CANNOT ALWAYS BE CONTROLLED BECAUSE HYDROGEN IS EVERYWHERE! IN 1910 NIGHT TURNED INTO DAY WHEN HALLEY'S COMET (ALMOST) EXPLODED! SO IF I DON'T GET OUT OF HERE, A HYDROGEN BOMB CHAIN REACTION MAY EXPLODE GOD'S SPACESHIP EARTH! I AM FIGHTING FOR UNITY NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, BECAUSE IN ONE WORLD WITH HYDROGEN BOMBS, WE'RE ALL-ONE! ALL-ONE OR WE'RE ALL NONE! ALL NONE! Yet, forced to sleep on the roof of the YMCA, penniless with the pigeons, we could not teach the Moral ABC of All-One- God-Faith, without which none can possibly unite the Human race! For we're All-One or none!"

[Katrina]

"heretofore, I say, heretofore"

Did anyone here this in their heads with Foghorn Leghorn's voice? Or am I the only weirdo?

[StrangeAppar8us]

Wow. I will NEVER mock NewOrleansPuma again:

"I claim that statement of camel turds…and claim it proudly….These camel turds have been dropped in buckets all over the world and they will continue to be dropped….I will do all that I can to collect the turds, the riders of the camels who drop them…the Muslim jihadists and flush them and their turds down the deep recesses of the bowels of the earth…there to fertilize the ground that a loving God above all and over all…and for all…gave allof us humankind.."

I can't believe that, mere hours ago, I believed she was a total fucking brain-case.

She is deeper than the Dalai Lama. "Gunga, gunga la gunga."

[StrangeAppar8us]

Katrina -- LOL. I hear Foghorn Leghorn EVERY time I read NOP. "Her mouth keeps flappin', but nuthin' comes out." "Nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."

Feel free to add your own. DOO-DAH!

[Liz I.]

You’re probably right (again) StrangeAppar8us. NewOrleansPuma's posts have become increasingly bizarre and she’s more and more hostile to anyone who challenges her on anything (I’m convinced the others don’t read her posts, unless she’s talking about food or drink.)

Meanwhile, there was a post by Murphy which quoted this statement:

Misogyny, on the other hand, is bullet-proof. It’s not merely tolerated, it’s openly celebrated in the American street, the American courtroom, the American bedroom, the American internet.

And, as if on cue, Mountainsong then comments:

mountainsong 12.02.08 at 10:15 pm
Is Nancy Pelousy really a woman in high office…..or a man in drag trying to appease feminists?

How can Mountainsong, a self-described hermaphrodite who loves women, make such hateful remarks? Or Murphy suggest:

we should post a Daily Point-and-Laugh picture where we (ahem) photoshop Pres Omigodicantbelieveitsnotbutter’s head on top of a humiliating nude man picture

But, as Mrs. Polly has astutely noted, they are denying the personhood of individuals. Starting with Obama, Dean, Pelosi, Brazille. And now men and Muslims.

I appreciated your “hate group stages” information, Mrs. Polly. And I coudn’t help wondering if Stage 5 may be coming sooner than I expected. Last night Dances proposed groups of “Puma Responders” as the cure for the sexism praticed by others. She proposed that such a group of women (in real time and space) surround Ed Rendall and force him to apologize, “etc” for his sexist remarks about Napolitano. (No suggestions were offered for how to neutralize or stop the on-going sexism, racism and look-ism revelled in by Pumas.)

I marveled, in the early days of PUMA, at the cognitive dissonance: "Our candidate lost! The DNC is corrupt! We are going to reform the Democratic Party by voting--REPUBLICAN! We are going to fight injustice and inequality by publishing virulent racist, sexist, ageist, look-ist, and homophobic comments!"

And then I was genuinely curious what sort of presence PUMAs would have in Denver. As a designer, I could imagine some effective possibilities, especially with a significant amount of money ($78 K) and the (purported) support of thousands. It’s interesting to look back to the June postings and see that there were many great suggestions for grass-roots organizing, none of which (thank God, other deities AND various humanist principles) Murphy acted on.

And I’m still pissed at the waste and the “non-accounting-for” of PumaPac funds by Murphy, who has just, with Dances’ help, shaken down the membership for another $3K. (Who’s she paying the money to? Guess we’ll never know if she never reports.)

Oh, and EAccess?? Did you see that Riverdaughter added this comment?

So what if Obama buys his wife a ring, although, *that* ring wouldn’t have been my choice. I can only speculate that rhodium is more flattering on a darker skin

I always feel like I've lost intelligence after visiting that site.

The root of the birth certificate movement is a deep racism and a determination to just eliminate, eradicate and erase the Other, in this case, Obama. Criticism and complaint is one thing (That asshat won! He’s an idiot!) Extermination is another thing altogether.

I weep, really. The ignorance I can handle; the hatred feels like a kick in the stomach.

But I am cheered sometimes, in a perverse way, by discussions like the one about Obama’s grandmother, and the speculation that she isn’t REALLY dead, and that Obama has put her in a Witness Protection Program.

Because that sort of reasoning makes me think, or hope, that they all are too deranged to act.

[Mrs. Polly]

They remind me of the Monty Python Upper-Class Twits Steeplechase, if you substitute Kitten sweatshirts for argyle vests and bourbon for gin.

Otherwise they are the Cognitive Dissonance Symphonietta (there being insufficient of them for a full orchestration).

[Mrs. Polly]

Sorry, it was the Gumbys who wore the argyle vests.

Change the argyle vests to bespoke bombazine.

Not that I exactly know what bombazine is, aside from a GilbertySullivany fabric; I just wanted to type "bespoke bombazine".

[EAccess]

Liz my favorite part of that rant is the "black like me" stupidity.

Michelle is *my* demographic. Well educated suburbanite with a creative class job and daughter in middle school.

Delusional.

[Patrick McKinnion]

"Meanwhile, Hillary took the podium yesterday and said she's happy to be President Obama's Secretary of State. That there wasn't a mass wave of PUMA head explosions tells me how far they've left Planet Reality."

Ah, but that's the evil anti-Hillary that teh ebil Obami conjured in his Kenyan/Indonesian Voodoo Lair, and has used to replace The One True Hillary.

It's simple really. If you're a retarded sloth with the social skills of a drug-addled crack baby. Or a PUMA die hard. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the same thing.