The Ben Shapiro Show


Can You Paint With All The Colors Of The Stupid? | Ep. 425


Summary

Trump starts a firestorm by name dropping Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas, James O'Keefe tries to sting the Washington Post, and it does not go well. Plus, I want to talk a little bit about the Bible and Roy Moore, because there s an article out today that requires some analysis. Ben Shapiro is the host of the conservative podcast "The Weekly Standard" and host of "The Ben Shapiro Show." He is a regular contributor to the conservative publication National Review and hosts the conservative radio show "The O.C." on Fox News Radio in Washington, D.C. And he is a frequent contributor to The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire. His newest book, "The Devil Next Door," is out now and is available for pre-order on Amazon Prime and Vimeo worldwide. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and also, Im gonna be giving out a FREE gift to one lucky listener who leaves me a review on iTunes! Thanks for listening and supporting the show! Timestamps: 5:00 - What's the worst thing a politician has ever said to me? 6:30 - Why I don't know anything about Native Americans? 7:20 - I don t get it? 8:40 - I ve done research on Native Americans 9:15 - I m not a racist? 10:00 11:10 - What do I know about Native American people? 12:40 13:30 15:00 | I ve actually done any research on the Navajo Code Talkers? 16:10 17:20 18:40 | What do you have a problem with Native Americans have been a good thing? 17 + 17:15 19:40 + 15:20 + 17 + 16:16 15 + 15 + 17) 21:15 + 15 c? 15 c = 5 c = 6 c = 7 c = 8 c = 4 c = ? #5 c = 3 c = c ) + + + c=3 c = 2 c = F = 4 ? + c=1 = 5 ? ? ? #3 c=4 ve=4 c = 1 & + c ? = c = A? + c = D = F&c ? ) ? &


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Well, hi there.
00:00:01.000 Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, Trump starts a firestorm by name-dropping Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas.
00:00:06.000 James O'Keefe tries to sting the Washington Post, and it does not go well.
00:00:11.000 Plus, I want to talk a little bit about the Bible and Roy Moore, because there's an article out today that requires some analysis.
00:00:16.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:00:17.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:22.000 No, we have too much fun behind the scenes in this show.
00:00:25.000 One day we'll have to actually make a video of all that goes on behind the scenes of this show because it's a lot more fun than the actual show, I think.
00:00:31.000 But, before we get to any of the current news, because there is a lot of news, including a lot of talk about Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas and the single funniest video, I think, of the year, which is saying a lot because it's been a crazy year.
00:00:42.000 First, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at the USCCA.
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00:01:33.000 It's a 164-page guide.
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00:01:36.000 We're good to go.
00:01:55.000 The news begins today on an up note.
00:01:57.000 So this was legitimately one of the funniest things that I have ever seen in covering politics.
00:02:02.000 President Trump had a ceremony to honor the Navajo Code Talkers.
00:02:07.000 For those who don't know the Navajo Code Talkers, go watch the Nicolas Cage movie Windtalkers, which is about the Navajo Code Talkers, a group of Navajo Indians, Native Americans who
00:02:17.000 During World War II were used to decode German and Japanese messages because they were just amazingly good at it.
00:02:24.000 And so they were honored at the White House yesterday in a ceremony.
00:02:27.000 Now this is directly out of Veep or Arrested Development or I mean it really is amazing.
00:02:33.000 First of all, you have to start, actually we should flash the image up so before we start so people can see what we're talking about.
00:02:39.000 First of all,
00:02:40.000 You can see behind President Trump is a portrait.
00:02:43.000 You can't see the head in that portrait just because the shot isn't wide enough.
00:02:46.000 The head in the portrait is that of Andrew Jackson.
00:02:48.000 So they are doing an event honoring Native Americans who served the United States in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the president responsible for the Trail of Tears.
00:02:57.000 Like the guy responsible for helping to violate a bunch of treaties with the Native Americans and the forcible expulsion of those Native Americans from particular southern states into places like Oklahoma, including the deaths of presumably tens of thousands of Native Americans along the way, hence it being called the Trail of Tears.
00:03:12.000 So just really well done by the optics folks at the White House.
00:03:16.000 But it gets better.
00:03:17.000 President Trump
00:03:18.000 It's obvious he doesn't know anything about the Navajo Code Talkers, and he has not actually done any research on it.
00:03:23.000 So he goes in his brain to, what's a joke I know about Native Americans?
00:03:28.000 Oh yeah, Elizabeth Warren.
00:03:30.000 And so this is a thing that actually happened in real life.
00:03:33.000 In the White House, with the President of the United States.
00:03:36.000 To really enjoy this clip fully, you have to keep your eyes not on President Trump, but on the Navajo gentleman, the U.S.
00:03:42.000 Marine Corps honoree, whom he is talking to, because it is astonishingly great.
00:03:47.000 What you really need is the slow pan and then the Larry David music coming in to make this complete.
00:03:51.000 But watch this clip.
00:03:53.000 It's just great.
00:03:54.000 It wasn't just what President Trump said about Elizabeth Warren.
00:03:57.000 It's where he said it.
00:03:59.000 At an event to honor elderly Native American code talkers who used their tribal languages during World War II to help confound U.S.
00:04:08.000 enemies.
00:04:09.000 You were here long before any of us were here.
00:04:11.000 Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago.
00:04:19.000 They call her Pocahontas.
00:04:22.000 And you can see the awkward smile from the Navajo Code Talker guy and the honoree.
00:04:27.000 And if we played it for a few more seconds, he then realized how awkward it is because apparently there are people who normally had to turn their face to the wall because they were laughing because it's so ridiculous.
00:04:35.000 And Trump then reaches out to the Navajo guy and he goes, I like you.
00:04:40.000 I like you a lot.
00:04:41.000 Like, really, that's how the clip continues.
00:04:43.000 So, that's pretty astonishing.
00:04:44.000 It's pretty, you know, that's pretty glorious Trump.
00:04:47.000 I mean, you know, there's good Trump, and there's bad Trump, and there's eloquent Trump, and there's just glorious Trump.
00:04:52.000 There's just the pure revelry of Trump.
00:04:54.000 Now, a bunch of people got very upset about this.
00:04:56.000 So, two things can be true at once.
00:04:58.000 One, Elizabeth Warren is the worst.
00:04:59.000 And Elizabeth Warren lied about having Native American heritage in order to get a job at Harvard Law School.
00:05:04.000 That can be true.
00:05:05.000 Second thing that can also be true, it's pretty buffoonish to actually use the opportunity of honoring Native Americans to make a Native American joke about a sitting United States Senator
00:05:17.000 As horrific as she may be.
00:05:18.000 And she is.
00:05:19.000 Elizabeth Warren's terrible.
00:05:20.000 That's pretty clownish.
00:05:23.000 If they were having an event honoring a bunch of Jewish veterans of World War II who had served their country honorably, and then Trump dropped a Jewish joke in the middle about somebody who had pretended to be a Jew,
00:05:36.000 It'd be real weird.
00:05:37.000 Like, that's a hell of a non-sequitur from the President of the United States.
00:05:40.000 But what's amazing about this is that the media insists that Trump was being a racist.
00:05:44.000 Now, Trump was not being a racist, okay?
00:05:47.000 Just stop it.
00:05:47.000 Just stop it.
00:05:48.000 You're being stupid.
00:05:49.000 It's not racist for Trump to call Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, okay?
00:05:53.000 He even gets the joke wrong.
00:05:54.000 The joke is Focahontas, because she's not really Pocahontas.
00:05:56.000 She's pretend Pocahontas.
00:05:58.000 Everyone has been making this joke for several years.
00:06:00.000 Really, since 2014, I believe?
00:06:03.000 2014?
00:06:03.000 2012?
00:06:03.000 Maybe even?
00:06:04.000 We've been making this joke about Elizabeth Warren because Elizabeth Warren pretended to be a Native American for her own personal gain.
00:06:11.000 In fact, here was Elizabeth Warren.
00:06:13.000 Do we have tape of Elizabeth Warren talking about her cheekbones?
00:06:15.000 She was specifically asked about, how do you know that you're Native American?
00:06:17.000 This is years ago.
00:06:18.000 And she explained that she knew she was Native American because she had high cheekbones.
00:06:23.000 This is clip number five.
00:06:24.000 Warren says her great-great-great grandmother is Cherokee, but genealogists have yet to confirm that.
00:06:30.000 Warren referenced a photo of her grandfather on her mantle as part of the family lore.
00:06:36.000 My Aunt Bea has walked by that picture at least a thousand times, remarked,
00:06:42.000 That her father, my papa, had high cheekbones, like all of the Indians do.
00:06:50.000 Because that's how she saw it, and she said, and your mother got those same great cheekbones, and I didn't.
00:06:57.000 She thought this was the bad deal she had gotten in life.
00:07:02.000 That was Elizabeth Warren's defense of her Native American ancestry.
00:07:05.000 That there was a picture on her mantle with high cheekbones.
00:07:07.000 That's not racist at all.
00:07:08.000 The media are still treating Elizabeth Warren like a legit 2020 contender after she said that she thought that she was Native American because Papa had high cheekbones in a photo and her grandmother thought that that was not fair.
00:07:19.000 Yeah.
00:07:20.000 Mmm.
00:07:21.000 By the way, Cherokees questioned Elizabeth Warren's story.
00:07:24.000 In fact, Cherokee sources talked about Pow Wow Chow.
00:07:27.000 They said that when they tried to track down why Elizabeth Warren said she was Native American, Elizabeth Warren said she was Native American because she had a recipe that appeared in an Oklahoma publication.
00:07:35.000 She's from Oklahoma.
00:07:36.000 And the publication was called Pow Wow Chow, okay?
00:07:39.000 Pow Wow Chow was supposed to be, exactly as it sounds, like a cookbook of Native American recipes.
00:07:45.000 Her recipe was a recipe for crab bisque.
00:07:48.000 No, I am not kidding.
00:07:49.000 Because obviously this was something the Cherokees did way back when, is they would hunt the crab on the plains of Oklahoma.
00:07:55.000 They would go out there with their bow and arrow and they would hunt the crab.
00:07:57.000 This is how the crab became extinct in Oklahoma.
00:08:00.000 It was because of pow wow chow and crab bisque.
00:08:02.000 It turns out she'd copied the recipe from like Harper's Bazaar or something and they just sent it in to pow wow chow.
00:08:07.000 Native American researchers looked at this, Cherokee researchers, they said, um, this is not true about Elizabeth Warren at all.
00:08:12.000 Here's a Cherokee researcher talking to Fox News about it several years back.
00:08:15.000 When we first discovered that Elizabeth Warren was claiming to be a Cherokee many years ago, she had published a recipe in a book called Pow Wow Chow, and I first became aware of her at that time.
00:08:31.000 But this most recent bout has been probably about sometime in April.
00:08:36.000 We heard her name again and became very concerned because she was
00:08:42.000 Moving into a public realm that could impact the Cherokee Nation and the Cherokee people generally.
00:08:48.000 Yeah, I guess what is it specifically that you find offensive or bothersome about this?
00:08:54.000 Well, at first we were not offended because many people have claims of American Indian ancestry and that's not offensive.
00:09:02.000 What we found offensive was that whenever we presented her with her genealogy and showed her clearly that she was not a Cherokee Indian and that her family throughout history had never been connected to the Cherokees,
00:09:14.000 She continued to make that claim.
00:09:17.000 Okay, so what is the reason?
00:09:18.000 This story goes back to 2012.
00:09:20.000 So what is the reason why Elizabeth Warren continued to maintain her Cherokee ancestry?
00:09:24.000 Because apparently, according to William Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection, she used that claim in order to get a job at Harvard Law School.
00:09:30.000 She claimed that she was basically a minority and that's how she got her job at Harvard Law School.
00:09:34.000 This is according to Jacobson on April 30th, 2012.
00:09:37.000 Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has been all over the newspapers the past several days after a revelation that Harvard Law School identified her as a Native American faculty member in the mid-1990s.
00:09:47.000 Warren contends she was unaware of the designation by HLS and that it played no role in her hiring.
00:09:51.000 She asserts her Native American heritage is family lore.
00:09:54.000 Subsequently, David Bernstein discovered that in the annual reports by the Association of American Law Schools, Warren was listed as a minority faculty member.
00:10:02.000 Since AALS bases such information solely on what faculty self-reports, the information must have come from Warren herself.
00:10:09.000 So, it is not clear, apparently, that she filled out the forms herself, but it's weird.
00:10:14.000 Like, where would they get this information anyway?
00:10:16.000 And HLS claimed that it had nothing to do with her hiring, that she was Native American, but it probably did.
00:10:22.000 They were doing affirmative action hiring at the time.
00:10:24.000 So, what is more racist?
00:10:25.000 Trump referring to her as Pocahontas because she faked her Native American ancestry, or Elizabeth Warren faking her Native American ancestry?
00:10:32.000 Well, according to the media, what's truly terrible is that Trump would call her Pocahontas in the first place.
00:10:36.000 So Elizabeth Warren is featured on national media acting with righteous umbrage at the notion that Donald Trump would call her Pocahontas.
00:10:44.000 And then what's weird is when she starts breaking out into colors of the wind.
00:10:46.000 That's the really weird part of this clip.
00:10:48.000 You know, this was supposed to be an event to honor heroes, people who put it all on the line for our country, and people who, because of their incredible work, saved the lives of countless Americans and our allies.
00:11:07.000 It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur.
00:11:20.000 Oh, it's a racial slur.
00:11:21.000 Okay, like, listen, Elizabeth, Professor Warren, as I knew her when we were at Harvard Law School, you know, Professor, Senator, let me just point out to you that you are the one pretending to be Native American.
00:11:34.000 Okay, you're the one who's talking about what happens just around the riverbend and talking to Old Mother Willow, right?
00:11:40.000 You're the one who's doing all this stuff.
00:11:42.000 Like, all of this nonsense about how it was Trump who coined all of this and that it's Trump's— Listen, do I think it's ridiculous for Trump to break into a Navajo Code Talker event to make fun of Elizabeth Warren for calling herself Native American?
00:11:53.000 Yes, it's absurd.
00:11:54.000 It's ridiculous.
00:11:55.000 It's buffoonish.
00:11:56.000 You run out of thesaurus adjectives.
00:12:00.000 It is equally ridiculous for the media to pretend that it's racist for Trump to call Warren Pocahontas when she's the one pretending to be Native American.
00:12:08.000 And yet Don Lemon on CNN did exactly that.
00:12:09.000 Oh, it's an attack on people of color.
00:12:11.000 Elizabeth Warren isn't a people of color.
00:12:13.000 Elizabeth Warren is whiter than this piece of paper.
00:12:16.000 Elizabeth Warren is the whitest person in America.
00:12:19.000 Okay, she's whiter than Sean King.
00:12:21.000 Here's Don Lemon trying to turn this into Trump's a racist.
00:12:24.000 Are you racist?
00:12:25.000 I am the least racist person that you have ever met.
00:12:30.000 I am the least racist person.
00:12:32.000 Here's what everyone should know.
00:12:34.000 Just because you say you're not racist doesn't make it so.
00:12:40.000 Especially if you say, do, and defend racist behavior over and over and over again.
00:12:50.000 Okay, so, no.
00:12:52.000 No.
00:12:52.000 Okay, so using the Pocahontas thing as the example is just ridiculous.
00:12:56.000 I was unfortunate enough to be watching CNN yesterday during the Wolf Blitzer hour.
00:13:01.000 And I have to admit that Wolf Blitzer, his show is amusing to me because virtually all of the show is just Wolf acting really puzzled about life.
00:13:11.000 So that's really fun to watch.
00:13:12.000 Every time somebody finishes a story, he goes, and that's a very, very important story.
00:13:16.000 And then on to the next story.
00:13:17.000 He's just, he's sort of a traffic cop for news.
00:13:20.000 But in any case, Wolf Blitzer has on a full panel, and it's Dana Bash, and it's Chris Chilesa, and I'm trying to remember who the third person was who's there, and they're all just beside themselves.
00:13:28.000 Trump, it's so racist.
00:13:29.000 It's just so derogatory to the office for Trump to do this.
00:13:32.000 Listen, is it unpresidential?
00:13:33.000 Yes.
00:13:34.000 Are you not used to this by now?
00:13:35.000 I mean, President Trump has been the president for nearly a year at this point.
00:13:39.000 Are we really expecting him to be the hallmark of decency and poise?
00:13:44.000 Because that ain't happening.
00:13:45.000 But the attempt to turn it into something racist is truly absurd, especially when, again, you want to know why Trump gets support?
00:13:50.000 Trump gets support because now the media, they can't help themselves.
00:13:53.000 Instead of just saying, utterly inappropriate for Trump to make these comments in front of a bunch of Navajo code talkers.
00:13:59.000 Instead of them just to say that,
00:14:01.000 They have to go overboard and say it's racist.
00:14:02.000 And then all of his people go, wait a second, the person who's racist is the person pretending to be the Native American and talking about why high cheekbones make you Native American, right?
00:14:09.000 That's actually racist.
00:14:11.000 I'm pleased Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response to all of this because I think that it is correct from the White House.
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00:15:42.000 Okay, so, here is Sarah Huckabee Sanders responding to claims that Trump was engaging in racism.
00:15:48.000 Why is it appropriate for the president to use a racial slur in any context?
00:15:53.000 I don't believe that it is appropriate for him to make a racial slur or anybody else.
00:15:57.000 Well, Monson thinks that this is a racial slur, so why is it appropriate for him to use that?
00:16:00.000 Well, I think, like I said, I don't think that it is, and I don't think that was certainly not the president's intent.
00:16:06.000 Okay, so that is correct.
00:16:08.000 What is truly racist is, again, Elizabeth Warren's schtick.
00:16:11.000 This is why Trump continues to have support among his base, because if you insist on going overboard with every claim, then you are going to create a backlash, and that's exactly what happens.
00:16:20.000 Okay, so.
00:16:22.000 In other news, there's an article that I want to go through because I think it makes an interesting argument, but it's an argument that, as we say in law school, proves too much.
00:16:31.000 So here is the article.
00:16:35.000 The article is from The Federalist.
00:16:36.000 There's a woman named Denise McAllister, who's a very good columnist.
00:16:38.000 I enjoy her work a lot.
00:16:39.000 She's on Twitter as well.
00:16:40.000 But she released an article that basically suggested that the Bible says that you have to vote for Donald Trump or Roy Moore, that constantly we are
00:16:49.000 Forced to vote for bad politicians in order to do good things.
00:16:53.000 That's essentially the argument that is being made.
00:16:55.000 I want to find the exact title of it.
00:16:57.000 Why it's justified to vote for a morally questionable politician.
00:17:00.000 Actually, the article is stronger than that.
00:17:01.000 It basically suggests that it's unjustified not to vote for a morally questionable politician.
00:17:07.000 And the article basically suggests that God uses bad people to do good things, right?
00:17:11.000 There's an argument that we heard from Franklin Graham about Donald Trump.
00:17:14.000 It's an argument that we're hearing now about Roy Moore.
00:17:17.000 And it's not an argument I find particularly convincing.
00:17:19.000 The reason I don't find it convincing is because we are not God.
00:17:23.000 We aren't.
00:17:24.000 Now, there is a complex moral calculus that goes on when you decide whether or not to vote for a politician.
00:17:28.000 You have to decide, are this person's character flaws so deep and abiding that one, they will prevent this person from implementing my values.
00:17:36.000 Two, they harm my values just by association.
00:17:39.000 There are people who will do what you want, but they are so gross that they smear your entire system of thought because you're associated with them.
00:17:45.000 And three, it's such an emergency that you have to side with Stalin in order to defeat Hitler.
00:17:49.000 In order to make the argument to side with Stalin to defeat Hitler, we heard this a lot in 2016, you actually have to be facing down Hitler.
00:17:55.000 It doesn't help if you're facing down Elizabeth Warren.
00:17:57.000 Elizabeth Warren is not Hitler.
00:17:58.000 As much as I dislike her, she's not.
00:18:00.000 Okay, this is the same thing that holds true with regards to Democrats in the Senate.
00:18:03.000 I don't think they're Hitler.
00:18:05.000 I think they're bad.
00:18:06.000 I don't agree with them.
00:18:07.000 I don't think they're Hitler.
00:18:07.000 And if you think that they're Hitler, then it's time for you to start engaging in some civil disruptions, right?
00:18:12.000 It's time to actually start building bombs if you think that Hitler is right on the horizon here.
00:18:16.000 You know, with all of this being said,
00:18:19.000 We have to acknowledge something.
00:18:21.000 When people say this silly argument that God uses bad people to do good things, that's a decision for God to make.
00:18:29.000 That's not a decision for you to make.
00:18:31.000 God is omniscient.
00:18:32.000 You are not.
00:18:33.000 So here's the question.
00:18:33.000 People say, for example, well, God used King David, didn't he?
00:18:36.000 And King David was an adulterer and a murderer, right?
00:18:38.000 He sent off a woman's husband to die in battle because he'd impregnated the man's wife.
00:18:43.000 Right, that's a question for us about God, right?
00:18:46.000 Why would God choose to do that?
00:18:48.000 But that's not a question as to whether David could do that if he would also attempt to build the temple, or if he'd also get rid of the Philistines, right?
00:18:55.000 David repents.
00:18:56.000 The whole point is that our human action is not God's action.
00:18:59.000 God does a lot of things we don't understand.
00:19:01.000 God chooses a lot of vessels we don't get.
00:19:03.000 That does not mean that we get to act evilly.
00:19:05.000 In fact, one of my favorite movies is Amadeus.
00:19:08.000 The entire premise of Amadeus is basically this.
00:19:10.000 We're at Salieri in the movie.
00:19:12.000 And in the play, which is just a beautiful play, Salieri is a relatively untalented guy who's saintly, and Mozart is basically a perv who is insanely talented.
00:19:24.000 And Salieri can't handle this, and so he decides that he is going to rebel against God.
00:19:28.000 Why would God choose this really terrible person in order to bring godly music down to earth?
00:19:34.000 Why would he do that?
00:19:35.000 And so he decides to basically kill Mozart, essentially.
00:19:38.000 And then at the end he realizes that it's not his job to determine why it is that God chooses certain people as his vessels.
00:19:45.000 It is his job to facilitate the use of those vessels in order to bring God's message to earth.
00:19:51.000 Right?
00:19:52.000 That's the point of the play.
00:19:53.000 And that's the point of the Bible too, by the way.
00:19:55.000 I don't think that it's our job to say, well, all the things that David did that were wrong are actually right because it turns out that God was okay with him.
00:20:00.000 That is backward logic and it relieves us of responsibility.
00:20:04.000 It relieves us of serious responsibility.
00:20:06.000 So, again, do I think that every decision about Trump, Roy Moore is easy?
00:20:09.000 Oh, they're bad guys, don't vote for them?
00:20:11.000 No, I don't think they're easy.
00:20:12.000 I think that we have a complex moral calculus on our hands.
00:20:14.000 We have to determine, is it better to vote for a bad person or an allegedly bad person who's gonna stop terrible things from occurring in the present, or is it better to avoid voting for that bad person in the belief that A, God could provide a better solution, B, there's a long-term damage done when we're represented by bad human beings since it dirties our cause, or C, maybe we actually have to take a hit
00:20:34.000 In order to achieve the resurrection of our values.
00:20:38.000 Denise writes this, and I actually agree with this.
00:20:40.000 She says, Will a serial liar deceive those who put him in office?
00:20:42.000 Most likely.
00:20:43.000 Will the porn-watching senator be influenced by his immorality to make bad foreign policy decisions?
00:20:47.000 I don't think so.
00:20:48.000 I think this is relevant.
00:20:49.000 I think that when we decide whether to vote for somebody, we have to determine how close their character flaw and their sin is to the decisions that they're being asked to make.
00:20:55.000 But it's not a complete analysis.
00:20:58.000 It does leave out the danger of allying with unsavory people to an advance and end from even a utilitarian perspective, which it seems that Denise is pushing here.
00:21:05.000 If we do that, we own those people.
00:21:09.000 Denise is right, we can't always vote for saints, but by the same token, that's a far cry from saying that we should vote for someone who's credibly alleged to have molested 14-year-old girls.
00:21:20.000 Then she goes into an analysis of the City of God and the City of Man, and she basically says that in the City of God then we have to ally with holy people, but in the City of Man we have to use the best vehicle at our disposal.
00:21:29.000 But that's not a proper read of Augustine.
00:21:31.000 Augustine's entire thesis in the City of God is that worship of Christ, because he's a Christian, is worth striving for, and that the City of Man is driven by worship of the material.
00:21:41.000 And that doesn't mean that you can't associate with people who live in the city of man, materially driven people.
00:21:46.000 But it does mean that you have to keep your eyes on God.
00:21:48.000 That's the important thing.
00:21:50.000 And the minute that you fail to do that, you have failed.
00:21:54.000 It's our choice to be holy.
00:21:56.000 It is God's choice as to which vessels He chooses to use.
00:21:58.000 We have to decide how best to be holy, not which vessels we think God ought to use or has used.
00:22:04.000 We can't read God's mind.
00:22:05.000 To treat our choices like divine choices, in other words, it's an act of arrogance.
00:22:09.000 And in the end, the argument's a bit of a cop-out, because basically it says this.
00:22:12.000 She writes this.
00:22:13.000 She says, I recognize the slippery slope that can come of what I'm writing here.
00:22:16.000 Why not put the devil himself on the throne if he offers liberty, some might ask.
00:22:19.000 I, of course, am not saying that, and I'm not talking about putting evil men in positions of power.
00:22:23.000 Well, I mean, she is a little bit.
00:22:25.000 She says, people are multifaceted and complex.
00:22:28.000 I'm not a fan of condemning a person for one failing or even a couple.
00:22:31.000 There's more to us than a singleness of a part.
00:22:33.000 I'm not going to fall into the trap of treating individual politicians or secular groups as if they're manifestations of the city of God on earth.
00:22:39.000 Outside the realm of criminality and abuses of power that degrade the office and put the public at risk, a sinner can still serve and do great things.
00:22:44.000 This is because God is ultimately in control, bringing about his purposes by his own righteous authority and not the authority of fallen men.
00:22:52.000 I hate this argument so much I can't even tell you.
00:22:54.000 The reason is because essentially what it is saying is that you can just vote for whomever you choose and then say it was God's plan anyway.
00:22:59.000 Right?
00:23:00.000 It's a deterministic universe.
00:23:01.000 God plans it anyway, so what does it matter for whom you vote?
00:23:03.000 This relieves you of the duty to make these hard moral choices.
00:23:05.000 Again, notice, in this argument, I'm not saying you can't vote for Roy Moore if you adjudge that it is the holiest choice to vote for a guy who may have molested 14-year-old girls because you think that it's necessary to have another vote against abortion.
00:23:17.000 That's a serious moral calculation that you have to make.
00:23:20.000 But to suggest that it is biblically mandated to do this, or that the Bible allows you to just overlook character flaws and not even take that into account, or sins, and not even take that into account when you're making these decisions, is a biblical misread, a serious biblical misread.
00:23:33.000 Well, before I go any further, and I do want to talk a little bit more about Conyers and Franken and Roy Moore and the CFPB controversy that I've got tons to get to today, a lot of news breaking today.
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00:25:03.000 Alright, so, there was another big story that broke yesterday, and this one, I feel bad doing this because I like James O'Keefe.
00:25:09.000 James and I are friendly.
00:25:11.000 And I think that James has done a lot of good stuff.
00:25:15.000 I think that James has, beyond the ACORN stuff, I remember when James broke news about unions who were basically suggesting that they had lobbied for make-work projects that they could get government dollars.
00:25:29.000 James did a lot of good work on voter fraud and voter ID.
00:25:32.000 But James tried a sting that I think is really bad.
00:25:35.000 So here is the background on this sting.
00:25:37.000 So James sent in
00:25:39.000 A woman pretending to be an alleged victim of Roy Moore.
00:25:43.000 So after the allegations about Roy Moore that he had molested underage women, James apparently deployed a woman to go to the Washington Post and claim that she had been impregnated by Roy Moore at age 15 and that Roy Moore had then paid for her abortion.
00:25:57.000 The purpose, I guess, here was dual.
00:25:59.000 One was to show that the Washington Post was so deeply motivated by a desire to get Republicans and get Roy Moore that they'd be willing to accept bad intel.
00:26:06.000 And two would be to discredit the other accusers of Roy Moore by saying that this is what the Washington Post had reported, that the Washington Post had no standards, that they hadn't checked out the stories, and that therefore the other accusers would be discredited.
00:26:17.000 The first allegation that the Washington Post has an outsized interest in Roy Moore because they don't like Roy Moore, there's probably truth to that.
00:26:26.000 The second allegation that all of the women that were interviewed by the Washington Post were lying, or that the Washington Post didn't do its due diligence,
00:26:33.000 That's gross.
00:26:34.000 Okay, that's gross.
00:26:35.000 There are a thousand ways to discredit the Washington Post and show that they have political bias.
00:26:39.000 They do have political bias.
00:26:40.000 But, to suggest that you have to use fake sexual assault victims in order to discredit real sexual assault victims, that's pretty morally disgusting, and I have a serious moral problem with it.
00:26:52.000 In any case, it really backfired because it turns out the Washington Post does its homework.
00:26:55.000 It actually ends up reestablishing the Washington Post's credibility, particularly with regard to the women who are alleging things against Roy Moore, because this woman went in and she tried to convince the Washington Post to run a story about how she'd been abused by Roy Moore so then they could come out and say that it was fake.
00:27:11.000 And the Washington Post did its due diligence and not only didn't believe her, they tracked her down to James O'Keefe's offices and showed that she was an agent of James O'Keefe.
00:27:18.000 So that actually ends up basically upholding the ability of the Washington Post to report, at least in a factual manner.
00:27:25.000 Here's some of the tape that was released by the Washington Post of this woman trying to basically catfish the Washington Post reporter.
00:27:32.000 I mean, I don't want to be in the story.
00:27:34.000 But I didn't agree to go on the record.
00:27:35.000 I'm not going to answer any of your questions.
00:27:36.000 I think I'm just going to go.
00:27:53.000 Yeah.
00:28:08.000 Think of better ops.
00:28:10.000 I don't think this should finish his career by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this is a very, very bad sting.
00:28:15.000 I think it's an immoral sting, actually.
00:28:17.000 I think there are plenty of ways to go after the media to try and demonstrate their bias.
00:28:20.000 And again, I think James has done some really good work in the past, but this is not it.
00:28:24.000 And it does demonstrate that the right is so distrustful of the media that attempting to plant a story like this in an attempt to discredit the media so that you can save Roy Moore
00:28:35.000 Not good stuff.
00:28:36.000 Okay, so I have many more things to discuss, including Conyers and Franken, the new CFPB, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau controversy, plus things I like and things I—just a lot of stuff coming up.
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00:29:50.000 So one of the reasons, there's a new poll out about Roy Moore today, and it shows that Moore is now up six points in his Alabama Senate race.
00:29:56.000 I think Moore is going to win that race, and I think that he will be seated.
00:29:58.000 One of the reasons he will be seated is because the Democrats, as I said yesterday, have now stepped on a landmine with both feet.
00:30:04.000 They have decided they are going to defend every bad allegation against every one of their bad guys.
00:30:09.000 They demonstrated their full-fledged hypocrisy.
00:30:11.000 Yesterday, Al Franken did a press conference, and this press conference is just a masterpiece of misdirection and confusion and awkwardness.
00:30:19.000 The fact that they thought that this guy was a potential 2020 candidate says everything about the Democratic Party.
00:30:23.000 Here's Al.
00:30:24.000 Al, hands on your butt.
00:30:26.000 Franken.
00:30:27.000 I know there are no magic words that I can say to regain your trust, and I know that's going to take time.
00:30:35.000 I'm ready to start that process, and it starts with going back to work today.
00:30:42.000 Okay, so what process is going to take time?
00:30:45.000 Like, not grabbing women by the ass?
00:30:46.000 I'm super confused about this.
00:30:48.000 Again, I've now stated this many times.
00:30:50.000 I've taken thousands of pictures with people.
00:30:51.000 Literally thousands of pictures with fans.
00:30:53.000 Not once have my hands gravitated toward their asses.
00:30:56.000 Zero times has this happened.
00:30:58.000 Zero.
00:30:59.000 In fact, negative.
00:31:00.000 Right?
00:31:00.000 There are asses that have not yet been created I will never grab.
00:31:03.000 This is not a thing.
00:31:04.000 Okay?
00:31:05.000 And then Al Franken, I love this part.
00:31:07.000 He says, you know, I'll have to think about it.
00:31:08.000 And then he says, you know, maybe more women will come forward.
00:31:12.000 I can't speculate.
00:31:12.000 By the way, more women are definitely going to come forward.
00:31:15.000 What is the reason, can you tell us, that you can't definitively say that more women would not come out with more allegations of these kinds of things?
00:31:23.000 Sure.
00:31:24.000 If you had, you know, asked me two weeks ago, would any woman come forward with an allegation like this, I would have said no.
00:31:35.000 And so, I cannot speculate.
00:31:38.000 Okay, you can't speculate?
00:31:39.000 I can speculate.
00:31:40.000 There are many more women who are going to come out with these allegations.
00:31:44.000 And you can see that because the Democrats are going to let Franken sit and this will all just blow over, the Republicans are like, okay, well then why should we throw over more?
00:31:52.000 The standards have been so lowered at this point that anyone can be elected.
00:31:56.000 Literally anyone.
00:31:58.000 You know, when Donald Trump said in 2016 he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it, that is not an exaggeration.
00:32:02.000 I mean, Teddy Kennedy drove a woman off a bridge and murdered her.
00:32:05.000 And then he left her to die.
00:32:07.000 And he was not only re-elected, he was called the lion of the Senate.
00:32:09.000 So yes, all of our standards are basically gone at this point.
00:32:12.000 Everything has become rote.
00:32:13.000 Like yesterday, there was this video of a campaign coordinator for the Roy Moore campaign literally attacking a camera person.
00:32:18.000 This came out yesterday.
00:32:19.000 You think this is going to lose Roy Moore any vote?
00:32:21.000 None.
00:32:21.000 You know why?
00:32:22.000 Because the antipathy for the media is so high among Republicans that it doesn't matter.
00:32:26.000 When Greg Gianforte literally bodyslammed Ben Jacobs of the Washington Post, he won his congressional race and raised more money the day after the bodyslam than he had the rest of his campaign combined, if I'm not mistaken.
00:32:36.000 Here's the video of the Roy Moore campaign coordinator.
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00:33:00.000 Okay, so solid stuff happening over there.
00:33:03.000 You know, none of this is good.
00:33:04.000 None of this is good for the country.
00:33:05.000 But we hate each other so much politically that we're basically willing to allow the worst of both parties to be elected to high office.
00:33:12.000 And we're willing to believe anything so long as it allows us to alleviate our cognitive dissonance.
00:33:16.000 We all want to believe we're good people.
00:33:18.000 We all want to believe that we don't like bad people.
00:33:20.000 We all want to believe we have some sort of moral standards.
00:33:22.000 But we have to alleviate our cognitive dissonance.
00:33:25.000 And that's why, you know, President Trump is an expert at alleviating his own cognitive dissonance.
00:33:29.000 He doesn't want to believe he's a bad guy either, and so now apparently he's making the claim that the Access Hollywood tape on which he was caught saying that he could grab women by the bleep and get away with it, he's now saying that that's a fake according to several reports.
00:33:41.000 Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about that yesterday.
00:33:43.000 Here is her response.
00:33:45.000 Back to the Access Hollywood tape, you said that he made his position clear at the time.
00:33:48.000 He said, at the time, he said, I said it, I was wrong, I apologize.
00:33:52.000 But you just said the media's reporting of its accuracy.
00:33:55.000 Can I ask you again, does the president acknowledge saying that?
00:34:03.000 Look, I said that he'd already addressed it and that we didn't have any updates to that.
00:34:09.000 I said what he didn't like and what he found troubling were the accounts that are being reported now.
00:34:15.000 The ones that are current that he's questioning.
00:34:23.000 That is not a thing.
00:34:24.000 There are no accounts that are correct.
00:34:28.000 In any case, there are a lot of people who will believe that because we all have to feel good about ourselves.
00:34:32.000 It's very important in politics that we feel good about ourselves and that means that we have to pretend that the evidence against Roy Moore is not damning.
00:34:38.000 We have to pretend for Democrats that the evidence against Al Franken is not damning.
00:34:41.000 We cannot live with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that we're voting for bad people.
00:34:45.000 At least I will give
00:34:47.000 Denise McAllister and a bunch of other people on the right who have basically said, Roy Moore may be guilty, but I'll vote for him anyway.
00:34:53.000 Some credit.
00:34:53.000 At least there's intellectual honesty there.
00:34:55.000 David Horowitz on the left.
00:34:56.000 I'll give credit to people who are this honest.
00:34:59.000 But I think that the vast majority of the public is not this honest.
00:35:02.000 Maybe honesty in this case is not the best policy.
00:35:04.000 Maybe we should go back to a standard where we all denounce our own garbage.
00:35:08.000 Okay, time for, well, you know, before I get to things I like and things I hate, I have to comment once more on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau controversy.
00:35:15.000 It's basically turned into an Austin Powers skit at this point.
00:35:18.000 There were like eight people who showed up yesterday at the CFPB claiming to be the new director of the CFPB all pointing at each other.
00:35:25.000 It was like the end of Reservoir Dogs.
00:35:28.000 They were all just standing there with guns pointed at each other in a Mexican standoff.
00:35:33.000 And Richard Cordray, who's the outgoing director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, he has come out and said, here's the basic backstory.
00:35:41.000 Richard Cordray was appointed by President Obama during a recess appointment that was probably illegal.
00:35:44.000 He was finally confirmed by the Senate.
00:35:46.000 He had a five-year term.
00:35:47.000 He stepped down a little bit early, specifically so that he would not hand over the CFPB, the controls of the CFPB, to a Republican.
00:35:54.000 And then he appointed his own successor.
00:35:56.000 That is not legal, okay?
00:35:57.000 He does not have the power to actually do that.
00:36:00.000 President Trump said, OK, now we have a recess, I'm going to recess-appoint somebody, right?
00:36:03.000 I'm putting in an interim director.
00:36:05.000 That interim director is my head of Office of Management and Budget.
00:36:07.000 He's going to come in.
00:36:08.000 He's going to clean house.
00:36:09.000 Cordray says, no, I get to appoint my own successor, which is illegal because Congress didn't get to approve this person, and the president doesn't get to fire that person.
00:36:18.000 So now we have an office that is completely independent of any accountability from any branch of government.
00:36:24.000 That's not the way that the bill was supposed to work.
00:36:25.000 That's not the way the bill does work.
00:36:28.000 The CFPB itself, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau itself is not a good agency.
00:36:34.000 The reason I say it's not a good agency is because originally it was designed to protect consumers but instead it's turned into basically a shakedown industry for particular democratic donors.
00:36:43.000 Richard Cordray and his allies have targeted specific firms that they want to go after and then they've used them to achieve settlements and fund their future projects.
00:36:52.000 It basically operates like a shakedown operation, the CFPB, at this point.
00:36:56.000 And it's dominated by Democrats.
00:36:58.000 Republicans cannot be employed there.
00:37:00.000 Republicans have basically been barred from employment there.
00:37:02.000 And they get their funding from overages at the Federal Reserve.
00:37:05.000 So it's not as though they are dependent on congressional funding or even executive funding.
00:37:10.000 It's automatic.
00:37:11.000 They are now a rogue agency that can do whatever they want if Cordray were to have his way.
00:37:16.000 Well, he can't have his way, and President Trump appointed a new director.
00:37:19.000 What's really galling about this is that Trump's saying we need to rein in the CFPB and actually wet it back to its original purpose, which is protection of consumers instead of shakedowns of particular industries.
00:37:30.000 You know, Trump saying this means that the Democrats immediately say any attempt to make any change at the CFPB is an attack on consumers.
00:37:38.000 This is one of these political angles I despise the most.
00:37:40.000 The political angle
00:37:42.000 That if I want to make a change to a particular law, it's because I hate the name of the law, right?
00:37:47.000 So what you would do for a Democrat is, there's the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
00:37:52.000 And you say, I think the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster.
00:37:55.000 They'll say, what, you want to make care unaffordable?
00:37:57.000 Hmm?
00:37:58.000 They would do the same thing with the Patriot Act during the Bush administration.
00:38:01.000 Well, are you an unpatriot?
00:38:03.000 Hmm?
00:38:05.000 No.
00:38:05.000 Okay, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, that does not mean that it's actually protecting consumers.
00:38:10.000 It does not mean that it's protecting consumer finance.
00:38:13.000 Right?
00:38:14.000 It's just the name of the agency.
00:38:15.000 But this is what Democrats are doing.
00:38:16.000 Here is Cordray saying that, you know, the new director isn't going to be decided by insults, it'll be decided by law, he says, after a lawless attempt to seize power at the agency.
00:38:26.000 This is the kind of disagreement that involves two different laws.
00:38:30.000 They conflict with one another.
00:38:32.000 The right place to hash that out is in the courts, which is where it is right now.
00:38:35.000 It shouldn't be decided by name-calling and tweets and insults.
00:38:39.000 It should be decided by people presenting their arguments and a judge thinking it over.
00:38:43.000 This judge obviously is looking at it overnight, so recognizes it's a serious issue.
00:38:49.000 Okay, so, again, this is, you know, this is nonsense.
00:38:52.000 He does not have the power to do this.
00:38:53.000 This is a really silly political controversy designed so that Cordray can run for governor of Ohio.
00:38:57.000 Gross.
00:38:58.000 Okay, time for some things I like, things I hate, and then we will deconstruct culture briefly.
00:39:01.000 So, things that I like.
00:39:03.000 I just finished reading this book called The Cartel.
00:39:07.000 It is really enjoyable by Don Winslow.
00:39:09.000 There are a couple of leftist sucker punches in the middle of it.
00:39:12.000 It basically suggests that everyone who's right-wing is bad, everybody who's left-wing is good, but the hero of the story is actually a right-wing guy.
00:39:19.000 And despite the attempts of the author, Don Winslow, to drop these sort of sucker punches against the Bush administration and to uphold the genius of the Obama administration, and this suggestion that America has been involved in atrocities all around the world and that we're really at fault for the Mexican drug cartels, the book itself is really good.
00:39:39.000 It's been compared to The Godfather.
00:39:40.000 I think that's actually not a bad comparison.
00:39:41.000 I've read Mario Puzo's original The Godfather, and this is
00:39:45.000 You know, much along the same lines, it's really kind of, it's juicy stuff, let's put it that way.
00:39:50.000 The cartel, it's also, it tries to make a larger point about the way that the government in Mexico has worked historically with various cartels in order to achieve their purposes.
00:39:58.000 If you liked the movie Sicario,
00:40:00.000 Then this book is very much along those lines.
00:40:03.000 It's a very cynical take on the drug war, and I think, given the non-success of the drug war, a relatively accurate one.
00:40:10.000 So check it out, The Cartel, by Don Winslow.
00:40:13.000 Okay, time for A Thing I Hate, and then we'll deconstruct culture for a minute.
00:40:20.000 Alrighty, so I have to say, today is a sad day.
00:40:23.000 Today is a sad day.
00:40:25.000 It's a sad day because Keith Olbermann has finally decided to hang it up.
00:40:30.000 Shut it down.
00:40:31.000 Walk out the door.
00:40:32.000 Leave.
00:40:34.000 Good riddance.
00:40:35.000 Keith Olbermann.
00:40:35.000 So Keith Olbermann says that he is leaving his GQ special correspondent role.
00:40:39.000 Why?
00:40:40.000 Because he has achieved his purpose.
00:40:41.000 No, seriously.
00:40:42.000 He says Trump's going to be impeached, so there's no reason for him to stick around.
00:40:46.000 I'm going to go with there's another reason why Keith Olbermann is stepping down from this job.
00:40:50.000 And it has nothing to do with President Trump being impeached.
00:40:54.000 And maybe it has something to do with Fluffy not getting her proper care from the mobile pet spa down the street, leaving me a ball of crying agony and wounded piss.
00:41:05.000 But, Keith Oldman is leaving.
00:41:08.000 Maybe it was the Halloween impersonation.
00:41:09.000 Maybe it was just too much for him.
00:41:10.000 Here's Keith Oldman explaining why he is leaving behind those crazy glasses.
00:41:15.000 I am confident now, even more so than I have been throughout the last year, that this nightmare presidency of Donald John Trump will end prematurely and end soon, and I am thus also confident that this is the correct moment to end this series of commentaries.
00:41:29.000 And so this series is over.
00:41:31.000 This was intended as something temporary, a two-month project by somebody who had given up politics.
00:41:37.000 But frankly, I have not enjoyed one minute of it.
00:41:40.000 As I'm certain it has also been for you, for me, it has been unadulterated pain and revulsion and horror.
00:41:47.000 No illness, no scandal, no firing.
00:41:50.000 Just, I've said what I've had to say.
00:41:52.000 So I am retiring from political commentary in all media venues.
00:41:58.000 Thank you for all the kind words and all the support.
00:42:01.000 Have fun storming the castle.
00:42:03.000 My work here is done.
00:42:06.000 Matter of fact, so is Trump's.
00:42:09.000 Resist?
00:42:10.000 Remove.
00:42:11.000 Peace.
00:42:13.000 Well, goodbye, Keith.
00:42:16.000 Resist.
00:42:17.000 Remove.
00:42:19.000 That weighs the door.
00:42:20.000 So, Keith Olbermann's gone.
00:42:21.000 That's sad.
00:42:22.000 It's a thing I hate because it's sad.
00:42:23.000 I like Keith Olbermann being around because what else am I gonna bounce off of?
00:42:26.000 I mean, I need crazy people to talk on a regular basis, otherwise we don't have a show, right?
00:42:31.000 So, that's sad.
00:42:33.000 And I just hope that Fluffy finally receives the proper care to which Fluffy properly is entitled.
00:42:39.000 Okay, time to deconstruct the culture briefly.
00:42:41.000 So, this was a specific deconstructing the culture request by a fan.
00:42:48.000 The song is called Lemon.
00:42:50.000 I don't know why it exists.
00:42:51.000 It was made by Nerd and Rihanna.
00:42:54.000 Pharrell, I guess, is one of the members of this group, Nerd.
00:42:57.000 But in any case, this song is hot garbage.
00:43:00.000 And it has some lyrics that are political.
00:43:02.000 We will explain.
00:43:03.000 Here's a little bit of one of the worst songs I have ever seen.
00:43:08.000 Okay, um, what now?
00:43:09.000 It's like Beethoven.
00:43:10.000 I mean, just like... And the artistry of the dancing.
00:43:14.000 It's like watching Baryshnikov just gallivant around the stage.
00:43:18.000 Magnificent.
00:43:41.000 Okay, I can't listen anymore.
00:43:42.000 That's garbage.
00:43:43.000 Okay, so the reason that this was mailed to me is because one of the lyrics here, and this is fairly typical of a lot of R&B and rap, is there's an insertion of random politics in the middle of a song where, number one, I'm not going to pretend that I understand anything that's being said here.
00:43:58.000 Okay, if I just listened to this song, I could not decode what was just said.
00:44:01.000 Okay, I speak a language called English.
00:44:03.000 That was not in English.
00:44:05.000 I'm good at English.
00:44:05.000 Like, I got A's in all of my English courses forever.
00:44:09.000 I don't think it's just me.
00:44:11.000 And this is not racial in any way, because I think there are lots of people who speak English with dialects I don't understand.
00:44:17.000 I don't know what that was saying.
00:44:19.000 But maybe there are people who do.
00:44:20.000 So, for those who don't know, I'm going to translate for you.
00:44:23.000 There's one point at which Pharrell says, hate.
00:44:25.000 You keep asking me where I'm from.
00:44:27.000 Hate.
00:44:28.000 About the borders and did I run.
00:44:29.000 Hate.
00:44:30.000 So that obviously is a rip on President Trump in the middle of a garbage song that no one can understand.
00:44:35.000 What I wish to suggest here is that we spend a lot of time on deconstructing the culture actually looking at lyrics.
00:44:54.000 Obviously, the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people who listen to this garbage are not even going to know what that means.
00:45:01.000 It just sounds like hate, and then a bunch of words, and then hate, and then a bunch of words.
00:45:06.000 You don't know what's actually being said.
00:45:08.000 What is more damaging to the culture, honestly, is the imagery that is promoted.
00:45:13.000 If you don't want women to be treated as sexual objects, which I don't,
00:45:17.000 If you are not interested in women being treated as just pure objects of sexuality, then perhaps you should stop depicting them as objects of pure sexuality as they are in things like this music video.
00:45:26.000 Now listen, this lady can dance however she wants.
00:45:28.000 That's fine.
00:45:28.000 She can wear whatever she wants.
00:45:30.000 That's her prerogative.
00:45:31.000 It's a free country.
00:45:32.000 All I'm suggesting is that if you are appealing to a young male audience, which a lot of this music does, and all you're doing is showing women shaking their rumps, you know, close-ups of women shaking their rumps, that would be objectifying.
00:45:44.000 Feminists would call that objectifying.
00:45:46.000 Okay, because it's objectifying.
00:45:47.000 And that does more damage to the culture, even than the bad lyrics.
00:45:50.000 It's one of the reasons why Hollywood, the damage that Hollywood does to the culture is mostly with its imagery and plot lines, not by its sucker punches.
00:45:57.000 So this is why there's a new movie coming out called The Post, about the Washington Post, with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, and it's just award season's bait.
00:46:05.000 It looks awful.
00:46:06.000 I'm gonna have to do it in Things I Hate tomorrow, maybe.
00:46:09.000 It's just self-congratulatory nonsense.
00:46:12.000 The Washington Post was about to be shut down by the Nixon administration.
00:46:17.000 No.
00:46:18.000 And the whole thing is really self-congratulatory.
00:46:21.000 That movie is not going to make a dent on the political scene, but there are movies that will make a dent on the political scene that have nothing to do with politics and much more to do with culture.
00:46:29.000 This is also true with a lot of this sort of music.
00:46:32.000 The hidden messages that are embedded in the music are often less important than the overt stuff, which in this case would be the overt objectification of women, the close-ups of women, sweaty rears shaking on your screen.
00:46:43.000 Okay, so we'll be back here tomorrow from Washington, D.C., actually, for reasons that will remain unspecified.
00:46:50.000 So that's mysterious.
00:46:51.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.
00:46:52.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.