Because their movies sucked.

(For the same reason, white-blonde-and-blue-eyed Princess Eilonwy from The Black Cauldron never shows up on Disney merchandise either.)

(Jasmine is semi-prominent, because her movie was good whenever the genie was on screen, boring whenever he wasn't, and she isn't the genie.)

If The Princess and the Frog is good, Tiana will be on pillow cases. If not, not.

...but given that Robert Reich evidently won't be happy until he's filled the entire Salon Opinion with variations on his "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Deindustrialization" theme, I suppose that entitles me to another. Two points:

1. It's perhaps telling that Robert Reich's definition of "the best-trained workers" seems to mean "the workers trained to be most like Robert Reich."

2. If we really want a prosperous economic future, a good first step might be to ignore anything said by anyone who worked in the last four presidential administrations.

and those of you who might be quick to point out the issues arising from his Central American policy would do well to remember that it was the Clintonites who came along later to explain that "rule of law" was a) a matter of interpretation and b) beside the point, at least where illicit sex was concerned.

-------------------------------------------------------

^ I'm astonished by this quote. It's the sort of reductio ad absurdum of conservative rhetoric that I'd expect to see in a Tom Tomorrow cartoon. To see it written by someone who is ostensibly trying to present conservatism in a good light is bizarre.

I expect that Wingnut may now regret writing it. If he were able to rewrite the column, I expect he might take more time to elaborate his point. He might state that he isn't equating Iran-contra with Clinton perjuring himself over Monica Lewinsky (of course), but simply pointing out that it is naive to expect any president to perfectly abide by the rule of law at all times.

But, of course, he can't rewrite his column. And the above quote is an extraordinary display of rhetorical ineptness. (It's not the only such display that I've seen in the Wingnut columns I've read, but it is the most striking.)

The "editor's note" that precedes this column claims that Wingnut's purpose at Salon is to explain the ways of conservatives to liberals. To present a bungler as a representative of American conservatism is a disservice to both liberals and conservatives. To liberals, because conveying the impression that the likes of Wingnut are all we are up against is liable to make us complacent. To conservatives, because they are being badly represented.

Salon, of course, has a right to publish whatever they want to publish. (Though it is jarring to have an anonymous conservative commentator on the same site where Glenn Greenwald regularly inveighs against conservatives who attempt to influence the public discourse while hiding behind anonymity.) But the "Editor's note" to these columns is a case of false advertising. I suggest that the above quote be tacked on to the top of all Wingnut's subsequent columns, to give readers an approximate idea of how seriously they ought to take him.

"Instead, they're lining up to find fault with Obama's faultless and inspiring Cairo speech."

^ This is laying it on a bit thick.

"I like how commercial media reps ignore the most stunningly successful policies of our time: neo liberalism."

^ The implication here being that everyone was going swimmingly in the Clinton years, and that the Republicans managed to conjure up the conditions for the current economic situation in a scant 8 years.

Sure.

"Bush started his presidency with a surplus and ended it with a massive deficit.

He started his presidency with a healthy economy and now it's in tatters.

And what's with "only eight years"? That's more than enough time to screw up a nation. I have to wonder - where have you been all decade?"

--------------------------------------------------

Don't mistake me for a Bush apologist. The last eight years have been a catastrophe.

That said: I'd be curious to know where you were in the 1990s, to conclude that our economy was in a "healthy" state when Clinton left office.

(http://www.globalpolicy.org/images/socecon/crisis/2004/dollarfall.gif)

"Hopefully globalization will eventually smooth out all differences. I think that in a hundred years the whole world can have the same standard of living as Europe, Japan, the US, Canada, et al, have. As for the States, well, a country without factories is one without wealth. This will come back soon, as labor costs start competing with distant labor costs."

^ So, basically, reduce the American standard of living to third world levels, then wait for third world standards of living to rise to first world levels.

I'm astonished. One rarely sees the pro-globalization case stated so straighforwardly.

Those of us who knew that Borat was no more a representative portrayal of America than Dickens' American Notes now have the luxury of being completely unsurprised by this piece of shit.

^ This is very close to saying "Judges have to govern because elected officials aren't good enough at it."

Does Bateman really want to go there?

"I don't think Hu Jintao makes a good Kaiser Wilhelm"

He certainly doesn't. He does, however, make a good Bismarck. (Bismarck after 1870, of course.) (Not as smart as Bismarck, but then a brain deficit seems to be a universal quality among early 21st century politicians.)

And Bismarck's reasonable, non-aggressive, concilliatory policies were succeeded by... to finish that sentence would be superfluous.

"I'm with James Fallows; just to assert that a disastrous divorce is inevitable is positively dangerous because it ignores a world of other possibilities, and constricts our freedom to move."

A dangerous idea? The horror!