Campaign Desk, The Kicker
Dazed and Confused (Watching MSNBC Again)
By Liz Cox Barrett Wed 21 May 2008 02:57 PMNo, Contessa Brewer, this wasn’t as bad as the time back in January when you interviewed that insightful young man/book author who advised Hillary Clinton to”stop wearing the pants suits” because they “look real bad on her” and to “wear a skirt” and “cut her hair more softly, wear pastels” and that “the wrinkles aren’t the best idea for her” (all prompted by your “wondering if [Clinton’s] had any work done.”)
Not as bad as that.
And yes, the LA Times recently called upon “three court-certified graphologists” to tell us what the candidates’ handwriting tells us about them (which is, turns out, what conventional wisdom already told us).
But that doesn’t mean you had to spend several minutes just now with an astrologer talking about the birth times of the candidates and what the planets can tell us about Election 2008. And if you were going to do so, at least you could have pushed your guest to clarify (for the uninitiated) what in the universe she was talking about:
BREWER: Tell me what you do know, what you have predicted for these three candidates.SHELLEY ACKERMAN, Astrologer: What’s kind of amazing is that the three top people, McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, share several planets at the exact same degree which makes this such a cliff-hanger, because literally, you don’t even have this much of a smidgen. In 2000, when it was Bush versus Gore, they both had Leo rising but there was a three- or four-degree variance. Here, it is this tight.
“Degree variance?”
BREWER: Are you making a guess about November?ACKERMAN: What I will tell you is who we think is absolutely, positively now on the ticket may not be, because this summer, the transits are pretty volatile.
“The transits?”
BREWER: ‘Now on the ticket,’ you mean either a presidential nominee or a vice presidential nominee?ACKERMAN: Exactly. as of today, May 21st, we think we have the whole thing pretty locked up. I’m not 100% sure that’s going to be the case…In the second week of July, there is a configuration that impacts both McCain’s chart and Obama’s chart.
“A configuration?”
ACKERMAN: In the end of July, early August, there are configurations which impact the current administration’s chart. We are looking at a 1968, 1972 kind of astrological picture here.
Again: I don’t know what that means.
Also, what did Ackerman mean when she peered into Contessa Brewer’s future and announced: “I predict within one year’s time your life will change in a tremendous way…you’ll be finishing certain things up.”
CJR
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Thu 22 May 2008 04:21 PMugh. why lord why? I recently discovered Kathy Lee Gifford is hosting the Today show ? (the second hour, but still.) There are so many amazing, talented, deep, insightful female journalists out there with things to say and questions to ask that don't involve "mommy blogging" or astrology or what your husband lets you watch on tv (an abc commentator's hubby TRIED to warn her than if she watched sex and the city, she'd return to her slutty ways and lo and behold, she did! I'm not kidding.). Why can't we hear more from them?