Scott Brown is justly taking a lot of heat today for injecting the issue of physical appearance – specifically, that of the frontrunner in the Democratic MA-Sen primary – into the Senate race. It’s especially ironic because, 20-some years ago, Brown himself was all sad about how people sometimes focus on physical appearance, to the exclusion of what really matters.
“Glamour, sex, being an object — that stuff can only go so far,” Brown told the Globe. “I want people to see that I’m a nice guy. Women look at me and think, ‘Hmmm, I wonder if he’s good in bed.’ They don’t bother to sit down and talk with me. They’re concerned with the way I look… That reaction has sometimes made my life more lonely than it should be.”
Touching. Deeply touching.
” Women look at me and think, ‘Hmmm, I wonder if he’s good in bed.’”
Really? You had a Mel Gibson What Women Want moment that tells you this is the case? Ego much?
The jokes write themselves, but the element of narcissism inherent in going around thinking such a thing about oneself, never mind saying it in an interview, speaks volumes about this guy. Empty suit, indeed.
This WAS a 20-years-younger Scott Brown. However, how we think and act in our 20s is pretty the personality that we have the rest of our lives, so therefore, this is relevant in painting a picture of the real Scott Brown, IMHO.
Given where and when it appeared, it’s hard to hold it against the guy. In fact, he may never have said them. These are the kind of words that Cosmo would put in his mouth before they came out of his mouth and onto the page. In the best of times, it’s hard to get your words reported correctly. This quote sounds suspiciously like what Cosmo’s readers want to hear: sexy guy, sensitive and lonely, seeks WF for companionship and intimate weekend.
Personally, if my words as a 22 year-old actually defined who I am today, I’d sound a lot more with JConway, Central Mass Dad, and our other centrists. At 23, I considered Sam Nunn to be my favorite senator. I actually saved a Charles Krauthammer article from TNR because I thought it was “significant.”
Scott Brown may be an empty suit, but I can’t tar him with this particular brush.
According to the Dedham transcript (which is linked in the post and is where the interview is reprinted), it’s from the Globe.
it’s from the Globe. June 10, 1982, by Marian Christy. Here’s the link, but it’s behind a paywall.
All right, that makes it soooooo much the worse…
Was Warren merely bragging that she kept her clothes on all through college?
I thought he was just responding to her remarks.
it was Scott Conway (who plays for your team, as you know) who started it all off by asking something like “to pay his student loans, Scott Brown posed nude for Cosmo. How did you pay for college?” (That’s a paraphrase, but I think a fair one.)
What Brown did, though, was specifically comment on Warren’s physical appearance – something that Warren did not do. Very foolish. Ask Garrett.
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Conway started off the conversation with his question. But neither he nor Elizabeth Warren said anything about anyone else’s physical appearance. Scott did that all by his lonesome.
… Brown didn’t inject the issue. The problem is that this is being spun as if Warren injected the issue. Neither of them did. The questioner did.
What’s key here is that when you cut video and audio and let that spin stand when you know that is not the way it went down it’s tantamount to lying about it.
that question – as I can’t believe this hasn’t sunk any chance Brown had. I was surprised they would include a Republican student leader. (http://chrismatth.bluemassgroup.com/2011/10/02/uml-debate-panel/ )
The media has filtered anything out that has shown Brown’s worst side. This shows a not very attractive person – as far as what really matters.
Almost as strange is that he ends up speaking in terms of beating her in a triathlon or race. That hardly is what a Senator does.
as part of the question.
The surprise to my is the bald admission that “glamour, sex, being an object” can be perceived as useful, even if only minimally.
This is the worst kind of amoral sexism extant implying, as it does a casual ease with both objectification and making leverage with it… He’s not upset that he’s been objectified. He’s upset that such objectification “can only go so far.” Wow. Then he whines that it’s limiting to him: He’s a victim of his own sexism and has the nerve to complain about that which “can only go so far” allowing him to only go so far.
If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t know about that entire embarrassing exchange in the Democrats’ debate, and wouldn’t know about this response of his, either. In that event, I would probably be more happy with Warren than I presently am.
In the event, when i see campaigners try to manufacture outrage in a manner such as this, it turns me off their candidate. Let us hope that by next November I am better accustomed to tuning out campaign season asshattery.
Brown should stick with his vision on how he wants to grow the economy. Oh wait, he hasn’t, just some vague liners here and there. CMD eventually, you are going to come to realize there is nothing there with Brown.
He has a voting record, so it’s fair game to ask him about his votes, small business people have asked him directly, and he doesn’t reply.
This baloney, poor me, whaaaa whaaaaaa, whaaaa, is all he has. Even after he’s the one hurling insults, just pathetic. This is your definition of a leader? Has be lead?
n/t
I am astounded that, given that he has a voting record, our purportedly august Democratic challengers decided to spend time on this. And then, to get the vapors because he responds in kind. I had three people express their outrage, focused this way and that, over the last two days. Why do they give a shit about such meaningless crap? They’re like teenagers mooning over David Cassidy.
Also, it makes it clear that the Democrats are fixing to run, again, a campaign based on little other than: See that Scott Brown? He’s stupid, ha, ha. See how stupid he is? I’ll think you’re stupid too unless you vote for me. You wouldn’t want me to think you’re stupid, would you?
Same campaign run by dear Martha, and by Al and JFK, nationally, in 2000 and 2004. A winning formula to be sure. Maybe they can mix in the “people versus the powerful” hoohah around, say, next October 25 once they realize they screwed up again.
Which is another way of saying I think Brown’s odds improved this past week.
You seem to be the only one. And I’m not just talking about BMGers.
Modern racist candidates do not survive a “macaca moment” when their bigotry is revealed, nor should they. Many of us feel that flagrant contempt for women is equally offensive (though you apparently disagree).
The political career of Senator George Allen did not survive his “macaca moment”. The political career of Senator Scott Brown should similarly not survive these episodes.
“I am astounded that, given that he has a voting record, our purportedly august Democratic challengers decided to spend time on this.”
You do know it was a question from a debate moderator, right? You do know that nobody in the field ‘chose’ this, right? You do know that the punditocracy will parrot and crow about whatever they think will get people reading/viewing, right?
A Republican debate moderator.
Not just any moderator, but the Republican plant — Scott F. Conway is the “president of the Political Science Club” and Chairman of the Melrose Republican City Committee.
I share your disdain for meaningless crap — I therefore encourage you to direct your displeasure towards whomever in the GOP briefed Mr. Conway. Perhaps the Brown campaign sought a distraction from the Senator’s abysmal record and from his too-cozy relationship with the Koch family.
Elizabeth Warren’s comments were at worst “cheeky” about keeping her clothes on, though it was hardly the only barb thrown in Brown’s direction. More to the point, she said in response to a question about paying for school. Nothing about it got out of hand or was even meant to be mean-spirited. She’s didn’t say Scott Brown is a bad person for posing nude.
It was said in answer to a questioned FRAMED in the nude-posing-for-Cosmo universe BY the REPUBLICAN asking the question!
You just can’t make this stuff up!!