Are Eliot Spitzer or John Edwards giving Biden legal advice or acting as his personal attorney?
No?
Then maybe hold off on what sounds an awful lot like a false equivalence.
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But replace Rudy Giuliani and Maria Bakalova with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, and it suddenly becomes plausible–nay, desirable–to watch.
Must agree. The Slate article that @frauenfelder links to suggests all the sleight of hand that goes into editing this. Also, it is compelling to make assumptions around every little detail like the assassination of JFK. Very clever.
There would have been a production crew of camera lights sound and probably assistants which begs the question who suggested they go into the bedroom to take off the mics. Give the creep a couple of whiskeys and we can edit it in post.
If Cohen (not a fan) wanted to disrupt the election and gain ratings by staging a contrived scandal then looks like he has achieved this with a marketing ploy that shits over the left side of politics.
Yes, Giulliani is an absolute creep IMHO.
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Cohen is a comedian, not an investigative journalist or a campaign strategist. He has no professional or ethical duty to showcase Giuliani in an unbiased way.
As has been mentioned many times, if a comedian can get Giuliani to look this bad on tape then imagine what an actual honeypot scheme by Russian agents could do.
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If you haven’t watched the movie, know that
Maria Bakalova is phenomenal in it and deserves all the awards.
Especially for believably acting not-repulsed by ole Rudy there. Ugh.
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Yeah, if nothing else it really hits home just how easy it is to pull off.
I guess to some people that a comedy prankster could pull something like that off even poorly normalizes it and makes it nbd and to people like me it makes me think how much of a real national security threat Giuliani is.
As for what motivates Cohen I dunno if it matters. He makes provocative comedy and the nature of that kind of comedy relies on ambiguity. Personally, I don’t like it really. I try to. But I don’t.
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“Baron Cohen added that he was “quite concerned” for Bakalova’s safety during the scene but was monitoring it the whole time from a separate room before he jumped out in character to surprise Giuliani. Bakalova added in the “GMA” interview that she never felt in danger while filming the scene or with the “Borat” crew present.”
I think Cohen puts himself in position to get punched, a lot, but is less comfortable with putting others in that situation.
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Sacha Baron Cohen tells Stephen Colbert that Giuliani scene was ever creepier than you thought
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I don’t really think rudy was “caught” in a honey trap. I think he smelled the honey and thought he was a big enough deal to get out of it without getting too sticky.
I consider myself a Democrat because my personal beliefs align much more closely to the ideals of the Democratic party than that of the repugnantican gang. Obviously not all republicans are awful people but their party ideals are just not realistic. (Business will never regulate itself for the betterment of people. They’re generally just about making money.) Not to mention their hypocritical “smaller government” and anti-women stances. Third party candidates can have some interesting ideals but since they 99% of the time have absolutely no chance of making it into federal government I don’t pay much attention to them.
It’s not about the people (mostly) but rather about what they do before and after they get elected. Just because Spitzer was a Democrat and chose to get involved with sex workers isn’t a commentary on the party.
On balance Spitzer accomplished/tried to accomplish some good things. The prostitution scandal (based on really briefly reading up on it) seems to have been a failing in his private life and did not involve public funds.
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