the chutry experiment

wow. after watching some of the characters in attendance, coulter seems (relatively) sane. but then after seeing her try to field max's questions, she seems even more loopy. what a weird collection of americans under one roof.

thanks for the post. i hope the nation continues doing stuff like this.

I'll admit that I'm somewhat ambivalent about the "gotcha" documentary genre, in part because I'm not sure how much it opens up any form of dialog. That being said, Blumenthal's video is eye-opening in places, and it would be interesting to see The Nation make similar videos in the future.

Probably the most interesting moment in the video, for me, was Blumenthal's exchange with the Hispanic woman who acknowledges at one point that the Republicans are, as Blumenthal describes it, "a party of white men." No matter what, she seemed more willing to engage with Blumenthal than anyone else he interviewed.

I also think that Bob Barr comes across as one of the more reflective interviewees in the video *shudder*, something I never thought I'd say when he represented the district bordering my own (which was, alas, represented by Newt Gingrich). I still find Barr's semi-libertarian politics both problematic and incoherent, but his comments about the direction of the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" were somewhat interesting.