Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 851

Regis Philbin Joins Twitter: Vote for Regis!

AP

Regis Philbin, Twitter's newest celebrity newbie, had a somewhat baffling first tweet on Monday: 

Vote for Regis!!! Is that okay?

— Regis Philbin (@regis) December 16, 2013

We do not know why Regis would like votes (it could be for a real reason, and that reason could be lame), but we would like to vote for Regis. He seems to be still getting the hang of a lot of other Twitter skills, so we thought we could help him out a little. If you'd like to vote for Regis, do so below: 

That was fun / important. If you want to tell other people to vote for Regis too, we're even going to be super helpful there, too: 

Tweet

Boom. Regis for the win.

Note: Voting for Regis here doesn't actually do anything, aside from voting for Regis. But that's OK. When, or if we discover what Regis wants you to actually vote for, we probably won't tell you. 

       

There's a New Guy in Charge of Sexual Assault Prevention in the Military

Maj. Gen. Gary S. Patton (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Army Maj. Gen. Gary S. Patton will no longer direct the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) in the wake of allegations that he stymied an investigation into patient abuses at a U.S.-funded hospital in Afghanistan. Patton is officially retiring from the Army in April. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has appointed Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Snow to take his place as director of SAPRO.

NBC News reported in November that Patton "blocked a U.S. Navy nurse from briefing a team from the Pentagon ... about patient abuses" at the Dawood hospital in Afghanistan. According to The Wall Street Journal's 2011 report, Afghan soldiers at this hospital were starved and suffered from "maggot-infested wounds." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand argued last month that he should "be relieved of his post" if the allegations turn out to be true. Patton's spokesperson said his retirement has nothing to do with the allegations.

The Navy nurse in NBC's report claims Patton threatened him before the briefing:  "Gen. Patton gets me cornered in the hallway, he puts his finger in my chest and he says, 'You need to stay in your f--- lane,’ lieutenant." Patton's spokesperson would not comment on these allegations. 

Efforts to pass new laws to prevent sexual assault in the military have recently been sidelined by Congress. Gillibrand is still hoping to get a vote on a bill that would take major crimes like sexual assault out of the military chain of command. She says this change is necessary to allow frightened victims to come forward and report.

Gillibrand doesn't seem entirely satisfied by news of Patton's retirement. She said today in a statement, "There are serious questions about Gen. Patton's conduct involving blocking an independent investigation, so I am concerned this decision is more about avoiding getting to the bottom of what happened in that case." 

Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill, who has also been fighting to change the way the military handles sexual assault, promises to hold Patton's replacement's feet to the fire. She said in a statement:

"As the senior woman on the Armed Services Committee I am committed to making sure ... reforms that will protect victims, make retaliation a crime, prohibit interference by commanders after a jury has spoken, and put more perpetrators in prison, are quickly implemented. It is my job to make sure Maj. Gen. Snow shares that commitment."

 McCaskill and Gillibrand disagree on how to reform the system — McCaskill doesn't think sexual assault cases should be taken outside the chain of command. Snow has not made his opinion on the issue public. 

       

George Zimmerman Painted a Patriotic Picture That He Wants to Sell You

George Zimmerman, the guy that killed Trayvon Martin and who has a complicated personal life, has made a painting that he would like to sell you.

According to Orlando's News 13, the painting, a blue representation of the American flag on which excerpts of the Pledge of Allegiance are printed, has been confirmed as authentic by Zimmerman's brother. It is for sale at eBay and, as of now, is selling for $212. Plus, $40 for shipping. As of last month, Zimmerman was apparently $2.5 million in debt, or, 11,000 pictures.

The description of the piece on eBay includes a funny joke about the time Zimmerman followed a teenager around until killing him. "My art work allows me to reflect, providing a therapeutic outlet and allows me to remain indoors :-)," he writes. "I hope you enjoy owning this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it. Your friend, George Zimmerman." Your friend George Zimmerman also signed the lower-left corner of the painting.

It's not clear how Zimmerman created the piece; it looks pretty good for a novice painter. The lettering is probably appliqué, we suspect. One member of The Wire staff had to have the "GOD" / "ONE NATION" reference explained: Zimmerman is saying that the United States is "one nation, under God." We hope that helps.

Perhaps there is a therapist out there that recommends that polarizing figures named George turn to art. Who knows. So far, this is the only eBay offering from Zimmerman (assuming it is actually from Zimmerman; the News 13 sourcing is pretty vague). Zimmerman's eBay account does not currently have any reviews from other users so, you know, buyer beware.

Hat-tip: Mike Nizza

       

The Year in Movie Catchphrases

A24/Philip Bump

Perhaps no movie this year had a line that will go down in history alongside "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," or "I am your father," but 2013 did give us some great movie catchphrases. We compiled the best. Spring break forever, bitches. 

Not all of these quotes are from screenplays that will get Oscar nominations—though some of them might!—but they are all incredibly catchy, the sort of lines that linger in your brain, ready for deployment the second anyone mentions "Oprah in The Butler." For example. Sometimes it's the killer deliver that makes them indelible; sometimes it's because they are just repeated so often; sometimes it's because they are really, really dumb.  

So, without further ado here's the year in movie catchphrases, according to us. 

"Spring break forever"/"Look at my shit" 
Spring Breakers is sort of a meme of a movie, with lines repeated so often you can practically humming them when you walk out of the theater. Of course, "Spring break forever" is the movie's mantra, its ethos.  Meanwhile, James Franco's declarations of "Look at my shit" as his low-life character Alien are its comment on the American dream.  

"I wanna rob." 
Part of the joy of this line from Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, about a group of teens that stole from celebrities, is in Emma Watson's delivery. It's perfect Los Angeles teen-speak, oozing with vocal fry. It's also utterly ridiculous. It's not like she's saying she wants to go to the mall.

"Old sport."
Jay Gatsby's affectation is not obviously exclusive to Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, but, man, did Luhrmann's movie run with it, old sport. According to the Huffington Post, it is said 59 times in the film.

"I hate space." 
Perhaps the dumbest line in one of the year's best films is uttered by Sandra Bullock in Gravity. It's so brilliantly baseline, in contrast with all the state-of-the-art imagery on display. It's the kind of line you could imagine repeated in all sorts of films throughout the ages, if their screenwriters only had the courage to state the obvious. 

"Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!"
If you know nothing else about Pacific Rim and its day-glo vision of armageddon-by-giant-kraken-monsters, you know about this line, hollered by Idris Elba at the end of his big Independence Day speech. 

"Eat the fish, bitch!" 
Of all the things you might expect Oscar Winning Actress™ Julia Roberts to say to Oscar Winning Actress™ Meryl Streep in Pulitzer Prize-winning stage adaptation August: Osage County, "eat your fucking fish" and the line quoted above come as quite a surprise. Context really isn't necessary; though, if you must, the scene involves Roberts' Barbara, increasingly perturbed, telling her addled mother Violet (Streep) to eat catfish. 

"Are you a narc?" 
It's a simple question, but Sandra Bullock's straight-arrow FBI agent Ashburn can't seem to grasp what Nate Corddry, playing the very Boston brother of Melissa McCarthy's detective,  is saying. Perhaps if he asks again, verrry slowwwly. 

"You take that trifling, low-class bitch and get out of this house."
Not only is it just a great line from Lee Daniel's The Butler — spoken during that same tense dinner-table scene that produced that moment in all the trailers when Oprah slaps David Oyelowo and tells him everything he has is because of that butler — but its delivery gave you absolutely no reason to doubt Oprah's acting ability. Also, just to break it down further: Oprah Winfrey. Called America's Next Top Model runner-up Yaya Alafia (née DaCosta). A "trifling, low-class bitch." Just no respeito at all. 

"I'm the captain now." 
It's a simple line that appeared in much of of the Captain Phillips marketing, but when actually heard in the context of the film, Barkhad Abdi, playing a Somali pirate, makes it terrifying and more than a little desperate.

"'Blue Moon' was the song that was playing..."
Throughout Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) often points out that the song "Blue Moon" was playing when she and her crook of a husband (Alec Baldwin) first met. Clearly, the repetition does not indicate that things are going well for Jasmine. 

"Take a knee..." 
This line from Will and Jaden Smith's After Earth is how Will's character instructed Jaden's to calm down. It was repeated roughly 3,000 times. It also gave the world—or at least the three people that saw this movie—insight into Will's parenting techniques. 

"By the hymen of Olivia Newton John!" 
When you have to make an exclamation, and "By the hammer of Thor!" just won't do. This is from Anchorman 2. Need we say more? Stay classy. 

       

Terminally-Ill Gay Couples in Illinois Can Get Married Right Away

AP

Illinois's new gay marriage law doesn't go into effect until June, but some same-sex couples in the state won't have to wait that long. Thanks to U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman's decision, couples where at least one partner has a terminal illness will no longer have to get a judge's order in order to wed early, starting on Monday. 

The decision, as the Associated Press explains, is an expansion on a previous decision allowing Vernita Gray and Patricia Ewert to marry. They did so earlier this month, the first gay marriage in the state. Gray has terminal cancer, and is unlikely to live until the official start of the state's new law. Coleman issued an opinion to expand that option to all gay couples, provided they have a doctor's note confirming that at least one parter is terminally ill. That order was finalized on Monday. Here's what Coleman wrote: 

"This Court can conceive of no reason why the public interest would be disserved by allowing a few couples facing terminal illness to wed a few months earlier than the timeline would currently allow." 

Coleman cited both the practical and emotional benefits of allowing couples to marry early. As of now, the order only pertains to Cook County, but any eligible couple living in the state may obtain an early license there. Several other couples have already obtained marriage licenses through the courts, but today's decision will expedite any future requests from couples in the state. 

Illinois became the 16th state to legalize gay marriage in November, about a year after Gov. Pat Quinn announced his support for marriage equality. 

       

Grover Norquist Is Still Evolving on What a Tax Is

Associated Press

Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform and the guy almost solely responsible for making tax-hatred orthodoxy within the Republican Party for the past two decades, is still working on what constitutes a "tax." Which seems like it could be a problem!

Last week, Americans for Tax Reform published its analysis of the Ryan-Murray budget deal, including an increase in airline tickets fees. Because of how the fee increase is structured, in ATR's estimation, it "straddles the line between a tax increase and a user fee without technically crossing into tax hike territory." That it didn't cross that line, according to Norquist and ATR, is important in theory because of that large number of politicians (all but one of whom are Republicans) who've signed Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge."

The pledge itself stipulates a fairly tightly prescribed set of increases, namely:

"ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and "TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."

But the shorthand for Norquist's work is this: "No new taxes." And since Norquist likes that short-hand, since it lets him draw a hard line in the sand, he doesn't spend a lot of time dealing with the nuance of that first point above.

Until he has to, as with the Ryan-Murray bill. Or any of the other recent occasions on which ATR has been forced to tip-toe/tap-dance on what it means by a "tax." For example:

October 2013: A tax on marijuana isn't, you know, a tax. "When you legalize something and more people do more of it, and the government gets more revenue because there's more of it ... that's not a tax increase," Norquist told National Journal. "The tax goes from 100 percent, meaning it's illegal, to whatever the tax is." December 2012: ATR declares that it won't fault legislators for agreeing to Speaker John Boehner's plan to allow the Bush tax cuts on wealthy Americans to expire. "In ATR’s analysis," it writes, "it is extremely difficult — if not impossible — to fault these Republicans’ assertion" that the move is consistent with the pledge, because "this tax bill contains no tax increases of any kind." Letting some tax cuts but not other expire is not raising taxes, ATR said. November 2011: Letting the payroll tax cut expire also isn't a tax increase. "Because it was sold as a one-year thing," Norquist told U.S. News , "continuing it would be a tax cut." April 2010: A push to force land-based radio stations to pay royalties to artists is not a tax increase because the "definition of a tax is the transfer of wealth from a household or business to the government."

That statement, which appeared in an opinion piece at Roll Call, makes another key point: "For years, policymakers have attempted to disguise tax hikes using innocuous terms such as 'fine,' 'fee' or 'penalty.'" Stand up to that attempt to twist language to political purposes, America!

Last January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told NBC's David Gregory that the "arbiter of whether something is a tax increase or not is Americans for Tax Reform." Which is probably smart, given that Norquist's definitions are otherwise pretty hard to predict.

       

The Top Diplomacy Gaffes of 2013, Celebrity Edition

Canadian singer Justin Bieber performs during a concert at Palau Sant Jordi stadium in Barcelona, March 16, 2013.  (REUTERS/ALBERT GEA)

Celebrities embarrass themselves in so many ways, but something special when their thoughtless mistakes lead to an international incident. In 2013, famous people were especially adept at making a mess during their vacations abroad and even occasionally pitting whole nations against each other.

We've analyzed the lot and picked the top five celebrity-induced diplomatic slipups. They are arranged the worst (gaffes that made the world a more dismal place) to the best (those which may have actually made it a little better through some backwards global awareness.) Sometimes saying the wrong thing at the right time isn't the worst thing in the world.

5) Dennis Rodman Visits North Korea, Makes Friends With Kim Jong-un

Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-Un share a hug. REUTERS/KCNA 

In February 2013, VICE sent a filmmaking crew, three members of the Harlem Globetrotters, and human circus Dennis Rodman to North Korea on a “basketball diplomacy” mission. They hoped the common sport would serve as a cultural bridge between the U.S. and the DRPK, but did not expect Rodman to make fast friends with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Which is exactly what happened, of course. Rodman apologized for their respective countries not being on good terms, and went on to tell Kim “you’re a friend for life.” He will return for a third visit this month.

Some hoped Rodman would shine a much needed light on the secretive nation, but his views on Kim were shockingly undiscerning. “He has to do his job, but he’s a very good guy,” Rodman said of Kim in September. He told Obama he should reach out to Kim: "You don't have to talk about politics.... Meet him or even give him a call. That's all he wants." Rodman’s perspective on Kim echoes a dangerous Western treatment of the ruler as a comical character, rather than the murderous leader of a repressive regime.  Rodman’s gaffe, attesting to the character of a dictator instead of drawing attention to conditions in a country notorious for human rights violations, so absolutely no good came of this.

4) Bey and Jay Go to Cuba

Beyonce and Jay Z hanging out in Havana. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa 
 

Jay Z and Beyonce visited Cuba on their wedding anniversary this year, sparking speculation that their friend in the Oval Office had personally okayed the trip and calling into question the power couple's usually flawless judgment. The rumors were so forceful that Barack Obama eventually weighed in on their trip and explicitly denied White House involvement. After it was established that the Bey and Jay's trip was legal and their travel approved through legitimate means, congressional Republicans took the opportunity to introduce a bill that would make it much more difficult for U.S. citizens to enter Cuba. One Democratic representative called it the Jay-Z and Beyonce Bill, so we know this is no coincidence. It got so bad (we assume) that Obama even had to shake hands with Raul Castro last week.

3) Justin Bieber Hopes Anne Frank Was a Belieber

Justin Bieber performs in the Netherlands. AP Photo/Francois Mori

Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and left a note in the institution’s guestbook showing just how highly he values the young Holocaust victim:

"Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

One almost feels bad for young Bieber, so blinded by fame and the pressure to market his brand that he lacks awareness of even the most basic rules of human behavior. The Anne Frank House, rather politely, posted his words without comment but the Internet was less than kind to Bieber, who lied about meeting the president of Mexico in November and blew off a number of concerts during his South American tour. Bieber was defended by Anne’s step sister, but the contrast between the pop star and Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss makes him seem even worse. This one is kind of a wash, productivity wise, though Bieber’s self-centered reaction to the evocative museum went a long way towards turning people against Bieber worldwide.

2) Jennifer Lopez Serenades a Dictator

JLo wipes a tear in Hollywood. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

This summer, JLo apologized for regaling the president of Turkmenistan, who happens to lead “one of the world’s most repressive countries,” with a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You.” Jen just happened to be in Turkmenistan to perform at an event sponsored by China National Petroleum Corp. — itself Rihanna wipes some dirt off her shoulders. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni 
 

When Rihanna visited Thailand in September 2013, she took to Twitter to document her trip. Within the unsurprising slew of “THANK YOU #LOCATION I LOVE YOU” tweets were a few that stood out, so much so that they caught the attention of Thai authorities. The first shows Rihanna with a slow loris, an adorable endangered primate.

Look who was talkin dirty to me! #Thailand #nightlife http://t.co/V0fT4PfSrQ

— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 20, 2013

Law enforcement officers used her photo to track down the men in possession of the loris and arrest them for illegal exploitation of the endangered species. The men could be jailed for up to four years and be slapped with a $1,300 fine. On the same trip, Rihanna also posted a series of tweets chronicling her experience at and reaction to a Thai sex bar:

Authorities later arrested the owner of the Phuket club, who now faces up to a month in jail and a nearly $1,900 penalty. Thailand’s criminal justice system is tough, but fair and the nation struggles with both issues, so we put Rihanna’s tweets as the best of the worst, even though their socially responsible ramifications were a total fluke.

       

The Harrowing New R. Kelly Rape Details That Aren't Really New at All

AP

Music journalist and former Chicago Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis happened upon a career-changing scoop when he first reported on R. Kelly's alleged predatory relationships with girls as young as 15. In a new interview with The Village Voice, he reveals the extent of those accusations,  which he "would like to forget," and says he still receives calls from victims thanking him for his attentiveness.

What's most striking about shocked reactions to the Voice's harrowing details, though, is that hardly any of the information is new in the journalistic sense. It's just been underreported, ignored, or long buried by those applauding Kelly's musical chops:

The most horrifying thing abt @jesshopp's R.Kelly piece, apart from the horrors it describes: none of it is new info http://t.co/McCVHHBrZY

— Jem Aswad (@jemaswad) December 16, 2013

DeRogatis, who has effectively straddled the line between music critic and investigative reporter, is perhaps best suited to speak to that gap between Kelly's public and private lives, given his contact with the artist's victims. The most recent call came last summer, after DeRogatis criticized Pitchfork's decision to give Kelly a headlining slot at the music site's Chicago festival:

The number of times since I began this R. Kelly story that I was called in the middle of the night, was talking to someone on Christmas Eve or on New Year's Day or Thanksgiving.... Yeah, I got a call from one of the women after the Pitchfork festival review. "I know we haven't spoken in a long time...," and said thank you for still caring and thank you for writing this story, because nobody gives a shit.

Other women came forward after Kelly was acquitted of 14 counts of child pornography in 2008, their stories arriving too late to change the verdict. "I didn't come forward, I never spoke to you before, I wish I had now that [the] son of a bitch got off," the writer says he was told. DeRogatis has long been critical of music fans seeking to set aside Kelly's private behavior in admiring his music. Here, he registers his disgust:

It is on record. Rapes in the dozen. So stop hedging your words and when you tell me what a brilliant ode to pussy Black Panties is, then realize that the next sentence should say: "This, from a man who has committed numerous rapes." The guy was a monster!  [ . . . ] You have to make a choice, as a listener, if music matters to you as more than mere entertainment. 

Finally—and let this be a trigger warning—he goes into graphic detail about Kelly's victims' allegations and how they coped with it, including suicide attempts and emotional scarring. The interview is accompanied by a collection of DeRogatis's reporting on the allegations, as well as the relevant court files.

Again, what's especially troubling about the documents the Voice provides—besides the harrowing accusations themselves—is that they are not secret, nor otherwise embargoed. The lawsuits, DeRogatis notes, are public record. The Chicago Sun-Times articles are, well, newspaper articles.

That's an indictment of the newspaper world, as SPIN's Jordan Sargent noted on Twitter, for not making those archives readily accessible:

the fact that dero's r kelly pieces had to be compiled in this matter is a very visible damnation of the people who run newspapers right now

— jordan (@jordansarge) December 16, 2013

& by that i mean the corporate folks at the very top. pay people to digitize your archives.

— jordan (@jordansarge) December 16, 2013

But it's also an indictment of generations of R. Kelly's fans and listeners, who've been too enamored with his celebrity to take seriously his accusers. And it's an indictment of broader societal prejudice, in terms of whose story is deemed worth believing. As DeRogatis tells the Voice, "The saddest fact I've learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women."

Sadly, that, too, is not a new insight. But here, the reminder is well warranted.

       

James Franco Was the Wonderful Wizard of March

Disney

The Year That Was, 2013 is far too large of a topic to tackle all at once, even when only focusing on the pop culture aspects. Breaking things down month-by-month feels like the smarter call. We'll be working our way through the year one month at a time, remembering the songs, films, TV, and other fun/horrifying stuff that we may well have already forgotten.

March 2013 The #1 Song 

The song of March was truly a flash in the pan. Though we had declared the "Harlem Shake" meme dead back in February, Baauer's song that served as the background track for countless YouTube clips dominated the Billboard charts in March. Of course, the song will always be remembered for those videos—may they rest in no peace whatsoever—the song was also notable for bringing the genre of trap music into the mainstream. Still, it was mostly about those videos. To commemorate its significance in this merry month of March, get some sort of crazy costume and, well, you know. 

The #1 Movie

In March, a bunch of people were off to see the wizard. That is, they filed into movie theaters to see James Franco play the wonderful wizard in Oz the Great and Powerful. Franco seemed totally unenthused to be in this tale of the witches of Oz in a world pre-Dorothy, which also starred Mila Kunis as (spoiler alert) the green one. Of course, Sam Raimi's movie was not so wonderful, but that didn't stop it from becoming the first true blockbuster of the year, ultimately grossing upwards of $200 million. 

The Month in TV

This was the month of late night deja vu. At the beginning of the month, a report emerged that NBC was looking to once again replace Jay Leno with a younger, sprier Tonight Show host, this time Jimmy Fallon. Then came news that Leno was warring with NBC's Bob Greenblatt. And finally, the wars ultimately manifested themselves on TV with Leno waging an anti-NBC offensive on his own show. The transition would finally be announced in early April and everyone hugged and made up. We guess.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon hosted Justin Timberlake on his show for an entire week, and Timberlake joined the Five-Timers Club on Saturday Night Live. 

We were forced to say goodbye to Enlightened, which was canceled in March after two lovely seasons. Girls finished its second season run, delving into dark places we never really expected the series to go. (Cough, cough, the Q-tip episode.) Those voids were ultimately filled, though, since by the end of the month, Game of Thrones was back on our TV sets. ABC also launched its show Red Widow, but no one really remembers that, and Mark Burnett's The Bible on History was ratings gold. It also featured a devil which conservatives thought looked like Obama. 

Also...

Timberlake's nearly ubiquitous TV appearances this month weren't all for naught, as he released his long awaited album 20/20 Experience, and it was sort of underwhelming. Rob Thomas launched theVeronica Mars movie Kickstarter and incited a debate as to whether normal people should fund projects for famous people. Finally, the literary world mourned the loss of Chinua Achebe. 

 

 

       

'60 Minutes': NSA Good, Snowden Bad

Screenshot / 60 Minutes

As if that whole retracted Benghazi report and the Amazon commercial/drone reveal didn't undermine 60 Minutes' credibility enough for you in the last few weeks, here's another gem: a report on how the NSA has simply been misunderstood by all those Snowden leaks and is a good guy, really.

The segment was presented by John Miller (who is rumored to be up for a "top counterterrorism or intelligence role" in the NYPD, which has a fine track record when it comes to not infringing on our civil liberties), who opened with:

Full disclosure: I once worked in the office of the director of National Intelligence, where I saw firsthand how secretly the NSA operates.

Because as long as you tell us up front about your huge conflict of interest, it's totally fine that you have one, right?

Anyway, that should give you a pretty good idea of what came next:

Yes, that's right: The NSA is "defending our civil liberties and privacy," according to NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander. Upon hearing this, Miller just nods. If you're looking for a journalist or journalism that challenges the NSA or asks hard questions, this isn't it.

Instead, he lets Alexander tell us, once again, how the NSA only collects our phone metadata, and how that doesn't reveal all that much anyway. Except, of course, when it does, but Miller doesn't ask about that. Nor did he ask about the email metadata the NSA used to collect.

Miller does ask if Alexander ever considered resigning from his post, given that a "20-something-year-old high school dropout contractor managed to walk out with in essence the crown jewels" under his watch. Alexander says he did, but was told that he shouldn't have to, since he didn't do anything wrong and this could have happened to anyone.

By the way, calling Edward Snowden a "A 20-something-year-old high school dropout" is about as flattering as the report gets:

Yes, in part two of Miller's story, we find out that Snowden cheated on a test to get his job as an NSA contractor and when he was working from home, he would put a hood over the computer and his head so his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing.

"That's pretty strange!" Miller says.

Right, it's so weird that someone working with top secret information that the NSA just got done telling Miller could have serious ramifications if it fell into the wrong hands would try to prevent others from seeing said information.

Also, maybe it shouldn't be that easy to cheat on your entrance exams.

After that, we hear about how the NSA has saved us from a potentially "catastrophic" cyber-attack that may or may not have come from China and may or may not have actually happened. You'll have to take their world for it. Miller does.

In regards to that whole spying on other world leaders thing, Alexander says that, basically, the NSA only does what other agencies tell it to and also that the NSA will stop spying on Angela Merkel when she stop spying on us. He doesn't know if she's spying on us, mind you. Just that her country has the intelligence capability to do so. And if you have the ability to do something, why wouldn't you go ahead and do it, right? The NSA doesn't let a little thing like federal law stop it, so it can't imagine that other countries would.

And finally, asked about whether or not the NSA "tunnels" into Google or Yahoo's networks to collect information (a practice those companies are now asking be reformed), Alexander non-answered:

We do target terrorist communications. And terrorists use communications from Google, from Yahoo, and from other service providers. So our objective is to collect those communications no matter where they are.

But we're not going into a facility or targeting Google as an entity or Yahoo has an entity. But we will collect those communications of terrorists that flow on that network.

As the behind-the-scenes report tells us, Alexander came to 60 Minutes and asked them to do the segment. Miller and his crew were supervised at all times by a team of "minders" -- as were their interview subjects. When one analyst says something an off-camera minder thinks might be classified, Miller quickly volunteers to change the subject. Alexander asks for "time outs" before he answers certain questions.

Miller says he asked "tough questions" and "the hardest questions we could ask." Maybe he did. We don't see them.