Churchhoney

Amen to that. The number of ways in which ma and pa have continued over the years to make things worse and worse for the girls just keeps mounting.

Meanwhile, back at the ATI, Bill G decides to non-apologize apologize for some of his actions, but then thinks better of it. However, he fails to take into account that newfangled invention -- screen captures. https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/bill-gothards-unveils-new-statement-then-promptly-deletes-it/ Short Version: I touched those girls because I am so perfect. Bonus: Use of "purpose" as a verb, straight from the horse's (ass's) mouth. BG: 'It recently came to light that part of the problem actually began as a result of a decision I made as a teenager. I had just read Fox’s Book of Martyrs. It had a deep impact on me as I read the accounts of those who had died for their faith. Suddenly, I sensed God was asking me, “Bill, will you also die for me?” I considered what this would mean and then said, “Lord, right now I purpose to live and die for you.” '...Something happened within me when I made that commitment. I experienced a new sense of energy, freedom and motivation. I pictured myself in a race against time. My concern was, “how much can I get done for the Lord before I die?” In the years that followed, I initiated many programs to reach young people. Soon my “normal day” began at 4 am and went until 11 pm.... 'Meanwhile, I would be energized by my counseling sessions. Each young person at the Headquarters was there because either their parents had asked me to work with them, or I saw special potential in them to be effective for the Lord. When I would counsel a young lady I would need to find out what her problems were, but I avoided specific details of her actual wrongdoing. In affirming these young ladies a bond was established,that in some cases was different than I had intended. 'Many of these young ladies told me that I was their “spiritual father.” I accepted this position with joy and delight. Even today, many remind me of this status with them. However, when I felt that a young lady was spiritually strong I began to work with another one. The first one would feel neglected and in some cases rejected. This was hurtful to them.' ETA: This wins non-apology apology debating trophy for Best Use of Fox's Book of Martyrs.

How can any advertisers ever again put their names on a show with the name "Duggar" attached to it? And I completely fail to see how TLC imagines they can go on with any sanitized Duggar shows, even isolated specials, any more than they could have gone on with a sanitized Honey Boo Boo.

And they knew that they had a clearly troubled monster, who was only a young teenager. And not only did they do nothing to help the girls, they did nothing to figure out how best to address the problems of their favored and best beloved son, either. Instead, in the face of clear evidence that they were missing a lot of things in their very overcrowded house -- even after being warned about them -- they had more kids and decided to set themselves up as America's model family. Mindboggling.

Meanwhile, Fox News actually is reporting on the new In Touch story covering another police report. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/06/03/duggar-scandal-police-report-reveals-sister-was-5-at-time-sexual-abuse/ Last line makes me laugh:"An e-mail to Duggar's rep was not immediately returned". Why'd you guys have to email their rep? You have a massive staff, including one of your top on-air anchors, in their house right now, ffs.

My my. Quite the preemptive strike against the Duggars' story, I'd say.

The scary thing is that I've watched the show about the same amount that you have. And yet we've heard each of these words (and a few more that I cant' recall either at the moment) many many times. .... Imagine how many times they've said them in the umpty-ump seasons they've been on tv. I wonder if this is really the way they talk in real life?

Amazing. Sweet. Season of Life. Miracle. Hey Hey Hey.

Maybe you can help them get into the Guinness Book of World Records: The most logical fallacies ever recorded in a single sentence. I can see that record falling in the first 10 minutes.

Indeed. And you probably wouldn't fantasize about your daughter calling you from her bed on her wedding night to announce that she might have been impregnated either. Whereas I'm pretty sure JimBob has. They are way way way too intrusive with their kids. Sexually and in every other way. Which is ironic, because they aren't actually very involved with the kids, certainly haven't taken close care of them in some important ways and generally don't seem to know them much at all. It's all pretty sick, really.

I'm not so sure that this is as strange as it may seem. I would think that they wanted to put in a little kids' toilet, but didn't need to have a whole separate bathroom for it. So they just stuck in one of the other bathrooms. I don't think it means that they're inviting two people to use neighboring toilets simultaneously, just that this is the bathroom that little kids use, because it's got the facility that's suitable for them. But if a little kid isnt' in there, bigger people can use it, too. Why waste a whole bathroom just for a little kids' toilet? .... I'm with the Duggars on this one.

This. Exactly. Seems to me it's probably clear to everyone that these folks have only one story, and they've already told it a bazillion times. So does anybody really crave hearing it again? Likely no. .... Now this is marketing talk, so I wonder who they're marketing to? Do they really expect to bring in people who aren't familiar with the Duggars to tune in to hear this story -- and become Duggar fans? Are they hoping that Duggar fans who aren't regular Fox News viewers will be so happy to have their heroes given a platform that they'll become regular Fox news viewers? Or what? Because it seems to me that it will just be the usual thing for anybody who is aware of the Duggars. And if somebody is not very aware of the Duggars, are they reallly likely to see "their story" as being an adequate and appropriate response to child molestation and its neglectful aftermath? I'm not sure what anybody thinks they're accomplishing here.

They won't be talking about politics, though. Most interviewers will go softer on a politician too, if the questions are personal things rather than about political ideas and actions, as far as I can tell. Even if those actions have a bearing on the politics (as they do here, obviously), there's still usually some inhibition about really bringing the hammers and the skewers out. It's one thing to be ultra-aggressive with a politician about political graft but another to be ultra-aggressive about misdeeds that happened within the family, outside the public realm. Reporters are people, not machines, and things like empathy, a sense of privacy and manners we've learned since we were kids tend to kick in and soften the approach. It may be just a minor softening, but it's usually there, I think.

Maybe they just figured you were trying to give them an extra-special Halloween fright. That's what the holiday's for, isn't it?

I agree. It'd be interesting to know if he actually did this in Jessa's case. And whether it means that he actually has respect in there somewhere for education and an education credential, or only that he thought they might get in trouble with the state if their teacher didn't have one. I think it would have to be the former, oddly enough, since current Arkansas law seems to say this: "There are no educational requirements for parents/guardians who provide a home school for their children." http://www.arkansased.gov/public/userfiles/Learning_Services/Charter%20and%20Home%20School/Home%20School-Division%20of%20Learning%20Services/FACT_SHEET.pdf On the other hand, homeschool law changes a fair amount in states, and usually in the "loosen the regs" direction. Hard to believe that JimBob thinks much of schoolin', though, especially that evil public-school kind.

It's also a dirty tactic for them to feature that in their promotions, to me. Because, as you say, it's undeniable that it's a bad thing for the girls to lose control of their own stories. However, when they deliberately get people to focus on that harm, it's obviously for the purpose of diverting attention from the huge harms without which that one would never even have existed. And the diversion will probably work for many people. Attempts to divert attention from the crap that Josh, JB and M perpetrated on those girls are infuriating -- and make the network a coconspirator with the Duggar Three, in my opinion. Yuch yuch yuch.

Thanks for pointing that out. Hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

So our choices are alcohol poisoning or obesity and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Are you sure that isn't just letting the Duggars win?

Oh, you're completely right about what a great, livable city Washington is -- so diverse, full of great people and with tons of things to do. Plus, it's beautiful -- overflowing with trees and flowers and parks. A few job sectors tend to be really difficult, ultra-cliquey, social-climbing and cutthroat because they're full of people clambering to be the closest ones to highest powers, though, and Josh D was certainly in one of those. There are others, too, such as the DC press corps. I agree completely that Josh would find any cosmopolitan atmosphere a problem. But he was in a cosmopolitan atmosphere -- which would be too much for him in any case -- and in a particularly hard-fighting sector of it. Couldn't have been pretty for somebody who came in thinking he was all that -- when he so isn't.

Thanks for this interesting exploration. .... I wonder whether we partly get this impression of Protestant fundamentalists because the ones we most often hear about aren't just fundamentalist believers but also are heavily involved in some other cultish subgroup whose beliefs and activities go way beyond what we'd consider truly bible-derived and into legalistic tangles created by Gothard and his ilk. Quiverfull thinking and some others come to mind as well. These things aren't so much fundamentalism as they're fundamentalism PLUS -- fundamentalism layered over with some other set of beliefs and practices that were devised to attract the most fearful and control-freakish of the group. Plus, in a culture where Protestants have always been the big kahunas, even the fringiest Protestants tend to feel entitled to trumpet their beliefs and judge others for not adhering to them. Seems to me that the emergence of such groups has happened less frequently among Orthodox Jews and whatever such groups exist are probably much much smaller and much much quieter, since Jews are, after all, a minority and sometimes distrusted? So when we think of Orthodox Judaism, we think of the religious tradition and the cultural tradition that most Orthodox represent. But when we think of Protestant fundamentalism, front and center are a lot of these cult-y groups, so the fringe looks as if it's representative of the whole?

Here's hopin. I don't actually think much flipping of the script would be required. They give the same canned non-response responses to everything, and we can probably predict which ones they'll give here. And that'll sound stupid to anybody who notices. But their big fans are very very likely not to notice, seems to me, because what people probably love about the Duggars are just these same reassuring statements, which picture the fantasy world as the Duggars want it. The really dumb thing about the interview, to me, is that I can't see it changing anyone's mind if they do what most of us think they'll do -- i.e., give the always-expected Duggar answers. Those answers will be totally unsatisfying to everybody who thinks what went down was bad, but they'll be quite satisfying to the people who've already decided that this is no big deal. At the end, everybody watching will just think what they thought before, seems to me.

Only too true.

I only recently saw for the first time an early Duggar episode that featured Josh, and I was very struck by his air of privilege and arrogance, which I found odd and very offputting in a young kid. The same reaction to Josh as you're describing, in other words. But I have seen him pretty often in the present day as the FRC spokesperson, and I've seen a tiny bit of him on the show. And during that time, he's seemed -- to me, anyway -- to be shakier. Arrogant, yes, but with hints of being a little less assured than he was pretending. I have read that as being some doubt creeping in to his psyche, as he learned a little bit more about what the world was like outside of Duggar castle where he was the crown prince. That could be entirely reading in, of course.

I agree that Kelly won't question them the way she sometimes questions politicians. And that's not just because they're conservatives rather than liberals. When she questions a politician, in a certain way it isn't personal. It's the same way that, in the old but not too old days, Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy could be friends off the Senate floor. It's one thing to attack someone hammer and tongs over their professional and political beliefs and behavior. It's quite another thing to be so aggressive over something they do or believe in their personal lives. With the Duggars, even though they're public figures of a sort, their public personas are still the personas of private individual people. And even without meaning to, most interviewers will soften the questions when they involve personal lives. Furthermore, J and M aren't the ones who are accused of an actual crime, and they've portrayed themselves -- and will in the interview -- as victims. And that's another thing that is just going to get an interviewer to soften up a little, whether she actually intends to or not. By having them as the spokespeople, rather than having Josh speak for himself, it inevitably just deflects all the hard questions just a little bit -- and just enough, I expect, to keep and interview from being able to go hard after the hardest stuff. And then, of course, no matter what she asks, they'll just give some mealy-mouthed non-response response and keep on giving it if she asks again. They have their family vocabulary of meaningless code words, and they always use it, almost exclusively, no matter what they're talking about. So they'll use it again. Plus, all the code words are also designed to put them in a good light, to turn the topic to love and sweetness and tears -- so they're another subliminal way to deflect the interviewer, no matter what the interviewer intends. That's what I expect, anyway. I hope that I'm wrong.

Well, I'm sure he didn't know it until he arrived . It's not a city that gives up its secrets to anyone until that person tries to gain entry, really. When you try to explain to somebody who hasn't tried to get through the door just how hard it is to do it and how risky it can be, they generally don't believe you. It's really the equivalent of making it in Hollywood or in NYC business and finance. Just because it used to look like a sleepy southern backwater doesn't mean it is. And Josh D came up as a completely uneducated, inexperienced guy from the boondocks who'd been given every reason to believe that he was the next big thing and, in fact, Teflon. Once he was in his position, though, he probably saw a few things that demonstrated how precarious a position like his could be. And then he started eating more comfort food, I would guess.