Pure Unadulterated Pain

This "12 Days of Christmas" parody, produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, may be the most blisteringly awful attempt at an Internet video meme I have ever seen. This makes that creepy Ginger Kid from NewsBusted look like George Carlin.



Okay, you didn't get through the whole thing. Naturally, I don't blame you. It's impossible to watch even a second of this video and not immediately enter a Simon Cowell impression. "I thought it was absolutely excruciating. Please, please, do the world a favor and never sing again. Actually, after giving it some thought, you'd probably be better off not speaking either. You could hurt yourself."

So, to spare you the need to sit through the whole thing (as I did, dear reader, for your benefit...), here are the 12 things "the liberals" gave to the NRSC for Christmas:

12 Senators Failing

- Here, they put photos of 12 Senators up, but it's so fast and poorly Photoshopped, you can't actually tell who they are. I picked out Kerry, and that's it. And bear in mind, I follow news and politics for a living. If I'm having trouble spotting faces, how does a person who does something non-news-media-related all day have any chance?

11 Percent Approval

- Not funny in any real way, which you'd think would be the point, but at least this one is true...sorta. The reason Congress has such a low approval rating is that they won't stand up to the Republican President, the thing they were voted into office to do only last year. But I don't want to begrudge the video this one...it's the only point they actually succeed in making.

10 Paychecks Burning

- Huh? The Democrats want to light your paycheck on fire?

90 Thousand Freezing

- This is a reference to that money that was stashed in Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's freezer. Which happened quite some time ago (in politics time, an eternity), and was only national news for a few days. In Louisiana, they'll get this joke. Otherwise, not so much. (Plus, not funny, and they have to change "9" to "90,000" just to make it fit into the song.)

No More Secret Ballots

- This is a TWOFER. It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't use an 8, which is the entire point of parodying this song! Why do a "12 Days of Christmas" riff if you're not even going to fucking bother following the format!?!!!?!?! This doesn't bother me as a liberal, but as a Weird Al fan. It's like writing a send-up of The Raven that isn't in trochaic octameter. (You know it when you hear it...)

"Once upon a midnight dreary
While I sat around in my room smoking bong loads in my underpants waiting for my Chinese food to arrive
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore..."

The effect, as they say, is lost.

700 Billion in New Spending

- This line also sucks, because they change 7 to "700 Billion" and it's so long that the singer can barely get it out in time. Also, it's kind of a weaksauce argument coming from these Republican scumbags who are wasting our tax dollars on corporate giveaways. Sometimes just losing billions at a time. For real! Just losing your money to graft and fraud!

6 Troop Funding Cuts

- The woman who sings this line sounds gravely ill, and the effect gets worse with each repetition. Also, this is incredibly disingenuous and manipulative. They're referring to attempts to end this seemingly endless, futile and bloody disaster as "troop funding cuts," as if Democrats have proposed simply abandoning wide swaths of the American soldiers in the desert with IOUs, peanut butter sandwiches and swift kicks in the ass. There have been attempts to cut off new funds to continue the war into more and more months and years. To my knowledge, no "leave 'em in the Middle East to rot whilst we move in on their wives" bills have been offered by the Democratic Congress.

Bear in mind, I don't particularly like this Democratic Congress. They're a bunch of privileged, timid, bureaucratic assholes who don't seem to give two shits about what their constituents or anyone else wants, and seem determined to fight only to maintain the status quo. But these arguments are just pathetic and dishonest in equal measure. Plus, they're delivered in song. Shrill, monotonous, nigh on unlistenable song.

Hillary's Woodstock Museum

- And here's where the song reaches maximum crapulence. It doesn't contain the 5 in "Five Golden Rings," it refers to a non-scandal that those who don't comment daily on Confederate Yankee will miss, and it's delivered in the most bleating, eardrum-shattering, hope-meltingly odious tone my ears have ever had the displeasure of encountering. This diva's final, otherworldly "Hillary's Woodstock Museum" will continue to haunt my nightmares for years to come.

The joke is, Hillary had asked for $1 million in taxpayer monies to build a Woodstock Museum in her state (not coincidentally, the state in which Woodstock occurred.) I don't actually think this is a bad idea. In fact, I'm kind of surprised there isn't already a Museum there commemorating the most famous rock concert of all time.

I mean, if some Tennessee hillbilly asked for $1 million to completely renovate and restore the Grand Ol' Opry, you think there'd be rioting in the streets or a commercial about it being such an awful idea. Probably not. (I've never been, and I don't really care about country music, but I don't think that project would be out of line either.)

The point is, this is the best Congressional Republicans can do in making their case for re-election next year. The Best They Can Do. Silly pet projects, ancient scandals, non-sequiteur (No more secret ballots? I still have no clue what they mean with that one...) and outright misrepresentations, all delivered in such an obnoxious, amateurish manner, no one could possibly sit through the whole thing, even like-minded partisans.

NOTE: They actually wrote an explanation key in the YouTube "About this Video" section, obviously figuring that viewers would be confused. But even after reading their explanation of the "No More Secret Ballots" line, I still don't know what the hell they're talking about.

(Big Labor payback for union bosses)

Huh?

4 bucks a gallon

- At least they got a four in there...I'll give them that. Still, not quite sure how this is the fault of Congressional Democrats. More like trigger-happy Republican presidents starting needless wars in the places where they keep all the oil.

Al Franken ranting

- Can't help but notice...no 3. Just sad, really. You know what, Republicans? I'm going to GIVE YOU this one...

"3 Cops a-Slapping"

You remember, how Cynthia McKinney slapped that cop around when he stopped her in the Capitol? And look, it has a 3 in it! Just like the original song!

But the best part of this line is the explanation in the sidebar:

(Angry Hollywood liberal)

Yes, I mean, who could forget Franken's classic work on "Saturday Night Live," a Hollywood institution shot every week in the heart of Los Angeles, California. (Don't believe that whole "Live, from New York..." bit. It's just more of that baffling Hollywood liberal irony.)

2 liberal Udalls

- Again, I read the news every day, all day, at work, so I'm vaguely aware that there are some guys up for Congressional seats in 2008 named Udall. I can't imagine more than 1% of Americans (and that's probably too high) are aware of this fact. They do not need to be. No one needs to be. It is, at this point, totally insignificant to everyone's life.

Was this just desperation to work a two in there? Because they obviously weren't worried about that shit when it came to 3 or 5. (Seriously, how many people do you think it took to write this song? Was it more than 1/8 of one person? Because if so, that's too many.)

Also, in case you didn't watch this (and let's face it...you couldn't have...) and forget how the original goes, 2 comes at the very very beginning, which means it's repeated 11 times. Hearing a bad joke poorly sung once kind of sucks. Hearing a bad joke poorly sung 11 times is like watching your grandmother and a litter of puppies get burned alive in a Bessemer Converter. 11 times.

And a tax hike for every family!

- As a single man, I have to tell you...I'm strongly in favor of a tax hike for most families. Fuck you all, I gots to get mine. No one's ever after my vote. Not once has a politician ever attempted to reach out to the slothful 20-something single urban male. Not once. And I could be bought...pretty easily. Way easier than these NASCAR dads, who have a list of demands a mile long and some of whom seem to love Fred Thompson, so God knows what the hell is wrong with that crowd.

But the slothful 20-something single urban male is a voter without a representative. Build me a low-cost bullet train from here to Vegas, I'm yours. Legalize it, you've got my vote for at least a decade. Stop using my money to put up billboards advising mothers to talk to their children about not having sex early and often, your ideas will intrigue me and I will subscribe to your newsletter. Pander to me for once, dammit!