"There are not many times in history," he said, "that a president has come to office with as many challenges as the president-elect does and that's incumbent then upon all of us to try and do all we can to work with him."
Appearing on Fox News for one of the few times since losing the election, McCain offered a supportive assessments of the president-elect's agenda. He acknowledged the need to pass a stimulus, but said he would reserve judgment until he saw the final package.
"All I can say to you is that I want to see the stimulus package I want to see what it does, I want to see what kind of provision it has in it," he told Neil Cavuto. "I think the president-elect is going to marshal public opinion. Right now his approval ratings and hopes of the American people are very high," he later added.
He also called Obama's national security team "excellent," and saved special praise for CIA Director nominee Leon Panetta.
"I think that Leon Panetta is highly qualified, and in all due respect I think it is not bad from time to time to have somebody from outside of the intelligence community but with strong managerial experience as Chief of Staff of the White House, to be head of one of these agencies. I think there is some good balance there."
McCain said he talked with Obama since the election about foreign policy and domestic matters. Calling those conversations "very cordial," he added, "I want to help the president succeed."
Until he cemented his decision to run for president in 2008, this is how John McCain always sounded. Not like a bold, decisive leader or anything...just a fairly rational guy. This is what made him appealing to independents and Democrats.
Cheney also said during an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that he has no qualms about the reliability of intelligence obtained from terrorism suspects through waterboarding, a technique simulating drowning. The vice president said waterboarding has been used with "great discrimination by people who know what they're doing" and produced much valuable information.
A candidate for the Republican National Committee chairmanship said Friday the CD he sent committee members for Christmas -- which included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" -- was clearly intended as a joke.
"I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman told CNN. "I think RNC members understand that."
When one of them starts making ANY SENSE AT ALL, it's a huge relief. And that, to me, was always the explanation for McCain's appeal. He's still behaving like a Republican, but I can listen to him speak for more than a minute without feeling like I've plunged into some kind of Carroll-esque alternate universe, with everyone speaking in silly puzzles.
I mean, you could replace Rudy Giuliani's stump speech with dialogue from Prince Caspian and it'd have about the same level of relevance to everyday life in as it is lived in America.
Bear in mind, I don't think this bodes well for John McCain's character or integrity. This means that he's clued in enough to know better. He might not really believe in all the insane things he said and did during his presidential run...but he said and did them anyway. That's how much he wants to be president. Enough to potentially leave us with President Palin. Enough to pander to bigots. Enough to blatantly lie about stupid nonsense just to win over a few more ignorant yokels.
At least you get the feeling Rudy's genuinely crazy, and perhaps even sinister, by nature. He doesn't know any better. He thinks constantly boasting about and exploiting 9/11 makes him a hero. Because he's a nutcase. McCain hoped to fake being a nutcase in order to profit by it. That's worse!
"McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver's seat," DeMint said. "His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn't fit the label, but he was our package."
So John McCain lost because he wasn't an insane enough conservative? He didn't talk about fucking drilling enough? Drilling had its own goddamn chant during the McCain campaign. You can't possibly talk about something any more than when you're chanting about it. That's the whole definition of a "chant." You just say the same thing over and over again.
I mean, has Jim DeMint been holed up in Dick Cheney's Top Secret Underground Lair and Social Club for the past 2 years? It's pretty tough to make the case that Americans were voting on George Soros and amnesty for illegal immigrants (a point which McCain had essentially conceded before the election even started). There are ample exit polls that show people were worried about the economy and the Iraq War. I didn't see a whole lot of checked boxes for "I liked his warmongering policy, but I disagreed with his 'don't shoot Mexicans on sight' policy. Oh, and fuck George Soros."
But, you know, maybe I missed those polls. Or South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint just doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. One of those.
This clip is seriously over the line, even by Fox News standards. Contributor Liz Trotta, in discussing Hillary Clinton's ill-advised comparison of Obama's campaign and that of Senator Robert Kennedy, first calls the 2008 candidate "Osama" and then openly calls for his assassination.
Seriously. She said "Some are reading it as a suggestion we should knock out Osama"...then corrects herself to say, "Obama," then says, "well, both if we could." Implying that she's like it if "we" could "knock out" both terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden AND Senator and Democratic candidate for President Barack Obama.
I think, when a network is openly calling for the assassination of a contender for the presidency, that's when it's time to seriously begin questioning their journalistic credentials, no?
What the hell is Mike Huckabee even talking about here? It's like he's joking...but I don't get it...
Just weird...Why would someone be pointing a gun at Obama? I mean, I get that it's an NRA meeting and all, but isn't their whole thing that they are responsible sportsmen, not psychos who pull guns on presidential candidates?
How do Texans do it? Even if you intentionally tried to elect the most enormous asshole to the governorship of your state, it would be hard to beat the record they've got going. George W. Bush and Rick Perry back-to-back. Oh my stars and garters...
Pandagon points me to this intensely hilarious yet terrifying interview with Rick Perry, who has recently completed a book about how the Boy Scouts were justified in banning gay troop leaders. Not an article or an op-ed piece, mind you. A book. An entire book. Not sure there's really a book's worth of material there. Let's see..."Ewww! Gay dudes! Gross!" Nope, it's only five words. I guess you use a big font and add lots of illustrations.
What do you think of Barack Obama? I think he is a very attractive, very intriguing and, to many, a very stimulating candidate. I think he is one step away from being a socialist.
And it's awesome right off the bat. He uses three words to describe Obama: attractive, intriguing and stimulating. Are we starting to get at the root of this guy's homophobia or what?
And can you really be "one step away from being a socialist"? (Not that Obama has demonstrated a strong inclination towards socialism. Out of the two Democratic candidates, whose voting records are both relatively moderate, he's the less inclined towards massively expanding social programs and mandating public participation.) I just mean, socialism is a vague term to describe a whole raft of ideologies and policies. You either accept some or all of these beliefs, or you don't. If you do, you're a socialist (though maybe a moderate socialist). To describe someone as "one step away from being a socialist" would mean that you believe they will one day subscribe to these ideologies and policies, but presently do not, which would be a weird thing for Rick Perry to say about someone he probably doesn't know that well (and may not have met). How does he know Obama's mind?
I think what he really means, if I can translate from the original Texan, is "I'm a coward who's too scared to come out and say 'Barack Obama is a socialist', so I will moderate this statement just enough to make it toothless and evasive, thus preventing me the shame and embarrassment of being called out on my bullshit."
The conversation then moves on to Perry's book about icky gays trying to ruin Scouts. The title? "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For" Blurgh.
Why do you see that as a worthy cause? I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.
This guy is such an idiot. I mean, aside from the obvious "bigot" thing, he also just misspeaks constantly, much like his predecessor, President Chimpface McStumblefuck. "Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation"? I'd say approximately zero parents enroll their boys in Scouts so the kids can learn whether or not they enjoy the intimate company of members of their own gender. Unless the child happens to be Canteen Boy.
Reporter Deborah Solomon asks the obvious follow-up:
Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual? Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.
But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty? The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?
No. Well, then why don’t they call it something else?
Um, what? They don't all call it any one thing. We, speakers of the English language, have decided to use "homosexuality" as a term to denote those people who prefer to engage in sex acts with members of their own ("homo") gender. As opposed to those people who prefer to engage in sex acts with members of a different ("hetero") gender.
This is an argument? "Teh ghey wants to seduce your children and that's why he put the word sex in the middle of the word describing his sexual orientation"? Has Gov. Perry ever noticed that the word of his professed orientation, "heterosexual," also has the word "sex" in it? Solomon doesn't bring this up, possibly out of fear of blowing Rick's mind.
Bear in mind, Little Ricky wrote a fucking book on this subject! Hard to believe. Maybe it's one of those small books for preschoolers made of cardboard with only a few words per page. Or maybe the last hundred pages are just the words "Screw Flanders" written over and over again. I'm certainly not going to look for a copy and find out.
What's wrong with Michelle Malkin? I mean, for real. Beyond just being a cruel nativist simpleton.
Ill-advised doesn't really begin to cover it. Aside from the atrocious singing voice and the amateurish piano-playing ability, Malkin demonstrates approximately zero understanding of satire.
The song is supposed to make fun of Hillary's tendency to cry on the day before big votes. I'll state plainly right here: a parody song about this could be funny. I don't know Hillary personally, so I really can't say for certain that he tears are inauthentic, but it certainly does seem coincidental that she's always so overcome with emotion right when she wants Americans to feel sympathetic towards her. I bring this up only to make it clear from the beginning - I do not object to Malkin's attempt to poke fun of Hillary Clinton's phoniness. She strikes me as a phony, so I'm not insulted that someone would accuse her of being a phony (though I think the video does a poor job of making this case).
But in order to mock Clinton's tears, you actually have to do something other than point out the fact that she cries. That's not mockery. That's just pointing out. The lyrics of the song aren't funny, and frequently don't make sense. ("Even Clintons have a right to dream"? Doesn't that contradict the song's entire critique, that the Clintons are both amoral schemers who would do anything to achieve their dreams of power and political success?) There are no jokes. At one point, Malkin simply sings all the names of the states with remaining Democratic primaries. Ha ha.
And the visuals are just scanned newspaper and magazine clippings, reminding us over and over again that, yes, Hillary Clinton cried. Warbling painfully over a mundane little melody on YouTube doesn't make Hillary look crazy or foolish. It makes Michelle Malkin look crazy and foolish. Which is the opposite of the intended purpose.
Plus, do Republicans really think it's funny or clever or significant that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein? He speaks frequently and passionately about his Christian faith, so Michelle, who follows politics for a living certainly know he's not really Muslim. (Not that I wouldn't enthusiastically vote for a Muslim if I felt that he or she were the best candidate. But this is the basis of Republican attempts to tag Obama with the name "Hussein." He's one o' them crazy A-rabs what wants to blows us all to kingdom come cause they hates our freedoms.) Therefore, I must conclude that she thinks it's funny, which explains why she's so woefully inept at comedy video production.
So, former game show host and present Nixon apologist Ben Stein has a new film out in which he argues that God-talk is forcibly kept out of the classroom by jackbooted professorial thugs, possibly linked up with this whole Liberal Fascism movement I keep hearing so much about...
Here's how he described Expelled on his new...sigh...blog:
In a scientific world gone mad, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is the controversial documentary that will chronicle Ben Stein’s confrontation with the Neo-Darwinian machine, exposing widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination in his heroic quest to bring back freedom in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, with the help of the world’s top scientists, educators and thinkers.
I've got to say, it's pretty ballsy to come right out and call your Creationism documentary No Intelligence Allowed. This is the easiest punchline for critics and satirists since the heydey of '90s alt-rock mainstay Garbage.
You've also got to love the epic language with which Stein describes his bitchy academic slapfight. "You big meanies won't give my nonsensical bullshit beliefs the same weight as your rigorously-tested scientific theories!" suddenly becomes "Let My People Go!" I mean, his confrontation with the Neo-Darwinian machine? Is that "machine" anything like a large, disconnected group of angry nerds with mild superiority complexes? Seriously, his heroic quest to bring back freedom in our institutions? Freedom to believe made-up fake shit? This is too much...
The whole blog is chock full of complete dumbfuckery. I can't imagine how silly the movie is going to be. I mean, say what you will about Ben Stein...I enjoyed (and once appeared on) his game show. His single scene in Ferris Bueller is mildly amusing. Those Clear Eyes commercials weren't the worst thing I've ever seen. Um, he's probably not the single most oily douchebag from the Nixon administration...
But strong, well-reasoned argumentation has never been his strong suit. Attentive readers will recall his unspeakably distasteful, sociopathic reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The main post on the site right now is about how Charles Darwin's birthday has supplanted Lincoln's birthday in the "imagination" of Americans. (They were both born on the same day: February 12, 1809). Which, of course, is not true. Like most people who believe evolution is essentially correct, I couldn't have told you Charles Darwin's birthday off the top of my head.
But Stein doesn't stop with mere mendacity. Check this out:
The title of Charles Darwin’s book is not “The Origin of The Species.” The full title seems shocking: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” That last half of the title, often overlooked, sounds like it could come straight out of a Ku Klux Klan manual - which is precisely why Big Science rarely quotes the full title (even though Darwin was not referring specifically to “man” in his use of the words “favoured races.”). Big Science is uncomfortable with even the suggestion that evolutionary theory might favor politically incorrect thinking.
This is some intensely intellectually dishonest writing right here. Stein essentially acknowledges that his analysis is incorrect. Darwin used the term "favoured races" in a way that had nothing to do with our current ideas about racial diversity in humans. Then he just goes ahead and discusses implications of his incorrect analysis anyway. I mean...what? That's the opposite of how persuasive argumentation works. You establish a premise and then back it up with evidence, guy.
Darwinian evolution theory is a viable scientific theory. Author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins has stated that Darwin’s evolution theory has provided atheists with “intellectual fulfillment.” If you grant that, then you must also grant that it has given a great many racists “intellectual fulfillment,” too.
Because...some racists...many years ago...were inspired and comforted by elements of Darwin's theories...that means they are wrong? Or it means they are right, but so toxic, we should pretend they are wrong? W
Ben Stein is an old man, and I'm pretty sure a reasonably intelligent middle-school student could unravel this argument. I mean, it's not like racists have exclusively used evolution to justify their racism. They'll use any means to justify it they can think of. What about religion? Ann Coulter said we should go kill the leaders of Middle Eastern countries and convert the people to Christianity, not Secular Humanism. That mean we should give up on Christianity? Hey, Ann Coulter used it in a racist context!
What a child this man is. If you want to be super-super-religious, go for it. No one's telling you not to. But why do strangers have to justify your belief system to you? If Ben Stein's answer really is The Truth, then Science will come around to it eventually through the standard process of hypothesis and experimentation. He knows that won't happen, so he has to cheat, to bully and pester people into accepting his unique brand of ignorant twaddle.
But cheating is all Stein knows how to do. A little box on his website features insulting snippets from comments/e-mails from detractors and reads: "Intelligent Quote of the Day!" Rather than present arguments from his critics and then take them on honestly in the forthright manner that might spark an actual dialogue, he prefers to cherry-pick substance-free insults and present them as the sole opposition. See, I must make a lot of sense if all these hysterics come here unprovoked and insult me! What a loser.
Today's Mahalo Daily is an excellent rundown of last night's Republican debate. How many times could they possibly work the name of Saint Ronnie into a 90 minute broadcast? Let's watch:
I liveblogged Bush's State of the Union speech, so I could provide a response to what he said...but he didn't really say anything. At least, he didn't say anything he hasn't said pretty much every day since 2003. Watching it was like being transported through time...Freedom is on the march! No Child Left Behind is a rousing success! Upper-class tax cuts are necessary to give our economy a boost! I can't imagine even someone as deranged as George W. believes that this warmed-over dross would still be inspiring in 2008, so maybe he was going for some sentimental value? Hoping we'd remember the good times, even though there haven't been any since he wrestled control of the ship of state and sent it careening into a rapidly-dissolving iceberg? Some new kind of nostalgia, perhaps? Shitstalgia?
Anyway, to my mind, the biggest political story of the young year isn't Bush's latest speech or even Teddy K's endorsement of Barack Obama. It's the sad loss of Fred Thompson from our Presidential race.
Naturally, I do not want Fred Thompson to be President. At all. In fact, except for Huckabee or Giuliani or Dick Cheney or George Bush getting elected again, that's pretty much the worst thing that could happen. But he had no chance of winning in a general and he's by far the most entertainingly ridiculous presidential candidate of our times. (And I'm including John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Lyndon LaRouche, Ross Perot, Pat Paulsen and Alan Keyes here.)
Here's a clip of Fred begging an audience to applaud for him:
Here's Fred's really embarrassing "smackdown" of Michael Moore, essentially performing a ridiculous unfunny skit as an excuse to avoid having an actual debate about issues:
Now, Star Parker from the always-reliable Townhall.com is going to tell us why Fred had to drop out of the race...turns out, he's too liberal.
On the social agenda, the difference between Thompson and Mike Huckabee was palpable and significant. Huckabee understands that abortion, like the slavery issue years ago, is not a matter of constitutional nuance. It defines our core moral structure as a people and cannot be legal in a nation that exists "under God."
Wow...that is some vintage crazy...I'm intrigued how anti-abortion zealots can compare the legality of the procedure to both slavery and the Holocaust. Those things are both evil, but they're otherwise not very much alike. Can abortion be like both these institutions at once?
And what's with the "under God" thing? Star's aware that the Pledge of Allegiance is not actually part of the Constitution, yes? The Constitution uses the phrase "In the Year of Our Lord" but never once the word "God."Face. So, because we're not "a nation that exists under God," we don't have to listen to his opinion on reproductive rights. Thank God.
Having grown weary of making up some silly, factless analysis for why Fred Thompson had to drop out of the race, Star now relates blatant falsehoods about public opinion polls:
Polls show that public opinion on abortion is moving in the direction of Huckabee. Americans sense the need for moral leadership and it just wasn't there in Thompson's tepid social conservatism.
The most basic truth is that three decades of debate have done virtually nothing to change public opinion on the central issue. Abortion is legal, and most Americans want to keep it so. Much as in 1975, only 18% of Americans would make abortion illegal in all circumstances, according to a Gallup Poll conducted in May. No matter how sincere and heartfelt the beliefs of abortion opponents, banning it or curtailing access still imposes one group's religious beliefs on other individuals.
Yeah, that link in that excerpt is to an actual Gallup poll that actually says the opposite of what Star just said. She doesn't link to any polls. The page does, however, link to a site where I can buy a hilarious conservative T-shirt, perhaps advocating my love of firearms or Ronald Reagan's dessicated corpse.
Then Star rants about how Thompson didn't want to cheat Americans out of Social Security benefits and health care enough, even comparing him to (gasp!) Barack Obama, whose agenda presumably consists of drinking the blood of every last wealthy white American while showering newly-arrived illegal immigrants with jewel-encrusted scepters.
And then there is the moral issue that free people in a free country should not have their income confiscated because politicians have concluded that they can't take care of themselves. Shouldn't you at least have a choice?
So, she starts by talking about how we're a nation "under God," and finishing by calling Universal Health Care immoral? It's just...really unthinkable to me that anyone could hold these two thoughts in their head at the same time. "I'm a good God-fearing Christian. FUCK THOSE POOR PEOPLE!" It's like being a married bachelor. I'm pretty sure Jesus was in favor of universal health care.
Not long ago, when the Republican Party was an exciting place to be (remember the "ownership society"?), transforming Social Security to an ownership system was one of the important pillars of reforms being put forward to address causes rather than symptoms of our nation's growing problems.
There were people actually EXCITED about that ownership society bullshit? Man, nerding out about senseless GOP rhetoric is more lame than being heavily into fanfic. I'd rather obsess about "Battlestar" slash than some random, half-decade-old Cato Institute crap.
If Republicans are to again capture the high ground in the battle for leadership of this country, it must be understood that the failure of the Thompson candidacy was as much substance as style.
As in, he has no substance? I think I might actually agree with this sentence...Amazing.
"Unfortunately these same students are never taught that there exists one sovereign power that reigns supreme, even over the Constitution: King Jesus Christ."
I have to say, as far as personal webpages go, Reed is batting 1000.
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!
I recall a high school AP US History class discussion about the Cold War. I remember wondering what it must be like to live in a country fueled by that kind of terror and hysteria. Did they really force children to crawl under their desks and cover their heads in the hopes of staving off the effects of a nuclear attack? It seemed almost unimaginable, from my secure vantage point in an upper-class Southern California suburb, that there was ever a time in America when the fear of imminent destruction was so palpable.
Let's be honest: 2007 in the United States is not so much more dangerous than 1995. I haven't spent several hours scouring the Net for statistical evidence to back this up, but I'm guessing that, even if you factor in 9/11, I'm not at a significantly greater risk of being murdered by a foreign national now than I was 12 years ago. Yet we're right back to that old-school hysteria. I don't need to imagine what it must be like to live amongst a people cowering in constant fear of foreign invasion and terrorism; I'm living amongst these people right now.
And let me tell you, it's horrible. Not because I'm constantly afraid like so many of my countrymen, mind you. At least, I'm not constantly afraid of dirty bombs and brown people. But because it's just depressing to see Americans wallow in anxious despair like this, for this long. A few weeks after 9/11? Okay, fine, be afraid, think about the ramifications of an attack on U.S. soil.
But it's years and years later, we clearly have no immediate outside threat bearing down on us (that isn't environmental, that is). The drumbeat of terror-related panic, at this point, has morphed in a particularly ugly, futile strain of self-pity. "Oh, woe is us, people don't like us! The crazy president of Iran said he wishes we didn't even exist any more! There's questionable types coming across our border with backpacks! Boo hoo hoo!"
It's fucking pathetic. Seriously. And, as I find myself repeating more and more these days, no one is more pathetic than Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo. NO ONE.
I mean, it's not just a disgusting attempt to manipulate simpletons. It's a POORLY DONE disgusting attempt to manipulate simpletons. This ad's more thrown-together and crudely-realized than "Turkish Star Wars." I mean, Tommy, you're running a national campaign for President, not a late-night public access chat show.
We're really blessed this election cycle to have not one but TWO completely inept Republican candidates to mock.
First up, Mittens Romney. Let's see how many embarrassing inanities he can utter over the course of a single, brief ABC News article:
On Saturday, Romney met a former Marine along the route who said that "being informed military" he was "really concerned" about the troops overseas and he wants a change. Romney disagreed with him, saying, "I'm a little more encouraged than you are," and encouraged him to "take a close look."
Four civilians were killed when a roadside bomb struck their bus in the centre of the northern city of Mosul, police Brigadier General Abdel Karim al-Juburi said.
Another six people, including a woman and her daughter, were wounded in the morning attack in the city's Raas al-Jadha area, he said.
Two people were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, while a street vendor walking on a road in the city of Baquba was shot dead by unknown gunmen, security officials said.
US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night. .... Brose, 30, who extracts information from detainees in Iraq, said: 'They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there's clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I've had, I'd say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.
'It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran's not involved, it's a let down.' He added: 'I've had people say to me, "They're really pushing the Iran thing. It's like, shit, you know." '
Promising!
So, I think we can all agree with the Mittster. Things in Iraq are getting so much better all the time.
Let's continue.
Romney kept the mood lighter at times. Stopping by one young couple's house, he remarked at the large leaves on their tree, quipping, "Adam and Eve would not have looked as promiscuous if they had had leaves this big."
Honestly, ABC News' Matt Stuart, I'm not sure that can accurately be described as "quipping." Woody Allen quips. Oscar Wilde quipped. This kind of avuncular, folksy observation is "expelled," perhaps. "Bloviated" could work. "Upchucked", even. Let me take a crack at it.
"Romney kept the mood lighter at times. Stopping by one young couple's home, he remarked at the large leaves on their tree, expectorating, "INSERT mundane Biblical reference implying that somehow even a pre-sin Adam and Even were promiscuous wearing only leaves over their naughty, ugly, hideous, disgusting, foul genitals HERE."
Now THAT'S fair and balanced!
Along the way, he also met at least one unfriendly resident, McGuire, a Scottish Terrier who started barking as Romney knocked on the door. One reporter suggested he bring dog biscuits next time. Romney joked that he should "bring some of them out for you guys," referencing the crowd of media following him.
What does that even mean? How are journalists like dogs? Seriously, I don't understand a joke Mitt Romney made, and it's kind of freaking me out.
In any normal election cycle, Mitt Romney would be the most ridiculous idiot to throw his propeller beanie into the ring. But he's actually running a close second this time behind Fred "Foghorn" Thompson. Here's, I say, here's the latest ad from the star of "Law and Order." No, not that one. No, he's from "SVU." Think "old" and "ludicrous." The guy who was also in "Baby's Day Out." Yeah, that guy.
I'm Lon Harris, and I'm shocked anyone would televise this message.
"Our rights come from God, not from government"? I know his whole strategy is to convince the nutters to vote for him over Giuliani, but...that's just un-American, plain and simple. And NOT BECAUSE I think our rights come from government. Our rights don't come from anywhere. That's why they're "our rights." This is the founding principle of our Republic, folks, and Fred Thompson doesn't understand how it works.
We all have natural rights. We don't owe them to Fred Thompson's God or anyone else. This is not a semantic argument. Consider abortion. I think, as do most reasonable people, that a woman has a natural right to control her own body, and therefore abortion is a personal matter, not a civic manner upon which the government should render an opinion. Fred Thompson, who proudly boasts of his "100% pro-life record," believes the exact opposite. He thinks that a woman does not have a right to her own body. God has a right to her body, and he loans it out to her most of the time, but when there's a fetus in it, the rights revert back to the Big Man Upstairs. Therefore, though he'd like to avoid having to admit it, Fred Thompson does think, on occasion, that the government should be allowed to make person decisions fwomen, because the government is merely acting on behalf of He Who Owns All Rights to Everyone At All Times Forever.
(Even though Fred Thompson doesn't attend church regular, he apparently still thinks he knows God's will. Odd how that works out.)
NewsBusted, the hi-larious stand-up conservo-comedy podcast, actually made me physically cringe. Now, I know rhetorically, the notion of "cringe-inducing" material is thrown around a lot, but I'm telling you, I shuddered in fear at the mathematically-impossible depths to which this doofus in an ill-fitting suit sinks attempting to squeeze a laugh out of hardcore right-wing nutballery.
Conan O'Brien's mongoloid, malnourished cousin, Mark Ellis, doesn't get a single line off that's not excruciatingly hacktastic. It would have been less painful to just give him an anaesthesia-free root canal on YouTube than encourage him to do his best five minutes on clueless libruls. He clearly learned all he knows about comedy by watching, and then rewatching, all six weeks' worth of Chevy Chase Shows. But how are you going to recreate that phenomenon? Like lightning in a bottle, that Chevy Chase charisma...
Half of Ellis' statements don't even come off as jokes. More like "desperate cries for help." When he blatantly calls Sean Penn a traitor...that's I think when the clips shifts from irritating to pathetic.
And is that canned laughter? It looked like he had a studio audience in the beginning, but the laughs themselves sound really tinny and fake. Plus, there's no way actual humans were laughing at jokes about Michael Moore enjoying ice cream and Barack Obama liking Starbucks. You could give Robin Quivers 8 massive bong rips and she still wouldn't laugh at a joke about Michael Moore's weight problem. It's played...Sooooooo plaaaaaaaayed...
A while back, I discussed Jay Leno's preferred joke-writing technique, which is extremely simple:
(1) Pick a popular news story (2) Pick a famous person who is not directly or obviously connected with the popular news story (3) Connect the two
Ellis won't even put in this amount of effort. He's simplified the Leno style into an even more basic, and even less funny (which I wasn't even sure was possible) 2-step formula:
(1) Pick a stupid librul (2) Insult them
Here's some free advice for anyone attempting to write sharp political humor. If you're writing a joke about how Bill Clinton loves pussy and it's no longer 1997, you suck ass. Thank me later.
By now, at least a third of my fellow U.S. Americans must have seen this amazing video from the "Miss Teen USA" Pageant, in which Miss South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, utters the following masterpiece of garbled incoherency. She's asked to explain a random statistic that indicates 1/5 of Americans can't find their own country on a map:
Miss S.C.'s response in full:
"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that theyshould...our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S...or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our...(inaudible)"
Awesome.
I kind of figured that would be the most stupid statement that I'd see, hear or read this month, and felt alright with that. I mean, I know George Bush has given a few speeches this month, but he's generally capable of completing at least 50% of his sentences.
In a way, she's a victim. Any fair look at her answer shows she got mired in liberal taking points.
Pageant questions for the last 30 years are just fluff designed to extract from the young girl her liberal qualifications. So young girls practice spouting liberal buzz phrases, no matter the question.-- Because looking good isn't enough to win a beauty parent, you must have the proper liberal credentials, or there's no sparkly tiara for you!
The core assumption of Paul's post is that beauty pageants tilt liberal. This strikes me as kind of counter-intuitive, if only because I stereotypically associate beauty pageants with Middle American (or, if you prefer, "Red State") culture, but this is just a lazy assumption. I don't know anything about beauty pageants, really, so perhaps Paul is right and they're totally biased against conservatives. You don't really need an opinion on this topic to grasp the inanity of Paul's post. Though you kind of have to wonder about someone who looks to turn anything, even the Internet's version of the "dumb blonde joke," into an opportunity for lame political hackery. This is roughly akin to writing a dense, angry screed applying identity politics to Homestar Runner cartoons or debating the impact of that fat guy singing about the Montgomery Flea Market to the Dow.
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps
Everybody is a victim. The first rule of being a good liberal is to find a way to say these hapless morons who can't find the U.S. on a map aren't really morons, they are victims... Victims of the map deficit. The map deficit grew under Reagan, got better under Clinton but has exploded under George Bush. "We should have a program" so everyone can get a map.
Okay, so, this is when it starts to get really stupid. The whole point of this video is that the girl talks for a full minute without expressing a single clear idea. She just babbles incoherently. That's what makes it funny. So Paul, missing that part completely, delves right into making up stuff that she probably meant to say, because she's such a brainwashed LIEberal.
She just says they probably don't know where the United States is because they don't have a map. That's a pretty fair assumption, wouldn't you say? If you have a map, you know where to find shit. If you don't have a map, you don't know where shit is.
Lauren at no point says that she feels those without maps are "victims." That word doesn't appear in her entire, um, "speech." Paul throws that out there so he can go on a belligerent, misanthropic rant about how much he hates needy people who lack things, and how we shouldn't ever help others because it's un-American.
and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa
And this is where her coaching really kicked in. Mention the poor people of South Africa. No matter the question, South Africa MUST be in the stock pageant answer.
Huh? I thought South Africa was kind of a random country to throw out there, if only because she's too young to remember the apartheid era clearly, and thus wouldn't necessarily have that in the back of her mind as the "go-to" generic, desperate African nation. (I'd think "Rwanda" would hold that title now...)
Paul seems to feel that South Africa is the obvious reference that everyone makes at a beauty pageant, even though Lauren doesn't say anything about the people of South Africa. Paul says "the poor people of South Africa," not Lauren. She just says that our education like such as in South Africa, which doesn't make any fucking sense at all.
and, uh, the Iraq
and what good is a good liberal answer without the word Iraq in it?
Paul's seriously trying to break my brain. THIS IS NOT A GOOD LIBERAL ANSWER. This is the worst answer anyone has given to any question, ever. That's why we're watching it.
And by the by, is it the liberals that keep talking about helping out the Iraqis? Odd, cause I seem to recall some arrogant Texas fratboy prattling on endlessly for the past 6 years about helping the Iraqi people stand up, so that we might then stand down...Must be all this black tar heroin I've been smoking...
Also, please, Paul, "the Iraq." It's pronounced "the Iraq."
everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S.
(pageantbot) Education, must speak about education.... OK in fairness, education really should be part of a reasonable answer but by this point, she can't even tell you the question, she's just trying to hit the liberal talking points.
Honestly, Paul's making less sense at this point than Lauren.
I think maybe Paul's upset because he senses that beauty pageant questions are the only ones he'd be able to satisfactorily answer and, dammit, no one ever asks them of him! He dreams of just once being in a debate with a liberal co-worker, and rather than systematically rebutting all of his awesome Glenn Beck talking points, they'd just ask him what he thinks makes America great (whiteness!) and the three people he'd like to have over for lunch, living or dead (Jesus, Billy Graham and Sean "Hannidate" Hannity!)
Fortunately, Paul, you have a blog, which could solve this problem. I recommend that, in place of your silly conservative bloviating, you start answering recent beauty pageant questions for the benefit of your readership. You could start with Lauren's.
"I think that U.S. Americans don't know where to find America on a map because our maps are too confusing. If every American map placed America directly in the center, where it rightfully belongs, all U.S. Americans would know exactly where to find it."
should help
EVERY pageant answer is required to have a call for someone being helped. Because we all know this "help" is a liberal codeword meaning tax increases and income redistribution.
Wait, did he just admit that conservatives dislike the idea of help? Like, in principle? I think he did. Does this mean they're finally ready to give up on that silly Christianity front and fucking get real about where they stand, at last? No? Okay, just checking.
the U.S., er, should help South Africa
Of course we should honey. You've been practicing that line for a year, it was going to come out no matter the question.
Watch the video. Does it sound like the girl is falling back on her reliable, A-material, or that she's trying to speak extemporaneously? What kind of fucking dipshit do you have to be to watch that video and think, "This is a person who is over-relying on canned material. Her answer should be more honest and off-the-cuff." I'll say it again. He's attempting to use a video of a blonde teenager from South Carolina babbling incoherently at a beauty pageant to make a grand point about the state of Liberalism in America. Wow...
and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries
Because being a good liberal means we care about all the dark people.
Actually, caring about people, light or dark, has little to do with making you a good liberal, Paul. It's what makes you a good person.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that, even now, at this late date, there are probably still some self-identified American conservatives who are good people. Paul seems to insist that a rejection of liberalism is at its core a complete rejection of altruism, that his movement is, in essence, an agreement among assholes to be assholes. Conservatives hate help, they don't care about all the dark people and they don't like talking about education even when asked about it directly. Did I miss anything, Paul, or is that the gist of it?
so we will be able to build up our future for our children.
Because it takes a village to raise a moron.
Ba-zing! Did you see what he did there? He made a play on that Hillary Clinton bookfrom a fucking decade ago! What a master of wit! Hey, Paul, heard any kickass Ginnifer Flowers jokes lately? Don't hold out on me, man. I say, for your next column, you could do a funny riff on that latest Soul Asylum jam and then pepper in some quotes from Bio-Dome! And then we could chat about how great it was on ICQ! Her coaching did her in. She was told no matter the question, mention victims, Iraq, South Africa and education. In her zeal to prove herself liberal enough to wear the Miss Teen USA sash and crown, she made a fool of herself. Not unlike other liberals just this time it was more obvious.
Paul's just making me sad. He draws the 180 opposite conclusion from, like, every rational person on Earth who watched this video. And not only did he not even get this most simple and straight-forward of jokes, he proceeded to write a long blog post, giving his take on the joke he didn't get, convinced he'd made valuable insights worth sharing. I now realize I didn't have to write a whole blog post mocking him - he'd already rendered himself a ridiculous caricature...
What must it be like to go through life as Blogs for Bush writer Mark Noonan?
I'm kind of a neurotic, self-aware kind of guy, so I can't really conceive of leading an unanalyzed life. Whether I want it to or not, my internal running monologue just keeps going, all day long, picking apart everything I do, breaking it down, considering it and then reconsidering. I wasn't always certain everyone's mind functioned in this way, in fact, but now I'm fairly certain they do. At least, the somewhat intelligent, functional minds.
Clearly, not everyone has this kind of running mental commentary track. Some people say or do the most ridiculous, appalling things and never give them a second thought. They're creature of pure impulse, like squirrels that have somehow grown to human height and mastered some basic English phrases. Many of them, if not most, become politicians, TV pundits or right-wing bloggers.
How else to explain this Noonan post, which I will now cite in its entirety:
CRAWFORD, Texas - Is a White House wedding in the works?
Jenna Bush, one of President Bush's twin daughters, is engaged to be married to her longtime boyfriend, Henry Hager, the White House announced Thursday.
Asked if the two were getting married in the Rose Garden, Sally McDonough, press secretary for first lady Laura Bush, replied: "They have not set any details, date or place."
Jenna Bush, 25, and Hager, 29, were engaged in Maine on Wednesday, she said.
The two have been dating for several years, and Hager is often seen at Jenna Bush's side at family Bush functions and formal events, such as a White House dinner in November 2005 in honor of Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Hager will be returning to school this fall to complete his master's degree in business administration at the University of Virginia. He has an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University.
Hager, who has been a White House aide and worked on Bush's re-election campaign, is the son of John and Maggie Hager of Richmond, Va. His father is chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia, former assistant secretary of the Education Department's office of special education, former lieutenant governor of Virginia and former director of Virginia's Office of Commonwealth Preparedness.
We here at Blogs for Bush want to extend our congratulations to this young couple as they start their life journey together. We ask the blessings of God be on this union and that love and happiness be their portion for all the days of their lives.
Note to liberals: This is your chance to just say something nice. [Italics mine]
Can it be that Noonan doesn't realize the ludicrous, self-defeating hypocrisy of this statement? He's a guy who writes blog posts every day and it doesn't occur to him? He's mocking the way his political enemies turn even a happy event into an occasion for criticism and vitriol by turning a happy event into an occasion for criticism and vitriol.
"Hey, liberals, why are you always criticizing us, you lousy stupid jerks!"
I would say he should make swift use of the "stop hitting yourself" defense, but I'm pretty sure that was deemed unconstitutional in the landmark case of Rubber v. Glue. But I'll have to check my files to be 100% sure...
The only other option is that Noonan's aware of the stupidity of that statement but makes it anyway, because it sounds kind of pithy and condescending. And maybe, just maybe, the composition of 100,000 straight blog posts in that exact tone of voice, which would most likely qualify as a new Guinness World Record, is his only real aim in the blogosphere.
Either way, it doesn't reflect well on the man, nor his capacity for rational thought.
And while we're hanging at the B4B, here's a post of Noonan's from today that may very well represent the complete, polar, 180 opposite of a Crushed by Inertia post. Mark Noonan is Evil Lons. Or Bizarro Lons, depending on your preferred division of nerditry.
Your Prayers for Me, if You Please
Later today I shall undergo a colonoscopy - a general look at the innards to figure out a particular problem I have. I ask your prayers that it will all go smoothly and that nothing serious will be found.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy that blog readers don't generally tend to care about the author's physical well-being unless it's extremely dramatic. As in, the blogger is dying. (Preferably dying of something trendy or sexy. I doubt tales of gout slowly leaking away a writer's will to live would drive a ton of readership to a blog, even though I'd probably subscribe to the RSS feed.)
Otherwise, I feel like people who don't know me personally but enjoy my occasional film/political commentary would just as soon I keep that kind of shit to myself. I wouldn't regale my mother with tales of my own colonoscopy, let alone anonymous readers of the Internet worldwide.
Other things Noonan does here that I would not do:
- Ask anyone to "pray for me," adding the caveat "please," as if these sorts of conversational niceties could convince someone who wouldn't do so otherwise to clasp his hands in prayer. "Well, normally I would never do this...but Jesus, can you save Mark's colon? He said please!"
- Refer to a colonoscopy as a look at "the innards"
- Use the terms "colon" and "go smoothly" in the same paragraph without the requisite quotation marks to render them non-disgusting.
Now, and I'm just thinking aloud here, but if you prayed to Satan for things to go really well for Mark, would he then die during this routine procedure? What if a Satanist prayed to Satan? What if a Christian, using reverse psychology, prayed to Satan for things to go horribly awry for Mark? Is Satan too clever for that sort of trick? Maybe...and bear with me here...but maybe Satan doesn't answer prayers at all, because he's completely evil, so praying to him would do nothing but make God angry. BUT if your prayers angered God, maybe he'd do the exact opposite of what you wanted, so praying to Satan that horrible things befall Mark during his colonoscopy would actually have the effect of saving his life!
I'm not suggesting you should really ask Satan to make something go really wrong with Mark's colonoscopy. Really, I'm not. But if you did, it just might save a life...Think about it.
In a memo to senior producers this afternoon, FNC's SVP of programming, Bill Shine announced the network "will not continue the Half Hour News Hour beyond its current 15 episode run." Shine did leave the door open, however: "we are considering ways to retool the show for future scheduling needs."
Naturally, I have some suggestions...
(1) You've got to open big. Put your best foot forward. This...
is no way to open a comedy show. It's a little grim. This is, however, a way to open a B. Dalton Red-Sticker Clearance Sale.
(2) Try to be a little less forceful and a little less predictable. Everybody already knows how your "comedy" is going to come down every time. Feminists are ugly, libruls are pansies, gays is queers, immigants should go back t'where they come from, etc. Throw us a curveball now and then.
(3) Write much better jokes.
I hope this has been helpful.
The TV news satire show which airs Sunday nights, stars faux anchors Kurt McNally, played by Kurt Long, and Jennifer Lange, played by Jennifer Robertson.
They were using fake names? That's weird...I didn't even realize that these anchors were fictional characters. Does that mean they don't necessarily believe all this crap? Can you imagine if Kurt Long were himself...a librul? Working undercover as a right-wing hack at GOP-TV? Did I just give away the best comedy pilot idea I'll ever have?
Much to my delight, Mediabistro has graciously published the Fox memo killing the show. It's the Crushed by Inertia Corporate Document of the Day!
August 14, 2007
TO: Senior Producers
FR: Bill Shine
RE: Half Hour News Hour/Weekend Programming
I'd like to share some news with you about weekend programming.
What a drama queen. News about weekend programming.
"Some news about our weekend programming. Some recent...unfortunate...unpleasantness concerning a show we all...thought we knew. It turns out, "The Half Hour News Hour"...is pregnant. But we'll get it taken care of quickly. Fortunately for us, our efforts to criminalize the required procedure have...thus far failed. I'll leave you now."
Joel Surnow and I have mutually decided that we will not continue the Half Hour News Hour beyond its current 15 episode run. The last show will be presented on September 16th.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Joel and his team. He is a visionary in this business and he created a contrarian program that fulfilled an untapped niche in the comedy genre.
Joel Surnow of course being the hi-larious producer of America's wackiest TV series, "24," a wonderful satire of contemporary America in which constant, shocking terrorist threats loom over major American cities while a loose cannon government agent with a penchant for "extreme" interrogation methods heroically races around saving the day. Surprising that one should could be such a ludicrously campy comedy hit while the other languishes in hiatus. Go figure...
Me, 2/11/07 Staunchly ideological, partisan kind of thinkers are rarely as funny as those who can see both sides of an issue. I don't always agree with moderates, but they're more funny. Great satire can be designed to convince an audience, but the best jokes are usually focused solely on being jokes as opposed to expressing a political viewpoint.
...
You'll never come up with something funny if you go in with that attitude. "I've got to find something some liberal has done to make fun of!" It's lame and predictable. First, find something FUNNY. If you need to do political comedy, then find something political that's FUNNY. Then talk about that, and your ideology should come through naturally. If you have any talent as a comic.
What the Konservetkult has failed to grasp through all this is that art is most successful when it is not put slavishly in the service of political ideology. To be sure, art and politics have commingled in the past, from Beethoven's symphonic tribute to Napoleon to Goya's graphic depictions of war, to South Park's barbed libertarian social satire. But lasting political art uses politics as its inspiration; in the Konservetkult's calculus, politics must always use art. Normal people look at a piece of art and ponder how it changes their view of the world, or how it deepens their appreciation for life. The right's culture critics look at art and ask, "How can this help us win?"
I really liked the article, but damn...how come I can barely eke out 200 readers a day if I'm this far ahead of the curve? Also, I was hating on Zach Braff for, like, 2 years before it was cool, and I first saw TV on the Radio right after the "Young Liars" EP first came out. Face.
Here's Dennis Miller discussing how Harry Reid looks old and encourages al-Qaeda:
Now, leaving aside the lunatic thesis of Dennis Miller's latest "rant," that it's borderline traitorous to point out how badly our President's war has gone, it's a perfect PERFECT example of my Great Moments in Conservative Humor thesis...That conservatives can't be funny because they are mean-spirited bullies who can't get over their hatred for the Other long enough to write a halfway-decent joke.
It's all there in Miller's little speech. He means to undermine Reid, but just makes himself look ridiculous in the process, like an angry little man lashing out at someone more powerful and significant than he. (And I'm not even a Harry Reid fan. I'd be perfectly happy to laugh to a series of cruel jokes at the callow and ineffective Reid's expense.) This kind of bilious screed isn't really funny; it's clear that Miller detests Reid, whom he expressly insists should never speak publicly again. (This gets the biggest applause of the night, an obvious nod to the pervasive authoritarian/eliminationist streak in Fox News coverage.)
Now, yes, Jon Stewart told Tucker Carlson to go away and stop talking, but not on his comedy show; he was a guest on Carlson's "news show" at the time and made that aside as part of a larger, and to my mind wholly sensible, argument. Stewart's attitude on "The Daily Show" is one of bemused concern. He's worried about the fate of our nation, sure, but he's also able to take a step back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. The emotional connection is with the viewer, not the Party or the Issue.
Miller doesn't even try to connect with his audience. (To be honest, this has always been one of his faults as a performer). There's nothing about Miller's performance, really, that indicates he finds Reid funny or intends to make us laugh.
"[Reid's] is a mediocre man's Thermopylae."
300 references...Nice.
"Ironic that the Senator from Vegas would be such a dim bulb."
GOOD LORD THAT JOKE SUCKS! In fact, it's so hacky, I actually think Dennis Miller might have stolen that joke from Carlos Mencia! Here's your chance, Ned! Find out the next time Miller's going to be at the Laugh Factory and pull a Rogan on him. Oh, that would be so sweet!
Much of Miller's monologue here is composed of direct insults, and the more descriptive portions sound like the preamble to rounding up a posse and calling for the man's head rather than a bit of incisive satire. NOTE: I never find direct insults funny. Anyone remember the film Grumpy Old Men. Someone clearly thought that the idea of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon hurling plain-spoken invective at one another for 90 minutes would be funny. Instead, it's just embarrassing. Most of the exchanges consist of "You're a moron," "Shut up idiot" and the like. Miller's routine here is similar, calling Reid just about everything he could get past the Fox News Dept. of Standards and Practices.
I mean, the words that come out of Reid's "ashen piehole" sound like they're "oozing from a stuck caulking gun"? Jokes like this are why Edgar Allen Poe didn't get invited to many Friar's Club roasts...
Miller's extended simile jokes used to actually build to something funny. Here's one I remember, though I don't recall the subject of the joke.
"Finding a BLANK in the BLANK is harder than finding an outline of a naked girl on a mudflap on the back of a 16-wheeler in the parking lot of the Lilith Fair."
Not the best joke ever, sure, but it built up and had a punchline. Now it just seems like Miller's tries to squeeze as much hateful rhetoric into a single sentence as possible. The jokes don't build so much as they congeal.
"The bad guys look to you to reinforce their belief that we are the weak horse and eminently conquerable. You are making that assertion so easy for them that they no doubt view you as the derriere of said horse."
Ugh...awful...
And, okay, yes, as an actual political statement, it's all completely senseless and vile. The "bad guys" give a shit what Harry Reid has to say? Most Americans couldn't pick him out of a line-up, let alone explain his position on the war. You think the guys who actually go out and try to blow up our troops day-in and day-out are paying any closer attention to the nuances of all of our Congresspeople's stated positions?
And, what's Miller's solution? The most powerful man in the Senate shouldn't criticize the President or else terrorists will think he, and by extension all Americans, are pussies? This is how middle-school students think, not grown-ups.
Some of Miller's claims are genuinely unbelievable. As in, I can't believe an adult male, let alone one who previously had a reputation as somewhat intelligent, would make these sorts of juvenile arguments on television. A critic of a failed war is a "constant bringdown"? A fucking bringdown? Oh, Dennis Miller, so sorry if Harry Reid is putting you off so terribly. I know you can barely make it through the day, with your comfortable salary and relative fame, without having to hear about your government marching a generation of American women and men to their deaths. It's all so very bothersome.
Reid deserves this drubbing, we're told, because he's "unrelentingly bleak." Yes, by all means, politicians should be shiny and happy! Cause it's just that kind of world.
Who need a Gloomy Gus interrupting our collective groove all the time? I wouldn't want to have a beer with Harry Reid, who's all old and defeatist, so therefore he should be drummed out of politics. Yeah, that makes sense. (Of course, Reid's not the one who went on TV for several years warning about all kinds of imminent terrorist attacks that never happened. Apparently, Miller feels that predicting millions of American deaths on a regular basis, Cheney-style, isn't bleak. Grim, sure, but not bleak.)
Miller also quotes from David Fincher's Fight Club in here, but I don't get the reference. Is he saying that America is Fight Club? And that Reid's betraying us by talking about what we're doing? There are two ways to read this: Miller didn't really get the point behind Fight Club, or Miller has embraced the straight-up fascist ideal of shutting up and surrendering your will to the State. (I mean...we all realize that Fincher's film doesn't actually agree with Tyler Durden's batshittery, right?...That's why Norton has to shoot himself in the face at the end?)
I would think Fight Club is a simple enough film for Dennis Miller to comprehend, so I'm tempted to go with Option B. But then again, he clearly didn't see the inherent contradiction of closing out an extended monologue on national television about Harry Reid with the observation that the man "barely matters." So anything's possible.
The day Jerry Falwell died, I wrote up a tossed-off little satirical post about how God was punishing him being a sinner. "The wages of sin is death," and all that. I ended up not publishing it because, while scanning around the Net for juicy Falwell quotes about the wages of sin, I found that several other bloggers had already had the same idea.
It was, after all, kind of an obvious joke. Falwell seized on every opportunity to use tragedy or death to make his case for a theocratic America, so it's only natural to point out the silliness of this line of reasoning when the tables are turned and the man himself dies.
That's what makes Bill O'Reilly's shocked and appalled response to Amanda Marcotte so difficult to believe. Can he be so out of touch with reality that he doesn't understand the Pandagon post in question? Jerry Falwell never once held back in mocking the dead or politicizing tragedy. He's the guy that went on TV while the World Trade Center was still smoldering and blamed feminists for terrorism! Why does he then deserve kid gloves when it's his turn to go?
Bill's headline - "Disrespecting the Dead" - could just have easily served as the title of Falwell's autobiography. This was his exact M.O.; wait until Americans were all paying attention to some big story, and then use it to make the case for the evangelical perspective. It's almost a form of homage to turn it around and use it back on him.
But worse yet, Dennis Miller's then appears on "The Factor" to concur with O'Reilly's take on the story. Now, okay, Bill O'Reilly is a half-wit, maybe he couldn't fire the proper neurons in order to comprehend Marcotte's rather simple joke. But Dennis Miller was a successful comedian for years. There's no way he didn't get it. He's just become a desperate wannabe demagogue. Think about that...a guy who once had a lucrative film, television and publishing career is now making a desperate bid to be a second-tier Sean Hannity. That's a considerable fall in just a few short years...I guess it all started with getting fired from "Monday Night Football."
Let's look at the quote that has Bill so upset:
"The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son. Jerry Falwell's dead. Guess god [sic] liked the ACLU better after all."
Bill throws in that "[sic]" to point out how shocking and horrible it is that Amanda refused to capitalize the "G" in god, a silly complaint. If Marcotte doesn't believe in the Judeo-Christian "God," or even if she does believe but doesn't think the existence of a deity requires fiddling with conventional rules of grammar and written language, she is under no legal mandate to capitalize her G's. Is Bill's audience really so sensitive that a non-believers failure to capitalize their lord will actually matter? I'm afraid so...
Anyway, it's clear that Amanda's joking here. That's exactly the kind of thing Falwell would say, get it? The overheated language, the casual certainty about God's and Satan's motives, the invocation of the ACLU...This is parody.
Bill feels that it "symbolizes the hateful far left in America." Symbolizes? How so? Can one woman's humorous statement on her blog - a blog that gets a good amount of traffic, but is hardly the keystone of some large political movement - really "stand" for an entire large cutout of the American political spectrum? Of course not. What a stupid thing to say. This is just how Amanda Marcotte feels, which probably reflects how a reasonable cross-section of the small, self-contained liberal feminist blogging community feels (though I'm not sure, even, about that).
Bill goes even further to say that "this group deserves no respect." I guess he's saying that it's not worth listening to people on the left (though why he'd devote a segment of his nationally-broadcast television to say so is curious). But this kind of language has some deep implications..."No respect." Don't all of our fellow citizens deserve some measure of respect? Isn't that really the definition of a society?
Miller finds Marcotte's remark "reprehensible." Seriously...You know who else is totally out of line? This guy:
But...but...Jerry Falwell was still alive when Miller insulted him! So no harm, no foul!
Until he cemented his decision to run for president in 2008, this is how John McCain always sounded. Not like a bold, decisive leader or anything...just a fairly rational guy. This is what made him appealing to independents and Democrats.
