Archive Listing
September 13, 2005 - September 6, 2005
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
"I really do not think terrorism is funny, and I would suggest PARAMOUNT give respect to those fighting and sacrificing to keep America safe," a senior Bush adviser told the DRUDGE REPORT this weekend.
The new fuss film TEAM AMERICA, set for release two weeks before the November presidential election, is entering post-production with SOUTH PARK creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
A deep voice using serious tones opens the film's teaser: "We live in a time of unparalleled danger. Weapons of Mass Destruction are being offered to terrorists all over the world. Global chaos is about to consume every country on Earth. And there is only one hope for humanity."
The movie's official poster features an apparent Bush look-a-like [strings attached] with his back to the viewer.
The so-called "Bush look-a-like" [sic] is the figure shown above. For those who don't have an intimate knowledge of the back of Bush's head, it's kind of hard to tell if it's supposed to be Dubya or not. Regardless, we think the Bushies are overreacting here and should at least watch the trailer for Team America before they rant any more about this. From what we know about Matt Stone and Trey Parker, we'd bet that the movie is going to be taste-free, offensive to all races and sexes, and frequently funny. While the trailer does explicitly promise to anger the president, it also vows to enrage Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo and assorted other Bush-hating lefties. A lot of rightwingers might not want any help from the likes of Stone and Parker, but they should calm down long enough to check out the phenomenon of South Park Republicans, whose votes will be as important as anyone else's in reelecting George Bush. Here's what Tech Central Station had to say on the subject:
South Park Republicans are true
Republicans, though they do not look or act like Pat Robertson. They
believe in liberty, not conformity. They can enjoy watching The
Sopranos even if they are New Jersey Italians. They can appreciate the
tight abs of Britney Spears or Brad Pitt without worrying about the
nation's decaying moral fiber. They strongly believe in liberty,
personal responsibility, limited government, and free markets. However,
they do not live by the edicts of political correctness.
So relax fellas. If you'll buy the tickets, we'll buy the popcorn, Pepsi, and twizzlers and meet up with you in the lobby just before the show. And as for that stick in your ass, leave it at home. Theater seats are uncomfortable enough these days as it is.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
MOORE: Are you against that? Stopping this war?
O'REILLY: No, we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to…
MOORE: So, you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.
O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself..
MOORE: Your child? It’s Bush sending the children there.
O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.
MOORE: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old…
O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.
MOORE: Say, “I, Bill O’Reilly, would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah.”
O'REILLY: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous…
MOORE: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?
O'REILLY: Look it’s a worldwide terrorism — I know that escapes you —
MOORE: Wait a minute, terrorism? Iraq?
O'REILLY: Yes. There are terrorist in Iraq.
MOORE: Oh really? So Iraq now is responsible for the terrorism here?
O'REILLY: Iraq aided
terrorists. Don’t you know
anything about any of that?
O'Reilly may be the only person who can't see that ducking the
question and changing the subject do not secure rhetorical
victory. Now, ordinarily, we wouldn't care if an inveterate blowhard
comes up empty once in a while, but Michael Moore has gotten a lot of
mileage out of this "sacrifice your children" ploy, and he and others
will likely keep using it until someone with a particle of intelligence
and judgment stops them in their tracks. It isn't that there's nothing
to say in such situations. O'Reilly, for example, could have countered
with George C. Scott's famous line from Patton: "It's not the job of an
American soldier to die for his country; it's to make the other poor
sonofabitch die for his." Or he could have pointed out that American
soldiers are not children, but adults who have volunteered on their own
to defend their country and, if necessary, to sacrifice their lives in
exchange for a higher purpose -- the defense of American civilians,
including children and babies yet unborn. He could have said, as a
parent, I would be proud if my children chose to serve their nation in
the armed forces, and if they died in doing their duty, I would be
permanently grief-stricken and permanently proud of their lives. He
could have said, this is America, there is no draft, and no parent has
to "decide" to sacrifice a child to the military; it is always their
adult offspring who make such decisions for themselves. He also could have said, "Yes."
But no. Michael Moore's question did paralyze Bill O'Reilly. His
answer was lame, evasive, and non-responsive. Why? Because for all his
tough talk, O'Reilly is hostage to the great American obsession with
the "kids." Scarcely a night goes by that he doesn't, at some point in
his program, demand some government or community action on behalf of
the "kids." He does not see them as young citizens-in-training, but as
something inert and vulnerable, like the family silver, that has to be
protected at all costs. The subject of kids has become so sacred that
it suppresses even his native common sense. And he's not alone.
Sometimes it seems there's no crime we Americans wouldn't sanction as
long as someone puts it in the context of the "kids."
This is all precious nonsense. Yes, we have a responsibility to
protect children, but it's not the only purpose in life. It's just one
of many responsibilities adults and citizens have, including duty,
integrity, loyalty, honor, and bravery in the face of life's
challenges. When we start taking this one particular responsibility more
seriously than all the others, we are also taking ourselves too
seriously, and more importantly, we are putting children on a pedestal
where they don't belong. That's probably why we have stopped
disciplining our children, stopped making demands on them with respect
to their behavior, education, and work ethic. We treat them like little
godheads, bowing and scraping whenever their name is invoked.
Is there an antidote? Don't know. But any reasonable first step must
involve puncturing our inflated notions about the sanctity of
childhood. Only when we've done that might we have a shot at realizing
how thoroughly and disgustingly that sanctity has already been violated
by allowing our little darlings to engage in whatever pursuits appeal
to their narcissistic and stunted personalities.
But we are only InstaPunk. We can't provide antidotes. All we can
offer is the bracing air of dark and ruthless humor. That's why our
lesson for today is this link to Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies. It's
a hilarious alphabet book recounting the horrible deaths of some of the
sweetest looking little kids you ever saw. Read it or don't. Laugh or
draw yourself up in self righteous outrage. But spare us your
complaints. We don't give a damn. Children are also human, which means
they are not exempt from the human comedy. No one is. When we forget
that, we tend to forget a lot of values that we just might need someday
soon to save the lives of our precious kids.
Oh. And one more thing. Grow up, O'Reilly.
Monday, August 02, 2004
If you're sick of political analysis, go here and see if you can save the White House.
RESETTING THE CLOCK. It may seem like we've been goofing off since the convention, but in reality we've been reading the dozens of opinion pieces about what the Democrats and Senator Kerry were trying to accomplish in Boston and what, if anything, they have accomplished. All our reading has surfaced two articles which we find representative of the two poles of thought prevailing in the media. The lefthand pole thinks Kerry has succeeded in making himself a credible candidate on national security issues. Any of a dozen articles would serve to illustrate this viewpoint, but we've chosen Trudy Rubin's essay in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer because it skips the stylistic persiflage and lays out a nuts-and-bolts case for Kerry as commander-in-chief. We also like the title: Worldview -- Kerry has grasp that Bush doesn't. That's pretty unambiguous. So is her basic premise:
The main question is not whether John Kerry is a nice guy. It's whether his policies are more suited for the country's security needs over the next four years. That's what people were trying to divine from the Democrats' convention in Boston.
After watching the speech, talking to Kerry foreign policy advisers - and visiting Iraq three times since the war - I'd say the answer is yes. Here's why:
The Bush antiterror policy has lost its way. Yes, the President does what he says, but what he says and does has led us into a defensive position in the struggle against terrorism.
Our military is bogged down in a guerrilla war against Iraq that hasn't weakened al-Qaeda. Just the opposite. The terrorist organization has found a new base in an unstable Iraq.
Anti-Americanism in the Mideast has never
been greater. Iraq's instability and Bush's abandonment of efforts to
promote Israel-Palestinian peace are a recruitment ad for al-Qaeda.
And, no, Ms Rubin's matter-of-fact assessment of the situation does
not mean she's chalking it up to bad luck or the predictable chaos of
international politics. All of the ills she describes are George Bush's
fault:
The Bush administration's hype on Iraq - expanding Saddam Hussein's real threat to the Mideast into a nuclear threat against the U.S. mainland - has made much of the world cynical about the antiterrorist struggle. Most Europeans and Arabs don't believe in the reality of this battle against Islamist jihadists. That makes the effort much harder.
If the United States is to rally other countries to this long-term goal - and convince their citizens - a more credible U.S. leader is required. The world's growing anti-Americanism, which hampers any global alliance against terrorism, is focused on the persona and policies of George W. Bush.
Kerry has stressed over and over that he
will rebuild our alliances and repair the breeches within NATO. On
Thursday he said, "We need a president who has the credibility to bring
our allies to our side and share the burden." He is overly optimistic
about what the allies would contribute, especially in Baghdad. But he
would have a far better chance than Bush of persuading our NATO allies
to do more in Afghanistan, and take on new missions outside Europe.
Kerry advisers say he would push for needed reforms in NATO and the
United Nations.
Wiithout wasting time disputing her highly debatable
characterizations, we'll simply highlight the collapsing confidence in
the final paragraph of the quote. Up to this point, she's been marching
briskly toward a seemingly rational conclusion that we need someone
better than George Bush. But just when we expect to learn why Kerry is
so much better, she acknowledges that Kerry's best credential is that
he has "stressed over and over" that he will make our so-called friends
like us more. Then she admits that he is "overly optimistic" and
stumbles to the end of her thought with the lame asterisk that "Kerry's
advisers say" he might try to secure "reforms" in the U.N. and NATO.
Hmmm. Before, it sounded like she was saying all the obstructionism in
the U.N. and NATO was Bush's fault. So why do they need reforms? Isn't the big
idea here that Kerry himself is the necessary reform?
Despite Ms. Rubin's breezy exposition of Bush's failures, her essay
winds up at a different destination than her tone promises. It's really
an exercise in wishful thinking. We don't like the way things are. We
don't like it that people around the world are trashing America at
every whipstitch. We don't like it that America is still a terror
target and nobody else seems to care. We don't like it that winning the
war on terror hasn't been a neat little miniseries which could be
wrapped up before the audience got bored. And here's a guy who says he
can make it all better by applying his impeccable continental manners
at the diplomatic table. Yeah, maybe we don't completely believe that,
but it sure would be NICE, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it?
We said that Ms. Rubin's piece was representative. It is. All the enthusiasm for Kerry is
wishful thinking. That's why there are never any specifics. No
specifics in his nomination speech. He didn't utter the term 'Islamic
fascism' once. He didn't mention exactly which allies have to be on our
side before an American action is not unilateral. (His rhetorical
history would indicate that 'multilateral' means with the support of
France and Germany, while 'unilateral' means without the support of
France and Germany. That's a helluva big picture view, isn't it?) Yes,
he said he would double special ops forces and add another division to
the army, but what for? We aren't ever going to fight another war
unless we have to. What does
that mean? After the suitcase nuke levels Los Angeles? He didn't say.
And there have been no real specifics in the various pro-Kerry articles
following the convention. There are only vague aspirations for a
foreign relations rapprochement designed to substitute European troops
for American so that our boys can come home where they belong. No one's
used the term "peace with honor," but with all the Vietnam nostalgia
floating around the country like a cloud of methane, perhaps we can be
excused for being reminded of that old figleaf for surrender. It's as
if the war on terror itself can't be justified unless the rest of the
world agrees to it. If they don't, we should forget about it and cope
with whatever happens whenever it happens.
...after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious.
But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10.
That's the current campaign scene in a nutshell. Trudy Rubin and her brothers and sisters on the left want to repeal not only George W. Bush, but everything that's happened since election day 2000. And they think that maybe if we just start acting normal on the world stage, meaning the way we acted before September 11, maybe the world stage will start acting normal too. The problem is, it's not going to happen. The world stage wasn't in such hot shape before 9/11. The U.N. was already engaged in the greatest and most costly institutional corruption in history, the French and Russians were already making dirty deals with the Iraqis, Jimmy Carter had already doomed the U.S. to the current nuclear stalemate with North Korea, and al Qaeda and its affiliates had already killed hundreds of Americans with impunity. The nations whose anti-Americanism we didn't notice until G. W. Bush was in office didn't much care about all that then, and they're not going to start to care about it if Kerry resumes the Clinton foreign policy of 1992-2000. Nor is Islamic fascism going to go away just because another American president starts insisting on 'serious' new talks with Yassir Arafat.Worse, in their haste to crown a candidate behind whom all the faithful could unite against the hated Bush, the Democrats carelessly selected the most blatant of their army of panderers. Again, Steyn cuts right to the chase:
In another perilous time -
1918 - Lord Haig wrote of Lord Derby: "D is a very weak-minded fellow I
am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last
person who has sat on him." It's subtler than that with Kerry: you
don't have to sit on him; just the slightest political breeze, and his
pillow billows in the appropriate direction. His default position is
the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy,
foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on
government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed
nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he
knows best.
Sunday, August 01, 2004
HEINZ 57 VANITY. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity;
shall he leave it for his portion.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
7th Cavalry to the rescue. He'll show those terrorists.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
THE BUSH TWINS. This time the rightwingers lose. Fair is fair and our three-punk panel of judges have agreed unanimously that the first prize winner in our contest to caption the photo above goes to an entrant who is clearly no fan of the president or his daughters. But that's the thing about humor; it is no respecter of politics or particular political views. We had many entries from both sides of the aisle, and the pro-Bush crowd scored their share of decent punchlines. We also had ambitious contestants who were trying to write "outside the box" as the current argot goes. One submitted a pair of captions averaging 50 words apiece. One preferred to caption the Vogue fashion photo rather than the contest picture. And one hit on the novel idea of writing a caption for the president instead of his daughters. Since this entry was within the contest parameters (barely), unique in its viewpoint, and passably funny, we decided to award it an Honorable Mention. Here it is:
Our Third Place winner leads a group of entries who see the twins as unexpectedly bright bulbs:
Second Place goes to this little partisan gem:
As we mentioned above, First Place goes to an entrant who doesn't seem to care for the Bushes. The difficulty the panel faced was not in choosing him as the winner, but in deciding which of three captions was the best. As it happened, each of the judges selected a different one of the three as best overall. So we're going to share them all with you, in no particular order:
Oh, sis, he loves you! He really does! It's just that, sometimes, he likes to stare at the airplane bottles for a few hours...
It didn't help when you called out, "Waitress!...take me drunk, I'm home."
First prize, as promised, will be an autographed copy of The Boomer Bible. Whatever his political views, the recipient should nevertheless find much to laugh at and agree with in the book, which tends to treat almost everyone with equal disrespect. At any rate, we hope you enjoy it.
Second prize is a Shuteye Train T-shirt.
Third prize is a Boomer Bible Ball Cap.
All winners will be notified by email, so that we can arrange to send the materials to correct mailing addresses.
Thanks to everyone who participated. We enjoyed reading the entries, and many were as amusing as some of them were, well, not amusing. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.
Now... back to the exciting conclusion of the Democratic Convention....
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Mother Teresa
A BIG NIGHT FOR
DEMOCRACY. There were some real heavy hitters at the convention
Tuesday night, but they'd been told to leave the loaded gloves at home,
so we got pale, sanitized imitations of Teddy Kennedy, Dick Gephardt,
Tom Dashle, and Howard Dean. The singular source of all their hatred
was, by DNC edict, forbidden to be mentioned by name. This gave
Dubya something of the stature of Yahweh -- he whose name may not be
uttered lest thunder and lightning consume the speaker from on high. Only Dean
seemed as if he could barely restrain himself from unleashing the
stupefying left hook he became famous for on the campaign trail. At
times, his face twisted briefly into the familiar grimace, and more
than once he began listing individual states, which is the trademark
sign of an incipient Dean psychotic episode. But the heavy hand of enforced
pretended civility prevented him, in the end, from giving the delegates
what all of them yearn for like so many thirst-maddened vampires -- the feast
of Bush blood that substitutes in their lives for the light of the sun.
That may help explain why the convention crowd reacted so fervently
to the evening's featured speaker, Ms. Teresa Heinz Kerry, who appeared
before them as a vision in red and buoyed their hopes with an accent
that really could have originated in Transylvania, though some of us
also detected a soupcon of Gabor glamour and maybe half a cup of Garbo
hyper-theatricality. The speech had been billed as an opportunity for
us ordinary Americans to get Ms. Heinz Kerry's inside insight into the
charm and gravitas of John Kerry, but thankfully, we were spared the
tedium such an approach would have ensured. Instead, the queen of the
night chose to tell us practically everything she could think of about
Teresa Heinz Kerry. Was it a prescient gratitude for the
non-John-Kerryness of her remarks that caused the delegates to mount
such a
prolonged and evidently spontaneous demonstration upon her entrance?
Or was there some subterranean,Transylvanian-esque telepathy that
inspired every single delegate on the floor to think of exactly the
same placard -- color-keyed to the lady's costume -- to hoist and wave
as they adored her greatness?
Alas, such questions can only be answered in full by Democrats. The
rest of us must piece together what partial answers we can infer from
evidence such as the speech script itself. That's why we labored
mightily to copy down as much as we could of it from the TV before the
pencils dropped from our numbed and exhausted fingers about 40 minutes
in. So all we have for your persual is the beginning, but it speaks for
itself, we think. Here is a great personage waxing eloquent on her own
favorite and most admired great personage. It's enough to make one fall
mute with astonishment. To set the scene: her son Christopher
introduces her, she enters, the crowd goes wild, and then she begins to
speak:
KERRY: Tank you. Tank you.
.. for all you Italian Americans, e puo
far portari su i [INAUDIBLE] bagagli, per favore, e posso avere un
altro
[INAUDIBLE] asciugamano...
(APPLAUSE)
(APPLAUSE)
.. and to all new Americans in our country, I invite you
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: I am grateful -- I am so grateful for the opportunity
You would have been moved too if you had been there. Almost certainly. We think.
