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Anthony Weiner. Make him work for that smirk.

AWWW. I'm a conservative obviously. But I just spent an hour switching back and forth between the two poles of cable news, MSNBC and Fox News. We need something better. Not CNN, which is MSNBC Lite. Perhaps it's more pernicious that MSNBC featured Brian Williams "reporting" from the scene in Egypt, declaring that the Muslim Brotherhood means no harm. Bullshit. Yet it's also depressing to see a debate between Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck that never touches on reality. More bullshit. O'Reilly defending FDR foreign policy while Beck decries Woodrow Wilson foreign policy. Yelling on both sides. Fair and balanced imbecility. Did I forget to mention that Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed Brian Williams before he moved into a protracted slam attack on Sarah Palin? Or that he also covered the Florida Supreme Court decision that ObamaCare is unconstitutional by interviewing two opponents of the decison and no one else? His definitive guest was constitutional expert Anthony Weiner, the reason I'm still awake.

Just a word or two about Weiner before I continue. The single smartest politician I've seen in any media interview. Ever. Anyone watching him would simply assume that he's a lawyer, because he's so damn deadly and deft in his attacks. Harvard Law? No. He has a bachelor of arts from SUNY Plattsburgh. He's never worked in the private sector. Politics has been his entire adult life.

Not to demean him. He's brilliant.

In 1991, after a three-way primary and a four-way general election, Weiner was elected to the New York City Council. At 27, he was the youngest person to serve on the Council to that date.

Over the next seven years on the City Council, Weiner initiated programs to tackle quality of life concerns. He started a program to put at-risk and troubled teens to work cleaning up graffiti. He spearheaded development plans for historic Sheepshead Bay that led to a revival of the area; and, when supermarkets started leaving the neighborhood, Weiner worked to reverse the trend.

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Housing, he fought to increase federal funding, to ban dangerous dogs, and to add more police officers to the beat. His investigation into the cause of sudden, fatal stairwell fires made headlines; he exposed dangerous practices that eventually led the city to replace the paint in developments citywide.

In 1998, Congressman Chuck Schumer opted to try to unseat Senator D'Amato. In the Democratic primary election, Schumer won the right to face D'Amato, whom he defeated in the General Election; and Weiner won the Democratic nomination to succeed Schumer, which was tantamount to election in the heavily Democratic 9th District. He is only the fifth person to represent the District since its creation in 1920.

Make no mistake. If I had to pick one member of Congress to have dinner with, it would be Anthony Weiner. But only because Shane is always looking for dangerous company.

Anthony Weiner is the true measure of what news media, cable or otherwise, can do to twist truth. He's a superb debater in the context of the three minute yelling matches sponsored by MSNBC and Fox. Quick, facile, and false, yet equally adept on the riposte. He knows the facts he's determined to cite.... he's a genius... and he's a lying creep.

I talk about Weiner because he's the socialist bogeyman the right (or new right or tea party or whatever) has to defeat. You'll never do it. You might try to do it with superior command of the facts, except that Weiner is a flat-out liar and when he isn't lying he's twisting the facts so imaginatively you'd have to run to keep up. Which is why Steve Doocy, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and even Don Imus always start out all confident smiles with Weiner and reach the finish line looking winded and, uh dumb. Weiner's as convincing as any editor of the Harvard Law Review you've ever been snubbed by at a wedding. His biggest talent is making YOU feel small.

YOU, meaning all the Republicans from Indianapolis, Mobile, and, well, East Jesusville, er, Everywhere/Anywhere, USA.

So. My thought is of a NEW network, neither left nor right. The premise is a series of mediators like Charley Rose, if Charley Rose weren't such a lefty asshole, asking questions of opposing opinion makers -- without prejudice or intent but merely to elicit further explanation and without subsequent biasing comments like "oh" or "ah," or "smirk:"-- enabling us in the audience to  learn something. "Can you elaborate on that based on more reference to your personal experience?" would be an excellent interview question by a professionally trained host like...

Aye. There's the rub. Even Charley Rose is merely Christiane Ammanpour with a smaller cock. What Islamists have managed thus far. A frightened cock is always smaller than a hard-on planning to get laid in heavenhell. Not that there's actually a difference. For Islamists.

But something they should remember. Those of us who live life don't care about virgins. We're not that needy or insecure.

Why we're talking about a television network. Cutting... finally... to the chase. Until conservatives jettison O'Reilly and Hannity and all the other dumb Irish reactionaries who rant without researching their opponents, they'll never beat Anthony Weiner. Why do they keep acting like he's a run-of-the-mill dumbshit liberal guest? Why do they keep getting their clocks cleaned and inviting him back to do it again? What the hell ails Fox News? Time for an upgrade from the programmatic yellers to actual thinkers? Ya think? I think Ailes can still think. He should think about my vision of a 'Referee Network.' Because the one he's got is turning fatally Doocy.

All right. I admit it. I could bury Anthony Weiner. Absolutely obliterate him. But nobody's asked me to. I'm Shane. He's Jack Palance bullying the ones who can't fight back because they're way too intimidated by his New York arrogance:


Think I'm kidding? I'm starting to throw up blood at all the easy interviews I've heard with Weiner by Hannity, O'Reilly, Imus, and Fox & Friends. They sail in with smiles and preconceived truths, and he eats them for lunch while I fume at their lack of preparation and wit. The hell with them. They deserve what they get from the fast gun they've let into their house. MY first target is that superior smirk. My smirk is better founded. Because I'm so much older, more experienced about real American life, and, well, resigned to the futility of condescending liberal utopianism. Give me a long moment with him, and a chance to meet him eye to eye, and I'll, well...


...convert his ass. Yuh.

Now don't be calling the feds on me, anyone. If you don't know what a metaphor is. my attorneys will be asking you about numbers between nine and eleven. And I'll be explaining to the wide American world about a life consisting entirely of metaphor. The way things go. Artistic freedom means artists get to imagine justice, and nobody else gets to live it.

But sometimes metaphor isn't enough. I actually want to debate Weiner in person. I'm sick of his triumphant appearances on Fox. They never prepare. That's what it takes. A smirk does not make you smart and a man who has never actually experienced capitalism cannot be an expert in it.

And, like Shane (as I told a close friend I recently slew here) I am still holding back.