Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With a Microphone, Part 83:
What a spoogebag, what a cockmonger Bill O'Reilly is. Last week, O'Reilly promised, fuckin' swore, he wasn't gonna go easy on President Bush in the "interview" O'Reilly broadcast over the past three nights, 'cause, really, so much important "truth" telling was going on that we couldn't take it all in one night. Anyone with something that approaches sentient thought knew that the truth was gonna be O'Reilly gruffly asking softball questions, that he was gonna lap dance the President until Bush got a wet spot on his pants. Sure, sure, O'Reilly asked Bush about all the pertinent issues, but, really, and, c'mon, check this shit out: Night 1-"Only five percent of the Iraqi people see the United States as liberators. Are you surprised they don't appreciate the American sacrifice more?" From Night 2 - "What’s Chirac’s problem?" From Night 3 - "One of the big propaganda things against you is the classroom in Florida after 9/11 when Andrew Card came in and whispered in your ear . . . Let’s clear this up once and for all. What were you thinking?" Jesus, O'Reilly may as well have said, "Mr. President, I have this K-Y jelly and I'm going to lube up my asshole so you can penetrate me easily. And, please, while you're back there, feel free to smack my ass like it's Kim Jong-Il's face."
Does O'Reilly really believe his own bullshit? Does he believe that he really doesn't spin anything? Does he know the definition of spin? Does he not see that the words "sacrifice," "problem," and "propaganda" are spin words in those contexts? Is he so deranged, so full of his own rightness, so egomaniacal that he doesn't understand that all he did was give Bush a safe place to spout his lies, like a crazed child psychologist who manipulates kids into saying that they were molested? What kind of depraved, fucked-up world is this when a sanctimonious idiot can actually pretend to be a tough guy but only beats up on the powerless and still have viewers? Because, in the end, O'Reilly is one of those vicious bastards who others cling to even as he degrades them because they believe their ideological proximity to O'Reilly makes them vastly superior to themselves. In other words, stupid fuckers love O'Reilly 'cause they believe he ennobles them when, really, he's just laughing and pointing, laughing and pointing.
What Kerry Should Say (Rude Version):
If, at tonight's "debate", when Kerry is asked, "What would you have done differently in Iraq?", he doesn't answer, "What the fuck kind of question is that, Jim? Jesus Christ, how many corpses of children need to be piled at the door of the White House to know that any reasonably well-trained terrier could do a better job managing this war than that motherfucker at the other podium? How many dead soldiers need to clog the pool at the 'ranch' in Crawford before anyone in this goddamned administration admits that things are more fucked-up than a thalidomide baby with warts? Here's what I would have fuckin' done different: Short answer - I wouldn't have fuckin' gone to Iraq, and if this squinty fuckface wants to accuse me of leaving Saddam Hussein in power, then he can fuckin' ask the mom of some kid blasted to shit by a roadside bomb if she gives a rat's ass whether or not Saddam's in power and Iraq is gonna have fake elections to prop up its fake ass government. Long answer? Yer askin' me a fantasy question, Jim, and if you wanna get into fantasy, here's my fuckin' fantasy - so get your wish-fulfillment bell ringin': I'd've gotten a large gay black man to get into William Rehnquist's shower back in late November 2000 and had him scare the Chief Justice into a coma with his raging black hard-on. I'd've fuckin' sent the SEC probin' Bush's asshole for evidence that he fucked over the shareholders of Harken. I'd've sent his fuckin' drunken, coked-out, duty-skippin' ass to Vietnam, where the men of his platoon would've used him for practice before raping the village girls in the Mekong. I'd've yanked down his pants at a Skull and Bones meeting and paddled his butt bright red with the wooden plank that had 'Bitch' carved in it so the word would be scarred on his ass forever. I'd've spiked pregnant Barbara Bush's drink with an abortifacient so she would eject the goo that would become George W in her womb. I'd've gotten George, Sr.'s nuts ripped off when he ejected from his fighter jet. I'd've made sure Prescott's dick was mustard gassed into disuse in the Meuse-Argonne. That's what I would have done differently in Iraq. Now, you little semi-conscious cuntface, get Karl Rove to shove a talking point up your ass about that or do you want me to make you suck my cock in front of a national audience?", then the debate will be worthless.
If, at tonight's "debate", when Kerry is asked, "What would you have done differently in Iraq?", he doesn't answer, "What the fuck kind of question is that, Jim? Jesus Christ, how many corpses of children need to be piled at the door of the White House to know that any reasonably well-trained terrier could do a better job managing this war than that motherfucker at the other podium? How many dead soldiers need to clog the pool at the 'ranch' in Crawford before anyone in this goddamned administration admits that things are more fucked-up than a thalidomide baby with warts? Here's what I would have fuckin' done different: Short answer - I wouldn't have fuckin' gone to Iraq, and if this squinty fuckface wants to accuse me of leaving Saddam Hussein in power, then he can fuckin' ask the mom of some kid blasted to shit by a roadside bomb if she gives a rat's ass whether or not Saddam's in power and Iraq is gonna have fake elections to prop up its fake ass government. Long answer? Yer askin' me a fantasy question, Jim, and if you wanna get into fantasy, here's my fuckin' fantasy - so get your wish-fulfillment bell ringin': I'd've gotten a large gay black man to get into William Rehnquist's shower back in late November 2000 and had him scare the Chief Justice into a coma with his raging black hard-on. I'd've fuckin' sent the SEC probin' Bush's asshole for evidence that he fucked over the shareholders of Harken. I'd've sent his fuckin' drunken, coked-out, duty-skippin' ass to Vietnam, where the men of his platoon would've used him for practice before raping the village girls in the Mekong. I'd've yanked down his pants at a Skull and Bones meeting and paddled his butt bright red with the wooden plank that had 'Bitch' carved in it so the word would be scarred on his ass forever. I'd've spiked pregnant Barbara Bush's drink with an abortifacient so she would eject the goo that would become George W in her womb. I'd've gotten George, Sr.'s nuts ripped off when he ejected from his fighter jet. I'd've made sure Prescott's dick was mustard gassed into disuse in the Meuse-Argonne. That's what I would have done differently in Iraq. Now, you little semi-conscious cuntface, get Karl Rove to shove a talking point up your ass about that or do you want me to make you suck my cock in front of a national audience?", then the debate will be worthless.
Why William Saletan at Slate Can Go Fuck Himself:
'Cause, among all the "advice" to John Kerry for the debates, Saletan here gives the worst: "The other day, in an ad lib, [Kerry] called [Bush] a liar. Don't do that again." No, no, fuck no. It's time for Kerry to use the words "lie" and "liar" because Bush demonstrably lies. It'll be such a shock that it'll force the media to have to see if Kerry is telling the truth about Bush. "Liar" is much worse than "flip-flopper," no? By not publicly calling Bush out, Kerry is just another Democratic pussy, afraid of graphically stating the truth about his opponent.
Later Today:
Duty calls this morning. Back this afternoon with how Kerry should answer one key foreign policy question and on the necessity to sodomize Bill O'Reilly with a microphone.
'Cause, among all the "advice" to John Kerry for the debates, Saletan here gives the worst: "The other day, in an ad lib, [Kerry] called [Bush] a liar. Don't do that again." No, no, fuck no. It's time for Kerry to use the words "lie" and "liar" because Bush demonstrably lies. It'll be such a shock that it'll force the media to have to see if Kerry is telling the truth about Bush. "Liar" is much worse than "flip-flopper," no? By not publicly calling Bush out, Kerry is just another Democratic pussy, afraid of graphically stating the truth about his opponent.
Later Today:
Duty calls this morning. Back this afternoon with how Kerry should answer one key foreign policy question and on the necessity to sodomize Bill O'Reilly with a microphone.
What a Desperate Nation Wants To Know . . .:
Last Friday, the Rude Pundit offered this as his debate question for George W. Bush: "Mr. President, do you believe Jews, Muslims, and others who die without accepting Jesus Christ as their savior will be allowed into Heaven?" Then the Rude Pundit asked for you to send your debate questions. And who'd have thought how desperate the electorate was to find out something, anything, from their fearless leader? What the large amount of e-mail says is that a significant part of the American population, which Bush seems to have forgotten he also "leads," simply cannot abide by an administration that hides the truth like Jeffrey Dahmer hid the half-eaten body parts in the fridge. Inundated with far, far too many suggestions to publish here, below are some of the best, most of which are directed at the President.
By far, the most popular question was some variation around the possibility of a post-election draft:
David Chapman asks, "When are you going to re-instate the draft?" while Thomas Beck wants to know of the debators, "Will you categorically promise not to reinstitute a draft?"
Of course, some readers wanted to find out what Jenna and Barbara, hot twins of viscous evil, would do in case of a draft or during the endless war. Sandra Latiolais writes, "I would like to know why those two patriotic daughters of the patriotic first family aren't serving in the military." Puttin' the spin to the question, Mitch asks of Bush, "Are your daughters excited about joining the military?"
And others wanted to know more, far more, about George Bush's illustrious career in the military and how it affects his current decision-making process. Asks Neil Vincent, "How does it feel to send so many young men and women off to war in Iraq when you used your family's power and influence to avoid going to war in Vietnam?"
The issue of Bush's proclaimed Jesus-lovin' ways provoked these variations on the Rude Pundit's question:
Dave Chekouras asks of both candidates, "Are you a Christian first or an American first?" which is a kick-ass, succinct little question. Seamus Ennis poses to the President, "Do you believe that God loves non-Christians with oil reserves more than non-Christians without them?" And David Stabb narrows the field of dead non-Christians to this: "Do you believe that Jewish, Muslim, agnostic and other American soldiers who have not accepted Jesus as their personal savior and that have been killed in Iraq will be allowed into Heaven?" (which is also a variation on something that Ron Reagan, Jr. asked recently).
Along other religious lines, CAG asks, "Since you are a man of faith and certainly must find much guidance in the practice of the Ten Commandments, which Commandment do you find the most difficult to obey and which one do you most regret breaking?"
Here's a few short and sweet questions:
From Spencer Erikson: "Why haven't you gone to any of the funerals of the dead soldiers who fought in Iraq?"
From R. Scott Strahan: "Mr. Bush, do you believe, as Sheri Dew espoused at your convention, that supporting same-sex families is the same as supporting Hitler?"
From Sarah: "Would you say that the life of an American is worth more, less, or about the same as the life of an Iraqi?"
From Dick Hoyer (which, strangely enough, sounds like a job at a gay brothel): "I have a brother in Alabama that needs help with a drug clinic. Can you give me the name of one you might know well?"
From Jon: "Mr. Bush, how much does a gallon of gasoline cost today?" (which is a nice throwback to Poppy Bush and his astonishment at supermarket barcode scanners).
From J: "When did Andrew Sullivan stop sucking your cock? And, as a follow-up, sir, have you ever sucked his?" (Important as this follow-up is, the debate commission's rules prohibit the asking of follow-up questions.)
From James: "Are Karl Rove's arms long enough to reach around and jack you off as he fucks you?"
Around the Iraq War, W. Shaman wants to know, "Did you pick a fight on old weakened Saddam, who reminds you of your mother and who could make you look good, because you knew you would be outed as the pussy you are when it comes to standing up to the lethal Osama?" Alan Aimer demands of the President, "Have you misled the country about the level of resistance in Iraq?" while Irina asks an obvious question that the press hasn't been asking at all, but which seems to bear importantly on the rhetoric of the White House: "Can you explain why Americans are safer with Saddam in prison?"
And John King reminds us of the following quote from al-Qaeda, given after the Madrid bombing in March: In the only explicit endorsement of any candidate, the terrorist spokesman said, "Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation. Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected." King asks, "How do you respond to terrorists who have said they want you to win?"
A pair of Poppy Bush-related questions: Bob Goodsell inquires, "Your father said that people who disclose the identities of CIA agents are the most insidious of traitors. One of these traitors has been operating in your administration for over a year now. Why haven't you done anything about it?" and Justy asks, "Does 'Honor they father' mean not letting him speak at the Republican National Convention?"
A pair of Laura-related questions: Spencer says, "Mr. President, your wife is a former librarian. Your mother championed literacy when she was first lady. Given these two facts, it seems logical that you should be quite accomplished in reading and writing. Why then do you rely on all of your aides for information about the outside world? Why don't you read?" and from Tom Street: "President Bush, when you fuck Laura, is it purely for pleasure?"
And, finally, the Rude Pundit's favorite question, Ian asks, simply, eloquently, of the President:
"What is the moral of My Pet Goat?"
There will be more next week, before the next debate, so keep the questions coming to rudepundit@yahoo.com.
Last Friday, the Rude Pundit offered this as his debate question for George W. Bush: "Mr. President, do you believe Jews, Muslims, and others who die without accepting Jesus Christ as their savior will be allowed into Heaven?" Then the Rude Pundit asked for you to send your debate questions. And who'd have thought how desperate the electorate was to find out something, anything, from their fearless leader? What the large amount of e-mail says is that a significant part of the American population, which Bush seems to have forgotten he also "leads," simply cannot abide by an administration that hides the truth like Jeffrey Dahmer hid the half-eaten body parts in the fridge. Inundated with far, far too many suggestions to publish here, below are some of the best, most of which are directed at the President.
By far, the most popular question was some variation around the possibility of a post-election draft:
David Chapman asks, "When are you going to re-instate the draft?" while Thomas Beck wants to know of the debators, "Will you categorically promise not to reinstitute a draft?"
Of course, some readers wanted to find out what Jenna and Barbara, hot twins of viscous evil, would do in case of a draft or during the endless war. Sandra Latiolais writes, "I would like to know why those two patriotic daughters of the patriotic first family aren't serving in the military." Puttin' the spin to the question, Mitch asks of Bush, "Are your daughters excited about joining the military?"
And others wanted to know more, far more, about George Bush's illustrious career in the military and how it affects his current decision-making process. Asks Neil Vincent, "How does it feel to send so many young men and women off to war in Iraq when you used your family's power and influence to avoid going to war in Vietnam?"
The issue of Bush's proclaimed Jesus-lovin' ways provoked these variations on the Rude Pundit's question:
Dave Chekouras asks of both candidates, "Are you a Christian first or an American first?" which is a kick-ass, succinct little question. Seamus Ennis poses to the President, "Do you believe that God loves non-Christians with oil reserves more than non-Christians without them?" And David Stabb narrows the field of dead non-Christians to this: "Do you believe that Jewish, Muslim, agnostic and other American soldiers who have not accepted Jesus as their personal savior and that have been killed in Iraq will be allowed into Heaven?" (which is also a variation on something that Ron Reagan, Jr. asked recently).
Along other religious lines, CAG asks, "Since you are a man of faith and certainly must find much guidance in the practice of the Ten Commandments, which Commandment do you find the most difficult to obey and which one do you most regret breaking?"
Here's a few short and sweet questions:
From Spencer Erikson: "Why haven't you gone to any of the funerals of the dead soldiers who fought in Iraq?"
From R. Scott Strahan: "Mr. Bush, do you believe, as Sheri Dew espoused at your convention, that supporting same-sex families is the same as supporting Hitler?"
From Sarah: "Would you say that the life of an American is worth more, less, or about the same as the life of an Iraqi?"
From Dick Hoyer (which, strangely enough, sounds like a job at a gay brothel): "I have a brother in Alabama that needs help with a drug clinic. Can you give me the name of one you might know well?"
From Jon: "Mr. Bush, how much does a gallon of gasoline cost today?" (which is a nice throwback to Poppy Bush and his astonishment at supermarket barcode scanners).
From J: "When did Andrew Sullivan stop sucking your cock? And, as a follow-up, sir, have you ever sucked his?" (Important as this follow-up is, the debate commission's rules prohibit the asking of follow-up questions.)
From James: "Are Karl Rove's arms long enough to reach around and jack you off as he fucks you?"
Around the Iraq War, W. Shaman wants to know, "Did you pick a fight on old weakened Saddam, who reminds you of your mother and who could make you look good, because you knew you would be outed as the pussy you are when it comes to standing up to the lethal Osama?" Alan Aimer demands of the President, "Have you misled the country about the level of resistance in Iraq?" while Irina asks an obvious question that the press hasn't been asking at all, but which seems to bear importantly on the rhetoric of the White House: "Can you explain why Americans are safer with Saddam in prison?"
And John King reminds us of the following quote from al-Qaeda, given after the Madrid bombing in March: In the only explicit endorsement of any candidate, the terrorist spokesman said, "Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation. Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected." King asks, "How do you respond to terrorists who have said they want you to win?"
A pair of Poppy Bush-related questions: Bob Goodsell inquires, "Your father said that people who disclose the identities of CIA agents are the most insidious of traitors. One of these traitors has been operating in your administration for over a year now. Why haven't you done anything about it?" and Justy asks, "Does 'Honor they father' mean not letting him speak at the Republican National Convention?"
A pair of Laura-related questions: Spencer says, "Mr. President, your wife is a former librarian. Your mother championed literacy when she was first lady. Given these two facts, it seems logical that you should be quite accomplished in reading and writing. Why then do you rely on all of your aides for information about the outside world? Why don't you read?" and from Tom Street: "President Bush, when you fuck Laura, is it purely for pleasure?"
And, finally, the Rude Pundit's favorite question, Ian asks, simply, eloquently, of the President:
"What is the moral of My Pet Goat?"
There will be more next week, before the next debate, so keep the questions coming to rudepundit@yahoo.com.
A Trip Down Memory Lane With John Kerry:
Archives are an amazing thing. It lets you explore things like, well, how consistent any single politician has been on any subject. Bush flaps his arms like a parrot with his wings cut and says, endlessly, that Kerry "doesn't know where he stands" on Iraq. The problem here is that Kerry has been remarkably consistent in his views, going back nearly a decade:
From the Boston Globe, September 4, 1996: On President Clinton's decision to bomb Iraq for its recent assaults on a Kurdish area, Kerry said, "I approve of the actions taken by the President. I do believe we have to take tough action with Saddam. It's the only language he understands."
From the Boston Globe, February 23, 1998: "Senator John F. Kerry . . . said yesterday that the United States should use ground troops to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he does not comply with international demands to give up chemical and biological weapons . . . Kerry said sending U.S. troops into Iraq should be 'the last option, but it is a legitimate option.' He said the United States should aim to remove Hussein only 'within the framework of international law -- in other words, if he remains obdurate and in violation of the United Nations resolutions, and in a position of threat to the world community.
"Kerry said his conditional support for using ground troops put him 'way ahead of the commander in chief, and I'm probably way ahead of my colleagues, and certainly much of the country' . . . Kerry said his position on Iraq is consistent with his Vietnam War experience. 'The lessons I learned are that if you're going to commit young people to fight, make sure you've got an objective and it's achievable, and it meets the needs of your country.'"
And, for shits and giggles, here's Kerry on terrorism, its threat, and solutions:
From the Boston Globe, August 3, 1996: On the Republican-led House of Representatives' version of an anti-terrorism bill, Kerry said many tools such as more extensive wiretap techniques and guerilla tactics were included in the Senate version of the bill, but removed by the House in the name of civil liberties and saving money: "There is a much larger confrontation with the Republican agenda. They are, 'Cut, cut, cut,' pretending you don't have to do anything."
From CNN, September 12, 2001: Kerry said, "I have no doubt in my mind it's Osama Bin Laden. . . It's very much in keeping with the threats he has made. The intelligence community has known all summer they have building up for some kind of attack."
"Kerry said a number of attempted attacks, or plans for attacks, have been 'thwarted' this summer. He said he was briefed by CIA Director George Tenet on this a few weeks ago."
This has been the problem all along in Kerry failing to run on his record in the Senate - he was a motherfucking statesman, a real one, who grappled with real issues, for years. He didn't go from 'Nam to presidential candidate. Kerry's own words are the clearest rejoinder to charges that he has lacked clear positions on Iraq. Kerry was a hawk, but a responsible hawk. He was not an appeaser. He was not beholden to his party. He just decided back then, and to this day, that we shouldn't dis the rest of the world, and we shouldn't, fer chrissake, run into this thing like a Peoria drag queen at make-up close-out day at the JC Penney's in the mall.
Keep On Bringin' It:
There's now well over a hundred suggestions for questions for the debate. Keep sendin' 'em to rudepundit@yahoo.com. Tomorrow, the best, the worst, the rudest.
Archives are an amazing thing. It lets you explore things like, well, how consistent any single politician has been on any subject. Bush flaps his arms like a parrot with his wings cut and says, endlessly, that Kerry "doesn't know where he stands" on Iraq. The problem here is that Kerry has been remarkably consistent in his views, going back nearly a decade:
From the Boston Globe, September 4, 1996: On President Clinton's decision to bomb Iraq for its recent assaults on a Kurdish area, Kerry said, "I approve of the actions taken by the President. I do believe we have to take tough action with Saddam. It's the only language he understands."
From the Boston Globe, February 23, 1998: "Senator John F. Kerry . . . said yesterday that the United States should use ground troops to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he does not comply with international demands to give up chemical and biological weapons . . . Kerry said sending U.S. troops into Iraq should be 'the last option, but it is a legitimate option.' He said the United States should aim to remove Hussein only 'within the framework of international law -- in other words, if he remains obdurate and in violation of the United Nations resolutions, and in a position of threat to the world community.
"Kerry said his conditional support for using ground troops put him 'way ahead of the commander in chief, and I'm probably way ahead of my colleagues, and certainly much of the country' . . . Kerry said his position on Iraq is consistent with his Vietnam War experience. 'The lessons I learned are that if you're going to commit young people to fight, make sure you've got an objective and it's achievable, and it meets the needs of your country.'"
And, for shits and giggles, here's Kerry on terrorism, its threat, and solutions:
From the Boston Globe, August 3, 1996: On the Republican-led House of Representatives' version of an anti-terrorism bill, Kerry said many tools such as more extensive wiretap techniques and guerilla tactics were included in the Senate version of the bill, but removed by the House in the name of civil liberties and saving money: "There is a much larger confrontation with the Republican agenda. They are, 'Cut, cut, cut,' pretending you don't have to do anything."
From CNN, September 12, 2001: Kerry said, "I have no doubt in my mind it's Osama Bin Laden. . . It's very much in keeping with the threats he has made. The intelligence community has known all summer they have building up for some kind of attack."
"Kerry said a number of attempted attacks, or plans for attacks, have been 'thwarted' this summer. He said he was briefed by CIA Director George Tenet on this a few weeks ago."
This has been the problem all along in Kerry failing to run on his record in the Senate - he was a motherfucking statesman, a real one, who grappled with real issues, for years. He didn't go from 'Nam to presidential candidate. Kerry's own words are the clearest rejoinder to charges that he has lacked clear positions on Iraq. Kerry was a hawk, but a responsible hawk. He was not an appeaser. He was not beholden to his party. He just decided back then, and to this day, that we shouldn't dis the rest of the world, and we shouldn't, fer chrissake, run into this thing like a Peoria drag queen at make-up close-out day at the JC Penney's in the mall.
Keep On Bringin' It:
There's now well over a hundred suggestions for questions for the debate. Keep sendin' 'em to rudepundit@yahoo.com. Tomorrow, the best, the worst, the rudest.
To the Media - Protect Your Asses, Not Your Assets:
Starting tonight, Bill O'Reilly's Fox "news" show will feature an interview done by O'Reilly with President Bush. The thirty-minute interview will be stretched over three nights, no doubt interrupted by O'Reilly praising himself for how "hard-hitting" his questions are, as well as copious Scott Peterson updates and Dan Rather bashing. However "tough" O'Reilly's questions may seem, in the end, Bush will stay on script and O'Reilly will be wiping the presidential spooge off his lips, begging Bush to be balls deep in his face once again. Let's be clear here: the reason this interview is being broadcast the way it's being done is as a build-up to the debate on Thursday night. Fox dances the Rove rumba, shakin' their maracas whenever they get the order.
Meanwhile, across town, CBS has decided that the best way to get over the whole memo conflagration is to avoid any further criticism of the President until after the election. See, CBS was supposed to run a story on 60 Minutes about the Bush administration's use of the forged Niger documents as a pretext for war. Now, fearing its credibility has been damaged by the story that ran in its stead, Rather's Killian memos and Barnes interview, CBS is damaging its credibility to the breaking point by deep-sixing the Niger debacle story until after the election, at the least. CBS has it exactly, absolutely wrong when its spokesperson said, "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election." No, in fact, and let's be clear again: it would inappropriate and possibly murderous to not broadcast the story. It's just more of the same, more of the same for this administration: no matter how many soldiers are dead and dying, it never has to be questioned about its actions (and a Bill O'Reilly hummer, however toothy it might be, doesn't count). To quash any stories that might mitigate or prevent any deaths means that one is complicitous in the continued slaughter.
There's not much time left here before November 2, so let's make something perfectly plain: a second Bush administration will engage in a serious abridgement of the freedoms of press and speech through law and intimidation. The thing is, with the Foxization of news, it won't seem like anything's changed to the general public, who will be told to blame dwindling numbers of Democrats on their ills. At some point, journalists need to understand that they cannot allow the administration to get to November 2 without answering for itself. Between the secrecy on meetings and documents to denial of access to reporters who would question to its discrediting of anyone who opposes them, real journalists have got to see the writing on the wall: play by our rules, says the administration, or you will not get to play.
Sometimes people in professions that affect the public at large have to take actions that are in their self-interest, actions that seem, on their surface, to be harmful to the profession itself, but actions that, ultimately, are good for everyone. A teacher's strike is an example of that. Teachers walking out of the classroom is not a good thing. But teachers have to feed their kids, and a satisfied, well-paid teacher is simply a better teacher.
So it's time for journalists, mainstream journalists on networks and large publications, to get selfish - by simply telling the truth about the Bush administration, by not letting them off the hook on answering about the war, the economy, and more, you will be protecting the future of your jobs and the future of a truly free press in America. It's a slippery slope from saying that John Kerry's honesty about the war gives comfort to the enemy to saying that any truthful reporting does the same. This ain't conspiracy theory. You know, and, c'mon, we've been down this road before - ask Walter Cronkite, fer fuck's sake. Ask anyone who challenged McCarthy until Murrow had the balls to take him down. Journalism is supposed to serve the public, not the powerful. The powerful have their messengers. Journalists are supposed to be the arbiters for the public good, not spokespeople for the powerful.
So this one is for the journalists or the ones who like to refer to themselves as such. It ain't for your corporate masters. Use whatever remaining shred of self-respect you have for the act of telling the truth to the public. It's time to get rid of the illusion of "balance" and report the facts. And confront those who oppose the facts. And fuck hedging on the facts. If you don't, then Fox "News" and Murdoch and Ailes win, and that way lies madness.
Joe Biden Will Fuck Your Shit Up:
Democratic Senator Joe Biden made the rounds of the gabfests yesterday, and on Fox "News," Biden bared those fuckin' teeth again and ripped out Chris Wallace's jugular vein and danced around in the shower of Wallace's spurting blood. Here's Biden:: "I find the way the opposition is dealing with this is really, really dangerous. They're telling everybody that basically if Kerry becomes president of the United States, he's not going to stick with Iraq . . . these guys so misrepresent things, it just is disgraceful." Every time Wallace tried to pin down Biden on some presumed inconsistency about John Kerry, Biden turned it back on Wallace, treating Wallace like a street whore who's skimmed too much from her pimp. Wallace couldn't end the interview fast enough.
Bring It On:
The Rude Pundit has received dozens of possible debate questions. We'll be posting the best on Wednesday. So keep 'em coming. The more the better. Rude, crude, or rational or some combination of the above - send it all: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
Starting tonight, Bill O'Reilly's Fox "news" show will feature an interview done by O'Reilly with President Bush. The thirty-minute interview will be stretched over three nights, no doubt interrupted by O'Reilly praising himself for how "hard-hitting" his questions are, as well as copious Scott Peterson updates and Dan Rather bashing. However "tough" O'Reilly's questions may seem, in the end, Bush will stay on script and O'Reilly will be wiping the presidential spooge off his lips, begging Bush to be balls deep in his face once again. Let's be clear here: the reason this interview is being broadcast the way it's being done is as a build-up to the debate on Thursday night. Fox dances the Rove rumba, shakin' their maracas whenever they get the order.
Meanwhile, across town, CBS has decided that the best way to get over the whole memo conflagration is to avoid any further criticism of the President until after the election. See, CBS was supposed to run a story on 60 Minutes about the Bush administration's use of the forged Niger documents as a pretext for war. Now, fearing its credibility has been damaged by the story that ran in its stead, Rather's Killian memos and Barnes interview, CBS is damaging its credibility to the breaking point by deep-sixing the Niger debacle story until after the election, at the least. CBS has it exactly, absolutely wrong when its spokesperson said, "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election." No, in fact, and let's be clear again: it would inappropriate and possibly murderous to not broadcast the story. It's just more of the same, more of the same for this administration: no matter how many soldiers are dead and dying, it never has to be questioned about its actions (and a Bill O'Reilly hummer, however toothy it might be, doesn't count). To quash any stories that might mitigate or prevent any deaths means that one is complicitous in the continued slaughter.
There's not much time left here before November 2, so let's make something perfectly plain: a second Bush administration will engage in a serious abridgement of the freedoms of press and speech through law and intimidation. The thing is, with the Foxization of news, it won't seem like anything's changed to the general public, who will be told to blame dwindling numbers of Democrats on their ills. At some point, journalists need to understand that they cannot allow the administration to get to November 2 without answering for itself. Between the secrecy on meetings and documents to denial of access to reporters who would question to its discrediting of anyone who opposes them, real journalists have got to see the writing on the wall: play by our rules, says the administration, or you will not get to play.
Sometimes people in professions that affect the public at large have to take actions that are in their self-interest, actions that seem, on their surface, to be harmful to the profession itself, but actions that, ultimately, are good for everyone. A teacher's strike is an example of that. Teachers walking out of the classroom is not a good thing. But teachers have to feed their kids, and a satisfied, well-paid teacher is simply a better teacher.
So it's time for journalists, mainstream journalists on networks and large publications, to get selfish - by simply telling the truth about the Bush administration, by not letting them off the hook on answering about the war, the economy, and more, you will be protecting the future of your jobs and the future of a truly free press in America. It's a slippery slope from saying that John Kerry's honesty about the war gives comfort to the enemy to saying that any truthful reporting does the same. This ain't conspiracy theory. You know, and, c'mon, we've been down this road before - ask Walter Cronkite, fer fuck's sake. Ask anyone who challenged McCarthy until Murrow had the balls to take him down. Journalism is supposed to serve the public, not the powerful. The powerful have their messengers. Journalists are supposed to be the arbiters for the public good, not spokespeople for the powerful.
So this one is for the journalists or the ones who like to refer to themselves as such. It ain't for your corporate masters. Use whatever remaining shred of self-respect you have for the act of telling the truth to the public. It's time to get rid of the illusion of "balance" and report the facts. And confront those who oppose the facts. And fuck hedging on the facts. If you don't, then Fox "News" and Murdoch and Ailes win, and that way lies madness.
Joe Biden Will Fuck Your Shit Up:
Democratic Senator Joe Biden made the rounds of the gabfests yesterday, and on Fox "News," Biden bared those fuckin' teeth again and ripped out Chris Wallace's jugular vein and danced around in the shower of Wallace's spurting blood. Here's Biden:: "I find the way the opposition is dealing with this is really, really dangerous. They're telling everybody that basically if Kerry becomes president of the United States, he's not going to stick with Iraq . . . these guys so misrepresent things, it just is disgraceful." Every time Wallace tried to pin down Biden on some presumed inconsistency about John Kerry, Biden turned it back on Wallace, treating Wallace like a street whore who's skimmed too much from her pimp. Wallace couldn't end the interview fast enough.
Bring It On:
The Rude Pundit has received dozens of possible debate questions. We'll be posting the best on Wednesday. So keep 'em coming. The more the better. Rude, crude, or rational or some combination of the above - send it all: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
Rude Pundit Correction - Because Admitting Error Is the Only Way To Be Trusted:
Yesterday's post on the debate and where the candidates are prepping contained a location error. John Kerry is not prepping in Boston. He is doing his homework in Wisconsin, where he may also attend campaign events.
Astute reader Barry gets the Poindexter of the Week Award for alerting the Rude Pundit to this mistake. The previous post has been corrected to reflect the change of location.
Keep the debate questions coming. Several dozen have already been sent in. Unlike Salon, which is asking for debate questions, too, the Rude Pundit will print both the smart and the rude.
Yesterday's post on the debate and where the candidates are prepping contained a location error. John Kerry is not prepping in Boston. He is doing his homework in Wisconsin, where he may also attend campaign events.
Astute reader Barry gets the Poindexter of the Week Award for alerting the Rude Pundit to this mistake. The previous post has been corrected to reflect the change of location.
Keep the debate questions coming. Several dozen have already been sent in. Unlike Salon, which is asking for debate questions, too, the Rude Pundit will print both the smart and the rude.
Debate or Debase? - One Question For Bush:
Oh, how the next few days are gonna be intense ones at the ranch in Crawford for our President as he preps for the first of three debates, to be held next Thursday, September 30. Karl Rove is shinin' his cattle prod, ready to shove it into Bush's haunches whenever Bush goes off script. Man, Bush will wonder, can't a man just pay someone to do this debatin' for him? Like back at Yale? Yeah, there's gonna be a lotta broken pencils, all-nighters, Krispy Kreme runs, and sweaty brows as they try to triangulate around whatever they predict Kerry'll say. (Kerry is gonna be in Wisconsin this weekend, doin' his own prep.)
Next week will be filled with advice and predictions. We'll hear the well-worn lie that Bush "won" the debates with Al Gore, which, if you mean "Told lies with a straight face" and "Didn't fling actual feces at the questioners while smacking the podium with his cock and screeching to Jesus to coke him up so he could make it through one answer without breaking down into blubbering monosyllabic grunts and sobs," yeah, sure, Bush won. If, however, you mean, "Gave coherent, substantive answers backed up by facts," well, you're pretty hard pressed to prove Bush prevailed. We'll also hear how masterful a debater Kerry is, so everyone will expect the President to fling shit, smack the podium with his cock, screech to Jesus, and blubber grunts and sobs. That way, when Bush doesn't fling, smack, screech, and blubber, he'll have defeated that "great debater."
There's a website called "Just One Question," which boils Bush down to a single thing issue that might be asked at a press conference, interview, or, say, a debate: "How many times have you been arrested?" It's a fine question, but it ain't an election winner.
The Rude Pundit has his own one simple question that needs to be asked specifically at a debate because it's about character, policy, and leadership in the here and now: Mr. President, do you believe Jews, Muslims, and others who die without accepting Jesus Christ as their savior will be allowed into Heaven?
That's a "let's-put-our-cards-on-the-table" question. It risks alienating a whole fuckin' lot of people with the answer. To answer "Yes" or anything squishy about loving everyone will wreck Bush's base. To answer "No" would wreck any chance with moderates. And, besides, here's the bonus: it's a legitimate question because it lets us know what is guiding the President in his decision-making and attitudes. In fact, it's a more relevant question than any about the National Guard. Now, does any moderator have the balls to ask?
Let's open this up: send your ideas for a single debate question to ask Bush that you think would devastate him or his campaign. The best will be posted next week. Send to rudepundit@yahoo.com.
The Rude Pundit, meanwhile, will be awaiting the call from the Kerry campaign to head over to Cheeseburg to help the candidate delicately eviscerate his opponent.
Oh, how the next few days are gonna be intense ones at the ranch in Crawford for our President as he preps for the first of three debates, to be held next Thursday, September 30. Karl Rove is shinin' his cattle prod, ready to shove it into Bush's haunches whenever Bush goes off script. Man, Bush will wonder, can't a man just pay someone to do this debatin' for him? Like back at Yale? Yeah, there's gonna be a lotta broken pencils, all-nighters, Krispy Kreme runs, and sweaty brows as they try to triangulate around whatever they predict Kerry'll say. (Kerry is gonna be in Wisconsin this weekend, doin' his own prep.)
Next week will be filled with advice and predictions. We'll hear the well-worn lie that Bush "won" the debates with Al Gore, which, if you mean "Told lies with a straight face" and "Didn't fling actual feces at the questioners while smacking the podium with his cock and screeching to Jesus to coke him up so he could make it through one answer without breaking down into blubbering monosyllabic grunts and sobs," yeah, sure, Bush won. If, however, you mean, "Gave coherent, substantive answers backed up by facts," well, you're pretty hard pressed to prove Bush prevailed. We'll also hear how masterful a debater Kerry is, so everyone will expect the President to fling shit, smack the podium with his cock, screech to Jesus, and blubber grunts and sobs. That way, when Bush doesn't fling, smack, screech, and blubber, he'll have defeated that "great debater."
There's a website called "Just One Question," which boils Bush down to a single thing issue that might be asked at a press conference, interview, or, say, a debate: "How many times have you been arrested?" It's a fine question, but it ain't an election winner.
The Rude Pundit has his own one simple question that needs to be asked specifically at a debate because it's about character, policy, and leadership in the here and now: Mr. President, do you believe Jews, Muslims, and others who die without accepting Jesus Christ as their savior will be allowed into Heaven?
That's a "let's-put-our-cards-on-the-table" question. It risks alienating a whole fuckin' lot of people with the answer. To answer "Yes" or anything squishy about loving everyone will wreck Bush's base. To answer "No" would wreck any chance with moderates. And, besides, here's the bonus: it's a legitimate question because it lets us know what is guiding the President in his decision-making and attitudes. In fact, it's a more relevant question than any about the National Guard. Now, does any moderator have the balls to ask?
Let's open this up: send your ideas for a single debate question to ask Bush that you think would devastate him or his campaign. The best will be posted next week. Send to rudepundit@yahoo.com.
The Rude Pundit, meanwhile, will be awaiting the call from the Kerry campaign to head over to Cheeseburg to help the candidate delicately eviscerate his opponent.
George W. Bush - Fluffer-in-Chief:
The Rude Pundit knew a man whose job was to be a fluffer on the sets of porn films. See, a fluffer's job is to hand and/or blow job the male porn stars to erection so that when they enter the scene in order to fuck the men or women awaiting the aforementioned erection. See, foreplay is not a big part of pornos. Let's call this fluffer "Ulysses" because of the odyssey his day was before he went home to his partner and all the one-eyed monsters he had to deal with.
Anyone can, in essence, be a fluffer, Ulysses said. 'Cause for most guys, a pair of lips around their cranks and it's rocket time. But a really good fluffer knows that half his (or her) job is psychological. It's being able to grab a cock for all you're worth and yank while saying, "God, you are so big, you are so huge, what a gigantic dick you have, lemme feel those balls, tea bag me, yeah, man, tea bag me." Ulysses worked on the fringes of the main porn industry, in a lot of indy porn, where burnt-out porn freaks, so strung out on drugs that Ulysses'd go through a couple of Chap-Sticks a day just trying to keep some old fuck hard long enough to get through one threesome and a rim job while jackin' off.
Eventually, and this is where most guys, especially, get out of being in front of the camera and begin to direct porn, the hard-ons aren't as hard and no amount of fluffing is gonna bring 'em to the point of coming. It's sad, really, Ulysses said, seein' these coked-out motherfuckers screaming at their flaccid cocks, "C'mon, you little bitch, get a boner. A boner, pleeeaase" as some lubed-up, leaky implanted stoned chick tries to stay awake long enough for the scene not to look like rape. Still, though, Ulysses is on his knees, yankin' and suckin' for all he's worth, massagin' that prostate, tellin' the guy, "You are so goddamn huge."
When our President, this George Bush, stands up in front of an audience of adoring onlookers and begins to spout off about how much more "secure" the country is, what is he but America's fluffer. Here he is in King of Prussia (ironically enough), PA yesterday, at one of his little "meetings" or, in the popular parlance, "circle jerks," speaking about John Kerry, "You cannot lead the war against terror if you wilt or waver when times get tough. You cannot expect the Iraqi people to stand up and do the hard work of democracy if you're pessimistic about their ability to govern themselves." Bush may as well have been lubin' up his fingers for the reach around the ass of the American electorate, ready to shove two, three, four fingers up there to make 'em get hard and excited for Bush. "I'm driven by my desire to protect the American people. I'll be steadfast in my resolve to do everything I can to make you secure," he said, and he knows, he knows he's gettin' the public all hot to enter that voting booth and yank that fuckin' lever and cast their ballots for him. Otherwise, the elecorate cock will "wilt and waver" and that just ain't good for anyone.
It doesn't matter what the outside world is doing. Whether it's beheadings, the coming plunge into a religious war within Iraq, dead American soldiers, or a National Intelligence Estimate that says the best we can hope for in Iraq is a quagmire, if we're lucky. Bush just goes right on fluffing. He's one of those really great fluffers, the ones that do it 'cause they like the taste and feel of cock in their mouths. When Bush dismissed the CIA's NIE briefing with "they were just guessing," it was one more case of his refusal to allow anything to get in the way of keeping America hard. Goddamn, there's other nations to be fucked. If we're not sportin' wood, how in the world are we gonna get the fuckin' done?
George Bush carries a cushion with him for his knees. He's a busy, busy man.
The Rude Pundit knew a man whose job was to be a fluffer on the sets of porn films. See, a fluffer's job is to hand and/or blow job the male porn stars to erection so that when they enter the scene in order to fuck the men or women awaiting the aforementioned erection. See, foreplay is not a big part of pornos. Let's call this fluffer "Ulysses" because of the odyssey his day was before he went home to his partner and all the one-eyed monsters he had to deal with.
Anyone can, in essence, be a fluffer, Ulysses said. 'Cause for most guys, a pair of lips around their cranks and it's rocket time. But a really good fluffer knows that half his (or her) job is psychological. It's being able to grab a cock for all you're worth and yank while saying, "God, you are so big, you are so huge, what a gigantic dick you have, lemme feel those balls, tea bag me, yeah, man, tea bag me." Ulysses worked on the fringes of the main porn industry, in a lot of indy porn, where burnt-out porn freaks, so strung out on drugs that Ulysses'd go through a couple of Chap-Sticks a day just trying to keep some old fuck hard long enough to get through one threesome and a rim job while jackin' off.
Eventually, and this is where most guys, especially, get out of being in front of the camera and begin to direct porn, the hard-ons aren't as hard and no amount of fluffing is gonna bring 'em to the point of coming. It's sad, really, Ulysses said, seein' these coked-out motherfuckers screaming at their flaccid cocks, "C'mon, you little bitch, get a boner. A boner, pleeeaase" as some lubed-up, leaky implanted stoned chick tries to stay awake long enough for the scene not to look like rape. Still, though, Ulysses is on his knees, yankin' and suckin' for all he's worth, massagin' that prostate, tellin' the guy, "You are so goddamn huge."
When our President, this George Bush, stands up in front of an audience of adoring onlookers and begins to spout off about how much more "secure" the country is, what is he but America's fluffer. Here he is in King of Prussia (ironically enough), PA yesterday, at one of his little "meetings" or, in the popular parlance, "circle jerks," speaking about John Kerry, "You cannot lead the war against terror if you wilt or waver when times get tough. You cannot expect the Iraqi people to stand up and do the hard work of democracy if you're pessimistic about their ability to govern themselves." Bush may as well have been lubin' up his fingers for the reach around the ass of the American electorate, ready to shove two, three, four fingers up there to make 'em get hard and excited for Bush. "I'm driven by my desire to protect the American people. I'll be steadfast in my resolve to do everything I can to make you secure," he said, and he knows, he knows he's gettin' the public all hot to enter that voting booth and yank that fuckin' lever and cast their ballots for him. Otherwise, the elecorate cock will "wilt and waver" and that just ain't good for anyone.
It doesn't matter what the outside world is doing. Whether it's beheadings, the coming plunge into a religious war within Iraq, dead American soldiers, or a National Intelligence Estimate that says the best we can hope for in Iraq is a quagmire, if we're lucky. Bush just goes right on fluffing. He's one of those really great fluffers, the ones that do it 'cause they like the taste and feel of cock in their mouths. When Bush dismissed the CIA's NIE briefing with "they were just guessing," it was one more case of his refusal to allow anything to get in the way of keeping America hard. Goddamn, there's other nations to be fucked. If we're not sportin' wood, how in the world are we gonna get the fuckin' done?
George Bush carries a cushion with him for his knees. He's a busy, busy man.
The Teeny-Tiny President Visits the Great Big Hall:
Our teeny-tiny President visited the great big hall at the United Nations yesterday. The teeny-tiny President tried to make himself feel bigger with a great big motorcade and great big security measures that forced the gigantic huge city to come to a halt. But, in the end, when he entered the great big auditorium of the General Assembly, where leaders of nations teeny-tiny and great big, he was, as always, a teeny-tiny president.
Oh, how the teeny-tiny President, in his teeny-tiny body, flailed about and tried to convince the others there that his teeny-tiny way was the best. When the teeny-tiny President declared, "Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty," somewhere in the hall the delegation from Liechtenstein chortled at the teeny-tiny President for saying such cute lies with his teeny-tiny tinny tinhorn voice.
When the teeny-tiny President waved his teeny-tiny finger and said, "Through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people," somewhere in that great big hall, the representative from Nauru shook his head at the idea that the United States gets to judge the morality of other nations in giving aid.
When the teeny-tiny President felt his teeny-tiny-weeny cock grow to just teeny-tiny as he stated, "AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death," the delegate from Guinea-Bissau sadly, slowly nodded in recognition of the promises made, broken, made, broken, a great big cycle from the teeny-tiny President speaking on the great big dais.
The teeny-tiny President spoke of great big ideals - human rights, democracy, social progress. But teeny-tiny words coming from a teeny-tiny mind yield only teeny-tiny reactions. The only reason anyone listened in that great big hall is that the teeny-tiny President is the leader of a great big country filled with teeny-tiny people who think that the teeny-tiny President is much, much more than a teeny-tiny man who got smaller and smaller with every word he spoke in the great big hall.
Our teeny-tiny President visited the great big hall at the United Nations yesterday. The teeny-tiny President tried to make himself feel bigger with a great big motorcade and great big security measures that forced the gigantic huge city to come to a halt. But, in the end, when he entered the great big auditorium of the General Assembly, where leaders of nations teeny-tiny and great big, he was, as always, a teeny-tiny president.
Oh, how the teeny-tiny President, in his teeny-tiny body, flailed about and tried to convince the others there that his teeny-tiny way was the best. When the teeny-tiny President declared, "Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty," somewhere in the hall the delegation from Liechtenstein chortled at the teeny-tiny President for saying such cute lies with his teeny-tiny tinny tinhorn voice.
When the teeny-tiny President waved his teeny-tiny finger and said, "Through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people," somewhere in that great big hall, the representative from Nauru shook his head at the idea that the United States gets to judge the morality of other nations in giving aid.
When the teeny-tiny President felt his teeny-tiny-weeny cock grow to just teeny-tiny as he stated, "AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death," the delegate from Guinea-Bissau sadly, slowly nodded in recognition of the promises made, broken, made, broken, a great big cycle from the teeny-tiny President speaking on the great big dais.
The teeny-tiny President spoke of great big ideals - human rights, democracy, social progress. But teeny-tiny words coming from a teeny-tiny mind yield only teeny-tiny reactions. The only reason anyone listened in that great big hall is that the teeny-tiny President is the leader of a great big country filled with teeny-tiny people who think that the teeny-tiny President is much, much more than a teeny-tiny man who got smaller and smaller with every word he spoke in the great big hall.
Rather at Twilight - A Fantasia:
Dan Rather knows what's going on. He is not a fool. He's been around the journalistic block a time or two. His tutelage came at the feet of the greats. He remembers Edward R. Murrow, on a visit to Huntsville, Texas, smacking him in his cherubic newsie cheeks back in the 1950s, scolding Rather for reading a press release from Ike's Oval Office as if it was the proven facts. He remembers fond nights, slugging back Beefeater Gin with Walter Cronkite, giggling about how they had had a threesome with Jessica Savitch, Rather always taking sloppy seconds after Cronkite. But on his own, Rather's been there, lord, how he's been there, front lines of Bosnia, beaten at the 1968 Democratic Convention, fuckin' Afghanistan during the Soviet quagmire there where he drank bitter homebrew with the Mujahadeen. He's faced down the best of them - Nixon, Saddam Hussein, Connie Chung. He knew that one day his confrontation with George Bush, Sr. would come back to haunt him.
It is twilight in Manhattan. It is a beautiful time on clear eves like these, when the orange glow reflects off the buildings. Earlier Rather watched the blocked streets as the endless motorcade of the President rode down 54th Street, not even pausing to acknowledge the hordes of people gathered at the gates at rush hour. Rather has broadcast his "apology" for the Killian memos. He smiles a little at the idea that some in the media have dubbed this "Rathergate," as if this scandal is anything like that old one, as if anything dubious the press does is in any way comparable to the sins of Presidents. He shakes his head at the idea that he had to drop his drawers and get spanked on the air while Fox "News" and others have never had to say word one about their wholesale acceptance as truth of the demonstrable lies of the Swift Boat Vets. They were "honorable veterans," they say. Bill Burkett "has an ax to grind." He shakes his head as he sips a fine single-malt from Oban, Scotland. God, how he wishes he was on the western coast now. Far away from vindictive Bushes and their thugs who want to bring him down.
Here is what Dan Rather knows at this dark moment of the soul: The outcry over the truth about the Killian memos by anyone in the general public is sheer projection of their frustration with George Bush. It is easier to say Dan Rather has lied than to say the President has. It is easier to direct anger at someone like him, who is one man, than at Bush, whose lies brought death to so many. The rage screaming out at him now is the rage a helpless citizenry wants to bring to Bush, but they have no means to articulate it. And why is the rest of the media feeding on Rather's still-breathing, prostrate body at this time? Because it dilutes and wipes away their greater infractions of the public trust. Because it makes them feel like journalists that they can so freely go after this story.
Rather has an idea, a vindictive idea borne out of the fury Rather feels in his balls at what's happened. Fuck 'em all, he thinks. He knows these people. He is from Texas, really truly from Texas. He knows how to wield a horsewhip. He knows how to shove his hand up the ass of a cow, fisting it for all he's worth. Fuck these fake Texans. And fuck the rest of the press. It doesn't matter anymore how much he lies about "objectivity" or "telling both sides." Unless he signs off every night with "Vote for George Bush," he's gonna be accused of being one of the chairmen of the "liberal" media. So let's show 'em what a real liberal media would look like. Let's use the power of this broadcast network and its tradition of journalism and rip into this bunch of cocksuckers with the savagery of crocodile taking down a gazelle. Let's expose their guts. Let's look into all the things that everyone else is afraid to - the justifications for war, the cronyism, the crimes - let's put it all on the table, motherfuckers, and let the electorate decide. Goddamn, it'd be a beautiful thing, Rather thinks, pouring his next Scotch, sitting at his desk in the dimming light. He starts to sketch it out. Who to assign to what. What producers can work on which stories. A detailed memo, handwritten, on how to take apart the Bush presidency.
He stares at it for a moment and sadly nods. He's tired. All of this is making him feel older than he is. He walks over to the document shredder and makes spaghetti of his grand plan. He is seated now, the sun all the way down. He turns on the television, the only light in the room, and clicks over to Fox, to MSNBC, to CNN, and all the yelling and sanctimony and hate that spews out, all the disdain for the average person. Rather is beginning to fall asleep as the noise cascades around him, a whirlpool, and he drifts off as his lessers, people who will never do the things he has done and will never get the chance to do them, waste their time judging him, as if his disappearance in this darkening night will make one iota of difference.
Dan Rather knows what's going on. He is not a fool. He's been around the journalistic block a time or two. His tutelage came at the feet of the greats. He remembers Edward R. Murrow, on a visit to Huntsville, Texas, smacking him in his cherubic newsie cheeks back in the 1950s, scolding Rather for reading a press release from Ike's Oval Office as if it was the proven facts. He remembers fond nights, slugging back Beefeater Gin with Walter Cronkite, giggling about how they had had a threesome with Jessica Savitch, Rather always taking sloppy seconds after Cronkite. But on his own, Rather's been there, lord, how he's been there, front lines of Bosnia, beaten at the 1968 Democratic Convention, fuckin' Afghanistan during the Soviet quagmire there where he drank bitter homebrew with the Mujahadeen. He's faced down the best of them - Nixon, Saddam Hussein, Connie Chung. He knew that one day his confrontation with George Bush, Sr. would come back to haunt him.
It is twilight in Manhattan. It is a beautiful time on clear eves like these, when the orange glow reflects off the buildings. Earlier Rather watched the blocked streets as the endless motorcade of the President rode down 54th Street, not even pausing to acknowledge the hordes of people gathered at the gates at rush hour. Rather has broadcast his "apology" for the Killian memos. He smiles a little at the idea that some in the media have dubbed this "Rathergate," as if this scandal is anything like that old one, as if anything dubious the press does is in any way comparable to the sins of Presidents. He shakes his head at the idea that he had to drop his drawers and get spanked on the air while Fox "News" and others have never had to say word one about their wholesale acceptance as truth of the demonstrable lies of the Swift Boat Vets. They were "honorable veterans," they say. Bill Burkett "has an ax to grind." He shakes his head as he sips a fine single-malt from Oban, Scotland. God, how he wishes he was on the western coast now. Far away from vindictive Bushes and their thugs who want to bring him down.
Here is what Dan Rather knows at this dark moment of the soul: The outcry over the truth about the Killian memos by anyone in the general public is sheer projection of their frustration with George Bush. It is easier to say Dan Rather has lied than to say the President has. It is easier to direct anger at someone like him, who is one man, than at Bush, whose lies brought death to so many. The rage screaming out at him now is the rage a helpless citizenry wants to bring to Bush, but they have no means to articulate it. And why is the rest of the media feeding on Rather's still-breathing, prostrate body at this time? Because it dilutes and wipes away their greater infractions of the public trust. Because it makes them feel like journalists that they can so freely go after this story.
Rather has an idea, a vindictive idea borne out of the fury Rather feels in his balls at what's happened. Fuck 'em all, he thinks. He knows these people. He is from Texas, really truly from Texas. He knows how to wield a horsewhip. He knows how to shove his hand up the ass of a cow, fisting it for all he's worth. Fuck these fake Texans. And fuck the rest of the press. It doesn't matter anymore how much he lies about "objectivity" or "telling both sides." Unless he signs off every night with "Vote for George Bush," he's gonna be accused of being one of the chairmen of the "liberal" media. So let's show 'em what a real liberal media would look like. Let's use the power of this broadcast network and its tradition of journalism and rip into this bunch of cocksuckers with the savagery of crocodile taking down a gazelle. Let's expose their guts. Let's look into all the things that everyone else is afraid to - the justifications for war, the cronyism, the crimes - let's put it all on the table, motherfuckers, and let the electorate decide. Goddamn, it'd be a beautiful thing, Rather thinks, pouring his next Scotch, sitting at his desk in the dimming light. He starts to sketch it out. Who to assign to what. What producers can work on which stories. A detailed memo, handwritten, on how to take apart the Bush presidency.
He stares at it for a moment and sadly nods. He's tired. All of this is making him feel older than he is. He walks over to the document shredder and makes spaghetti of his grand plan. He is seated now, the sun all the way down. He turns on the television, the only light in the room, and clicks over to Fox, to MSNBC, to CNN, and all the yelling and sanctimony and hate that spews out, all the disdain for the average person. Rather is beginning to fall asleep as the noise cascades around him, a whirlpool, and he drifts off as his lessers, people who will never do the things he has done and will never get the chance to do them, waste their time judging him, as if his disappearance in this darkening night will make one iota of difference.
Of The Sideshow and the Main Ring:
Man, remember the good ol' days of the circus? Remember when we could look at the freaks in the sideshow and feel really good about ourselves? The fat lady so fuckin' fat, gorging herself on a hamhock, let fat fucks walkin' by her stall feel like, "Hey, maybe I'm not such a fat fuck. Well, at least I'm not that fuckin' fat, now let's go get an elephant ear." Or we could watch the geek, scratching at himself, shitting on his hay, and then biting the head off a live chicken. Holy shit, all of a sudden Uncle Jesse sure seemed a whole lot more sane - all he did was sit in the basement, cussin' at those got-damn Japs comin' to get him. Ahh, the sideshow, when it wasn't ironic, when it was just pure human greed that allowed us to exploit the suffering of others for fun and profit. Sure, Ang and Chang may have been treated like a pair of kings in a sticky poker hand, but no one would have given a rat's ass about 'em if they hadn't been joined at the hip. The freaks were so cool, sometimes people didn't even give a shit about the main circus. Oh, yeah, it takes great skill, years of practice, and the possibility of death to be a Flying Wallenda, up there on the tightrope or the trapeze, but who gives a damn about some fairy in tights jumpin' on a wire when there's a guy with hideous psoriasis they're callin' the Alligator Man?
We've been engaged in watching the freaks the last week or so of this election season. We should be appalled over the grotesque sight of people squabbling over when Times New Roman was invented and if the gals in the pool typed this memo or that. We're not gonna deal with the whole fuckin' memo pissing match here. Except to say this: people who believe the issue about George Bush's tenure in the Air National Guard comes down to whether or not CBS was hoodwinked over a couple of scraps of paper are the same people who would slow down to see blood at a car wreck, the same people who would rather watch a chicken get its head bitten off than watch the acrobats. The memos do not fuckin' matter. Pretending that they do matter makes you look like an idiot. This ain't about CBS's credibility. This ain't about "liberal media" bias. None of that utter and complete and fetid bullshit. The intention of the CBS report was to answer questions that the Bush administration has steadfastly refused to answer. That, in itself, is an honorable pursuit.
Bottom line on this sideshow: Would those who say that Dan Rather should not be trusted, now that he seems to have used forged memos in a portion of a single report, ever say the same thing about George Bush when he led us to war based on "misleading" information about WMDs, including, well, forged documents? Howzabout a trade? We won't trust Rather anymore if you don't trust Bush. Deal? No? Then go fuck yourself with your memos.
But sometimes the things that are seemingly sideshows really are the main events, the tightrope where life and death can occur in a blindingly fast moment. Take the much discussed story of Sue Niederer. Niederer is a New Jersey woman whose son, Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq. Wearing a t-shirt that said, "President Bush You Killed My Son," Niederer attended a campaign speech by Laura Bush, another mother, as we are constantly, nauseatingly reminded. At the firehouse in Hopewell Township, New Jersey (is there a firehouse in America not visited by some random Bush or Cheney?), Niederer demanded to know why Bush doesn't send her daughters, both of military age, to go fight in Iraq. She was, as we know by now, arrested for trespassing, even though she had a ticket to the event. Consigned to the category of "protester" by the media, Niederer's plaintive cry for justice is now equal to people who strip off their clothes for AIDS funding or puppeteers for peace. Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Bill Baroni commented, "She really ought to find something to do with her time."
Maybe what she can do with her time is try to put back together the gory jigsaw puzzle that is now her son's corpse. See, Seth Dvorin died trying to defuse a homemade bomb, which went off and ripped through his body, sending pieces of it in several different directions. There's a good chance his hands were torn into dozens of bits. There's a good chance the bomb was packed with metal shards, nails, what have you, each of which that went through him would have taken a piece of him with it before it landed on the ground. Seth's father, Richard, has also taken it upon himself to protest, in a letter to President Bush. Perhaps his 25 year-old widow has protested, too. But it is his mother who has made the most public outcry, to another mother, about the deaths of children.
During the "Dirty War" in Argentina, from 1976-1983, a military junta disappeared tens of thousands of so-called "rebels" and others. Every week, on Thursday afternoons, since 1977, in the Plaza de Mayo, the main square of Buenos Aires, a group of mothers have appeared to demand answers on what has happened to their children. In often silent protest, the very presence of these women, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, creates a living memorial, a way for the disappered to never be forgotten. Some of the members themselves were disappeared, but their numbers grew to thousands, an empowering moment in the early 1980s when the people themselves were blatantly disempowered. And many of the mothers did learn what happened to their children (although thousands remain unaccounted for). And the junta fell, but the mothers remain.
Perhaps it's time, perhaps it's time, again, at last, in this nation, for Sue Niederer to be another Rosa Parks, for movements of mothers to come together and not allow their children to be disappeared into the vast abyss of memory where all soldiers seem to have been told they die for good and noble causes, where all parents are supposed to be proud of the sacrifice.
Man, remember the good ol' days of the circus? Remember when we could look at the freaks in the sideshow and feel really good about ourselves? The fat lady so fuckin' fat, gorging herself on a hamhock, let fat fucks walkin' by her stall feel like, "Hey, maybe I'm not such a fat fuck. Well, at least I'm not that fuckin' fat, now let's go get an elephant ear." Or we could watch the geek, scratching at himself, shitting on his hay, and then biting the head off a live chicken. Holy shit, all of a sudden Uncle Jesse sure seemed a whole lot more sane - all he did was sit in the basement, cussin' at those got-damn Japs comin' to get him. Ahh, the sideshow, when it wasn't ironic, when it was just pure human greed that allowed us to exploit the suffering of others for fun and profit. Sure, Ang and Chang may have been treated like a pair of kings in a sticky poker hand, but no one would have given a rat's ass about 'em if they hadn't been joined at the hip. The freaks were so cool, sometimes people didn't even give a shit about the main circus. Oh, yeah, it takes great skill, years of practice, and the possibility of death to be a Flying Wallenda, up there on the tightrope or the trapeze, but who gives a damn about some fairy in tights jumpin' on a wire when there's a guy with hideous psoriasis they're callin' the Alligator Man?
We've been engaged in watching the freaks the last week or so of this election season. We should be appalled over the grotesque sight of people squabbling over when Times New Roman was invented and if the gals in the pool typed this memo or that. We're not gonna deal with the whole fuckin' memo pissing match here. Except to say this: people who believe the issue about George Bush's tenure in the Air National Guard comes down to whether or not CBS was hoodwinked over a couple of scraps of paper are the same people who would slow down to see blood at a car wreck, the same people who would rather watch a chicken get its head bitten off than watch the acrobats. The memos do not fuckin' matter. Pretending that they do matter makes you look like an idiot. This ain't about CBS's credibility. This ain't about "liberal media" bias. None of that utter and complete and fetid bullshit. The intention of the CBS report was to answer questions that the Bush administration has steadfastly refused to answer. That, in itself, is an honorable pursuit.
Bottom line on this sideshow: Would those who say that Dan Rather should not be trusted, now that he seems to have used forged memos in a portion of a single report, ever say the same thing about George Bush when he led us to war based on "misleading" information about WMDs, including, well, forged documents? Howzabout a trade? We won't trust Rather anymore if you don't trust Bush. Deal? No? Then go fuck yourself with your memos.
But sometimes the things that are seemingly sideshows really are the main events, the tightrope where life and death can occur in a blindingly fast moment. Take the much discussed story of Sue Niederer. Niederer is a New Jersey woman whose son, Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq. Wearing a t-shirt that said, "President Bush You Killed My Son," Niederer attended a campaign speech by Laura Bush, another mother, as we are constantly, nauseatingly reminded. At the firehouse in Hopewell Township, New Jersey (is there a firehouse in America not visited by some random Bush or Cheney?), Niederer demanded to know why Bush doesn't send her daughters, both of military age, to go fight in Iraq. She was, as we know by now, arrested for trespassing, even though she had a ticket to the event. Consigned to the category of "protester" by the media, Niederer's plaintive cry for justice is now equal to people who strip off their clothes for AIDS funding or puppeteers for peace. Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Bill Baroni commented, "She really ought to find something to do with her time."
Maybe what she can do with her time is try to put back together the gory jigsaw puzzle that is now her son's corpse. See, Seth Dvorin died trying to defuse a homemade bomb, which went off and ripped through his body, sending pieces of it in several different directions. There's a good chance his hands were torn into dozens of bits. There's a good chance the bomb was packed with metal shards, nails, what have you, each of which that went through him would have taken a piece of him with it before it landed on the ground. Seth's father, Richard, has also taken it upon himself to protest, in a letter to President Bush. Perhaps his 25 year-old widow has protested, too. But it is his mother who has made the most public outcry, to another mother, about the deaths of children.
During the "Dirty War" in Argentina, from 1976-1983, a military junta disappeared tens of thousands of so-called "rebels" and others. Every week, on Thursday afternoons, since 1977, in the Plaza de Mayo, the main square of Buenos Aires, a group of mothers have appeared to demand answers on what has happened to their children. In often silent protest, the very presence of these women, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, creates a living memorial, a way for the disappered to never be forgotten. Some of the members themselves were disappeared, but their numbers grew to thousands, an empowering moment in the early 1980s when the people themselves were blatantly disempowered. And many of the mothers did learn what happened to their children (although thousands remain unaccounted for). And the junta fell, but the mothers remain.
Perhaps it's time, perhaps it's time, again, at last, in this nation, for Sue Niederer to be another Rosa Parks, for movements of mothers to come together and not allow their children to be disappeared into the vast abyss of memory where all soldiers seem to have been told they die for good and noble causes, where all parents are supposed to be proud of the sacrifice.
How To Destroy George W. Bush -- The Denouement:
This entire week, the Rude Pundit has offered advice on how the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the DNC, and those slanty-eyed 527s can destroy George W. Bush the President and the man. While one should read the rest of the week, in short order:
1. Co-opt the media by getting Kerry and Edwards out there on conservative talk shows.
2. Co-opt the language on war by constantly associating "Iraq" with "Vietnam," a task made increasingly easier as each day goes by.
3. Two slogans, one implicit and one for the rally signs - implicit one: George Bush wants to kill you. The one for bumper stickers: George Bush - Strong But Wrong.
4. Use the father against the son by showing how George Bush, Sr. assiduously avoided going to Baghdad and bragged about it, and ask if Poppy was a flip-flopper.
Yes, the Rude Pundit laid out a plan for not just the defeat of the Presidency of George W. Bush, but a method to lay waste to those who would oppose John Kerry. As expected, there have been naysayers, people who have written to the Rude Pundit and about the Rude Pundit. Primarily, this saying of nay has been centered around that slogan, "Strong But Wrong." And like a bear waits by a river for the ever-leaping salmon so the bear can smack those slick fuckers down and rip out their sweet flesh, so the Rude Pundit is prepared to answer:
Len Hart writes, "Strong but Wrong sucks!!!! Are you trying to get that Nazi spawn elected? The dumbasses in Kansas don't care how 'wrong' he is." And scoutradio opines, "'Strong' is simply too complimentary, and buys into the BC04 message. Why not 'Stubborn and Wrong,' or somesuch? Big difference between being 'strong' and unswayingly holding to a failed ideology, not admitting mistakes." Some suggest other slogans: "Wrong, Not Strong" or "Weak and Meek." There's also the fear of how it could be turned around on Kerry, with the "Weak and Meek" applied to the Senator.
Let's explain this a little more: we know, Christ, how we know, that Bush is not really, actually "strong," just like Arnold Schwarzenegger is not an action hero. We know that Bush is a flaccid cock, a weak-kneed bully who hides behind family and fortune and lackeys as surely as any Corleone or Soprano ever did. But there's simply no getting around the fact that the image of Bush as a "strong leader" has stuck. It's become part of the popular consciousness and the media mill, and six weeks ain't enough time to dislodge that bit of detritus from the brain of America. So it has to be used and then abused. "Strong But Wrong" means "Alright, fuck you, we acknowledge your so-called 'strength,' but strength used for the wrong purposes is going to fuck us all." And it says to the public, "A strong man who is wrong is going to get you killed." As for the idea that it would reflect back on Kerry as "weak," that's solved using a couple of Republicans: Teddy Roosevelt and Bush, Sr. Was Teddy Roosevelt strong with his soft-speaking? Was Bush, Sr. wrong to say that he wouldn't get soldiers killed just to be "macho"? (And one could use the awkwardly phrased "Strong and Right" in reference to Kerry, which also has implications that Kerry is conservative.)
The great thing about the Rude Pundit's complete plan is it relies absolutely, solely on the truth. That's why Karl Rove fears the Rude Pundit. Whether planting documents and bugs or claiming that a vote for a lower tax cut is actually a tax hike, Karl Rove has to traffic in lies and deceit. The be-jowled buggerer can't actually get a candidate to win based on the facts. The Rude Pundit's plan is based, totally and completely, on facts and truth, with little or no spin. Bush claims, in speeches to large, loyal crowds, that Kerry is going to raise taxes. That's huge spin on Kerry's stand. Frankly, there's far less spin in saying that, due to Bush's environmental policies, a vote for George Bush is a vote for your own slow, horrible death from toxin-based diseases.
Jesse Kornbluth, in his Swami Uptown blog, posed this question a couple of days ago: How do you defeat evil without becoming evil? The answer is this: you use the tools of evil to bring about the triumph of good, but you don't use the ideology of evil. Spinning the truth to show its consequences is a use of the tools of evil. Spinning lies to make them seem like truth is just evil.
Of course, we out here in Blogsylvania, we are all just dealing in theory. No one from any campaign or group has contacted the Rude Pundit and no one will. That would take a massive leap of faith that would require breaking the hold on the Democratic party of the allegedly qualified consultants and campaigners who, with the facts and truth on their side, have not been able to destroy George Bush.
This entire week, the Rude Pundit has offered advice on how the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the DNC, and those slanty-eyed 527s can destroy George W. Bush the President and the man. While one should read the rest of the week, in short order:
1. Co-opt the media by getting Kerry and Edwards out there on conservative talk shows.
2. Co-opt the language on war by constantly associating "Iraq" with "Vietnam," a task made increasingly easier as each day goes by.
3. Two slogans, one implicit and one for the rally signs - implicit one: George Bush wants to kill you. The one for bumper stickers: George Bush - Strong But Wrong.
4. Use the father against the son by showing how George Bush, Sr. assiduously avoided going to Baghdad and bragged about it, and ask if Poppy was a flip-flopper.
Yes, the Rude Pundit laid out a plan for not just the defeat of the Presidency of George W. Bush, but a method to lay waste to those who would oppose John Kerry. As expected, there have been naysayers, people who have written to the Rude Pundit and about the Rude Pundit. Primarily, this saying of nay has been centered around that slogan, "Strong But Wrong." And like a bear waits by a river for the ever-leaping salmon so the bear can smack those slick fuckers down and rip out their sweet flesh, so the Rude Pundit is prepared to answer:
Len Hart writes, "Strong but Wrong sucks!!!! Are you trying to get that Nazi spawn elected? The dumbasses in Kansas don't care how 'wrong' he is." And scoutradio opines, "'Strong' is simply too complimentary, and buys into the BC04 message. Why not 'Stubborn and Wrong,' or somesuch? Big difference between being 'strong' and unswayingly holding to a failed ideology, not admitting mistakes." Some suggest other slogans: "Wrong, Not Strong" or "Weak and Meek." There's also the fear of how it could be turned around on Kerry, with the "Weak and Meek" applied to the Senator.
Let's explain this a little more: we know, Christ, how we know, that Bush is not really, actually "strong," just like Arnold Schwarzenegger is not an action hero. We know that Bush is a flaccid cock, a weak-kneed bully who hides behind family and fortune and lackeys as surely as any Corleone or Soprano ever did. But there's simply no getting around the fact that the image of Bush as a "strong leader" has stuck. It's become part of the popular consciousness and the media mill, and six weeks ain't enough time to dislodge that bit of detritus from the brain of America. So it has to be used and then abused. "Strong But Wrong" means "Alright, fuck you, we acknowledge your so-called 'strength,' but strength used for the wrong purposes is going to fuck us all." And it says to the public, "A strong man who is wrong is going to get you killed." As for the idea that it would reflect back on Kerry as "weak," that's solved using a couple of Republicans: Teddy Roosevelt and Bush, Sr. Was Teddy Roosevelt strong with his soft-speaking? Was Bush, Sr. wrong to say that he wouldn't get soldiers killed just to be "macho"? (And one could use the awkwardly phrased "Strong and Right" in reference to Kerry, which also has implications that Kerry is conservative.)
The great thing about the Rude Pundit's complete plan is it relies absolutely, solely on the truth. That's why Karl Rove fears the Rude Pundit. Whether planting documents and bugs or claiming that a vote for a lower tax cut is actually a tax hike, Karl Rove has to traffic in lies and deceit. The be-jowled buggerer can't actually get a candidate to win based on the facts. The Rude Pundit's plan is based, totally and completely, on facts and truth, with little or no spin. Bush claims, in speeches to large, loyal crowds, that Kerry is going to raise taxes. That's huge spin on Kerry's stand. Frankly, there's far less spin in saying that, due to Bush's environmental policies, a vote for George Bush is a vote for your own slow, horrible death from toxin-based diseases.
Jesse Kornbluth, in his Swami Uptown blog, posed this question a couple of days ago: How do you defeat evil without becoming evil? The answer is this: you use the tools of evil to bring about the triumph of good, but you don't use the ideology of evil. Spinning the truth to show its consequences is a use of the tools of evil. Spinning lies to make them seem like truth is just evil.
Of course, we out here in Blogsylvania, we are all just dealing in theory. No one from any campaign or group has contacted the Rude Pundit and no one will. That would take a massive leap of faith that would require breaking the hold on the Democratic party of the allegedly qualified consultants and campaigners who, with the facts and truth on their side, have not been able to destroy George Bush.
How To Destroy George W. Bush, Part 4 -- Rip Out His Heart:
This week, the Rude Pundit is trying to drag the Kerry campaign, kicking and screaming, to victory. The DNC and those goddamned 527s (like those terrorists in the National Education Association) are free to partake of the Rude Pundit's wisdom. See, the goal here is to gut George W. Bush the President and the man. Remember: Tim Russert's opinion isn't worth a single hair on the Rude Pundit's nutsack; almost every other pundit is wrong. The Rude Pundit, as we all know by this point, is right.
Today, we bring out the ultimate tool, the one that will wreck the man, the one that will leave George W. Bush quivering on the floor, pissing and shitting himself as he sobs and screams for the Secret Service to bring him Grey Goose and Bolivian blow, the one that will tempt Karl Rove to finally put the bullet in the gun he uses to play fake Russian roulette every night, with his leather slave watching, in the basement of the White House. This one may need to be saved for desperate last days because of the potential to backfire, but all great plans have that chance, do they not? Are you ready? And, once again, George Soros and all those multibill- and megamillionaires, search behind the cushions of your couches 'cause this is gonna cost . . .
It's time for the Kerry campaign to start talking about the Presidency of George Bush. Senior. It's time for the surrogates on the Sunday gabfests to offer measured praise for Bush I. (Yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit fuckin' hated Poppy then and hates him now, but context is all.) Now, there's the obvious reason to break out the father, the only one that's ever been mentioned, the very real coalition of nations that Bush I put together to fight the Gulf War in 1991. That coalition contributed over 100,000 troops and tens of billions of dollars to the war effort. And, at the beginning of this current Iraq war, there was reference to Bush I's belief that to go into Baghdad would plunge Iraq into chaos and destabilize the Middle East. Check out this speech to Gulf War Veterans in 1999, where Poppy said, "Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what? Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerilla war to find the most-secure dictator in the world? Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous." These things ought to be in ads.
But there's a great deal more worth (measured) praise. Bush I was a diplomat, a U.N. rep, someone who understood that the value of strong friendships around the world extended beyond the use of armies and weapons. Remember, just as the Vietnam War didn't really end until Ford took office, the Cold War really finally ended while Bush I was the President because the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. And Bush I had the dignity to not go and stand on the rubble for an image that would be used in political ads. (Yeah, yeah, we know about Bush I and TV ads and what he would stoop to, but, really, and c'mon, stay on topic here.) Why did the Berlin Wall fall without a shot? Because, in part, of Bush I's solid relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. Because of, well, shit, diplomacy. If the drooling idiots on the right want to compare terrorism and communism, they could at least acknowledge that Eastern European communist nations fell either from internal turmoil or protest, with diplomatic pressure from the outside, not from the big, bad U.S. launching unilateral wars.
And then there's the flip-flop factor. Oh, how George Bush I was the mother of all flip-floppers. A pro-choice moderate Republican who had an overnight conversion to what Lee Atwater, currently featured in the hit show in Hell titled, "Who Wants To Anally Rape Lee Atwater With a Pitchfork?", called "extra-chromosome" conservatism when he was offered the Vice-Presidency. Man, then Poppy learned how to hate old school. Howzabout "Read my lips: No new taxes"? Man, that's gotta be one of the most blatant flip-flops in history. (For a stroll down memory lane, check out this Mike Royko column on the line.) Bush knew, fuckin' knew, that he had to agree with Democrats in Congress to raise some tax rates because Reagan had so fucked the nation. And for that flip-flop, he paid with his Presidency. And for that flip-flop, he at least pointed the country in the direction that Clinton would take us down.
So, how to use this for Kerry's advantage? There's the ads that talk about George Bush I's tenure as President, tearing down walls, not building them. There's the questions for Bush II's surrogates: how do you define flip-flopper? Was Bush I a flip-flopper? Would you have condemned him for changing his mind? Would you have condemned him for being willing to learn through experience?
Ahh, how sweet it would be for such a question to come up at a debate, with Bush II floundering about how we have to stop talking about the past, blah, blah, blah. How he would flashback to his drunken fights with Poppy, threatening to go "mano a mano" with Poppy (maybe one of the great pussy lines of all time), how he would stutter and stammer and that early stages Alzheimer's would force him into long stares down the well of his dark, dark soul as all the failures he's been and ever will be come shrieking out, like so many clawed harpies, to tear at the fabric of his being.
And, voila, we will have destroyed the man.
Destructive tool #4: Use the father against the son.
(Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.)
This week, the Rude Pundit is trying to drag the Kerry campaign, kicking and screaming, to victory. The DNC and those goddamned 527s (like those terrorists in the National Education Association) are free to partake of the Rude Pundit's wisdom. See, the goal here is to gut George W. Bush the President and the man. Remember: Tim Russert's opinion isn't worth a single hair on the Rude Pundit's nutsack; almost every other pundit is wrong. The Rude Pundit, as we all know by this point, is right.
Today, we bring out the ultimate tool, the one that will wreck the man, the one that will leave George W. Bush quivering on the floor, pissing and shitting himself as he sobs and screams for the Secret Service to bring him Grey Goose and Bolivian blow, the one that will tempt Karl Rove to finally put the bullet in the gun he uses to play fake Russian roulette every night, with his leather slave watching, in the basement of the White House. This one may need to be saved for desperate last days because of the potential to backfire, but all great plans have that chance, do they not? Are you ready? And, once again, George Soros and all those multibill- and megamillionaires, search behind the cushions of your couches 'cause this is gonna cost . . .
It's time for the Kerry campaign to start talking about the Presidency of George Bush. Senior. It's time for the surrogates on the Sunday gabfests to offer measured praise for Bush I. (Yeah, yeah, the Rude Pundit fuckin' hated Poppy then and hates him now, but context is all.) Now, there's the obvious reason to break out the father, the only one that's ever been mentioned, the very real coalition of nations that Bush I put together to fight the Gulf War in 1991. That coalition contributed over 100,000 troops and tens of billions of dollars to the war effort. And, at the beginning of this current Iraq war, there was reference to Bush I's belief that to go into Baghdad would plunge Iraq into chaos and destabilize the Middle East. Check out this speech to Gulf War Veterans in 1999, where Poppy said, "Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what? Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerilla war to find the most-secure dictator in the world? Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous." These things ought to be in ads.
But there's a great deal more worth (measured) praise. Bush I was a diplomat, a U.N. rep, someone who understood that the value of strong friendships around the world extended beyond the use of armies and weapons. Remember, just as the Vietnam War didn't really end until Ford took office, the Cold War really finally ended while Bush I was the President because the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. And Bush I had the dignity to not go and stand on the rubble for an image that would be used in political ads. (Yeah, yeah, we know about Bush I and TV ads and what he would stoop to, but, really, and c'mon, stay on topic here.) Why did the Berlin Wall fall without a shot? Because, in part, of Bush I's solid relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. Because of, well, shit, diplomacy. If the drooling idiots on the right want to compare terrorism and communism, they could at least acknowledge that Eastern European communist nations fell either from internal turmoil or protest, with diplomatic pressure from the outside, not from the big, bad U.S. launching unilateral wars.
And then there's the flip-flop factor. Oh, how George Bush I was the mother of all flip-floppers. A pro-choice moderate Republican who had an overnight conversion to what Lee Atwater, currently featured in the hit show in Hell titled, "Who Wants To Anally Rape Lee Atwater With a Pitchfork?", called "extra-chromosome" conservatism when he was offered the Vice-Presidency. Man, then Poppy learned how to hate old school. Howzabout "Read my lips: No new taxes"? Man, that's gotta be one of the most blatant flip-flops in history. (For a stroll down memory lane, check out this Mike Royko column on the line.) Bush knew, fuckin' knew, that he had to agree with Democrats in Congress to raise some tax rates because Reagan had so fucked the nation. And for that flip-flop, he paid with his Presidency. And for that flip-flop, he at least pointed the country in the direction that Clinton would take us down.
So, how to use this for Kerry's advantage? There's the ads that talk about George Bush I's tenure as President, tearing down walls, not building them. There's the questions for Bush II's surrogates: how do you define flip-flopper? Was Bush I a flip-flopper? Would you have condemned him for changing his mind? Would you have condemned him for being willing to learn through experience?
Ahh, how sweet it would be for such a question to come up at a debate, with Bush II floundering about how we have to stop talking about the past, blah, blah, blah. How he would flashback to his drunken fights with Poppy, threatening to go "mano a mano" with Poppy (maybe one of the great pussy lines of all time), how he would stutter and stammer and that early stages Alzheimer's would force him into long stares down the well of his dark, dark soul as all the failures he's been and ever will be come shrieking out, like so many clawed harpies, to tear at the fabric of his being.
And, voila, we will have destroyed the man.
Destructive tool #4: Use the father against the son.
(Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.)
How To Destroy George W. Bush, Part 3 -- Kick Him In the Nuts:
This week, the Rude Pundit is opening his Big Book of Political Evisceration to give lessons to the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the DNC, and those eeeevil 527s, like Mothers Opposing Bush (whores, all of 'em), on how to wreck George Bush the President and the man. Remember: nearly all your nattering pundits on your MSNBCs, your CNNs, your Foxes are wrong. Only the Rude Pundit is right. Trust in the Rude Pundit. He shall set John Kerry free.
Today, we deal with the fear factor. Much has been made about how the Bush campaign has trafficked in fear as a tool to achieve blind loyalty to a failed leader. The problem here is that Bush has only one fear to sell: that terrorists might strike again. Sure, it's a gut-wrenching fear, one that is affirmed again and again by saying, "9/11" endlessly. But that's it for Bush's list of bugaboos. It's time for Kerry to sell fear, but he can do it on a much broader scale. Here we go. And, as usual, George Soros and the other bill- and millionaires, time to dig under the mattress, 'cause this is gonna cost . . .
The underlying message of a Kerry campaign based on fear has to be "George Bush Wants To Kill You." It's no longer that he's a poor leader who has made bad decisions that have resulted in blah, blah, blah, we're fuckin' bored, we think we'll just vote for Bush. Bush must be portrayed as an actual and real threat to the safety of Americans. In fact, Bush must be portrayed, implicitly, as someone who wants to do bodily harm to the citizens. And the beauty part? Kerry never even has to invoke the "war on terror" to do it. (Although, by most standards of international law, George Bush is a mass murderer, but, really, that ain't gonna get any votes.) All Kerry has to do is stick with issues that a majority of Americans oppose Bush on, and all of a sudden one is faced with the prospect that a vote for George Bush will bring one imminent death as surely as if he walked into one's living room and shot one in the face.
There's stem cell research. Most polls show a large majority of Americans support federal funding of stem cell research. No, we don't really fuckin' know if stem cells are gonna do jack shit, but we didn't know rockets would fly to the goddamn moon either. But we wanted to find out. Time to break out the Ron Reagan, Jr. for an ad about it. And, again, any ad on stem cell research could include quotes from Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, and other right wingers. Explicit message of the ad: Kerry will fund research that could bring about miracles and wonders; Bush will not. Implicit message: Bush would like us all to die of horrible diseases, and, in fact, he will help those diseases kill us.
There's the assault weapons ban. It's an issue that Bush has tried to cover his ass on by saying that he would sign a bill if Congress sent it to him, but, of course, he never lobbied for it in the way he did, say, the Medicare bill. Again, a large, large majority of the country believes that, flawed or not, some kind of gun control is better than none. (And, while it ain't a winner in the election booth, truth be told, a majority of Americans supports stricter gun laws.) Easy one here: get cops out there, including cops who were involved in trying to help on 9/11, to say that the country needs the ban. Explicit message of any ad: Kerry will work to keep Uzis off the streets; Bush will not. Implicit message: Bush wants cops to get shot with AK-47s and he wants terrorists to be able to walk into gun stores to buy Uzis. And it's all because George Bush wants to kill you.
There's the environment. A huge majority of Americans support stronger environmental regulation, to the point of agreeing to roll back tax cuts to pay for enforcement. Even some Republicans are appalled by Bush's approach to the environment, which is something not unakin to making rape legal so the rapists won't go to jail. But "the environment" is an unwieldy issue. Instead, Kerry ought to focus on one thing - say, mercury emissions rules. The approach is easy: two people are needed - a mom whose child was made ill or even died because of environmental mercury and someone who made their living off fishing waters that are now poisoned by toxic mercury emissions. Explicit message: Kerry will clean up the environment; Bush will not. Implicit message: George Bush wants you to slowly be poisoned by the output of his industry buddies. If he could, he'd feed you spoons of mercury because, well, George Bush wants to kill you.
This list could go on and on. It could even include terrorism and 9/11 (with the 9/11 widows in an ad). Now, Bush supporters will say the President has taken strong stands on these issues (which is a lie, because he supported the gun ban and then he backed off on it) and that we need a President who will stand strong against the terrorists because you're afraid of the terrorists, aren't you? Aren't you afraid of the goddamned terrorists?
But here's where the Rude Pundit earns his keep. Here's why Karl Rove keeps Tums and Tucks on hand for whenever he thinks of going up against the Rude Pundit. Take Bush's most highly-touted asset and make it a weakness. There's simple tag line to anti-Bush ads that rips the throat out of Bush's campaign and kicks Bush in the nuts so hard that he'll wear his balls as earrings: "George Bush: Strong But Wrong."
Say it again: "Strong But Wrong."
Almost terrifying in how much it encompasses in three words. Gives you that feeling in your toes that says, "Motherfuck, that works, and it's goddamn catchy, too." It's a chant, it's an argument, it's a fuckin' policy statement. And it works on issue after issue after issue.
There's your talking point for the day: "Strong But Wrong."
Destructive tool #3: Go after Bush's obvious weaknesses and his perceived strength.
Tomorrow: The ultimate tool - and how it destroys the man.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
This week, the Rude Pundit is opening his Big Book of Political Evisceration to give lessons to the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the DNC, and those eeeevil 527s, like Mothers Opposing Bush (whores, all of 'em), on how to wreck George Bush the President and the man. Remember: nearly all your nattering pundits on your MSNBCs, your CNNs, your Foxes are wrong. Only the Rude Pundit is right. Trust in the Rude Pundit. He shall set John Kerry free.
Today, we deal with the fear factor. Much has been made about how the Bush campaign has trafficked in fear as a tool to achieve blind loyalty to a failed leader. The problem here is that Bush has only one fear to sell: that terrorists might strike again. Sure, it's a gut-wrenching fear, one that is affirmed again and again by saying, "9/11" endlessly. But that's it for Bush's list of bugaboos. It's time for Kerry to sell fear, but he can do it on a much broader scale. Here we go. And, as usual, George Soros and the other bill- and millionaires, time to dig under the mattress, 'cause this is gonna cost . . .
The underlying message of a Kerry campaign based on fear has to be "George Bush Wants To Kill You." It's no longer that he's a poor leader who has made bad decisions that have resulted in blah, blah, blah, we're fuckin' bored, we think we'll just vote for Bush. Bush must be portrayed as an actual and real threat to the safety of Americans. In fact, Bush must be portrayed, implicitly, as someone who wants to do bodily harm to the citizens. And the beauty part? Kerry never even has to invoke the "war on terror" to do it. (Although, by most standards of international law, George Bush is a mass murderer, but, really, that ain't gonna get any votes.) All Kerry has to do is stick with issues that a majority of Americans oppose Bush on, and all of a sudden one is faced with the prospect that a vote for George Bush will bring one imminent death as surely as if he walked into one's living room and shot one in the face.
There's stem cell research. Most polls show a large majority of Americans support federal funding of stem cell research. No, we don't really fuckin' know if stem cells are gonna do jack shit, but we didn't know rockets would fly to the goddamn moon either. But we wanted to find out. Time to break out the Ron Reagan, Jr. for an ad about it. And, again, any ad on stem cell research could include quotes from Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, and other right wingers. Explicit message of the ad: Kerry will fund research that could bring about miracles and wonders; Bush will not. Implicit message: Bush would like us all to die of horrible diseases, and, in fact, he will help those diseases kill us.
There's the assault weapons ban. It's an issue that Bush has tried to cover his ass on by saying that he would sign a bill if Congress sent it to him, but, of course, he never lobbied for it in the way he did, say, the Medicare bill. Again, a large, large majority of the country believes that, flawed or not, some kind of gun control is better than none. (And, while it ain't a winner in the election booth, truth be told, a majority of Americans supports stricter gun laws.) Easy one here: get cops out there, including cops who were involved in trying to help on 9/11, to say that the country needs the ban. Explicit message of any ad: Kerry will work to keep Uzis off the streets; Bush will not. Implicit message: Bush wants cops to get shot with AK-47s and he wants terrorists to be able to walk into gun stores to buy Uzis. And it's all because George Bush wants to kill you.
There's the environment. A huge majority of Americans support stronger environmental regulation, to the point of agreeing to roll back tax cuts to pay for enforcement. Even some Republicans are appalled by Bush's approach to the environment, which is something not unakin to making rape legal so the rapists won't go to jail. But "the environment" is an unwieldy issue. Instead, Kerry ought to focus on one thing - say, mercury emissions rules. The approach is easy: two people are needed - a mom whose child was made ill or even died because of environmental mercury and someone who made their living off fishing waters that are now poisoned by toxic mercury emissions. Explicit message: Kerry will clean up the environment; Bush will not. Implicit message: George Bush wants you to slowly be poisoned by the output of his industry buddies. If he could, he'd feed you spoons of mercury because, well, George Bush wants to kill you.
This list could go on and on. It could even include terrorism and 9/11 (with the 9/11 widows in an ad). Now, Bush supporters will say the President has taken strong stands on these issues (which is a lie, because he supported the gun ban and then he backed off on it) and that we need a President who will stand strong against the terrorists because you're afraid of the terrorists, aren't you? Aren't you afraid of the goddamned terrorists?
But here's where the Rude Pundit earns his keep. Here's why Karl Rove keeps Tums and Tucks on hand for whenever he thinks of going up against the Rude Pundit. Take Bush's most highly-touted asset and make it a weakness. There's simple tag line to anti-Bush ads that rips the throat out of Bush's campaign and kicks Bush in the nuts so hard that he'll wear his balls as earrings: "George Bush: Strong But Wrong."
Say it again: "Strong But Wrong."
Almost terrifying in how much it encompasses in three words. Gives you that feeling in your toes that says, "Motherfuck, that works, and it's goddamn catchy, too." It's a chant, it's an argument, it's a fuckin' policy statement. And it works on issue after issue after issue.
There's your talking point for the day: "Strong But Wrong."
Destructive tool #3: Go after Bush's obvious weaknesses and his perceived strength.
Tomorrow: The ultimate tool - and how it destroys the man.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
How To Destroy George W. Bush, Part 2 -- Make Him Vomit Out His Guts:
This week, the Rude Pundit is offering advice to the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and all the "shadowy" 527s on how to crush George W. Bush as a President and as a man. Remember: nearly every other pundit and campaign advisor is wrong. Only the Rude Pundit is right. And remember: Karl Rove fears the Rude Pundit; when Rove beats his leather slave every evening in the basement of the White House, right next to a Teddy Roosevelt sculpture, the one with the big stick, Rove commands the poor hunched-over queen to scream, "I'm the Rude Pundit" 'cause it's the only way he can get to the Rude Pundit.
Today, we're gonna deal with the questions of wars, old and new. The Rude Pundit's gonna show how, with sublime simplicity, Kerry can fuck with and destroy Bush by turnin' that ol' Swift Boat into the coming fire. And, once again, George Soros and all those other bill- and millionaires, open your coin purses - this is gonna cost . . .
Vietnam: The whole "who did what" in Vietnam thing is nearly played out. More and more, because of the blindness of the media in not being able to see that there's a difference in trying to prove if Kerry bled enough versus whether Bush even showed up, the voting public is getting sick of 'Nam. But that doesn't mean it's going away. It's time for Kerry to use Vietnam for more than proving that he knows how to take a bullet. By running from part two of his Vietnam experience, Kerry the protester, Kerry is denying himself a chance to take Bush's Guard experience and use it to show Kerry was right to protest the Vietnam War.
Why did Bush "join" the Guard? For the same reason nearly everyone did during 'Nam: they didn't want to risk dying for a fucked-up, bullshit, mountain of lies that added up to a worthless stack of corpses and coffins. And it was the same reason that men ran away to Canada or knocked up their wives in order to get a parenting deferrment. In essence, Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard was a kind of protest, a way of saying that the Vietnam War was not worth fighting. Bush's own words confirm that: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
In other words, the point of Kerry's 'Nam service is not that he went and fought. It's that he learned that what others did to avoid serving wasn't wrong. And that means everyone, from draft dodgers to the deferrers to the over-privileged sons who used family connections to weasel out of the draft. Kerry should embrace his postwar role in stopping the insanity that forced kids to make these kinds of decisions. He should embrace his role in helping to stop the mass murder of Americans by the Nixon administration. Kerry should embrace Bush's National Guard service and use it to counter all the assholes who believe that Kerry's protesting was a kind of "betrayal." And that puts Kerry in the best position to talk about . . .
Iraq: Look, the vast majority of Americans don't give a rat's ass about dead Iraqis. We don't give a shit when hundreds of Iraqis are carbombed, children or otherwise. As far as many, if not most, Americans are concerned, the Iraqis should be giving American soldiers blowjobs in the streets of Baghdad to than them for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. And that same many, if not most, Americans think that an Iraqi's as good as a Palestinian is as good as Osama Bin Laden and fuck 'em all, they should be dead. Middle-Easterners are the newest niggers, and that's a racial reality that needs to be dealt with at some point. By invading Iraq, Bush essentially affirmed these racist beliefs.
All we really give a shit about is dead Americans. It doesn't matter how many markets, police stations, or streets are blown to bits. It doesn't matter how many armless kids there are. It doesn't matter how many mothers and fathers scream in that not-quite-human ululation that they call language. No, what matters is when a couple of contractors, who went to Iraq to carpetbag for cash they couldn't get back in the U.S., are torched and hanged like ducks in the window of a Chinatown meat market.
Kerry needs to both play to this prevalent racism (subtly, oh, so subtly) and demonstrate that he will save American lives. Kerry needs to make clear that Iraq is a fucking mess (and that becomes easier and easier), and that he'll clean it up. And that's where his experience after the Vietnam War comes into play: he knows that Presidents send people to die for no good reason. His life after the Swift Boat makes that clear: Kerry is committed to saving American lives. Bush is not.
Kerry needs to say a "truth" about Iraq, and this can go in a couple of directions. 1. People in Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein; American is not. Or 2. Getting rid of one man does not solve the problems of a nation. Either way, Kerry has to start using the words "Saddam Hussein" more often. (And he needs to make goddamn sure that he never, never says that Iraq is part of the "war on terror." In fact, he needs to make goddamn sure he makes them two distinct things.)
In other words, on both wars, Kerry needs to control the language more. He needs to do the defining. Just like Bush succeeds by revising history, Kerry can succeed by re-defining the words themselves. "Iraq War" should be associated with "Vietnam," endlessly, in the same way the Bushkoviks associate "Iraq" and "al-Qaeda." It's a simple linguistic trick, to give new meanings within your own context. The beauty of it is it means that when your opponent speaks those same words, they have the resonance you have given them. And if "Iraq" can become synonymous with "Vietnam," then Bush looks more and more like the corrupt, abominable stepchild of the vile Richard Nixon (not the fantasy Nixon trotted out for the Republican Convention).
Co-opt the war language. That's destructive tool number two. Tomorrow: Fear factor. Later this week: the ultimate tool.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
This week, the Rude Pundit is offering advice to the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and all the "shadowy" 527s on how to crush George W. Bush as a President and as a man. Remember: nearly every other pundit and campaign advisor is wrong. Only the Rude Pundit is right. And remember: Karl Rove fears the Rude Pundit; when Rove beats his leather slave every evening in the basement of the White House, right next to a Teddy Roosevelt sculpture, the one with the big stick, Rove commands the poor hunched-over queen to scream, "I'm the Rude Pundit" 'cause it's the only way he can get to the Rude Pundit.
Today, we're gonna deal with the questions of wars, old and new. The Rude Pundit's gonna show how, with sublime simplicity, Kerry can fuck with and destroy Bush by turnin' that ol' Swift Boat into the coming fire. And, once again, George Soros and all those other bill- and millionaires, open your coin purses - this is gonna cost . . .
Vietnam: The whole "who did what" in Vietnam thing is nearly played out. More and more, because of the blindness of the media in not being able to see that there's a difference in trying to prove if Kerry bled enough versus whether Bush even showed up, the voting public is getting sick of 'Nam. But that doesn't mean it's going away. It's time for Kerry to use Vietnam for more than proving that he knows how to take a bullet. By running from part two of his Vietnam experience, Kerry the protester, Kerry is denying himself a chance to take Bush's Guard experience and use it to show Kerry was right to protest the Vietnam War.
Why did Bush "join" the Guard? For the same reason nearly everyone did during 'Nam: they didn't want to risk dying for a fucked-up, bullshit, mountain of lies that added up to a worthless stack of corpses and coffins. And it was the same reason that men ran away to Canada or knocked up their wives in order to get a parenting deferrment. In essence, Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard was a kind of protest, a way of saying that the Vietnam War was not worth fighting. Bush's own words confirm that: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
In other words, the point of Kerry's 'Nam service is not that he went and fought. It's that he learned that what others did to avoid serving wasn't wrong. And that means everyone, from draft dodgers to the deferrers to the over-privileged sons who used family connections to weasel out of the draft. Kerry should embrace his postwar role in stopping the insanity that forced kids to make these kinds of decisions. He should embrace his role in helping to stop the mass murder of Americans by the Nixon administration. Kerry should embrace Bush's National Guard service and use it to counter all the assholes who believe that Kerry's protesting was a kind of "betrayal." And that puts Kerry in the best position to talk about . . .
Iraq: Look, the vast majority of Americans don't give a rat's ass about dead Iraqis. We don't give a shit when hundreds of Iraqis are carbombed, children or otherwise. As far as many, if not most, Americans are concerned, the Iraqis should be giving American soldiers blowjobs in the streets of Baghdad to than them for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. And that same many, if not most, Americans think that an Iraqi's as good as a Palestinian is as good as Osama Bin Laden and fuck 'em all, they should be dead. Middle-Easterners are the newest niggers, and that's a racial reality that needs to be dealt with at some point. By invading Iraq, Bush essentially affirmed these racist beliefs.
All we really give a shit about is dead Americans. It doesn't matter how many markets, police stations, or streets are blown to bits. It doesn't matter how many armless kids there are. It doesn't matter how many mothers and fathers scream in that not-quite-human ululation that they call language. No, what matters is when a couple of contractors, who went to Iraq to carpetbag for cash they couldn't get back in the U.S., are torched and hanged like ducks in the window of a Chinatown meat market.
Kerry needs to both play to this prevalent racism (subtly, oh, so subtly) and demonstrate that he will save American lives. Kerry needs to make clear that Iraq is a fucking mess (and that becomes easier and easier), and that he'll clean it up. And that's where his experience after the Vietnam War comes into play: he knows that Presidents send people to die for no good reason. His life after the Swift Boat makes that clear: Kerry is committed to saving American lives. Bush is not.
Kerry needs to say a "truth" about Iraq, and this can go in a couple of directions. 1. People in Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein; American is not. Or 2. Getting rid of one man does not solve the problems of a nation. Either way, Kerry has to start using the words "Saddam Hussein" more often. (And he needs to make goddamn sure that he never, never says that Iraq is part of the "war on terror." In fact, he needs to make goddamn sure he makes them two distinct things.)
In other words, on both wars, Kerry needs to control the language more. He needs to do the defining. Just like Bush succeeds by revising history, Kerry can succeed by re-defining the words themselves. "Iraq War" should be associated with "Vietnam," endlessly, in the same way the Bushkoviks associate "Iraq" and "al-Qaeda." It's a simple linguistic trick, to give new meanings within your own context. The beauty of it is it means that when your opponent speaks those same words, they have the resonance you have given them. And if "Iraq" can become synonymous with "Vietnam," then Bush looks more and more like the corrupt, abominable stepchild of the vile Richard Nixon (not the fantasy Nixon trotted out for the Republican Convention).
Co-opt the war language. That's destructive tool number two. Tomorrow: Fear factor. Later this week: the ultimate tool.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
How To Destroy George W. Bush, Part 1 - Take Out His Kneecaps:
There's so, so many pundits all over this nation, from blog to newspaper to radio to network to cable. And each and every one of them is offering John Kerry some kind of advice about how to run his campaign, based on the previously discussed notion that Kerry is perceived as Fucked and Floundering by the media. The Rude Pundit is going to join that fray, but unlike nearly every other so-called pundit and/or intellectual, the Rude Pundit is right. The Rude Pundit knows what he's talking about. The Rude Pundit would be Karl Rove's worst nightmare - someone who doesn't give a shit; the Rude Pundit is Godzilla to Rove's Tokyo. So here's the deal, Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s (George Soros, open your change purse, 'cause some of this is gonna cost), from the Rude Pundit -- a few days worth of strategy to destroy George W. Bush, the presidency, the campaign, and the man. Remember the lessons of Sherman's March: the South had to burn, motherfuckers, so everyone might be free.
Here's what all the other pundits (and most of your advisors) are wrong about: The whole "tell us where you stand" position is bullshit. It is a fabrication, a fantasy that Kerry needs to stand in front of a cheering crowd and give the exact numbers on his tax proposals. Go fuckin' read a policy paper on the website. Bush has said fuck-all about his second term other than more of the same (which, as we shall discover this week, should be where the attack is). The pundits are wrong about the effect of negative campaigning. Any viewing public that wants to know about Scott Peterson, wants to see car wrecks at NASCAR, and watches Growing Up Gotti and Bill O'Reilly is essentially the same crowd that was rooting for the lions at the Coliseum back in the day. And you gotta choose: are you a lion or a slave? It's time for Kerry to learn what delicious fresh organ meat tastes like. He needs to gnaw on some intestines.
The pundits are wrong about the meaning of the "anyone but Bush" voters, which, honestly, is Kerry's majority constituency. A vote against Bush has a 90% or so chance of being a vote for Kerry. Fuck inspiring the undecideds to vote for Kerry. Inspire them to vote against Bush. Ultimately, that's what this election is about: it's not about electing Kerry. It's about voting out George Bush. No one really gives a rat's ass about the details of Kerry's Social Security plan beyond right wing pundits (and moderates looking to suck the cock of their corporate owners) who are looking for some reason to bash Kerry. What gets the crowd going is to talk about what motherfuckers Bush and Cheney are. Save the detail shit for the debates, when it'll make Bush look like the stupid backward-ass prissy hick wannabe he is. Remember the lessons of 2000: it doesn't matter what you do to get into the White House - what matters is getting there.
So, in terms of Kerry's oh-so-precious Vietnam experience, turn the goddamn boat into the coming fire. It's time for Kerry and/or Edwards to make the rounds of the media. Don't make the Gore mistake, when he kept the charmer Clinton out of things - Edwards may be the eeevil trial lawyer, according to the right, but he's a charming motherfucker who people love. (And, by the way, whoever in the Kerry campaign has advised them to keep Edwards out of the spotlight needs to be fired, beaten, and dragged to a back room where James Carville can suck that person's life essence out - it keeps Carville's head shiny.) Kerry needs to organize his fucking media supporters and other Democrats. No Democrat should say a single negative thing about Kerry or Edwards. Discipline, man, discipline - sure, it's a sign of intelligence to be able to see the good and bad in a person, but now that just gives more fodder to the Bush campaign.
And here's the biggest gambit: get on the big conservative talk shows. Look, the speeches aren't getting coverage. All that gets coverage for Kerry are the attacks he makes or the attacks on him. So make the man the message. That means go one on one with O'Reilly, for instance. If Kerry maintains his cool in tearing these guys apart, he'll show them for what they are: tools of the Bush administration. (Attitude-wise, take the Bill Clinton tactic of smiling through the whole ordeal, which is why Edwards might be a better choice. And be willing to go off talking points, for fuck's sake.) It also makes an implicit challenge to Bush to subject himself to more media questioning. And you're using Bush's own strategy here: take the fight to them. Render their criticisms moot by confronting what they have to say.
Co-opt the media. That's destructive tool number one. Tomorrow: Of course you realize, this means war. Later this week: the ultimate tool.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? The Rude Pundit's better than David Shrum, but, hell, a reasonably well-trained monkey would shit better advice than Shrum. You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
There's so, so many pundits all over this nation, from blog to newspaper to radio to network to cable. And each and every one of them is offering John Kerry some kind of advice about how to run his campaign, based on the previously discussed notion that Kerry is perceived as Fucked and Floundering by the media. The Rude Pundit is going to join that fray, but unlike nearly every other so-called pundit and/or intellectual, the Rude Pundit is right. The Rude Pundit knows what he's talking about. The Rude Pundit would be Karl Rove's worst nightmare - someone who doesn't give a shit; the Rude Pundit is Godzilla to Rove's Tokyo. So here's the deal, Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s (George Soros, open your change purse, 'cause some of this is gonna cost), from the Rude Pundit -- a few days worth of strategy to destroy George W. Bush, the presidency, the campaign, and the man. Remember the lessons of Sherman's March: the South had to burn, motherfuckers, so everyone might be free.
Here's what all the other pundits (and most of your advisors) are wrong about: The whole "tell us where you stand" position is bullshit. It is a fabrication, a fantasy that Kerry needs to stand in front of a cheering crowd and give the exact numbers on his tax proposals. Go fuckin' read a policy paper on the website. Bush has said fuck-all about his second term other than more of the same (which, as we shall discover this week, should be where the attack is). The pundits are wrong about the effect of negative campaigning. Any viewing public that wants to know about Scott Peterson, wants to see car wrecks at NASCAR, and watches Growing Up Gotti and Bill O'Reilly is essentially the same crowd that was rooting for the lions at the Coliseum back in the day. And you gotta choose: are you a lion or a slave? It's time for Kerry to learn what delicious fresh organ meat tastes like. He needs to gnaw on some intestines.
The pundits are wrong about the meaning of the "anyone but Bush" voters, which, honestly, is Kerry's majority constituency. A vote against Bush has a 90% or so chance of being a vote for Kerry. Fuck inspiring the undecideds to vote for Kerry. Inspire them to vote against Bush. Ultimately, that's what this election is about: it's not about electing Kerry. It's about voting out George Bush. No one really gives a rat's ass about the details of Kerry's Social Security plan beyond right wing pundits (and moderates looking to suck the cock of their corporate owners) who are looking for some reason to bash Kerry. What gets the crowd going is to talk about what motherfuckers Bush and Cheney are. Save the detail shit for the debates, when it'll make Bush look like the stupid backward-ass prissy hick wannabe he is. Remember the lessons of 2000: it doesn't matter what you do to get into the White House - what matters is getting there.
So, in terms of Kerry's oh-so-precious Vietnam experience, turn the goddamn boat into the coming fire. It's time for Kerry and/or Edwards to make the rounds of the media. Don't make the Gore mistake, when he kept the charmer Clinton out of things - Edwards may be the eeevil trial lawyer, according to the right, but he's a charming motherfucker who people love. (And, by the way, whoever in the Kerry campaign has advised them to keep Edwards out of the spotlight needs to be fired, beaten, and dragged to a back room where James Carville can suck that person's life essence out - it keeps Carville's head shiny.) Kerry needs to organize his fucking media supporters and other Democrats. No Democrat should say a single negative thing about Kerry or Edwards. Discipline, man, discipline - sure, it's a sign of intelligence to be able to see the good and bad in a person, but now that just gives more fodder to the Bush campaign.
And here's the biggest gambit: get on the big conservative talk shows. Look, the speeches aren't getting coverage. All that gets coverage for Kerry are the attacks he makes or the attacks on him. So make the man the message. That means go one on one with O'Reilly, for instance. If Kerry maintains his cool in tearing these guys apart, he'll show them for what they are: tools of the Bush administration. (Attitude-wise, take the Bill Clinton tactic of smiling through the whole ordeal, which is why Edwards might be a better choice. And be willing to go off talking points, for fuck's sake.) It also makes an implicit challenge to Bush to subject himself to more media questioning. And you're using Bush's own strategy here: take the fight to them. Render their criticisms moot by confronting what they have to say.
Co-opt the media. That's destructive tool number one. Tomorrow: Of course you realize, this means war. Later this week: the ultimate tool.
Kerry/Edwards campaign, DNC, 527s, want more? The Rude Pundit's better than David Shrum, but, hell, a reasonably well-trained monkey would shit better advice than Shrum. You know how to get in touch: rudepundit@yahoo.com.
Facing 9/11:
Believe it or not, children, there was a time when 9/11 was a tragedy of unbearable ache, a wound on the psyche of a country that felt so smugly secure, an assault that left a scar on Manhattan that no amount of cosmetic building will cover. There was a time when the unspeakable nature of the violence was not used as a political tool. There was a time when the 3000 dead were more than props. The Rude Pundit remembers walking onto the platform overlooking the World Trade Center site in the months after 9/11 -it was a cold, misty 8 a.m. and the cops just waved him in. He remembers talking to people there. There was a couple from Israel, and the Rude Pundit asked, "Why do you need to see this? You deal with this every day." But not like this, they responded, not like this.
Now tourists line the sidewalks around the site, a large construction zone outside the Millenium Hilton. They take photos of loved ones smiling in front of the gate, people making bunny ears with their fingers behind the heads of brothers or sisters or whoever and giggling over the image on the digital camera screen. Street vendors hawk every imaginable item with images of the Twin Towers, pre-9/11 and exploding. The worst, the most vile scum of the pool of putrescence that is the pursuit of profit, are the (primarily) young men walking around with small photo albums showing you the real images of what happened that day - the burning, falling bodies. Here's a hint: the human body is mostly liquid, a water balloon. When it hits the ground after falling from such a high point as, say, the 90th floor of a skyscraper, it simply pops, explodes, leaving a bloody flower on the sidewalk or pavement. You can buy those photo albums. And, if you do, you can go fuck yourself.
To face 9/11 is to face realities that won't quench the national rage, a neverending search for violent vengeance fueled by the power-mad warmongers in the White House and Congress. Sure, we know that 9/11 was a fuck-up of monumental proportions, but, despite Dick Cheney's best efforts to mock the idea, 9/11 was a crime and not an act of war. This is not a new or stunning statement. But once we declared "war" on the terrorists, we elevated Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda to the level of a leader and a nation. The United States gave more credibility to Bin Laden at that moment than years of bloody action.
The reality is that 9/11 was a James Bond villain's plot that James Bond didn't stop at the last moment. The clock on the bomb finally ticked down to zero. What is SPECTRE in the Bond books and films but a terrorist organization with cells all over the world, a group prepared to use extraordinary amounts of violence, including biological weapons, to achieve global domination? Headed by a madman who demands complete obeisance? An enterprise that, even when decimated, fills its ranks quickly with devotees? This is not to be glib; this is not to "diminish the magnitude" of the tragedy. It is, however, an effort to diminish the magnitude of the criminal acts committed on 9/11. These are the sorts of "plots" we expect our intelligence agencies to stop. And the Rude Pundit is sure that the CIA and FBI, stumblefucks though they may be, have stopped more than one terrorist act. But, again, what would have happened if James Bond didn't, at the right time, stumble upon the nuclear missle and disable it?
We have to change the language with which we even talk about 9/11. And it's the fault of the Bush adminstration and a prostrate Congress in the days and weeks after 9/11 that we now face endless war. And this was calculated, to use 9/11 and the ensuing war for a couple of purposes: to distract from Saudi complicity and to provide grounds to go into Iraq. James Carroll of the Boston Globe actually pissed off Al Franken on Franken's Air America show by suggesting that we didn't have to go to war at all, in Afghanistan or Iraq. But the nauseating truth is that we didn't have to have a "war" in Afghanistan, especially not the way this one's been run, in order to catch Bin Laden and try to create chaos in al-Qaeda. (The war in Afghanistan is always the convenient cover for liberals searching for credibility when they oppose the Iraq War, a kind of "look at me, I can be bloodthirsty, too" effect.)
And once we went to "war" on terror (a name that the 9/11 Commission report says is wrongheaded, at the very least), we were committed to toppling nations and committing acts of aggression in pursuit of what should have been the goals of a massive manhunt. See, the word "war" makes people rally around its leaders in an unquestioning way - that's part of the 9/11 effect on Bush, the fucked-up notion that we should "trust our leaders" in a "time of war." But if it works for Bush in America, why wouldn't it work for Osama Bin Laden, elevated to the status of the leader of a nation by the very language that tries to condemn him, and his followers around the world? If the Republican Party can declare that only it can keep America safe, that its ideology is the one that will lead us to "victory," why wouldn't the radical Islamists believe that about their ideology?
Most of the people who leaped out of windows and were instantly incinerated or horribly burned or died in the collapse on 9/11 were not "heroes." That name should be reserved for the real heroes, the fire fighters, the cops, the brave people who tried to help others escape. They were all "victims," though. They were victims of a crime, a mass murder, as surely as all the victims of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. We may as well be filling the footprints of the World Trade Center with the bodies of all the soldiers killed in this misguided sham of a war. They are victims of a crime as surely as those who did face 9/11.
Believe it or not, children, there was a time when 9/11 was a tragedy of unbearable ache, a wound on the psyche of a country that felt so smugly secure, an assault that left a scar on Manhattan that no amount of cosmetic building will cover. There was a time when the unspeakable nature of the violence was not used as a political tool. There was a time when the 3000 dead were more than props. The Rude Pundit remembers walking onto the platform overlooking the World Trade Center site in the months after 9/11 -it was a cold, misty 8 a.m. and the cops just waved him in. He remembers talking to people there. There was a couple from Israel, and the Rude Pundit asked, "Why do you need to see this? You deal with this every day." But not like this, they responded, not like this.
Now tourists line the sidewalks around the site, a large construction zone outside the Millenium Hilton. They take photos of loved ones smiling in front of the gate, people making bunny ears with their fingers behind the heads of brothers or sisters or whoever and giggling over the image on the digital camera screen. Street vendors hawk every imaginable item with images of the Twin Towers, pre-9/11 and exploding. The worst, the most vile scum of the pool of putrescence that is the pursuit of profit, are the (primarily) young men walking around with small photo albums showing you the real images of what happened that day - the burning, falling bodies. Here's a hint: the human body is mostly liquid, a water balloon. When it hits the ground after falling from such a high point as, say, the 90th floor of a skyscraper, it simply pops, explodes, leaving a bloody flower on the sidewalk or pavement. You can buy those photo albums. And, if you do, you can go fuck yourself.
To face 9/11 is to face realities that won't quench the national rage, a neverending search for violent vengeance fueled by the power-mad warmongers in the White House and Congress. Sure, we know that 9/11 was a fuck-up of monumental proportions, but, despite Dick Cheney's best efforts to mock the idea, 9/11 was a crime and not an act of war. This is not a new or stunning statement. But once we declared "war" on the terrorists, we elevated Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda to the level of a leader and a nation. The United States gave more credibility to Bin Laden at that moment than years of bloody action.
The reality is that 9/11 was a James Bond villain's plot that James Bond didn't stop at the last moment. The clock on the bomb finally ticked down to zero. What is SPECTRE in the Bond books and films but a terrorist organization with cells all over the world, a group prepared to use extraordinary amounts of violence, including biological weapons, to achieve global domination? Headed by a madman who demands complete obeisance? An enterprise that, even when decimated, fills its ranks quickly with devotees? This is not to be glib; this is not to "diminish the magnitude" of the tragedy. It is, however, an effort to diminish the magnitude of the criminal acts committed on 9/11. These are the sorts of "plots" we expect our intelligence agencies to stop. And the Rude Pundit is sure that the CIA and FBI, stumblefucks though they may be, have stopped more than one terrorist act. But, again, what would have happened if James Bond didn't, at the right time, stumble upon the nuclear missle and disable it?
We have to change the language with which we even talk about 9/11. And it's the fault of the Bush adminstration and a prostrate Congress in the days and weeks after 9/11 that we now face endless war. And this was calculated, to use 9/11 and the ensuing war for a couple of purposes: to distract from Saudi complicity and to provide grounds to go into Iraq. James Carroll of the Boston Globe actually pissed off Al Franken on Franken's Air America show by suggesting that we didn't have to go to war at all, in Afghanistan or Iraq. But the nauseating truth is that we didn't have to have a "war" in Afghanistan, especially not the way this one's been run, in order to catch Bin Laden and try to create chaos in al-Qaeda. (The war in Afghanistan is always the convenient cover for liberals searching for credibility when they oppose the Iraq War, a kind of "look at me, I can be bloodthirsty, too" effect.)
And once we went to "war" on terror (a name that the 9/11 Commission report says is wrongheaded, at the very least), we were committed to toppling nations and committing acts of aggression in pursuit of what should have been the goals of a massive manhunt. See, the word "war" makes people rally around its leaders in an unquestioning way - that's part of the 9/11 effect on Bush, the fucked-up notion that we should "trust our leaders" in a "time of war." But if it works for Bush in America, why wouldn't it work for Osama Bin Laden, elevated to the status of the leader of a nation by the very language that tries to condemn him, and his followers around the world? If the Republican Party can declare that only it can keep America safe, that its ideology is the one that will lead us to "victory," why wouldn't the radical Islamists believe that about their ideology?
Most of the people who leaped out of windows and were instantly incinerated or horribly burned or died in the collapse on 9/11 were not "heroes." That name should be reserved for the real heroes, the fire fighters, the cops, the brave people who tried to help others escape. They were all "victims," though. They were victims of a crime, a mass murder, as surely as all the victims of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. We may as well be filling the footprints of the World Trade Center with the bodies of all the soldiers killed in this misguided sham of a war. They are victims of a crime as surely as those who did face 9/11.
Disobeying a Direct Order:
Maybe the real secret here is that George W. Bush was a conscientious objector. Maybe when he disobeyed a direct order to get a physical, he was following in the footsteps of all those in the military who braved prison and exile during the Vietnam war in order to protest the government by disobeying orders on and off the battlefield. Nah. Bush was just an overprivileged punk who knew his daddy could get him out of anything. Really, what would happen to an ordinary soldier, guardsman or otherwise, if he disobeyed so openly? And, the eternal question, what would the Republicans do right now if they found out John Kerry had disobeyed any orders at all?
But, really, why go back to Vietnam for our referrents when this very decade provides ample proof about what happens to soldiers who refuse to obey superior officers. Starting in 2000, across the military, men and women were courtmartialed for refusal to obey a direct order when the soldiers refused to take the anthrax vaccine. Some were sentenced to confinement; others were drummed out of the service. The documentary Direct Order tells what happened and is still happening to these soldiers who had medically valid reasons for refusing a direct order. It's not that they were too busy to get a vaccine. It's not that they weren't going to go anywhere where they suspected anthrax might be a problem. No, soldiers generally aren't allowed to make those kinds of decisions about the orders given them. No, these soldiers disobeyed because they believed the vaccine might make them sick or kill them. But it's a fine line between protecting your life and being at Harvard Business School, is it not?
It's too bad that Bush can't come out now and say he was a conscientious objector because some of us would give him a pass. It's too bad that he supported a war he refused to fight because that means no one can reasonably support his actions. It's too bad that the only excuses his spokespeople can give are that he was, in essence, negotiating to get out of his commitment to the military. It's too bad because it simply points out, once again, the reality of two Americas. And the not-so-fortunate sons who don't have the money and connections to weasel out of punishment for their outrages.
And Bush is lucky still that he wasn't on active duty at the time. While the Texas Code of Military Justice just prescribes court martial for the offense of refusing a direct order, the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that, during a time of war, "willfully disobeying" a superior officer could be punishable by death.
A quick P.S. here: Remember - the Republicans lowered the bar on offenses to be outraged over when they impeached Bill Clinton over lying under oath about a blow job. For some reason, that was a constitutional crisis. For some reason, this is just "foolish youth" or "who the fuck cares."
Maybe the real secret here is that George W. Bush was a conscientious objector. Maybe when he disobeyed a direct order to get a physical, he was following in the footsteps of all those in the military who braved prison and exile during the Vietnam war in order to protest the government by disobeying orders on and off the battlefield. Nah. Bush was just an overprivileged punk who knew his daddy could get him out of anything. Really, what would happen to an ordinary soldier, guardsman or otherwise, if he disobeyed so openly? And, the eternal question, what would the Republicans do right now if they found out John Kerry had disobeyed any orders at all?
But, really, why go back to Vietnam for our referrents when this very decade provides ample proof about what happens to soldiers who refuse to obey superior officers. Starting in 2000, across the military, men and women were courtmartialed for refusal to obey a direct order when the soldiers refused to take the anthrax vaccine. Some were sentenced to confinement; others were drummed out of the service. The documentary Direct Order tells what happened and is still happening to these soldiers who had medically valid reasons for refusing a direct order. It's not that they were too busy to get a vaccine. It's not that they weren't going to go anywhere where they suspected anthrax might be a problem. No, soldiers generally aren't allowed to make those kinds of decisions about the orders given them. No, these soldiers disobeyed because they believed the vaccine might make them sick or kill them. But it's a fine line between protecting your life and being at Harvard Business School, is it not?
It's too bad that Bush can't come out now and say he was a conscientious objector because some of us would give him a pass. It's too bad that he supported a war he refused to fight because that means no one can reasonably support his actions. It's too bad that the only excuses his spokespeople can give are that he was, in essence, negotiating to get out of his commitment to the military. It's too bad because it simply points out, once again, the reality of two Americas. And the not-so-fortunate sons who don't have the money and connections to weasel out of punishment for their outrages.
And Bush is lucky still that he wasn't on active duty at the time. While the Texas Code of Military Justice just prescribes court martial for the offense of refusing a direct order, the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that, during a time of war, "willfully disobeying" a superior officer could be punishable by death.
A quick P.S. here: Remember - the Republicans lowered the bar on offenses to be outraged over when they impeached Bill Clinton over lying under oath about a blow job. For some reason, that was a constitutional crisis. For some reason, this is just "foolish youth" or "who the fuck cares."
Revenge of the Not-So-Fortunate-Sons:
Here's what we in America ought to hate: ungrateful motherfuckers. George Bush is one ungrateful motherfucker. Here he is, our goddamned President, who every time he has stumbled in his life, every time he has faced adversity or failure, has had a goose down pillow waiting for his ass when he hit the ground. What's so frustrating about the whole Air National Guard debacle is not that he weaseled out of his commitment. It's that he's not grateful for every break he's ever gotten. We who hate Bush hate him because he acts as if his stupid-ass luck of being born into one of the most powerful families in the world entitles him to be a complete motherfucker.
From getting into Yale to getting out of his Guard duties to winning the Presidency on a fluke, Bush oughta be the most humble and grateful man in the world. Instead, he acts as if he is somehow something more than a privileged pussy, pampered and powdered, looked after like the favorite poodle of the patriarchy.
And we who recognize this want to see him get his comeuppance. 'Cause if this son of a bitch (in the literal and figurative senses) loses the election, he will be abandoned by everyone around him. And maybe, just maybe, he'll get his fate of being forced to be his Daddy's manservant, washing Poppy's balls when Poppy gets so old he can't even scratch himself. Maybe every night lil' George will snort coke to the point that his brain can cope with the utter failure that he is.
Fuck it. The Rude Pundit is tired. Back tomorrow with extreme rudeness on 9/11.
Here's what we in America ought to hate: ungrateful motherfuckers. George Bush is one ungrateful motherfucker. Here he is, our goddamned President, who every time he has stumbled in his life, every time he has faced adversity or failure, has had a goose down pillow waiting for his ass when he hit the ground. What's so frustrating about the whole Air National Guard debacle is not that he weaseled out of his commitment. It's that he's not grateful for every break he's ever gotten. We who hate Bush hate him because he acts as if his stupid-ass luck of being born into one of the most powerful families in the world entitles him to be a complete motherfucker.
From getting into Yale to getting out of his Guard duties to winning the Presidency on a fluke, Bush oughta be the most humble and grateful man in the world. Instead, he acts as if he is somehow something more than a privileged pussy, pampered and powdered, looked after like the favorite poodle of the patriarchy.
And we who recognize this want to see him get his comeuppance. 'Cause if this son of a bitch (in the literal and figurative senses) loses the election, he will be abandoned by everyone around him. And maybe, just maybe, he'll get his fate of being forced to be his Daddy's manservant, washing Poppy's balls when Poppy gets so old he can't even scratch himself. Maybe every night lil' George will snort coke to the point that his brain can cope with the utter failure that he is.
Fuck it. The Rude Pundit is tired. Back tomorrow with extreme rudeness on 9/11.
Right Wing Revisionism Gone Wild:
History is a strange and wonderful thing. See, there's a couple of kinds of history. One history is an honest history, one that says, "Look and see, warts and all, this is what happened." That kind of history can embrace dichotomy. It can say that Thomas Jefferson was a slavemaster who fucked one of his slaves on a regular basis and he was a great advocate of freedom and liberty. Look at that statement - isn't that fucking fascinating? Isn't it incredibly human? Doesn't that kind of contradiction seem so real? Aren't the implications amazing? Doesn't it say something breathtaking about ourselves and our country?
Another kind of history is the stories we tell in order to suit our own purposes. It is a purposeful kind of historical amnesia or myth-making. It's the kind of history that, depending on your purposes, leaves out one side or the other of Thomas Jefferson's story. He's either slavefucker or freedom lover. It is reductionist. It is myopic. It ignores the historical records - the extant documents and narratives from the time period that would seem to offer a kind of reality. And in many cases, it is bullshit in that, more often than not, it serves nationalist purposes. It's why so many people got pissed off that we would dare bring out the slavefucker story.
A version of this kind of history is in action right now as the right wing of America attempts to revise the past. This approach says that, "No, what you think happened didn't happen. It happened this way." And it tells that version of events so often that it becomes the version, whether or not it's true. The Swift Boat Vets allegations are a good example. Every single record supports John Kerry's "version of events." Every single person who was there, on his boat, supports John Kerry's "version of events." But, with a complicitous media, up has become down and that shrapnel in Kerry's leg has become a pussy injury. The fact that we actually have in our consciousness to question Kerry's record is proof of the success of the revisionist approach. Even though not a single shred of actual, real proof has been given beyond the mad rantings of the Swift Boat Vets.
While so many people try to say that the two issues are equally balanced, the questions of George Bush's service record are not, in any qualitative way, similar. In fact, except for the words "military" and "Vietnam," they are two entirely different issues. With John Kerry, the attempt was to create a new narrative, one that would overtake the old, accepted, documented narrative. With Bush, the attempt is to try to find out what happened. To fill in a gap that has not been explained. Nothing has been offered that proves Bush fulfilled his duties to the Texas Air National Guard. Not one record. Not one shred of a document. This is not an effort to revise anything. It is an effort to tell the story. It is an effort to counter spoken lies. In fact, everything so far backs up this narrative: George Bush bailed on the Air National Guard when his duties became inconvenient to him. The cool thing about it is we on the left don't have to revise anything. The truth is such a fuckin' killer. We're actually trying to prevent the revision.
But historical revisionism is in frantic mode now with the Bush campaign. When Dick Cheney oozed onto his stool at a "meeting" in Des Moines and slurped out these words, "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney was counting on a short-term memory loss from the good brainless suckers supporting him in Iowa. You have to forget WMDs, Iraq/al-Qaeda connections, terror alerts gone wild, seven minutes in Florida, 1000 dead, a massive increase in terrorism around the world, and so, so much in order to even begin to buy what the shit Cheney's slinging. Revise, man, revise.
The answer to Cheney's threat is this: if you had any doubts in your mind, at any point, about the leadership of George Bush at any point in the last four years, if you thought he made decisions that favored the interests of the few over the interests of the many, if you thought he made the wrong moves regarding terrorists, then ask yourself this horrible, stomach-churning question: What do you think George Bush will do when he doesn't have to worry about being re-elected? What will he do when there is no way to hold him accountable?
History is a cruel mistress. You try to fuck her into lovin' you, and she'll turn around and bite your cock off. The truth, or some variation on it, always comes out. Now, what side of history do you wanna be on?
History is a strange and wonderful thing. See, there's a couple of kinds of history. One history is an honest history, one that says, "Look and see, warts and all, this is what happened." That kind of history can embrace dichotomy. It can say that Thomas Jefferson was a slavemaster who fucked one of his slaves on a regular basis and he was a great advocate of freedom and liberty. Look at that statement - isn't that fucking fascinating? Isn't it incredibly human? Doesn't that kind of contradiction seem so real? Aren't the implications amazing? Doesn't it say something breathtaking about ourselves and our country?
Another kind of history is the stories we tell in order to suit our own purposes. It is a purposeful kind of historical amnesia or myth-making. It's the kind of history that, depending on your purposes, leaves out one side or the other of Thomas Jefferson's story. He's either slavefucker or freedom lover. It is reductionist. It is myopic. It ignores the historical records - the extant documents and narratives from the time period that would seem to offer a kind of reality. And in many cases, it is bullshit in that, more often than not, it serves nationalist purposes. It's why so many people got pissed off that we would dare bring out the slavefucker story.
A version of this kind of history is in action right now as the right wing of America attempts to revise the past. This approach says that, "No, what you think happened didn't happen. It happened this way." And it tells that version of events so often that it becomes the version, whether or not it's true. The Swift Boat Vets allegations are a good example. Every single record supports John Kerry's "version of events." Every single person who was there, on his boat, supports John Kerry's "version of events." But, with a complicitous media, up has become down and that shrapnel in Kerry's leg has become a pussy injury. The fact that we actually have in our consciousness to question Kerry's record is proof of the success of the revisionist approach. Even though not a single shred of actual, real proof has been given beyond the mad rantings of the Swift Boat Vets.
While so many people try to say that the two issues are equally balanced, the questions of George Bush's service record are not, in any qualitative way, similar. In fact, except for the words "military" and "Vietnam," they are two entirely different issues. With John Kerry, the attempt was to create a new narrative, one that would overtake the old, accepted, documented narrative. With Bush, the attempt is to try to find out what happened. To fill in a gap that has not been explained. Nothing has been offered that proves Bush fulfilled his duties to the Texas Air National Guard. Not one record. Not one shred of a document. This is not an effort to revise anything. It is an effort to tell the story. It is an effort to counter spoken lies. In fact, everything so far backs up this narrative: George Bush bailed on the Air National Guard when his duties became inconvenient to him. The cool thing about it is we on the left don't have to revise anything. The truth is such a fuckin' killer. We're actually trying to prevent the revision.
But historical revisionism is in frantic mode now with the Bush campaign. When Dick Cheney oozed onto his stool at a "meeting" in Des Moines and slurped out these words, "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney was counting on a short-term memory loss from the good brainless suckers supporting him in Iowa. You have to forget WMDs, Iraq/al-Qaeda connections, terror alerts gone wild, seven minutes in Florida, 1000 dead, a massive increase in terrorism around the world, and so, so much in order to even begin to buy what the shit Cheney's slinging. Revise, man, revise.
The answer to Cheney's threat is this: if you had any doubts in your mind, at any point, about the leadership of George Bush at any point in the last four years, if you thought he made decisions that favored the interests of the few over the interests of the many, if you thought he made the wrong moves regarding terrorists, then ask yourself this horrible, stomach-churning question: What do you think George Bush will do when he doesn't have to worry about being re-elected? What will he do when there is no way to hold him accountable?
History is a cruel mistress. You try to fuck her into lovin' you, and she'll turn around and bite your cock off. The truth, or some variation on it, always comes out. Now, what side of history do you wanna be on?
Advice To Democrats -- Time To Go Saxby Chambliss On Their Asses:
So, no one anticipated the bounce? Or is it that everyone anticipated the bounce? Or is it that the polls are wrong and that there was no bounce? Or does it depend on the poll you read? Or does it depend on how the questions were framed in the polls? Either way, John Kerry is now officially in the area of the major media known as "Fucked and Floundering." When one is perceived as Fucked and Floundering, it means that, no matter how cogent your message is, no matter how much of a fuck-up your opponent is, you are seen as flailing about without a real agenda, without a way of fighting back. It is accompanied by questions like, "Can John Kerry climb back?" You are a fish on a dock, a turtle on its back, and we're all just watching you die in the sun. True or not, it's the storyline. And you need some serious juice in order for the media to back off the Fucked and Floundering storyline.
Everyone and their goddamned hippie uncle is offering advice to John Kerry this week, and the Rude Pundit will give in at some point. But let us pause here to offer advice to the Democratic Party in general, 'cause, face it, even if Kerry wins, he's gotta have at least one house of Congress on his side or it's just gonna be another four years of meaningless Congressional investigations, failure to pass any large-scale meaningful legislation, and the like. So this bit of advice is to all the Democrats running for office in tight races: It's time to go Saxby Chambliss.
What that means is you tarnish your opponent and destroy his/her reputation by association. The strategy of the Saxby Chambliss is based, of course, on the infamous campaign where, in Georgia, Republican Saxby Chambliss was running against Democrat Max Cleland for the Senate in 2002. Cleland, a definite moderate, had lost three limbs in Vietnam, and Cleland, like many Democrats, voted against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security because the Department would deny the workers in the new enormous bureaucracy the union protections they had in other areas of the government. (And, remember, that the President threatened to veto the bill if it passed including the protections.) Chambliss, in a tight race with Cleland, ran an ad that showed Bin Laden and Saddam and said that Cleland did not support the war on terror because, in essence, he did not walk in lock-step with the President. The ad, by the way, only shows Cleland's face because, you know, everyone would have gotten way too queasy at the idea of calling the crippled vet a traitor. (In a shockingly obvious roadmap of strategies to come, the ad said that Cleland voted against the "war on terror" "11 times" and also some right wing lunatics suggested that Cleland's wounds were not heroically gotten.) It was one of the more odious political ads in the pile of shit that is post-Atwater politics.
So now let's turn it back on them: let us use as an example the Senate race in South Carolina. It's Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, the very popular State Superintendent of Education, versus Republican Representative Jim DeMint, Bush stooge and Tom DeLay butt boy. Among the bills DeMint voted against include one that would have increased funding for Boys and Girls Clubs and drug courts. He voted against a bill to promote stronger fatherhood. He voted against restoring funding for child care programs. DeMint voted to eliminate the Clinton-era rule allowing the government to enforce ergonomics standards, which oughta mean something in heavily industrialized South Carolina.
Now, how do we go Saxby Chambliss on DeMint? It's simple. On the ergonomics rules, you show workers and suffering old people and say that because of DeMint nothing can be done to help these poor suffering old people with their repetitive stress injuries. On the other stuff, show families with the fathers missing or something. Say that because of DeMint, children suffer. There you go: because of the very existence of Jim DeMint, old people and children must suffer. Who wants to see the agonies of the elderly and the little children? Why, Jim DeMint must. Why do you hate the children and the senior citizens, Mr. DeMint? Why? And Tenenbaum, being a woman, could get away with this bullshit.
Oh, how the Saxby Chambliss strategy could work. And it's wonderful because it takes the truth and gives it a little rhetorical tweaking and makes it into an uber-truth, a way of taking some small detail and demonstrating something larger about the character of a person that may or may not have anything to do with who that person actually is. But an uber-truth is more important than actual truth. The Saxby Chambliss is shameless, barren of ethics and morality, and vile, but it works.
Democrats have to have the stomach for this kind of shit. They are still playing by old rules. Sorry, gang. But we live in an era where people watch Survivor and The Apprentice and ESPN Poker and believe they've learned something about human nature. You got to pay if you wanna play, Democrats. Ante up your souls, motherfuckers, 'cause the Republicans have already tossed theirs in the pot.
So, no one anticipated the bounce? Or is it that everyone anticipated the bounce? Or is it that the polls are wrong and that there was no bounce? Or does it depend on the poll you read? Or does it depend on how the questions were framed in the polls? Either way, John Kerry is now officially in the area of the major media known as "Fucked and Floundering." When one is perceived as Fucked and Floundering, it means that, no matter how cogent your message is, no matter how much of a fuck-up your opponent is, you are seen as flailing about without a real agenda, without a way of fighting back. It is accompanied by questions like, "Can John Kerry climb back?" You are a fish on a dock, a turtle on its back, and we're all just watching you die in the sun. True or not, it's the storyline. And you need some serious juice in order for the media to back off the Fucked and Floundering storyline.
Everyone and their goddamned hippie uncle is offering advice to John Kerry this week, and the Rude Pundit will give in at some point. But let us pause here to offer advice to the Democratic Party in general, 'cause, face it, even if Kerry wins, he's gotta have at least one house of Congress on his side or it's just gonna be another four years of meaningless Congressional investigations, failure to pass any large-scale meaningful legislation, and the like. So this bit of advice is to all the Democrats running for office in tight races: It's time to go Saxby Chambliss.
What that means is you tarnish your opponent and destroy his/her reputation by association. The strategy of the Saxby Chambliss is based, of course, on the infamous campaign where, in Georgia, Republican Saxby Chambliss was running against Democrat Max Cleland for the Senate in 2002. Cleland, a definite moderate, had lost three limbs in Vietnam, and Cleland, like many Democrats, voted against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security because the Department would deny the workers in the new enormous bureaucracy the union protections they had in other areas of the government. (And, remember, that the President threatened to veto the bill if it passed including the protections.) Chambliss, in a tight race with Cleland, ran an ad that showed Bin Laden and Saddam and said that Cleland did not support the war on terror because, in essence, he did not walk in lock-step with the President. The ad, by the way, only shows Cleland's face because, you know, everyone would have gotten way too queasy at the idea of calling the crippled vet a traitor. (In a shockingly obvious roadmap of strategies to come, the ad said that Cleland voted against the "war on terror" "11 times" and also some right wing lunatics suggested that Cleland's wounds were not heroically gotten.) It was one of the more odious political ads in the pile of shit that is post-Atwater politics.
So now let's turn it back on them: let us use as an example the Senate race in South Carolina. It's Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, the very popular State Superintendent of Education, versus Republican Representative Jim DeMint, Bush stooge and Tom DeLay butt boy. Among the bills DeMint voted against include one that would have increased funding for Boys and Girls Clubs and drug courts. He voted against a bill to promote stronger fatherhood. He voted against restoring funding for child care programs. DeMint voted to eliminate the Clinton-era rule allowing the government to enforce ergonomics standards, which oughta mean something in heavily industrialized South Carolina.
Now, how do we go Saxby Chambliss on DeMint? It's simple. On the ergonomics rules, you show workers and suffering old people and say that because of DeMint nothing can be done to help these poor suffering old people with their repetitive stress injuries. On the other stuff, show families with the fathers missing or something. Say that because of DeMint, children suffer. There you go: because of the very existence of Jim DeMint, old people and children must suffer. Who wants to see the agonies of the elderly and the little children? Why, Jim DeMint must. Why do you hate the children and the senior citizens, Mr. DeMint? Why? And Tenenbaum, being a woman, could get away with this bullshit.
Oh, how the Saxby Chambliss strategy could work. And it's wonderful because it takes the truth and gives it a little rhetorical tweaking and makes it into an uber-truth, a way of taking some small detail and demonstrating something larger about the character of a person that may or may not have anything to do with who that person actually is. But an uber-truth is more important than actual truth. The Saxby Chambliss is shameless, barren of ethics and morality, and vile, but it works.
Democrats have to have the stomach for this kind of shit. They are still playing by old rules. Sorry, gang. But we live in an era where people watch Survivor and The Apprentice and ESPN Poker and believe they've learned something about human nature. You got to pay if you wanna play, Democrats. Ante up your souls, motherfuckers, 'cause the Republicans have already tossed theirs in the pot.
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