Seriously?:
The Rude Pundit awoke from a whiskey stupor a couple of minutes ago, wondering if the pants on the floor were his own, and he turned on the CNN and, lo, and behold, there's slick as shit-sounding Bill Nelson talking about people in Florida who went out and voted in the primary, and there he is on the MSNBC. Fox "news"? Not so much.
Are you goddamn kidding that two of the news networks are gonna spend a good chunk of the day on a hearing of the fuckin' Rules Committee of the DNC? Christ, give us a smoke-filled back room, please.
Oh, wait, those aren't the Rude Pundit's pants. Back to the weekend...
In Brief: McCain to Obama: "C'mon, Smell the Surge, Barack":
The McCain campaign is trying to bait the Obama campaign into playing on Republican turf when it comes to the war in Iraq. McCain's bullshit playground taunt to get Obama to visit Iraq now that the "surge" is allegedly effective has morphed into an online petition at McCain's site and a clock on the RNC's site marking how long it's been since Obama walked the tightly controlled parts of the streets he would be allowed to walk. And the media is, of course, going along with it like lap dogs whose master just covered his crotch in Alpo, with anchors and correspondents wondering when Obama is going to head overseas to get his photo taken in a flak jacket and helmet for all to mock.
Instead, the Obama campaign needs to keep in mind: when John McCain talks about how super-great the war is going, he's not actually talking to the majority of the country. No, see, we're all done. According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, 56% of the nation wants a "quick withdrawal" from Iraq. And that goes along with the well-over 50% who don't think the war was worth it in the first place. For the nation, the war is over, except for the fact that the troops are still there. Obama can simply promise to do what the majority of the nation actually wants, and isn't that what politicians love to do?
So as McCain puffs his tiny little chest and says that the only way Obama can know the "truth" about what's happening in Iraq is to be led around on a tight leash inside the Green Zone by the military to see whatever they want him to see, the Democratic candidate can simply shake his head and say that just because there's gold in a pile of shit, it's still just a pile of shit. And nearly everyone will agree.
The McCain campaign is trying to bait the Obama campaign into playing on Republican turf when it comes to the war in Iraq. McCain's bullshit playground taunt to get Obama to visit Iraq now that the "surge" is allegedly effective has morphed into an online petition at McCain's site and a clock on the RNC's site marking how long it's been since Obama walked the tightly controlled parts of the streets he would be allowed to walk. And the media is, of course, going along with it like lap dogs whose master just covered his crotch in Alpo, with anchors and correspondents wondering when Obama is going to head overseas to get his photo taken in a flak jacket and helmet for all to mock.
Instead, the Obama campaign needs to keep in mind: when John McCain talks about how super-great the war is going, he's not actually talking to the majority of the country. No, see, we're all done. According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, 56% of the nation wants a "quick withdrawal" from Iraq. And that goes along with the well-over 50% who don't think the war was worth it in the first place. For the nation, the war is over, except for the fact that the troops are still there. Obama can simply promise to do what the majority of the nation actually wants, and isn't that what politicians love to do?
So as McCain puffs his tiny little chest and says that the only way Obama can know the "truth" about what's happening in Iraq is to be led around on a tight leash inside the Green Zone by the military to see whatever they want him to see, the Democratic candidate can simply shake his head and say that just because there's gold in a pile of shit, it's still just a pile of shit. And nearly everyone will agree.
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Snort Coke and Play Golf:
That right there is a picture of the Leader of the Free World bumping chests with a graduating Air Force Academy cadet. It's one of those things that reminds you that there is no God.
Or, if there is one, he's shaking his head and sighing, too, wondering if he can speed time up a bit to get to next January.
In his commencement address to the graduates out in Colorado Springs yesterday, George W. Bush offered a bit of wisdom and perspective to the new Air Force officers: "For all the advanced military capabilities at our disposal, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the power of freedom. We can see this story in the 20th century. In 1941, when Nazi bombers pounded London and Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the future of freedom appeared bleak."
He explained, ignoring such events as, you know, the American Revolution, "Many throughout history have underestimated the power of freedom to overcome tyranny and transform whole societies. Yet in the end, despite challenges and setbacks, freedom ultimately prevails, because the desire for liberty is written by our Creator in every human heart." Truly, it's as if this motherfucker just discovered how to use a fork for food; he's gonna run around and tell everyone about this amazing new thing you can do with a back scratcher.
And then, without any sense of irony, he later said, "We understand that free societies are peaceful societies." One might think that means that free societies don't start wars just for shits and giggles, but the Rude Pundit isn't even sure what the fuck Bush means by "freedom," let alone "peaceful."
He's pretty sure, though, that Bush doesn't understand what those things mean, too, because if "freedom" is a weapon in an arsenal, the biggest goddamn arrow in the quiver, then doesn't that imply that "peace" ain't exactly the main thing on the mind of those who would wield the rocket launcher of freedom?
Sure, sure, it's parsing things a bit, but when Bush said, "[P]eople who live in liberty and hope do not turn to ideologies of hatred and fear," he's leaving out shit like, well, the American South up until recently. Those white people there were living in liberty, no? Was their ideology all love and comfort to the non-white citizens around them?
In other words, the entire faux basis for Bush's foreign policy, the notion that "freedom" in and of itself will make glittery rainbows appear over Basra and unicorn ponies run through the Khyber Pass, is a house of lies on a pile of shit. Our shit. Made in the USA.
Still, Bush wound up by, in essence, saying that unless you don't want to continue his war, you're a pussy, and you don't wanna be a pussy, do you, pussy? "Our enemies say that America is weak and decadent, and does not have the stomach for the long fight. Our enemies have never set foot on the campus of the United States Air Force Academy," he said to applause, everyone there not wanting to be weak, decadent, and nauseated.
Alas, sweet chest-bumping Theodore Shiveley of Plano, Texas, you who just wants to serve your country and get a solid education in the process, know that what that black-coated doofus desires is nothing less than your flesh for his mad notion of freedom.
That right there is a picture of the Leader of the Free World bumping chests with a graduating Air Force Academy cadet. It's one of those things that reminds you that there is no God.
Or, if there is one, he's shaking his head and sighing, too, wondering if he can speed time up a bit to get to next January.
In his commencement address to the graduates out in Colorado Springs yesterday, George W. Bush offered a bit of wisdom and perspective to the new Air Force officers: "For all the advanced military capabilities at our disposal, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the power of freedom. We can see this story in the 20th century. In 1941, when Nazi bombers pounded London and Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the future of freedom appeared bleak."
He explained, ignoring such events as, you know, the American Revolution, "Many throughout history have underestimated the power of freedom to overcome tyranny and transform whole societies. Yet in the end, despite challenges and setbacks, freedom ultimately prevails, because the desire for liberty is written by our Creator in every human heart." Truly, it's as if this motherfucker just discovered how to use a fork for food; he's gonna run around and tell everyone about this amazing new thing you can do with a back scratcher.
And then, without any sense of irony, he later said, "We understand that free societies are peaceful societies." One might think that means that free societies don't start wars just for shits and giggles, but the Rude Pundit isn't even sure what the fuck Bush means by "freedom," let alone "peaceful."
He's pretty sure, though, that Bush doesn't understand what those things mean, too, because if "freedom" is a weapon in an arsenal, the biggest goddamn arrow in the quiver, then doesn't that imply that "peace" ain't exactly the main thing on the mind of those who would wield the rocket launcher of freedom?
Sure, sure, it's parsing things a bit, but when Bush said, "[P]eople who live in liberty and hope do not turn to ideologies of hatred and fear," he's leaving out shit like, well, the American South up until recently. Those white people there were living in liberty, no? Was their ideology all love and comfort to the non-white citizens around them?
In other words, the entire faux basis for Bush's foreign policy, the notion that "freedom" in and of itself will make glittery rainbows appear over Basra and unicorn ponies run through the Khyber Pass, is a house of lies on a pile of shit. Our shit. Made in the USA.
Still, Bush wound up by, in essence, saying that unless you don't want to continue his war, you're a pussy, and you don't wanna be a pussy, do you, pussy? "Our enemies say that America is weak and decadent, and does not have the stomach for the long fight. Our enemies have never set foot on the campus of the United States Air Force Academy," he said to applause, everyone there not wanting to be weak, decadent, and nauseated.
Alas, sweet chest-bumping Theodore Shiveley of Plano, Texas, you who just wants to serve your country and get a solid education in the process, know that what that black-coated doofus desires is nothing less than your flesh for his mad notion of freedom.
Scott McClellan Confesses for His Damned Soul (and Lots of Cash):
The Rude Pundit has always had great admiration for those who easily offer forgiveness for mortal offenses: the father of a murder victim accepting the apology of the killer, the elderly woman in the hospital granting pardon to the man who broke her arm snatching her purse, the scarred victim of a terrorist explosion wishing peace to the family of the suicide bomber. For, indeed, one of the true gifts of the teachings of the biblical Christ is the capacity to forgive those who commit heinous acts. It is, perhaps, the only way to stay sane in this world. But, still, it is not the path most of us actually have the tenacity to take.
While the Rude Pundit nurses few or no grudges in his daily life, there are times, yes, there are times when someone asks for forgiveness that he says, simply, even plaintively, "Oh, no. Never." For instance, now that former Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan has spilled his guts for a big advance and a chance to up his speaking engagement fees, there is an implicit begging for absolution like a child molesting priest at the feet of an eye-rolling bishop ("Oh, fuck, not again").
What's been revealed so far from McClellan's book will be greeted by anyone paying attention for the last few years with, "Yeah, what else ya got?" The administration launched a propaganda campaign to sell the war? The not-really-liberal-at-all media didn't do its job in the run-up to the war or after? "The Iraq war was not necessary"? Rove and Libby lied about the outing of Valeria Plame? Bush was a complete dunderhead when it came to Hurricane Katrina? Really, Scotty? At this point, is there still wool that needs to be pulled from someone's eyes? We're all about ten steps ahead of McClellan by now. Jesus, at least give us something new, like, say, Cheney threatening to have Libby's cats gutted if Scooter didn't take the fall.
The Rude Pundit ain't in a forgiving mood when it comes to lackeys and co-conspirators in the Bush administration. McClellan doesn't get to say, as he does in the book, "The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise." Not when he said, in late January 2004, months after the invasion, regarding the chimeric weapons of mass destruction, "Yes, we believe he had them, and yes, we believe they will be found. We believe the truth will come out." No, the little bulldog bitch who every day snarled at the press, even when caught in outright lies, does not get the bounty of fulsome forgiveness.
Hopefully, the book will tank, and McClellan will be reduced to blowing Hannity for nickels. Screw this obsequious pig-fucking son of a bitch, this grubby little man-whore, attempting to purge his soul of the taint and stench of death and sorrow while pulling in a buck or two. He's not honorable enough to have fallen on his sword, rhetorically or literally. And he's not even loyal enough to have shut the fuck up (at least an admirable quality in the abstract). He deserves a room in Hell lined with televisions playing his sneering statements of complicity on an endless loop while he's forced to sit on a couch made of the bloated corpses of Katrina victims. Way too little, way, way too late, you miserable bucket of spooge.
And, don't worry, Scott: you can bet Karl Rove's Sodomizin' Stormtroopers will be knocking down your door some time soon, ready to put your bloody, reamed ass on display on Fox "news" for all to point at and nod while you just wonder when your reward's coming.
The Rude Pundit has always had great admiration for those who easily offer forgiveness for mortal offenses: the father of a murder victim accepting the apology of the killer, the elderly woman in the hospital granting pardon to the man who broke her arm snatching her purse, the scarred victim of a terrorist explosion wishing peace to the family of the suicide bomber. For, indeed, one of the true gifts of the teachings of the biblical Christ is the capacity to forgive those who commit heinous acts. It is, perhaps, the only way to stay sane in this world. But, still, it is not the path most of us actually have the tenacity to take.
While the Rude Pundit nurses few or no grudges in his daily life, there are times, yes, there are times when someone asks for forgiveness that he says, simply, even plaintively, "Oh, no. Never." For instance, now that former Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan has spilled his guts for a big advance and a chance to up his speaking engagement fees, there is an implicit begging for absolution like a child molesting priest at the feet of an eye-rolling bishop ("Oh, fuck, not again").
What's been revealed so far from McClellan's book will be greeted by anyone paying attention for the last few years with, "Yeah, what else ya got?" The administration launched a propaganda campaign to sell the war? The not-really-liberal-at-all media didn't do its job in the run-up to the war or after? "The Iraq war was not necessary"? Rove and Libby lied about the outing of Valeria Plame? Bush was a complete dunderhead when it came to Hurricane Katrina? Really, Scotty? At this point, is there still wool that needs to be pulled from someone's eyes? We're all about ten steps ahead of McClellan by now. Jesus, at least give us something new, like, say, Cheney threatening to have Libby's cats gutted if Scooter didn't take the fall.
The Rude Pundit ain't in a forgiving mood when it comes to lackeys and co-conspirators in the Bush administration. McClellan doesn't get to say, as he does in the book, "The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise." Not when he said, in late January 2004, months after the invasion, regarding the chimeric weapons of mass destruction, "Yes, we believe he had them, and yes, we believe they will be found. We believe the truth will come out." No, the little bulldog bitch who every day snarled at the press, even when caught in outright lies, does not get the bounty of fulsome forgiveness.
Hopefully, the book will tank, and McClellan will be reduced to blowing Hannity for nickels. Screw this obsequious pig-fucking son of a bitch, this grubby little man-whore, attempting to purge his soul of the taint and stench of death and sorrow while pulling in a buck or two. He's not honorable enough to have fallen on his sword, rhetorically or literally. And he's not even loyal enough to have shut the fuck up (at least an admirable quality in the abstract). He deserves a room in Hell lined with televisions playing his sneering statements of complicity on an endless loop while he's forced to sit on a couch made of the bloated corpses of Katrina victims. Way too little, way, way too late, you miserable bucket of spooge.
And, don't worry, Scott: you can bet Karl Rove's Sodomizin' Stormtroopers will be knocking down your door some time soon, ready to put your bloody, reamed ass on display on Fox "news" for all to point at and nod while you just wonder when your reward's coming.
John McCain to Soldiers: More of You Will Die If I'm President:
One of the funniest sights in politics these days is a pissed off John McCain. With his wee stature, his comically distended chipmunk cheeks, his achy arms painfully half-waving, and his squeaky little voice, it's just so damn...cute. Watching McCain fume and jump about is like watching a particularly petulant leprechaun leaping mad because he can't find his shillelagh or a circus dwarf who almost got his foot run over by a clown car or a cartoon rodent who just can't get that goddamn cheese from the trap. McCain gets all jumpy and twitchy, and you wanna point and laugh while you get the hell off his lawn before he walks out there and tries to stiffly swing his cane at you. Watch his reaction to criticism of his opposition to funding greater benefits to current war vets. It's hi-larious.
In his Memorial Day speech in Albuquerque yesterday, McCain was a bundle of tics, his voice occasionally raising and then lowering into that sonorous tone of his. After offering the troops lubricious oral gratification and then defending his vote on the recent Webb amendment to the war funding bill with his "benefits will make the servants uppity" argument, the Senator from neighboring Arizona went to town on how the Iraq war is just so fuckin' important.
First he went with the "hey, I get it" ploy: "As we all know, the American people have grown sick and tired of the war in Iraq. I understand that, of course. I, too, have been made sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders and the terrible price we have paid for them." There's a fine but important distinction he's avoiding: see, Americans don't want the goddamn war and no longer wish it to be fought. Period. That'd be the "sick and tired" part of it. We're not "sick at heart" about the "mistakes." Oh, no, Johnny Mac, we're sick of everyone telling us that the dog that's been run over by a Hummer will be okay if we can only get it to stand up. Sorry, man. That fucker's dead. You can prop up the corpse, but it ain't gonna be any less dead. You can tell by the guts spilling out of it.
Then, after the "we fucked up" part, McCain went into deep fear mode: "To walk away now -- before the Iraqi government can fully protect its people from ruthless enemies -- would strengthen al Qaeda, empower Iran and other hostile powers in the Middle East, unleash a full scale civil war in Iraq that could quite possibly provoke genocide there, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions." Of course, according to McCain, by 2013, he can make sure that there will be no civil war in Iraq, even though factions have been aching for one for years. But the magic of imposed democracy will soothe centuries of antagonism.
And McCain offers himself up, like, you know, Jesus, to take on this task: "I have one responsibility that outweighs all the others and that is to use whatever talents I possess, and every resource God has granted me to protect the security of this great and good nation from all enemies foreign and domestic." The Rude Pundit read that and thought, "Dude, seriously, if you still believe in God after what you've been through, you're either fuckin' insane or know something the rest of us don't." That's right: John McCain is gonna use his invisible sky wizard-granted superpowers to rescue us from ourselves.
He wants us to believe, motherfuckers: "I will attempt to convince as many of my countrymen as I can that we must show even greater patience, though our patience is nearly exhausted, and that as long as there is a reasonable prospect for succeeding in this war then we must not choose to lose it." Now, McCain doesn't define what a "reasonable prospect" for success is, and, really, by implication, if there's only a "reasonable prospect" for winning, then there's a not unreasonable prospect for losing, and wouldn't we wanna know some odds here? It's like saying if you fuck that whore without a condom, you might not get the syphilis she's carrying.
As the Rude Pundit has said, John McCain's first foreign policy decision was to volunteer for combat in the Vietnam War. His second was to stay in the Hanoi Hilton when he was offered a chance to leave. He was against going into Bosnia. He was for going into Iraq. This is the guy who gets to have credibility criticizing Barack Obama for lack of experience?
Experience doesn't mean shit if you don't know how to use it. You know, there's the people who've had sex with dozens of other people, but when you get in the sack with them, they suck as lovers. Just because someone's been fucked a lot doesn't mean they know how to do the fucking.
One of the funniest sights in politics these days is a pissed off John McCain. With his wee stature, his comically distended chipmunk cheeks, his achy arms painfully half-waving, and his squeaky little voice, it's just so damn...cute. Watching McCain fume and jump about is like watching a particularly petulant leprechaun leaping mad because he can't find his shillelagh or a circus dwarf who almost got his foot run over by a clown car or a cartoon rodent who just can't get that goddamn cheese from the trap. McCain gets all jumpy and twitchy, and you wanna point and laugh while you get the hell off his lawn before he walks out there and tries to stiffly swing his cane at you. Watch his reaction to criticism of his opposition to funding greater benefits to current war vets. It's hi-larious.
In his Memorial Day speech in Albuquerque yesterday, McCain was a bundle of tics, his voice occasionally raising and then lowering into that sonorous tone of his. After offering the troops lubricious oral gratification and then defending his vote on the recent Webb amendment to the war funding bill with his "benefits will make the servants uppity" argument, the Senator from neighboring Arizona went to town on how the Iraq war is just so fuckin' important.
First he went with the "hey, I get it" ploy: "As we all know, the American people have grown sick and tired of the war in Iraq. I understand that, of course. I, too, have been made sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders and the terrible price we have paid for them." There's a fine but important distinction he's avoiding: see, Americans don't want the goddamn war and no longer wish it to be fought. Period. That'd be the "sick and tired" part of it. We're not "sick at heart" about the "mistakes." Oh, no, Johnny Mac, we're sick of everyone telling us that the dog that's been run over by a Hummer will be okay if we can only get it to stand up. Sorry, man. That fucker's dead. You can prop up the corpse, but it ain't gonna be any less dead. You can tell by the guts spilling out of it.
Then, after the "we fucked up" part, McCain went into deep fear mode: "To walk away now -- before the Iraqi government can fully protect its people from ruthless enemies -- would strengthen al Qaeda, empower Iran and other hostile powers in the Middle East, unleash a full scale civil war in Iraq that could quite possibly provoke genocide there, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions." Of course, according to McCain, by 2013, he can make sure that there will be no civil war in Iraq, even though factions have been aching for one for years. But the magic of imposed democracy will soothe centuries of antagonism.
And McCain offers himself up, like, you know, Jesus, to take on this task: "I have one responsibility that outweighs all the others and that is to use whatever talents I possess, and every resource God has granted me to protect the security of this great and good nation from all enemies foreign and domestic." The Rude Pundit read that and thought, "Dude, seriously, if you still believe in God after what you've been through, you're either fuckin' insane or know something the rest of us don't." That's right: John McCain is gonna use his invisible sky wizard-granted superpowers to rescue us from ourselves.
He wants us to believe, motherfuckers: "I will attempt to convince as many of my countrymen as I can that we must show even greater patience, though our patience is nearly exhausted, and that as long as there is a reasonable prospect for succeeding in this war then we must not choose to lose it." Now, McCain doesn't define what a "reasonable prospect" for success is, and, really, by implication, if there's only a "reasonable prospect" for winning, then there's a not unreasonable prospect for losing, and wouldn't we wanna know some odds here? It's like saying if you fuck that whore without a condom, you might not get the syphilis she's carrying.
As the Rude Pundit has said, John McCain's first foreign policy decision was to volunteer for combat in the Vietnam War. His second was to stay in the Hanoi Hilton when he was offered a chance to leave. He was against going into Bosnia. He was for going into Iraq. This is the guy who gets to have credibility criticizing Barack Obama for lack of experience?
Experience doesn't mean shit if you don't know how to use it. You know, there's the people who've had sex with dozens of other people, but when you get in the sack with them, they suck as lovers. Just because someone's been fucked a lot doesn't mean they know how to do the fucking.
Our Last Bush-Befouled Memorial Day:
One of the more viscerally disgusting things President Bush does when he spends a moment or two describing an American soldier who died so that one day the Mahdi Army can take over a chunk of Iraq is that he reduces that soldier to his or her time in Iraq, ignoring the fact that the soldier may have had one hell of a career. For instance, Bush's latest prop is Sgt. Benjamin Sebban. He's such a great prop, Bush has used him twice this week, describing him in pretty much exactly the same way when awarding the medic a posthumous Silver Star and gorging himself on Sebban's mother's grief on Thursday before mentioning Sebban in his Saturday radio address that no one listens to. That description is, more or less, this:
However, if you care to read about Sebban and what the people around him thought of him and his pretty amazing life in the military, you'll need to do that on your own.
It is just another of the perverse turns of this mad president's mind that the lives of the people slaughtered for his war are reduced to reflections of his own grotesque dementia.
One of the more viscerally disgusting things President Bush does when he spends a moment or two describing an American soldier who died so that one day the Mahdi Army can take over a chunk of Iraq is that he reduces that soldier to his or her time in Iraq, ignoring the fact that the soldier may have had one hell of a career. For instance, Bush's latest prop is Sgt. Benjamin Sebban. He's such a great prop, Bush has used him twice this week, describing him in pretty much exactly the same way when awarding the medic a posthumous Silver Star and gorging himself on Sebban's mother's grief on Thursday before mentioning Sebban in his Saturday radio address that no one listens to. That description is, more or less, this:
However, if you care to read about Sebban and what the people around him thought of him and his pretty amazing life in the military, you'll need to do that on your own.
It is just another of the perverse turns of this mad president's mind that the lives of the people slaughtered for his war are reduced to reflections of his own grotesque dementia.
Hillary Clinton: RFK's Ass Was Capped All the Way in June, So What's Your Fuckin' Hurry?:
An analogy: Hillary Clinton basing her timeline for ending the current nomination process on the June assassination of Robert Kennedy is like a drunk guy saying he's got time for another whiskey because his girlfriend is busy getting gang raped in the alley behind the bar.
And someone really ought to point out to the Clinton campaign that the presidential campaign of 1968 was not a two- or three-year long process. The New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, wasn't until March 12. Kennedy didn't even get into the running until March 16, 1968. By June 4, 1968, the date of the California primary that Kennedy won, a date that's four months later than this year's California primary, there had only been 13 primaries. Indeed, running until the convention was the only choice, especially after Kennedy was killed on June 5. By June 5 this year, every state will have had its primaries or caucuses. It's not that people were any more patient in 1968. They just didn't have a choice but to wait and see.
So, like, even leaving out the morbid fucktardery of the statement Clinton made and dealing with it on its alleged merits, it's deceptive and idiotic and out of context.
To Clinton's campaign and its supporters, who have been holding out for some gaffe by Obama that would take him down: How's that working out for ya?
An analogy: Hillary Clinton basing her timeline for ending the current nomination process on the June assassination of Robert Kennedy is like a drunk guy saying he's got time for another whiskey because his girlfriend is busy getting gang raped in the alley behind the bar.
And someone really ought to point out to the Clinton campaign that the presidential campaign of 1968 was not a two- or three-year long process. The New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, wasn't until March 12. Kennedy didn't even get into the running until March 16, 1968. By June 4, 1968, the date of the California primary that Kennedy won, a date that's four months later than this year's California primary, there had only been 13 primaries. Indeed, running until the convention was the only choice, especially after Kennedy was killed on June 5. By June 5 this year, every state will have had its primaries or caucuses. It's not that people were any more patient in 1968. They just didn't have a choice but to wait and see.
So, like, even leaving out the morbid fucktardery of the statement Clinton made and dealing with it on its alleged merits, it's deceptive and idiotic and out of context.
To Clinton's campaign and its supporters, who have been holding out for some gaffe by Obama that would take him down: How's that working out for ya?
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Cover Himself in Lighter Fluid and Throw Himself on the Memorial Day Barbecue:
Bush is "comforting" Barbara Walsh as she receives a posthumous Silver Star for her son, Sgt. Benjamin Sebban. The Silver Star was for gallantry. One imagines Bush is trying to be gallant.
Sebban's gallantry was in getting critically injured warning other soldiers that a truckload of explosives was heading their way and then, bleeding and dying, being a medic, he helped the other injured (and, bearing the Pat Tillman story always in mind, one should perhaps add, "according to the President").
Bush's gallantry is to give Sebban's mom a hug. It's kind of like a boa constrictor thanking a rabbit after devouring her children.
Perhaps more later.
Bush is "comforting" Barbara Walsh as she receives a posthumous Silver Star for her son, Sgt. Benjamin Sebban. The Silver Star was for gallantry. One imagines Bush is trying to be gallant.
Sebban's gallantry was in getting critically injured warning other soldiers that a truckload of explosives was heading their way and then, bleeding and dying, being a medic, he helped the other injured (and, bearing the Pat Tillman story always in mind, one should perhaps add, "according to the President").
Bush's gallantry is to give Sebban's mom a hug. It's kind of like a boa constrictor thanking a rabbit after devouring her children.
Perhaps more later.
How Many Examples of Clinton Hypocrisy on Florida and Michigan Are There?:
Everybody's lining up with their favorite moments from back in the day when Hillary Clinton believed so very strongly that the votes in Michigan and Florida took a back seat to the agreement she and Barack Obama (and other candidates) made not to campaign or participate in any damn primaries in those states. Now that seating the delegates from those states at the Democratic convention is a civil rights fight akin to ending slavery (which is truly one of the most idiotic things said in an idiotic end of this primary season), here's one of the best golden oldies:
On January 21 of this year, the Clinton campaign held one of its many "you've offended our delicate sensibilities" press conferences (like the "look at this fuckin' flyer" one). The candidate was not there, but speaking for her were former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Kathy Sullivan, former Democratic chair of New Hampshire. They were in high dudgeon at what the Obama campaign had done, which, in our current context of bullshit hyperbole, was akin to genocide.
Obama's crime? Some of his national ads were playing in Florida, and, holy fuckin' shit, this was violating the pledge taken by the remaining candidates to give mad props to Iowa and New Hampshire (and Nevada and South Carolina) by ignoring the upstart states' primaries. But, really, truly, it's just best at this point to let others speak.
Said Vilsack: "In the heartland, words matter, promises matter, and pledges matter. That's why it was important to the people of Iowa that the candidates running for president sign a pledge that indicated that they would not campaign vigorously in states that violated the DNC rules. Clearly, the Obama campaign has decided not to fulfill that pledge by having advertising in Florida. I think this calls into question whether or not Senator Obama meant the pledge when he signed it or if losing three primaries and caucuses in a row compelled him and his campaign to sacrifice a part of their integrity. That's hardly the politics of a different kind that he's promised, and it raises the issue of what other pledges or promises he's making to Democrats across the country that he won't keep. You know, your word ought to be your bond, whether it's politically convenient or not, and it shouldn't just be your bond when it is politically convenient."
Said Sullivan: "This was all about honoring the rules that were adopted by the Democratic National Committee. And these were tough rules for some of the candidates to abide by, because, you know, it's always difficult just to say that, you know, we're agreeing not to campaign in other states. But all the candidates agreed that honoring the rules of the DNC were important and that they were going to do this. And so I'm disappointed that, now that Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada are behind us, that the Obama campaign now feels that it can blithely just disregard the pledge and disregard the DNC rules...And so I'm very disappointed that this pledge is not being taken seriously. I'm disappointed that he's decided that there's nothing wrong with violating the rules of our party, you know, rules that were adopted after a lengthy process and adopted by the entire Democratic National Committee, and just feels that it is OK to ignore the wishes of the Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee. And so I'm disappointed, again, at the lack of seriousness with which the pledge apparently was made by Senator Obama and his campaign. And I would call upon him to honor the pledge and do what he said he was going to do."
Said Wasserman Schultz: "We have scrupulously abided by these rules because we respect them. We respect them even though in Florida we don't like them. And at the end of the day, when you're running for president of the United States, rules matter. Because you have to be the one that sets the example for the whole country. You can't just disregard or cast aside rules when they're no longer convenient for you."
Yeah, the press conference did lay some groundwork for Clinton's current declarations on Michigan and Florida (that she "won" them). But here's the bestest part of it. Vilsack said, "This is a serious violation, and it is deeply disappointing, I'm sure to the people of Iowa, particularly those who supported the senator because he was willing to make the pledge at the time he was participating in our caucus." Sullivan said, "I think a lot of people in the state of New Hampshire were very much aware of this pledge by Senator Obama and the other candidates, because it was certainly front page news in our state, that this was a pledge that was being made."
You got that? Clinton's surrogates are saying that the pledge she and Obama signed were factors in those states' contests, that perhaps those states would not have gone the way they did if the pledge hadn't been kept by the candidates. Now, think back on those halcyon days after the New Hampshire primary, when Clinton's surprise win of 39% of the vote to Obama's 36% was her big comeback, the thing that made her campaign survive those early weeks of the nomination process. Going by Sullivan's logic, one wonders how many votes Clinton would have lost had she said, "Fuck you, New Hampshire. I'm goin' to Disney World."
Everybody's lining up with their favorite moments from back in the day when Hillary Clinton believed so very strongly that the votes in Michigan and Florida took a back seat to the agreement she and Barack Obama (and other candidates) made not to campaign or participate in any damn primaries in those states. Now that seating the delegates from those states at the Democratic convention is a civil rights fight akin to ending slavery (which is truly one of the most idiotic things said in an idiotic end of this primary season), here's one of the best golden oldies:
On January 21 of this year, the Clinton campaign held one of its many "you've offended our delicate sensibilities" press conferences (like the "look at this fuckin' flyer" one). The candidate was not there, but speaking for her were former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Kathy Sullivan, former Democratic chair of New Hampshire. They were in high dudgeon at what the Obama campaign had done, which, in our current context of bullshit hyperbole, was akin to genocide.
Obama's crime? Some of his national ads were playing in Florida, and, holy fuckin' shit, this was violating the pledge taken by the remaining candidates to give mad props to Iowa and New Hampshire (and Nevada and South Carolina) by ignoring the upstart states' primaries. But, really, truly, it's just best at this point to let others speak.
Said Vilsack: "In the heartland, words matter, promises matter, and pledges matter. That's why it was important to the people of Iowa that the candidates running for president sign a pledge that indicated that they would not campaign vigorously in states that violated the DNC rules. Clearly, the Obama campaign has decided not to fulfill that pledge by having advertising in Florida. I think this calls into question whether or not Senator Obama meant the pledge when he signed it or if losing three primaries and caucuses in a row compelled him and his campaign to sacrifice a part of their integrity. That's hardly the politics of a different kind that he's promised, and it raises the issue of what other pledges or promises he's making to Democrats across the country that he won't keep. You know, your word ought to be your bond, whether it's politically convenient or not, and it shouldn't just be your bond when it is politically convenient."
Said Sullivan: "This was all about honoring the rules that were adopted by the Democratic National Committee. And these were tough rules for some of the candidates to abide by, because, you know, it's always difficult just to say that, you know, we're agreeing not to campaign in other states. But all the candidates agreed that honoring the rules of the DNC were important and that they were going to do this. And so I'm disappointed that, now that Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada are behind us, that the Obama campaign now feels that it can blithely just disregard the pledge and disregard the DNC rules...And so I'm very disappointed that this pledge is not being taken seriously. I'm disappointed that he's decided that there's nothing wrong with violating the rules of our party, you know, rules that were adopted after a lengthy process and adopted by the entire Democratic National Committee, and just feels that it is OK to ignore the wishes of the Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee. And so I'm disappointed, again, at the lack of seriousness with which the pledge apparently was made by Senator Obama and his campaign. And I would call upon him to honor the pledge and do what he said he was going to do."
Said Wasserman Schultz: "We have scrupulously abided by these rules because we respect them. We respect them even though in Florida we don't like them. And at the end of the day, when you're running for president of the United States, rules matter. Because you have to be the one that sets the example for the whole country. You can't just disregard or cast aside rules when they're no longer convenient for you."
Yeah, the press conference did lay some groundwork for Clinton's current declarations on Michigan and Florida (that she "won" them). But here's the bestest part of it. Vilsack said, "This is a serious violation, and it is deeply disappointing, I'm sure to the people of Iowa, particularly those who supported the senator because he was willing to make the pledge at the time he was participating in our caucus." Sullivan said, "I think a lot of people in the state of New Hampshire were very much aware of this pledge by Senator Obama and the other candidates, because it was certainly front page news in our state, that this was a pledge that was being made."
You got that? Clinton's surrogates are saying that the pledge she and Obama signed were factors in those states' contests, that perhaps those states would not have gone the way they did if the pledge hadn't been kept by the candidates. Now, think back on those halcyon days after the New Hampshire primary, when Clinton's surprise win of 39% of the vote to Obama's 36% was her big comeback, the thing that made her campaign survive those early weeks of the nomination process. Going by Sullivan's logic, one wonders how many votes Clinton would have lost had she said, "Fuck you, New Hampshire. I'm goin' to Disney World."
Nigger Haters for Clinton:
The Rude Pundit was speaking with a fellow lefty blogger about two months ago - really speaking, face to face, not IMing or any such shit. A Hillary Clinton supporter, she was concerned with Left Blogsylvania's sexist attacks on her candidate (although, as so many people sigh and say, she prefaced her comments with, "I wanted Edwards"). She offered the Rude Pundit insight into her contact with people in the campaigns of Clinton and Barack Obama, and she said, flatly, that Obama will lose a general election because of how racist America is. At the end of the day, it was one of the major factors making her support Clinton, the whole "electability" thing. One can't afford idealism in the face of reality, she was saying.
Having great respect for this blogger, the Rude Pundit agreed but also, not rudely, disagreed. No, he did not have the inside information and knowledge that the consultants had, but the Rude Pundit has a kind of hard fought-for optimism that things have reached such a nadir in this nation that at least some voters would be forced to put aside old prejudices in order to grab America like a drowning man and drag him to shore.
This morning, the Rude Pundit was watching the "best political team" on CNN contort themselves like Miss Julian in the sawdust in Barnum's tent in order to avoid saying that the reason Clinton blew Obama out of the blue grass in the Kentucky primary is because racist crackers hate black people. They said every fuckin' thing they could, comparing how Obama more or less split the "white people without college education" vote in Oregon with Clinton, yet Clinton overwhelmingly won that demographic in Kentucky. How can that be? they puzzled. It was kind of sadly hilarious, how they tried so desperately to not offend their white racist viewers. But sometimes, yes, sometimes you have to state plainly that motherfuckers fuck their mothers.
You ever been to the mythical "rural communities" of Appalachia? The Rude Pundit has, hanging out with mule farm owners and miners and others. And they are xenophobic, suspicious, and poor - hell, these redneck fuckers hate white outsiders. Just about every Deliverance-style, Hatfield and McCoy, Ma and Pa Kettle inbred backwards ass country fuck stereotype you ever imagined exists there, complete with their trashed front yards and about a mouth of teeth for every three or four households. And they have every right to hate people who have ripped away the jobs and kept them in deep poverty and ignorance. There's been so many promises broken to the people of Appalachia that they may as well be Indians. Hell, the last time anyone in the federal government gave a happy rat fuck about the region was in the LBJ administration.
When you talk about how Democratic they are, you are talking about the post-Civil War Democrats, when the party fostered and relied on racism and division in order to maintain power. You're talking Dixiecrats and Reagan Democrats. "Rural whites" in places like Kentucky and West Virginia wear their racism as a badge of honor. Because it's the perpetual ignorance of racism that keeps them from rising up against the whites who are actually keeping them racist, ignorant and poor.
By the way, out in Eastern Oregon, where you have your fine militias and white supremacist organizations, Obama stayed within two or three points of Clinton, winning some counties there. So, really, there is something about Appalachian white people.
Clinton's final appeal for the Democratic nomination is this: "America is a racist nation. While there's a lot of black people who will vote for me, there's way more white people who won't vote for Obama because they think he's a Muslim nigger." (This, of course, leaves aside the fact that the Rude Pundit's mentioned before: when those racists no longer have a black guy to be prejudiced against, who's next to receive their rage? The woman who's friends with black people.)
It's a compelling argument, one that has at times made the Rude Pundit think twice about his hard-on for Obama, but in the end, he has dismissed it because it is a line of thinking that is based on one thing: perpetuating racism. And here's that optimism poking its head through the nearly crippling cynicism one needs in order to survive these savage political times: maybe, just maybe, the majority of the country is sick and tired of letting the yahoos have their way. This ain't just about Clinton. For the better part of the last thirty years, the country has been led by bubbas and wanna-be bubbas. Perhaps we are sick of that, and we're sick of seeing politicians say they are appealing to a monolithic white working class when they're really appealing to the nigger haters (and spic haters and kike haters and a fag basher or two).
Now, you can say, and, indeed, you should, that that's why Democrats lost to Reagan and to the Bushes, because they were not appealing to the nigger hater demographic. But it's different this time, because Obama ain't Dukakis and he ain't Kerry. And if Obama campaigns hard, going on the poverty tour that he's promised to take with Edwards, maybe he can change a few minds, and that in itself would be a small victory.
Yes, this country has proven itself intolerant and small-minded time after time, and there's always a chance it may do so again in this election. But maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, the reign of the nigger haters is over. Racism is a form of idiocy. The country may be deciding that it's time not to let the stupid people run the joint, that, being stupid, they actually need to be led, maybe even out of their stupidity.
The Rude Pundit was speaking with a fellow lefty blogger about two months ago - really speaking, face to face, not IMing or any such shit. A Hillary Clinton supporter, she was concerned with Left Blogsylvania's sexist attacks on her candidate (although, as so many people sigh and say, she prefaced her comments with, "I wanted Edwards"). She offered the Rude Pundit insight into her contact with people in the campaigns of Clinton and Barack Obama, and she said, flatly, that Obama will lose a general election because of how racist America is. At the end of the day, it was one of the major factors making her support Clinton, the whole "electability" thing. One can't afford idealism in the face of reality, she was saying.
Having great respect for this blogger, the Rude Pundit agreed but also, not rudely, disagreed. No, he did not have the inside information and knowledge that the consultants had, but the Rude Pundit has a kind of hard fought-for optimism that things have reached such a nadir in this nation that at least some voters would be forced to put aside old prejudices in order to grab America like a drowning man and drag him to shore.
This morning, the Rude Pundit was watching the "best political team" on CNN contort themselves like Miss Julian in the sawdust in Barnum's tent in order to avoid saying that the reason Clinton blew Obama out of the blue grass in the Kentucky primary is because racist crackers hate black people. They said every fuckin' thing they could, comparing how Obama more or less split the "white people without college education" vote in Oregon with Clinton, yet Clinton overwhelmingly won that demographic in Kentucky. How can that be? they puzzled. It was kind of sadly hilarious, how they tried so desperately to not offend their white racist viewers. But sometimes, yes, sometimes you have to state plainly that motherfuckers fuck their mothers.
You ever been to the mythical "rural communities" of Appalachia? The Rude Pundit has, hanging out with mule farm owners and miners and others. And they are xenophobic, suspicious, and poor - hell, these redneck fuckers hate white outsiders. Just about every Deliverance-style, Hatfield and McCoy, Ma and Pa Kettle inbred backwards ass country fuck stereotype you ever imagined exists there, complete with their trashed front yards and about a mouth of teeth for every three or four households. And they have every right to hate people who have ripped away the jobs and kept them in deep poverty and ignorance. There's been so many promises broken to the people of Appalachia that they may as well be Indians. Hell, the last time anyone in the federal government gave a happy rat fuck about the region was in the LBJ administration.
When you talk about how Democratic they are, you are talking about the post-Civil War Democrats, when the party fostered and relied on racism and division in order to maintain power. You're talking Dixiecrats and Reagan Democrats. "Rural whites" in places like Kentucky and West Virginia wear their racism as a badge of honor. Because it's the perpetual ignorance of racism that keeps them from rising up against the whites who are actually keeping them racist, ignorant and poor.
By the way, out in Eastern Oregon, where you have your fine militias and white supremacist organizations, Obama stayed within two or three points of Clinton, winning some counties there. So, really, there is something about Appalachian white people.
Clinton's final appeal for the Democratic nomination is this: "America is a racist nation. While there's a lot of black people who will vote for me, there's way more white people who won't vote for Obama because they think he's a Muslim nigger." (This, of course, leaves aside the fact that the Rude Pundit's mentioned before: when those racists no longer have a black guy to be prejudiced against, who's next to receive their rage? The woman who's friends with black people.)
It's a compelling argument, one that has at times made the Rude Pundit think twice about his hard-on for Obama, but in the end, he has dismissed it because it is a line of thinking that is based on one thing: perpetuating racism. And here's that optimism poking its head through the nearly crippling cynicism one needs in order to survive these savage political times: maybe, just maybe, the majority of the country is sick and tired of letting the yahoos have their way. This ain't just about Clinton. For the better part of the last thirty years, the country has been led by bubbas and wanna-be bubbas. Perhaps we are sick of that, and we're sick of seeing politicians say they are appealing to a monolithic white working class when they're really appealing to the nigger haters (and spic haters and kike haters and a fag basher or two).
Now, you can say, and, indeed, you should, that that's why Democrats lost to Reagan and to the Bushes, because they were not appealing to the nigger hater demographic. But it's different this time, because Obama ain't Dukakis and he ain't Kerry. And if Obama campaigns hard, going on the poverty tour that he's promised to take with Edwards, maybe he can change a few minds, and that in itself would be a small victory.
Yes, this country has proven itself intolerant and small-minded time after time, and there's always a chance it may do so again in this election. But maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, the reign of the nigger haters is over. Racism is a form of idiocy. The country may be deciding that it's time not to let the stupid people run the joint, that, being stupid, they actually need to be led, maybe even out of their stupidity.
Ten Other Ways John McCain Is Like Jesus (Christ, That Is):
Georgia GOP chair Sue Everhart said, in reference to a certain ex-POW candidate's never turning on the United States while in captivity, "John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross...He never denounced God, either." Of course, the whole "My God, why have you forsaken me" thing that Jesus says is not a renunciation, but it's a pretty powerful "What the fuck, dad?" In explanation of her comparison between Christ and McCain, Everhart offered, "I'm not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ," which would be true if she hadn't just compared John McCain to Jesus Christ. Everhart should have just embraced her analogy because, truly, she's overlooking the many ways that the Republican senator is like the Christian human sacrifice:
1. Jesus Christ was born in a manger surrounded by livestock and wandering kings. John McCain was born the son of a navy officer with medical benefits that would last his entire life.
2. Jesus Christ walked on water to hook up with the disciples in a boat. John McCain has made close friends with many members of the media who go on the campaign trail with him.
3. Jesus Christ told fishermen to cast their nets into the water, and they ended up catching over 150 fish. John McCain had workers build a lake in his backyard so he could fish in private.
4. Jesus Christ believed that the meek shall inherit the earth and that it's easier to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. John McCain wants tax cuts for wealthy Americans to be made permanent.
5. Jesus Christ wandered in the desert for forty days and nights. John McCain has to remember the way around the nine houses that he and his wife own.
6. Jesus Christ turned water into wine so that a wedding would be a way better party. John McCain left his first wife, while she was receiving treatment after a bad car accident, and their three kids in order to marry his younger, richer mistress.
7. Jesus Christ brought a couple of people back from the dead. John McCain made sure that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were not the Republican nominees.
8. Jesus Christ constantly reminded people that he was the son of God. John McCain keeps reminding people that he spent time getting tortured at the Hanoi Hilton.
9. Jesus Christ got angry at the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers there. John McCain got angry when his wife mentioned that his hair was thinning and called her a "cunt."
10. Jesus Christ was betrayed by one of his followers, arrested, and whipped bloody before being crucified. John McCain was stabbed in the back by fellow Republicans in 2000, when Karl Rove spread rumors about him in South Carolina, thus causing McCain to lose the nomination.
So, obviously, Everhart was dead on about McCain. He's so much like Jesus, he'd better be careful around long spikes and crisscrossed two-by-fours. And if that fucker dies, beware, 'cause three days later, he's gonna be free from the tomb and lookin' for asses to kick.
Georgia GOP chair Sue Everhart said, in reference to a certain ex-POW candidate's never turning on the United States while in captivity, "John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross...He never denounced God, either." Of course, the whole "My God, why have you forsaken me" thing that Jesus says is not a renunciation, but it's a pretty powerful "What the fuck, dad?" In explanation of her comparison between Christ and McCain, Everhart offered, "I'm not trying to compare John McCain to Jesus Christ," which would be true if she hadn't just compared John McCain to Jesus Christ. Everhart should have just embraced her analogy because, truly, she's overlooking the many ways that the Republican senator is like the Christian human sacrifice:
1. Jesus Christ was born in a manger surrounded by livestock and wandering kings. John McCain was born the son of a navy officer with medical benefits that would last his entire life.
2. Jesus Christ walked on water to hook up with the disciples in a boat. John McCain has made close friends with many members of the media who go on the campaign trail with him.
3. Jesus Christ told fishermen to cast their nets into the water, and they ended up catching over 150 fish. John McCain had workers build a lake in his backyard so he could fish in private.
4. Jesus Christ believed that the meek shall inherit the earth and that it's easier to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. John McCain wants tax cuts for wealthy Americans to be made permanent.
5. Jesus Christ wandered in the desert for forty days and nights. John McCain has to remember the way around the nine houses that he and his wife own.
6. Jesus Christ turned water into wine so that a wedding would be a way better party. John McCain left his first wife, while she was receiving treatment after a bad car accident, and their three kids in order to marry his younger, richer mistress.
7. Jesus Christ brought a couple of people back from the dead. John McCain made sure that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were not the Republican nominees.
8. Jesus Christ constantly reminded people that he was the son of God. John McCain keeps reminding people that he spent time getting tortured at the Hanoi Hilton.
9. Jesus Christ got angry at the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers there. John McCain got angry when his wife mentioned that his hair was thinning and called her a "cunt."
10. Jesus Christ was betrayed by one of his followers, arrested, and whipped bloody before being crucified. John McCain was stabbed in the back by fellow Republicans in 2000, when Karl Rove spread rumors about him in South Carolina, thus causing McCain to lose the nomination.
So, obviously, Everhart was dead on about McCain. He's so much like Jesus, he'd better be careful around long spikes and crisscrossed two-by-fours. And if that fucker dies, beware, 'cause three days later, he's gonna be free from the tomb and lookin' for asses to kick.
Why Bill Kristol Ought to Be Sodomized with a Rolled-Up Issue of The Nation (Part 327):
In today's New York Times, the Clarence Thomas of the paper's regular columnists, William Kristol, tries to give hope to John McCain supporters that they shall overcome the Barack Obama juggernaut. And it's such a pathetic little half-whimper of a rallying cry that it's more or less the rhetorical equivalent of a would-be prison bitch being punched in the face repeatedly by the yard's biggest man-rapist who wants his ass. Yeah, you feel sorry for the bitch as he desperately swings his fists at the air, but you know that in the end, how ever much his nose is busted up and he's tasting blood, that poor fucker's gettin' reamed out.
Kristol, who, it must be pointed out as often as possible, was Alan Keyes' campaign manager in the insane bastard's way unsuccessful Senate race, says there's three things that happened last week that bode ill for Obama: Obama's huge-ass loss in West Virginia, the California Supreme Court's mucho logical decision allowing gays to marry, and President Bush's simpering attack on anyone who would talk to "radicals," like the leaders of Iran. For Kristol, these all add up to possible trouble for Obama, coupled with Kristol's deep research into voting trends, that, believe it or not, Republicans can win the presidency when Democrats make congressional gains.
Yep, the best Kristol can muster is that bad shit for Obama is good for McCain (although some of us think that two out of three of Kristol's demerits are actually pluses for Obama and/or the nation). Or, in other words, according to Bill Kristol, really, truly, the only way McCain wins is by Obama fucking up. How well did that work out for Hillary Clinton?
It's truly, sadly hilarious, how little energy Kristol can muster in attempting to support McCain. You look around at the neocons and the evangelicals, and you realize that they are just lost, bereft, depressed. If the Rude Pundit gave a shit about them, he'd say they need to be on suicide watch. However, indeed, these fuckin' lemmings need to follow George Bush over the goddamn cliff so that we can clear the land of rodent droppings.
So as much as Kristol needs that "This year’s election could see a return to this cold-war model — a strong-on-national-security and supporter-of-middle-American-values Republican presidential candidate prevailing, while at the same time voters choose a Democratic Congress," what he's gonna get is an election that doesn't follow the same script.
And that'll be mostly thanks to Bill Kristol and his fellow future wrist cutters.
In today's New York Times, the Clarence Thomas of the paper's regular columnists, William Kristol, tries to give hope to John McCain supporters that they shall overcome the Barack Obama juggernaut. And it's such a pathetic little half-whimper of a rallying cry that it's more or less the rhetorical equivalent of a would-be prison bitch being punched in the face repeatedly by the yard's biggest man-rapist who wants his ass. Yeah, you feel sorry for the bitch as he desperately swings his fists at the air, but you know that in the end, how ever much his nose is busted up and he's tasting blood, that poor fucker's gettin' reamed out.
Kristol, who, it must be pointed out as often as possible, was Alan Keyes' campaign manager in the insane bastard's way unsuccessful Senate race, says there's three things that happened last week that bode ill for Obama: Obama's huge-ass loss in West Virginia, the California Supreme Court's mucho logical decision allowing gays to marry, and President Bush's simpering attack on anyone who would talk to "radicals," like the leaders of Iran. For Kristol, these all add up to possible trouble for Obama, coupled with Kristol's deep research into voting trends, that, believe it or not, Republicans can win the presidency when Democrats make congressional gains.
Yep, the best Kristol can muster is that bad shit for Obama is good for McCain (although some of us think that two out of three of Kristol's demerits are actually pluses for Obama and/or the nation). Or, in other words, according to Bill Kristol, really, truly, the only way McCain wins is by Obama fucking up. How well did that work out for Hillary Clinton?
It's truly, sadly hilarious, how little energy Kristol can muster in attempting to support McCain. You look around at the neocons and the evangelicals, and you realize that they are just lost, bereft, depressed. If the Rude Pundit gave a shit about them, he'd say they need to be on suicide watch. However, indeed, these fuckin' lemmings need to follow George Bush over the goddamn cliff so that we can clear the land of rodent droppings.
So as much as Kristol needs that "This year’s election could see a return to this cold-war model — a strong-on-national-security and supporter-of-middle-American-values Republican presidential candidate prevailing, while at the same time voters choose a Democratic Congress," what he's gonna get is an election that doesn't follow the same script.
And that'll be mostly thanks to Bill Kristol and his fellow future wrist cutters.
Drugged Immigrants and Lying to the Public? So?:
At this point in our history, America is like a victim of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, held captive in a pit, softened up, and then murdered for our supple skin so that the batshit killer can prance around and imagine he's the belle of the ball. If you're living the end of your days in a chamber of horrors, then, really, nothing awful is surprising anymore. The gruel you're fed has maggots in it? Yeah, okay. You're blasted with cold water every now and then? Sure, sure, whatever. You're in a goddamn dirt pit, a pseudo-grave, fer fuck's sake. Waiting to be skinned. What the fuck else is gonna be worse?
So it is with the endless streams of revelations of how nightmarish and cynical the Bush administration actually is. The Pentagon was manipulating the media through the placement of ex-military members as "analysts" on the news networks and programs in order to hype the war? Fine, fine. What else ya got? Homeland Security is doping up immigrants for deportation? Really, what would have been shocking is if the Bush administration hadn't been shooting drugs into detainees.
That's how low we've finally sunk. America has reached the point where some reporter for the Times could discover that George W. Bush has personally authorized and encouraged a program where illegal immigrant children have been rounded up from schools and hospitals and work camps, slaughtered by Blackwater mercenaries who were given free rein to kill them in whatever way they thought necessary - knife, gun, machete, spiked-glove beating - and then told to make sure they're dead by fucking the corpses, their bodies brought to rendering factories, where, in front of their parents, the children were boiled until there was nothing left but bones, and their families, under threat of their own murder, corpse rape, and rendering, were forced to grind their children's bones into a powder, which was then mixed with other materials and poured into a mold in order to make spiky dildos that were shipped to military prisons in Iraq where CIA agents would use them to sodomize the asses of bound up "suspected terrorists" with electrodes attached to their nipples, whose screams and weeping were recorded and edited into a several-hour long loop, put on an iPod and sent to Dick Cheney, who would play it when he was alone in his office so he could get an erection to masturbate and cry over pictures of the illegal immigrant children who were killed in the first place, and the news media and most of the country would just shrug and say, "Yeah, like Dick Cheney wouldn't do that."
Of the legion of harms done to this nation by this presidency, one of the worst has been the elimination of our capacity to be appalled. The administration has just raised the bar too high. And that is a loss of innocence, in a sense, like post-Watergate or post-Kent State. When a government demonstrates what depravities it is capable of, and the people are willing to blithely accept them, then we have indeed fallen; we have been traumatized into apathy.
One of the greatest goods an Obama administration could do would be to lead us back to a place where we can feel again, where we can rightly and righteously be angered into action.
At this point in our history, America is like a victim of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, held captive in a pit, softened up, and then murdered for our supple skin so that the batshit killer can prance around and imagine he's the belle of the ball. If you're living the end of your days in a chamber of horrors, then, really, nothing awful is surprising anymore. The gruel you're fed has maggots in it? Yeah, okay. You're blasted with cold water every now and then? Sure, sure, whatever. You're in a goddamn dirt pit, a pseudo-grave, fer fuck's sake. Waiting to be skinned. What the fuck else is gonna be worse?
So it is with the endless streams of revelations of how nightmarish and cynical the Bush administration actually is. The Pentagon was manipulating the media through the placement of ex-military members as "analysts" on the news networks and programs in order to hype the war? Fine, fine. What else ya got? Homeland Security is doping up immigrants for deportation? Really, what would have been shocking is if the Bush administration hadn't been shooting drugs into detainees.
That's how low we've finally sunk. America has reached the point where some reporter for the Times could discover that George W. Bush has personally authorized and encouraged a program where illegal immigrant children have been rounded up from schools and hospitals and work camps, slaughtered by Blackwater mercenaries who were given free rein to kill them in whatever way they thought necessary - knife, gun, machete, spiked-glove beating - and then told to make sure they're dead by fucking the corpses, their bodies brought to rendering factories, where, in front of their parents, the children were boiled until there was nothing left but bones, and their families, under threat of their own murder, corpse rape, and rendering, were forced to grind their children's bones into a powder, which was then mixed with other materials and poured into a mold in order to make spiky dildos that were shipped to military prisons in Iraq where CIA agents would use them to sodomize the asses of bound up "suspected terrorists" with electrodes attached to their nipples, whose screams and weeping were recorded and edited into a several-hour long loop, put on an iPod and sent to Dick Cheney, who would play it when he was alone in his office so he could get an erection to masturbate and cry over pictures of the illegal immigrant children who were killed in the first place, and the news media and most of the country would just shrug and say, "Yeah, like Dick Cheney wouldn't do that."
Of the legion of harms done to this nation by this presidency, one of the worst has been the elimination of our capacity to be appalled. The administration has just raised the bar too high. And that is a loss of innocence, in a sense, like post-Watergate or post-Kent State. When a government demonstrates what depravities it is capable of, and the people are willing to blithely accept them, then we have indeed fallen; we have been traumatized into apathy.
One of the greatest goods an Obama administration could do would be to lead us back to a place where we can feel again, where we can rightly and righteously be angered into action.
The Creepiest and Saddest Things Said Yesterday:
Sure, it's easy to knock President Bush for his "If I play golf, soldiers' families will cry" remark to Politico. That foolishness is easily disposed of with this from a year ago:
Seriously, dude, just fuckin' golf. And don't use the war as an excuse for your weak-ass follow-through.
No, instead, let's look at this truly creepy answer to a question about what he was thinking at Jenna's wedding: "I was thinking this is one beautiful bride, and Henry is a lucky man." The groom's lucky 'cause he gets to bang the beautiful bride? It's awesome that a man can sound envious over the fact that, later that night, another man is gonna place his penis inside the first man's daughter's vagina.
And the saddest thing? This line from Hillary Clinton's "White people love me" speech: "I’m also thinking of Dalton Hatfield, an 11-year-old boy from Kentucky, who sold his bike and sold his video games to raise money to support my campaign."
What would have been charming in, say, January is just pathetically depressing now.
Sure, it's easy to knock President Bush for his "If I play golf, soldiers' families will cry" remark to Politico. That foolishness is easily disposed of with this from a year ago:
Seriously, dude, just fuckin' golf. And don't use the war as an excuse for your weak-ass follow-through.
No, instead, let's look at this truly creepy answer to a question about what he was thinking at Jenna's wedding: "I was thinking this is one beautiful bride, and Henry is a lucky man." The groom's lucky 'cause he gets to bang the beautiful bride? It's awesome that a man can sound envious over the fact that, later that night, another man is gonna place his penis inside the first man's daughter's vagina.
And the saddest thing? This line from Hillary Clinton's "White people love me" speech: "I’m also thinking of Dalton Hatfield, an 11-year-old boy from Kentucky, who sold his bike and sold his video games to raise money to support my campaign."
What would have been charming in, say, January is just pathetically depressing now.
Late Post Today (With a Brief Aside on How the Rude Pundit Was Right About Indiana):
Last week, the Rude Pundit waxed nostalgically about his time in the putrescent herpes sore that is Indiana. Yesterday, the Washington Post backed him up:
"In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, [Danielle] Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into 'a horrible response,' as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
"'The first person I encountered was like, "I'll never vote for a black person,"' recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20."
(The article also details racist incidents in Pennsylvania. And Muncie's a city of about 70,000, not exactly a "town.")
Back later with more on bugfuckery masking as political discourse.
(Tip o' the hat to rude reader Neil for the link to the Post article.)
Last week, the Rude Pundit waxed nostalgically about his time in the putrescent herpes sore that is Indiana. Yesterday, the Washington Post backed him up:
"In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, [Danielle] Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into 'a horrible response,' as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
"'The first person I encountered was like, "I'll never vote for a black person,"' recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20."
(The article also details racist incidents in Pennsylvania. And Muncie's a city of about 70,000, not exactly a "town.")
Back later with more on bugfuckery masking as political discourse.
(Tip o' the hat to rude reader Neil for the link to the Post article.)
Why the U.N. and the U.S. Should Invade Myanmar and Why We Can't (Updated with a consideration for Hurricane Katrina):
What's occurring right now in Myanmar, post-cyclone, is nothing short of the slow-creep beginning of a genocide. When a nation's leaders willfully keep aid provided by humanitarian and relief agencies, governmental and non-governmental, from the desperate, starving, dying people who need it, then that nation's leaders want large numbers of people to die.
Right now, in addition to the complete fucking abomination that is the junta's refusal to allow the wave of aid workers needed for the devastated nation, there are credible allegations that the regime is hoarding high quality food from relief shipments for itself and the military while giving the citizens poor quality or spoiled food. 'Cause, you see, if you run a country with the military, then you better fuckin' feed the military first, or revolution is gonna happen. That's 400,000 members of the military and roughly a couple of million family members. Yeah, the people of the Irrawaddy Delta are fucked.
We're at a likely 100,000 or more dead, at least a million homeless. Bodies are polluting the rivers, bloated corpses bumping into sewage and debris. If there's an uprising by people who are watching their kids starve to death, the well-fed military will take care of that. Otherwise, it's just kick back in the bunkers of Naypyidaw and wait for those bastards who dared to defy the junta to get their fill of cholera. You can goddamn well bet there's gonna be a paucity of monks in Burma come summer.
Over at the Asia Times, Shawn W. Crispin, no rabid interventionist, makes the case for invading Myanmar. Prodding the United Nations to take action beyond a shaking finger and a strongly worded letter, Crispin says, "In the wake of the cyclone, the criminality of the junta's callous policies has taken on new human proportions in full view of the global community. Without a perceived strong UN-led response to the natural disaster, hard new questions will fast arise about the UN's own relevance and ability to manage global calamities."
However, the UN has "limited powers of projection," and Crispin states that the United State would need to lead any armed intervention into Myanmar against the paranoid savages that run the country. And he gives a reacharound to the Bush administration, saying, basically, "You wanna raise the American standing in the world? Kicking the shit out of the junta in Yangon in the name of saving the people would go a long way to rebuilding the broken dam of American foreign policy." What, he asks, as well he should, is the price of doing nothing?
Indeed, if it is possible, this might be a modified use of the shock doctrine to do good - get aid to a population that is being murdered by its own government and getting rid of a thuggish, repressive government in the wake of a massive disaster. Fuckers are already so nutzoid panicked over possible outsider invasion that the leaders are in hiding. Now, we could say, let's make their worst nightmares come true to prevent genocide. (Update: Anne Applebaum at Slate also makes the case for intervention.)
Except...we can't. "We" being the United States. In the wake of Iraq, we have so lost all moral authority that, even in a situation where the murky rivers of fluid morality clarify, we cannot plausibly say that we have the interests of the people of Myanmar at stake (even if one possible outcome is a Myanmar that might open to U.S. interests). Because we used it all up on the Iraq war, all the chits we had. America can no longer make predictions about what might happen after an invasion because we fucked it all up so very badly by even invading Iraq in the first place. We don't know if it'd be a Bosnia or a Somalia. Bush invaded out of trumped-up fear and weakness. Now, when we're at a situation that's potentially an inexorable Sudan-like death march, we are simply floating bereft on that river of morality, hoping someday we can dock.
Also, George Bush has so degraded this nation that we no longer have any leverage with China and Russia, who have gotten the backs of the junta at least in the U.N. and whose approval would be needed for any U.N. effort. In other words, if we piss it off, China fuckin' owns us. And Russia doesn't give a shit about relations with us except in how it can exert more and more power inverse to our degradation. (That's a vast oversimplification of shit, yes, but it's close enough.)
To bottom line it: we can't be trusted. And no one's got our back.
And thank fuckin' god for the China earthquake so we can move on to talking about another country's dead.
How often do we have to stand by and abide madness? In Bush's America, we have reached the point where we have no choice but to smile and wave as parts of the world claw themselves to pieces.
Update: Several people have written to the Rude Pundit with a pithy line like, "Under your logic, someone could have invaded the United States after Katrina." To them, the Rude Pundit would say, "Look at the fuckin' first sentence up there." This is about a potential genocide. The post-Katrina disaster was a horrible clusterfuck of incompetence and neglect, covered in a secret sauce of willful evil. As awful as that was (and is), we're on a different scale here of death and misery, with a government that can't even be shamed by its own people into pretending it's acting.
What's occurring right now in Myanmar, post-cyclone, is nothing short of the slow-creep beginning of a genocide. When a nation's leaders willfully keep aid provided by humanitarian and relief agencies, governmental and non-governmental, from the desperate, starving, dying people who need it, then that nation's leaders want large numbers of people to die.
Right now, in addition to the complete fucking abomination that is the junta's refusal to allow the wave of aid workers needed for the devastated nation, there are credible allegations that the regime is hoarding high quality food from relief shipments for itself and the military while giving the citizens poor quality or spoiled food. 'Cause, you see, if you run a country with the military, then you better fuckin' feed the military first, or revolution is gonna happen. That's 400,000 members of the military and roughly a couple of million family members. Yeah, the people of the Irrawaddy Delta are fucked.
We're at a likely 100,000 or more dead, at least a million homeless. Bodies are polluting the rivers, bloated corpses bumping into sewage and debris. If there's an uprising by people who are watching their kids starve to death, the well-fed military will take care of that. Otherwise, it's just kick back in the bunkers of Naypyidaw and wait for those bastards who dared to defy the junta to get their fill of cholera. You can goddamn well bet there's gonna be a paucity of monks in Burma come summer.
Over at the Asia Times, Shawn W. Crispin, no rabid interventionist, makes the case for invading Myanmar. Prodding the United Nations to take action beyond a shaking finger and a strongly worded letter, Crispin says, "In the wake of the cyclone, the criminality of the junta's callous policies has taken on new human proportions in full view of the global community. Without a perceived strong UN-led response to the natural disaster, hard new questions will fast arise about the UN's own relevance and ability to manage global calamities."
However, the UN has "limited powers of projection," and Crispin states that the United State would need to lead any armed intervention into Myanmar against the paranoid savages that run the country. And he gives a reacharound to the Bush administration, saying, basically, "You wanna raise the American standing in the world? Kicking the shit out of the junta in Yangon in the name of saving the people would go a long way to rebuilding the broken dam of American foreign policy." What, he asks, as well he should, is the price of doing nothing?
Indeed, if it is possible, this might be a modified use of the shock doctrine to do good - get aid to a population that is being murdered by its own government and getting rid of a thuggish, repressive government in the wake of a massive disaster. Fuckers are already so nutzoid panicked over possible outsider invasion that the leaders are in hiding. Now, we could say, let's make their worst nightmares come true to prevent genocide. (Update: Anne Applebaum at Slate also makes the case for intervention.)
Except...we can't. "We" being the United States. In the wake of Iraq, we have so lost all moral authority that, even in a situation where the murky rivers of fluid morality clarify, we cannot plausibly say that we have the interests of the people of Myanmar at stake (even if one possible outcome is a Myanmar that might open to U.S. interests). Because we used it all up on the Iraq war, all the chits we had. America can no longer make predictions about what might happen after an invasion because we fucked it all up so very badly by even invading Iraq in the first place. We don't know if it'd be a Bosnia or a Somalia. Bush invaded out of trumped-up fear and weakness. Now, when we're at a situation that's potentially an inexorable Sudan-like death march, we are simply floating bereft on that river of morality, hoping someday we can dock.
Also, George Bush has so degraded this nation that we no longer have any leverage with China and Russia, who have gotten the backs of the junta at least in the U.N. and whose approval would be needed for any U.N. effort. In other words, if we piss it off, China fuckin' owns us. And Russia doesn't give a shit about relations with us except in how it can exert more and more power inverse to our degradation. (That's a vast oversimplification of shit, yes, but it's close enough.)
To bottom line it: we can't be trusted. And no one's got our back.
And thank fuckin' god for the China earthquake so we can move on to talking about another country's dead.
How often do we have to stand by and abide madness? In Bush's America, we have reached the point where we have no choice but to smile and wave as parts of the world claw themselves to pieces.
Update: Several people have written to the Rude Pundit with a pithy line like, "Under your logic, someone could have invaded the United States after Katrina." To them, the Rude Pundit would say, "Look at the fuckin' first sentence up there." This is about a potential genocide. The post-Katrina disaster was a horrible clusterfuck of incompetence and neglect, covered in a secret sauce of willful evil. As awful as that was (and is), we're on a different scale here of death and misery, with a government that can't even be shamed by its own people into pretending it's acting.
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Freebase Fondant While Downing a Bottle of Moet and Chandon:
In as much as these things have meaning, the altar for Jenna Bush and Henry Hager's wedding looks an awful lot like a grave. Laura, as ever, looks like the Xanax and scotch have kicked in.
And sister Barbara is the stoned sorority girl trying hard at the Greeks' nymph fest to look fuckable for the Delt that's dressed as Perseus.
In as much as these things have meaning, the altar for Jenna Bush and Henry Hager's wedding looks an awful lot like a grave. Laura, as ever, looks like the Xanax and scotch have kicked in.
And sister Barbara is the stoned sorority girl trying hard at the Greeks' nymph fest to look fuckable for the Delt that's dressed as Perseus.
Late Post Today (With a Brief Insight Into Possible Outsourcing):
Every once in a while, it's fun to see what Google searches get people to the Rude Pundit. Sometimes, amid the depressing range of kiddie porn people are looking for, you get something that gives a little window on our world.
Hence, this search: how to overcome sounding rude on calls. From Bangalore, India. Once may presume that the googler didn't really get good advice from this blog. Or customer service at AT&T may start sounding a little more piquant.
More soon.
Every once in a while, it's fun to see what Google searches get people to the Rude Pundit. Sometimes, amid the depressing range of kiddie porn people are looking for, you get something that gives a little window on our world.
Hence, this search: how to overcome sounding rude on calls. From Bangalore, India. Once may presume that the googler didn't really get good advice from this blog. Or customer service at AT&T may start sounding a little more piquant.
More soon.
In Brief: Hugh Hewitt to Barack Obama: You Better Shut Your Bitch Up:
Hugh Hewitt, the radio host and writer, and a man who looks like he's got a reservation at the Hostel to slice up Asian chicks with a razor and jack off on the wounds, in his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "an illogical series of brainless beliefs constantly repeated in a different order, a Phillip Glass symphony of fucktardery, if you will"), asserts that Barack Obama's real problem winning the general election won't be Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Oh, no.
He extensively quotes a speech by Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, that she gave last Friday in North Carolina, prefacing it with: "This is not a speech from the mainstream of American politics. It is a radical critique of the country." And then he offers as evidence of this "radical critique" such Che Guevara-like quotes as:
"[F]olks are struggling like never before, working harder than ever, believing that their hard work will lead to some reward, some payoff. But what they find is that they get there and the bar has changed, things are different, wasn’t enough. So you have to work even harder."
And: "Let me tell you, single parents love their kids, too. But it is almost impossible to raise a family of any size on a single salary. So now you’ve got single parents who have to double and triple shift, taking on two, three jobs, working all the time, and feeling like they’re failing because that bar is moving, because how on Earth are you going to work as hard as you need to to pay the bills and be at parent/teacher conferences, and sit down and do homework when a kid has trouble?"
Yes, because Michelle Obama speaks about working class people, who, yes, are most often poor people, and speaks about them as if they actually contemplate their struggles and says that her husband might just be able to show that the nation gives a shit about them, she is "radical."
Hewitt conveniently posts on his blog the entire speech, which features such Emma Goldman-worthy bomb tosses like, "[T]he beauty of this country is that most Americans are like my father. That’s what traveling around this year has taught me, and I wish every American could do it, going into somebody else’s neighborhood, sit down in somebody else’s kitchen, share your stories and your fears, and cry a little bit, and you realize that we do share the same values. We are hoping for the same things."
That line didn't make the cut into Hewitt's column. If Michelle Obama's desire for people to be treated fairly and equally is what passes for "radical" these days, then our political discourse has shifted so far rightward that it must be "moderate" to believe that the poor shouldn't be rounded up and forced into prison camps to be raped repeatedly and made to pick the crops.
Hugh Hewitt, the radio host and writer, and a man who looks like he's got a reservation at the Hostel to slice up Asian chicks with a razor and jack off on the wounds, in his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "an illogical series of brainless beliefs constantly repeated in a different order, a Phillip Glass symphony of fucktardery, if you will"), asserts that Barack Obama's real problem winning the general election won't be Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Oh, no.
He extensively quotes a speech by Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, that she gave last Friday in North Carolina, prefacing it with: "This is not a speech from the mainstream of American politics. It is a radical critique of the country." And then he offers as evidence of this "radical critique" such Che Guevara-like quotes as:
"[F]olks are struggling like never before, working harder than ever, believing that their hard work will lead to some reward, some payoff. But what they find is that they get there and the bar has changed, things are different, wasn’t enough. So you have to work even harder."
And: "Let me tell you, single parents love their kids, too. But it is almost impossible to raise a family of any size on a single salary. So now you’ve got single parents who have to double and triple shift, taking on two, three jobs, working all the time, and feeling like they’re failing because that bar is moving, because how on Earth are you going to work as hard as you need to to pay the bills and be at parent/teacher conferences, and sit down and do homework when a kid has trouble?"
Yes, because Michelle Obama speaks about working class people, who, yes, are most often poor people, and speaks about them as if they actually contemplate their struggles and says that her husband might just be able to show that the nation gives a shit about them, she is "radical."
Hewitt conveniently posts on his blog the entire speech, which features such Emma Goldman-worthy bomb tosses like, "[T]he beauty of this country is that most Americans are like my father. That’s what traveling around this year has taught me, and I wish every American could do it, going into somebody else’s neighborhood, sit down in somebody else’s kitchen, share your stories and your fears, and cry a little bit, and you realize that we do share the same values. We are hoping for the same things."
That line didn't make the cut into Hewitt's column. If Michelle Obama's desire for people to be treated fairly and equally is what passes for "radical" these days, then our political discourse has shifted so far rightward that it must be "moderate" to believe that the poor shouldn't be rounded up and forced into prison camps to be raped repeatedly and made to pick the crops.
John McCain: Child Porn and Sex Slavery Are Bad:
In a speech yesterday, John McCain took brave stands on two issues. Using more rhetorical flourishes than a mincing dandy in the court of Louis XIV, McCain courageously announced that he is opposed to child pornography and human sex trafficking. It was a bold move, to say that kiddie fuck photos and rape victim enslavement are bad things. Next up for McCain: a major policy address where he declares ice cream delicious and "Hey, I love pie, you cunts."
So what was the real purpose behind the speech, since the only people who would disagree with McCain are, you know, child pornographers, sex traffickers, and their customers. Mostly, it was just more coded red meat for the slavering dogs of the evangelical right. In between his pledges that the federal law enforcement agencies in a McCain presidency will go after criminals (which is not unlike saying that book sellers will sell books, goddamnit), McCain dropped a few culture war bombs to soothe the raging erections of the dwindling numbers of Christian conservatives.
"There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man's inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree," McCain said, although the Rude Pundit's not sure that any reasonable person has ever used "moral relativism" as a way of giving a pass to someone who kidnaps little boys and records them being fucked by grown men and then sells the images and videos to men who wish to masturbate to drugged, crying children being anally raped. No, no, the Rude Pundit's pretty fuckin' certain no one has ever said, "Aw, shit, that's just the way they do things in Germany."
McCain blamed our culture, though, for making us blind to such things: "There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture." And perhaps after watching "Two Girls, One Cup," one can say, "I've witness the nadir, the omega of human existence," but, still, and all, it's safe to say that the discovery of a Dominican sex slave basement brothel in New Jersey still has the capacity to at least make one remark, "Well, that's not very nice."
McCain let the nutzoid evangelicals know that he's on their side when it comes to makin' sure the message o' Christ's mighty hammer o' love needs to be spread: "There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion. Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens of thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way. No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way." Putting aside the whole "kicking Myanmar while it's underwater" thing, it does seem that religious freedom might be pretty fuckin' low on the list of "shit what we needs" for, like, the millions of people in those countries, whether or not they're allowed to worship their own version of the invisible sky wizard. Let's say, oh, fuck, howzabout food? Or not being murdered in the streets? Or, you know, not fearing being totally obliterated?
Yeah, it's not that kiddie porn and modern slavery aren't awful things that need to be dealt with. It's just that maybe we could spend a little less time on how watching YouTube and Paris Hilton desensitizes the individual American and a little more time on how the government participates in or ignores the degradations. Is John McCain seriously going to tell China, "Hey, motherfuckers, let the people pray" in any way other than with a wink?
And when McCain says, "Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility," maybe he could tell that to a naked guy in his fifth year in solitary at Gitmo.
Important pop culture reference note: If you don't know what "Two Girls, One Cup" is, Google and read about it before you watch it. No, really. This is your only warning.
In a speech yesterday, John McCain took brave stands on two issues. Using more rhetorical flourishes than a mincing dandy in the court of Louis XIV, McCain courageously announced that he is opposed to child pornography and human sex trafficking. It was a bold move, to say that kiddie fuck photos and rape victim enslavement are bad things. Next up for McCain: a major policy address where he declares ice cream delicious and "Hey, I love pie, you cunts."
So what was the real purpose behind the speech, since the only people who would disagree with McCain are, you know, child pornographers, sex traffickers, and their customers. Mostly, it was just more coded red meat for the slavering dogs of the evangelical right. In between his pledges that the federal law enforcement agencies in a McCain presidency will go after criminals (which is not unlike saying that book sellers will sell books, goddamnit), McCain dropped a few culture war bombs to soothe the raging erections of the dwindling numbers of Christian conservatives.
"There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man's inhumanity to man; to ignore the darker side of human nature that encroaches upon our decency by subtle degree," McCain said, although the Rude Pundit's not sure that any reasonable person has ever used "moral relativism" as a way of giving a pass to someone who kidnaps little boys and records them being fucked by grown men and then sells the images and videos to men who wish to masturbate to drugged, crying children being anally raped. No, no, the Rude Pundit's pretty fuckin' certain no one has ever said, "Aw, shit, that's just the way they do things in Germany."
McCain blamed our culture, though, for making us blind to such things: "There is also the threat in a society passionate about its liberty that we can become desensitized to the dehumanizing effect of the obscenity and hostility that pervades much of popular culture." And perhaps after watching "Two Girls, One Cup," one can say, "I've witness the nadir, the omega of human existence," but, still, and all, it's safe to say that the discovery of a Dominican sex slave basement brothel in New Jersey still has the capacity to at least make one remark, "Well, that's not very nice."
McCain let the nutzoid evangelicals know that he's on their side when it comes to makin' sure the message o' Christ's mighty hammer o' love needs to be spread: "There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion. Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens of thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way. No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way." Putting aside the whole "kicking Myanmar while it's underwater" thing, it does seem that religious freedom might be pretty fuckin' low on the list of "shit what we needs" for, like, the millions of people in those countries, whether or not they're allowed to worship their own version of the invisible sky wizard. Let's say, oh, fuck, howzabout food? Or not being murdered in the streets? Or, you know, not fearing being totally obliterated?
Yeah, it's not that kiddie porn and modern slavery aren't awful things that need to be dealt with. It's just that maybe we could spend a little less time on how watching YouTube and Paris Hilton desensitizes the individual American and a little more time on how the government participates in or ignores the degradations. Is John McCain seriously going to tell China, "Hey, motherfuckers, let the people pray" in any way other than with a wink?
And when McCain says, "Accepting the degradation of values we believe are universal is to relinquish some of our own humanity. America was founded on the belief in the inherent dignity of all human life and that this dignity can only be preserved through shared respect and shared responsibility," maybe he could tell that to a naked guy in his fifth year in solitary at Gitmo.
Important pop culture reference note: If you don't know what "Two Girls, One Cup" is, Google and read about it before you watch it. No, really. This is your only warning.
Five Rude Metaphors For Hillary Clinton's Continuing Campaign:
It's over. It's so fucking over that it's beyond over. It's now at that pathetic, put-it-out-of-its-goddamn misery point. If Hillary Clinton takes this nomination battle to the convention, if she goes back on her own pledge not to "participate" in the Michigan and Florida primaries (that's what the pledge she signed said, not to "campaign" or "participate") and tries to steal the delegates, then she will get to dance a mad jig on the ruins of the Democratic Party, probably to some goddamn overplayed classic rock song from the 1970s.
Today, the Rude Pundit's thinking about Hillary Clinton's campaign metaphorically, as in:
1. The guy who's fucking his girlfriend and, even though he came and his dick has gone flaccid, he's gonna keep fucking away with that soft, shrunken cock, trying desperately to make her orgasm as she just gets annoyed, distracted, cold, and sticky.
2. The dog that got hit by the car trying to cross the highway before that semi bearing down on it finishes the job. Much yelping, limping, and internal bleeding would, of course, be part of the scene.
3. The soldier who is surrounded by the enemy, his head filled with cinematic images of Rambo and Chuck Norris and others who have blasted their way out of such situations, when, in reality, he's about to become a colander.
4. The little match girl.
5. The college student hoping that the roaches and buds left in her baggie will be enough for a few decent bong hits before the big World Civ final, when, really, any high she gets will be all in her head.
It's over. It's so fucking over that it's beyond over. It's now at that pathetic, put-it-out-of-its-goddamn misery point. If Hillary Clinton takes this nomination battle to the convention, if she goes back on her own pledge not to "participate" in the Michigan and Florida primaries (that's what the pledge she signed said, not to "campaign" or "participate") and tries to steal the delegates, then she will get to dance a mad jig on the ruins of the Democratic Party, probably to some goddamn overplayed classic rock song from the 1970s.
Today, the Rude Pundit's thinking about Hillary Clinton's campaign metaphorically, as in:
1. The guy who's fucking his girlfriend and, even though he came and his dick has gone flaccid, he's gonna keep fucking away with that soft, shrunken cock, trying desperately to make her orgasm as she just gets annoyed, distracted, cold, and sticky.
2. The dog that got hit by the car trying to cross the highway before that semi bearing down on it finishes the job. Much yelping, limping, and internal bleeding would, of course, be part of the scene.
3. The soldier who is surrounded by the enemy, his head filled with cinematic images of Rambo and Chuck Norris and others who have blasted their way out of such situations, when, in reality, he's about to become a colander.
4. The little match girl.
5. The college student hoping that the roaches and buds left in her baggie will be enough for a few decent bong hits before the big World Civ final, when, really, any high she gets will be all in her head.
True Tales of Indiana: An Attack With a Caveat and a Note on Gas Tax Relief:
As the Hoosier state votes today on the Sherman's March to the Democratic nomination for President, the Rude Pundit figures now's as good a time as any to out himself: he lived in that hideous shithole of a state for over half a decade, and if Barack Obama wins the primary today, it's because someone told the backwards ass rednecks hunched over in the toxic ditches that bisect the poisonous landscape of Indiana that black people would be at the voting booths waiting to shiv any whitey who dared show his inbred face. Don't worry, though. As Hillary Clinton assures us, these racist motherfuckers are the salt of the earth.
Ah, fond memories of living in a town northeast of Indianapolis, of car rides past homes that that flew the Confederate flag on poles on their front lawns (and this was in a medium-sized city, not a small burg), of towns with black populations so disenfranchised and isolated that they are practically invisible, of migrant workers regularly abused by employers when violence wasn't being committed against them by townspeople. And that's not even to get into how flat and gray and ugly most of the state is for most of the year, after harvest and before planting season.
When a large swath of a state is populated by people from the Appalachian region who migrated northward for factory jobs decades ago and then those factory jobs dry the fuck up for the most part, what you are left with is a bunch of resentful crackers looking to play "where's the scapegoat?" Thank Christ that Gary is in the state, because that violent rat's nest gives whites all the ammunition they need for hating blacks all around the state.
You wanna hear stories? Howzabout a black friend harassed by cops while driving through small towns in the state looking for the Rude Pundit's place out in the country? (Hoosier cred: the Rude Pundit lived in an apartment in a barn on a working corn farm. No shit. When the farmer's wife left him for a black guy, he told the Rude Pundit he was going to kill himself.) Howzabout another black friend who was told while singing in front of his all-white band at a bar that he needed to get the hell out of there as soon as the gig was over because some of the guys in the parking lot were "preparing a noose"? And that wasn't a metaphorical noose. He and his band were followed out of town by a couple of cars until they reached the town line.
All that and the headquarters of the KKK, plus Nazis, militias, and anti-immigrant "patriot" groups. There's a lot of white motherfuckers in that state who are sportin' a chubby for some cross-burning.
So there's about a flea fart's chance in a hurricane that Barack Obama can win the Democratic primary. The Rude Pundit's spent time in American places from sea to shinin' goddamn sea, north and south, and he's never been anywhere as openly, proudly ignorant and racist as Indiana. The biggest shame is that the nascent bigotry of many of the whites in the state has been left out of the discussions on who will vote for whom. And if Hillary Clinton wins and if she burns down Denver to win the nomination, there's no fuckin' way that state'll vote for her against shiny war hero and white guy John McCain. If a Democrat wins Indiana in the presidential election, the Republicans are well and truly fucked as a party.
Caveat: Of course, of course, the Rude Pundit knows many, many wonderful, kind, lovely, smart, and wise people white and not-white in Indiana. And he has sat around with many of them, Hoosier and not-Hoosier, to bitch about how fuckin' backwards the state is in regards to race (and, until last year, daylight savings time). A bunch of them have gotten the fuck out of there, too. Also, like a goddamn oasis in a savage desert, the tiny, tiny town of Redkey has one of the best places in the country to see amazing live blues music.
Regarding the gas tax holiday: the Rude Pundit lived in Indiana in 2000, a gubernatorial election year, when gas prices were threatening to break the terrifying $2.00 mark. Governor Frank O'Bannon, up for re-election, used a little-known emergency power to suspend the state gas tax for two months in the summer. It was opportunistic and amazingly timed, just when gas prices had peaked and were about to decline anyways.
Initially, the prices dropped, and, yes, it was a relief, mostly psychological, to pay a buck or two less a fill-up. But, almost imperceptibly at first, the prices started to creep up, as the station owners and the oil companies took advantage of the price elasticity like a well-hung leather stud eventually works his fist into the pliable anus of the twink bent over the corduroy couch. The Attorney General tried to keep monitoring prices, but by the time any action could be taken, the holiday, even after a short extension for maximum political benefit, was over and gas prices in general had taken a dive, so nobody cared.
As the Hoosier state votes today on the Sherman's March to the Democratic nomination for President, the Rude Pundit figures now's as good a time as any to out himself: he lived in that hideous shithole of a state for over half a decade, and if Barack Obama wins the primary today, it's because someone told the backwards ass rednecks hunched over in the toxic ditches that bisect the poisonous landscape of Indiana that black people would be at the voting booths waiting to shiv any whitey who dared show his inbred face. Don't worry, though. As Hillary Clinton assures us, these racist motherfuckers are the salt of the earth.
Ah, fond memories of living in a town northeast of Indianapolis, of car rides past homes that that flew the Confederate flag on poles on their front lawns (and this was in a medium-sized city, not a small burg), of towns with black populations so disenfranchised and isolated that they are practically invisible, of migrant workers regularly abused by employers when violence wasn't being committed against them by townspeople. And that's not even to get into how flat and gray and ugly most of the state is for most of the year, after harvest and before planting season.
When a large swath of a state is populated by people from the Appalachian region who migrated northward for factory jobs decades ago and then those factory jobs dry the fuck up for the most part, what you are left with is a bunch of resentful crackers looking to play "where's the scapegoat?" Thank Christ that Gary is in the state, because that violent rat's nest gives whites all the ammunition they need for hating blacks all around the state.
You wanna hear stories? Howzabout a black friend harassed by cops while driving through small towns in the state looking for the Rude Pundit's place out in the country? (Hoosier cred: the Rude Pundit lived in an apartment in a barn on a working corn farm. No shit. When the farmer's wife left him for a black guy, he told the Rude Pundit he was going to kill himself.) Howzabout another black friend who was told while singing in front of his all-white band at a bar that he needed to get the hell out of there as soon as the gig was over because some of the guys in the parking lot were "preparing a noose"? And that wasn't a metaphorical noose. He and his band were followed out of town by a couple of cars until they reached the town line.
All that and the headquarters of the KKK, plus Nazis, militias, and anti-immigrant "patriot" groups. There's a lot of white motherfuckers in that state who are sportin' a chubby for some cross-burning.
So there's about a flea fart's chance in a hurricane that Barack Obama can win the Democratic primary. The Rude Pundit's spent time in American places from sea to shinin' goddamn sea, north and south, and he's never been anywhere as openly, proudly ignorant and racist as Indiana. The biggest shame is that the nascent bigotry of many of the whites in the state has been left out of the discussions on who will vote for whom. And if Hillary Clinton wins and if she burns down Denver to win the nomination, there's no fuckin' way that state'll vote for her against shiny war hero and white guy John McCain. If a Democrat wins Indiana in the presidential election, the Republicans are well and truly fucked as a party.
Caveat: Of course, of course, the Rude Pundit knows many, many wonderful, kind, lovely, smart, and wise people white and not-white in Indiana. And he has sat around with many of them, Hoosier and not-Hoosier, to bitch about how fuckin' backwards the state is in regards to race (and, until last year, daylight savings time). A bunch of them have gotten the fuck out of there, too. Also, like a goddamn oasis in a savage desert, the tiny, tiny town of Redkey has one of the best places in the country to see amazing live blues music.
Regarding the gas tax holiday: the Rude Pundit lived in Indiana in 2000, a gubernatorial election year, when gas prices were threatening to break the terrifying $2.00 mark. Governor Frank O'Bannon, up for re-election, used a little-known emergency power to suspend the state gas tax for two months in the summer. It was opportunistic and amazingly timed, just when gas prices had peaked and were about to decline anyways.
Initially, the prices dropped, and, yes, it was a relief, mostly psychological, to pay a buck or two less a fill-up. But, almost imperceptibly at first, the prices started to creep up, as the station owners and the oil companies took advantage of the price elasticity like a well-hung leather stud eventually works his fist into the pliable anus of the twink bent over the corduroy couch. The Attorney General tried to keep monitoring prices, but by the time any action could be taken, the holiday, even after a short extension for maximum political benefit, was over and gas prices in general had taken a dive, so nobody cared.
Quotes That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Head Butt James Carville:
"[T]he Hillary of May 2008 is radically different from the Hillary of two months ago, much less the one of last year, or of eight years back. And this one (at least till the nomination is settled) has some traits the right wing can love."
-From Noemie Emery's latest column in The Weekly Standard
And, a little later in the same column:
"She's running a right-wing campaign. She's running the classic Republican race against her opponent, running on toughness and use-of-force issues, the campaign that the elder George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, that the younger George Bush waged in 2000 and then again against John Kerry, and that Ronald Reagan--'The Bear in the Forest'--ran against Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale. And she's doing it with much the same symbols...And better--or worse--she is becoming a social conservative, a feminist form of George Bush."
Moral of the story: What one must lose in order to win is sometimes not worth the price of playing.
"[T]he Hillary of May 2008 is radically different from the Hillary of two months ago, much less the one of last year, or of eight years back. And this one (at least till the nomination is settled) has some traits the right wing can love."
-From Noemie Emery's latest column in The Weekly Standard
And, a little later in the same column:
"She's running a right-wing campaign. She's running the classic Republican race against her opponent, running on toughness and use-of-force issues, the campaign that the elder George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, that the younger George Bush waged in 2000 and then again against John Kerry, and that Ronald Reagan--'The Bear in the Forest'--ran against Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale. And she's doing it with much the same symbols...And better--or worse--she is becoming a social conservative, a feminist form of George Bush."
Moral of the story: What one must lose in order to win is sometimes not worth the price of playing.
Five Years Ago, Bush Was Just Awesome:
A trip down memory lane, offered with little comment, although a bottle of cheap tequila and a few dramamine might be necessary, probably like the President before he took off:
David Gergen on Fox "news" with Greta Van Susteren: "Well, it was a stunning backdrop. I don't -- you know, Greta, I've watched the choreography of presidential events for a long time and participated in a few. I can't remember an event as spectacular, as stunning as this, as impressive as this, since Richard Nixon returned from China 30 years ago."
Newt Gingrich on Fox "news" with Sean Hannity: "Well, somebody reminded me this afternoon of the movie Independence Day, which has a fighter pilot who becomes president of the United States. And in a sense, this afternoon you were reminded that this is a man who has served as a fighter pilot in the Texas National Guard, who has been prepared to fight for his country. Landing on the carrier must have reminded him of his father's career, also, having been, I think, the youngest pilot in the U.S. Navy in the Second World War."
Miles O'Brien on CNN: "Chris Burns, I don't suppose the president was wearing a G-suit. I don't think they're going to run him through his paces too much. But a flight suit, nevertheless. I suspect he's going to have a fun day. This is about as -- it's a good day to be a president, isn't it?"
And O'Brien with Kyra Phillips in deep dialogue:
PHILLIPS: He looks like a fighter pilot.
O'BRIEN: Yes. He's got the look, doesn't he? Yeah. That's ...
PHILLIPS: He sure does. Look at the stroll.
O'BRIEN: I'm telling you, that is the fighter pilot strut if I ever saw it. He's got it going.
PHILLIPS: Tom Cruise look at him.
Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's Hardball: "He's earned this, Chris. As you said. he flew jets in the reserves back in his college years. And so the problem is, when people accuse him of taking too much advantage of it, the mind reels back to what other presidents could have done this? Certainly his predecessor could not have done it. Bill Clinton never served in the military. Probably had a little too much beef on his bones to fit in one of those cockpits. And you just can't imagine him walk out of one of those jets on to that deck. So, the guy has earned it. He did prosecute a war successfully. And it is all show business, that's absolutely true. But you also can tell that this president really in his heart does feel joined with those people serving on that aircraft carrier."
And, in a sample of the kind of dialogue the Rude Pundit is sure goes on in Hell, from that same episode of Hardball, here's Chris Matthews and Ann Coulter wondering which Democrats running for president might have been able to fly in that fighter jet:
MATTHEWS: OK, let me run through the names, Ann. Lieberman -- can you see him in this picture? Ann?
COULTER: What about him?
MATTHEWS: Can you see him getting into an F-18...
COULTER: Oh, no!
MATTHEWS: ... an flying onto an aircraft carrier?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Joe Lieberman, can you see him there?
COULTER: No possibility. I -- I have...
MATTHEWS: Can you see John Edwards doing it?
COULTER: No possibility.
MATTHEWS: Can you see Dick Gephardt doing it?
Finally, for the latent homosexual take on it, Pat Buchanan on MSNBC: "It was one of those acts of symbolism and dash and daring that call to mind, frankly, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan at their best. It was class. It was beautiful...it's neat...It makes you feel young again...Well, America can not help but be thrilled by what you saw today...That's a president with nerve. That's a president with nerve...Upcoming folks, should Scott Peterson get bail tomorrow?"
A trip down memory lane, offered with little comment, although a bottle of cheap tequila and a few dramamine might be necessary, probably like the President before he took off:
David Gergen on Fox "news" with Greta Van Susteren: "Well, it was a stunning backdrop. I don't -- you know, Greta, I've watched the choreography of presidential events for a long time and participated in a few. I can't remember an event as spectacular, as stunning as this, as impressive as this, since Richard Nixon returned from China 30 years ago."
Newt Gingrich on Fox "news" with Sean Hannity: "Well, somebody reminded me this afternoon of the movie Independence Day, which has a fighter pilot who becomes president of the United States. And in a sense, this afternoon you were reminded that this is a man who has served as a fighter pilot in the Texas National Guard, who has been prepared to fight for his country. Landing on the carrier must have reminded him of his father's career, also, having been, I think, the youngest pilot in the U.S. Navy in the Second World War."
Miles O'Brien on CNN: "Chris Burns, I don't suppose the president was wearing a G-suit. I don't think they're going to run him through his paces too much. But a flight suit, nevertheless. I suspect he's going to have a fun day. This is about as -- it's a good day to be a president, isn't it?"
And O'Brien with Kyra Phillips in deep dialogue:
PHILLIPS: He looks like a fighter pilot.
O'BRIEN: Yes. He's got the look, doesn't he? Yeah. That's ...
PHILLIPS: He sure does. Look at the stroll.
O'BRIEN: I'm telling you, that is the fighter pilot strut if I ever saw it. He's got it going.
PHILLIPS: Tom Cruise look at him.
Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's Hardball: "He's earned this, Chris. As you said. he flew jets in the reserves back in his college years. And so the problem is, when people accuse him of taking too much advantage of it, the mind reels back to what other presidents could have done this? Certainly his predecessor could not have done it. Bill Clinton never served in the military. Probably had a little too much beef on his bones to fit in one of those cockpits. And you just can't imagine him walk out of one of those jets on to that deck. So, the guy has earned it. He did prosecute a war successfully. And it is all show business, that's absolutely true. But you also can tell that this president really in his heart does feel joined with those people serving on that aircraft carrier."
And, in a sample of the kind of dialogue the Rude Pundit is sure goes on in Hell, from that same episode of Hardball, here's Chris Matthews and Ann Coulter wondering which Democrats running for president might have been able to fly in that fighter jet:
MATTHEWS: OK, let me run through the names, Ann. Lieberman -- can you see him in this picture? Ann?
COULTER: What about him?
MATTHEWS: Can you see him getting into an F-18...
COULTER: Oh, no!
MATTHEWS: ... an flying onto an aircraft carrier?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Joe Lieberman, can you see him there?
COULTER: No possibility. I -- I have...
MATTHEWS: Can you see John Edwards doing it?
COULTER: No possibility.
MATTHEWS: Can you see Dick Gephardt doing it?
Finally, for the latent homosexual take on it, Pat Buchanan on MSNBC: "It was one of those acts of symbolism and dash and daring that call to mind, frankly, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan at their best. It was class. It was beautiful...it's neat...It makes you feel young again...Well, America can not help but be thrilled by what you saw today...That's a president with nerve. That's a president with nerve...Upcoming folks, should Scott Peterson get bail tomorrow?"
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