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August 30, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Beauty and the Beast, GOP-Style Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:36 pm

Or, A McMania Named Desire

“Wonder if he’s going to have her go compete in the ‘Miss Buffalo Chip’ contest?”
– Comment by jfredmuggs at Common Dreams, Aug. 29, 2008.

It was highly entertaining to watch the Pundit Crews on cable news work themselves into a case of the vapors Friday morning, frantically trying to figure out which human sacrifice McCainiac would condemn as his Veep. Some of the Big Media Brains went agog for Tim Pawlenty; others assured the viewers Mitt Romney would probably emerge as The Choice, even while admitting that the hulking shadow of Tom Ridge continued to lurk in the wings. By later in the AM, Pawlenty and Romney were pushed overboard, leaving Ridge or – could it be? — the ‘maverick’ pick of McCain toady Joe Lieberman, still standing.

Yep, even Your Intrepid Tattler thought it would likely be Ridge carrying Johnny Mac’s coat, but that was because, like the Punditocracy, I gave credit to the Old Gluehorse for a residue of sanity, not recognizing McCain is no longer functioning in that psychological state – he’s been driven stone crazy by his own blind ambition to be president, and perhaps a touch of incipient senility. (After all, this is a man who has publicly contradicted himself twice in one day, embraces those who viciously slander him, occasionally goes blank on simple questions, and now opposes most everything he stood for in 2000.)

Seen in that light, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin makes perfect sense. You can imagine the sludgy gears of cynicism turning in McDuffer’s head, or, more likely, one of his Rove-trained staff: “We aren’t exciting the GOP base or doing that well among independents, and that damned Obama just cleaned our clock last night in a speech where he looked like the second coming of JFK – we’ve got to dominate the next news cycle so the Talking Heads don’t have time to praise him, and pick off those millions of Hillary voters we’re convinced will vote for us. What to do, what to do? Hey, how about that gal from Alaska? She’s a good-looker — might sucker in the young studs — and women are so dumb they’ll vote for any female over a young black guy and an old white fart – uh, you know what I mean – any day of the week. Ha, ha, we’ll call her a ‘feminist’ just to confuse ‘em! Plus she’s got that whole conservative family values stuff going on – Jesus, FIVE kids and she’s only 44! — so that can’t hurt. She’s tight with Big Oil, too, another plus, and she’ll do what she’s told, just like Alberto and Harriet. Get that Sarah what’s-her-name up in Alaska on the horn!”

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August 29, 2008

The Tattlesnake – If Obama Keeps This Up, It’s All Over But the Shouting Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 10:00 am

Dem Convention Closer Fulfills Part of King’s Dream of 45 Years Ago

“Our government should work for us, not against us.” […]
“If John McCain wants have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
– Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium, Aug. 28, 2008.

Regardless of the Usual Big Media Wretches sniffing around for some kind of disunity story, both Bill and Hillary Clinton graciously and unreservedly endorsed Barack Obama with resounding speeches, bringing the Denver convention to its feet. Others like John Kerry, Bill Richardson and Iraq War vet Rep. Patrick Murphy also gave good speeches, but you’d have to watch C-Span to catch them in their entirety since MSNBC and, especially, CNN, preferred to air the rumblings of their own teams of feeble prognosticators and analysts to the words from the podium.

But all of that was the set-up to Thursday night, when Obama appeared before an audience of over 70,000 at Invesco Stadium to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president. The heat was on, and some in the Eternally Damned Pundit Class predicted Obama would blow it with a high-minded ‘professorial’ diatribe that condescended to the average voter as it bored them silly. They were wrong.

Obama laid into a stem-winder, jazzing up the crowd as he proved he’s going to fight McCain by returning fire on some of the Republican’s recent attacks and leaving Cap’n McCain’s Swift Boat dead in the water. Celebrity status? Damn right – the jealous GOP would kill for that kind of popularity. Grecian columns? You’ve got to be kidding. A Nuremberg rally redux hallucination? Peggy Noonan needs to lay off the sauce. Squirrel-bait Jerry Corsi’s crackpot work of fiction? Get a net.

All of the rightie tripe and snipe faded back to the dark pit from whence it came as Obama spelled out point-by-point where he was going to take the country, refuted every McCain negative ad, and then went after Sen. Maverick’s flip-flopping hide. In the clutch, Obama brought his A-game and rolled over the opposition like a Straight-Talk cement mixer.

(Incidentally, in all fairness to John McCain, he did air an ad yesterday cordially congratulating Obama on his historic nomination, although his campaign also attacked Obama on the same day, even after McCain said in his congratulatory ad, “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it, but tonight, senator, job well done.” What is it with this guy?)

Barring any unforeseen and unlikely total meltdown, we just heard the next president of the United States speaking at Invesco Stadium last night.

How can I say that with two months to go until the election? Let’s look at some factoids mixed with obvious observations:

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August 27, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Small Wagers of Sin Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:04 pm

I’d bet that …

… At least once during the GOP convention, and likely more often than that, the theme from Rocky will be played to bring a speaker on stage, probably Scooter Libby or Alberto Gonzales.

… Also during the Republican convention, some Big Media dunce – I’m looking at you, Charlie Gibson – will ask Joe Lieberman for a ‘Democrat’s perspective on the GOP convention.’

… Even if Obama delivers the equivalent of the Gettysburg Address on Thursday at Invesco Field, the Punditocracy will determine it wasn’t enough to unify the Democratic Party.

… No one in the Official Washington Press Gaggle will raise an eyebrow over McCain sending his wife Cindy to Georgia to inspect the human suffering there. (Of course, if Obama tried this, there would be a locust-like screeching that it smacks of outrageous presumption.)

… By the end of the week, Michelle Obama’s speech Monday at the Dem convention will be adjudged by the Solons of Pundit Planet as a failure, since it fell short of convincing every Democratic and Independent woman in the Known Universe to vote for Obama.

… Keith Olbermann will finally throttle the life out of MSNBC convention co-host Chris Matthews for the good of his audience and the country, right in the middle of the Hardball host’s braying spittle-flecked recollection of his imaginary tough- teen years on the mean streets of Philadelphia. A jury of his peers will not only acquit KO, but also award him a medal for service in the public interest beyond the call of duty.

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August 24, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Toss It in the Potpourri and Heat with Steam Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:47 pm

Prediction: The next big McCain exploding-cigar-of-elitism flap: We now know the Jes’-Plain-Folks McCain’s spent $273,000 last year alone on household employees — what used to be called, in a less euphemistic age, ‘servants’ – but what isn’t mentioned is the hot-n-heavy rumor that they hired some, uh oh, undocumented workers amongst the various butlers, maids and nannies and, double uh oh, didn’t pay SS or taxes on the illegal imports. (Those without their papers have likely been canned and shipped back by now.) Gee, Senator, what’s your position on immigration again?

Quotable Corner:

“That’s right. The McCains pay $270,000 per year for butlers and maids–that’s $50,000 more than the median value of an American home.”
– Nitpicker, Aug. 21, 2008.

“If you had made last year as much money as John McCain spent on household help alone $273,000 — you’d be richer than 95% of American families.”
– Mark Kleiman

“When John Edwards was running for president, and the media were obsessing about his wealth, they linked his fortune to his policy positions. Surely John McCain — who can’t remember how many houses he owns, ‘jokes’ that you aren’t rich unless you make $5 million a year, and supports tax policies that would save him and his wife, Cindy, nearly $400,000 a year — should be held to the same standard?”
– Jamison Foser, Media Matters, Aug. 22, 2008.

And don’t forget to read the ‘Priceless’ McCain ad by davefromqueens on The Daily Kos.

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August 22, 2008

The Tattlesnake – McCain’s Latest Shameful Four-Play Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:44 am

Double-Deuces This Month — And August Isn’t Over Yet…

1. McCain’s Threadbare Surge Suit, Part Deux: The most recent misinformational sludge oozing its way through the Big Media pipeline is John McCain’s continued insistence that Bush’s build-up of US troops in Baghdad, AKA ‘The Surge,’ worked to quell most of the violence over there. This is more bizarre McCain piffle that any decent journalist could demolish in a few hours of research on the Inner-tubes. The increase in US troop strength focused on Baghdad, not the al-Anbar province and the rest of Iraq. For most of the country, and in neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital city itself, it was millions of dollars in baksheesh bribery to Iraqi warlords, courtesy of the flat-broke American taxpayer, and a tacit agreement among the warring Iraqi factions to keep a low profile for a while, to perhaps lull the Americans into finally leaving, that has resulted in a lessening in violence, much more so than any enhanced US military presence. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, estimated to be 50 to 100,000 strong, are temporarily dormant, and the tribes of Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province, formerly our most dedicated enemies, have taken US bribes to pursue Al-Qaeda, whom they hate a tad more than the American military. Both factions, however, will not be quelled indefinitely. Now, even the marionettes in the al-Maliki government are asking us to get out within 16 months, per Obama’s withdrawal plan. Since the Iraqis follow the election news in the US very closely and clearly favor an Obama victory in November, here’s an October Surprise for the Republicans – if it appears a month before the election that McCain is likely to win, look for an upsurge in violence in Iraq on such a scale as to make McCain’s fevered “The surge is working!” chant as repugnant and risible as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.

2. This is Leadership? There was McCain all over the airwaves last week, delivering a speech per day on the Russia-Georgia dust-up that Putin ungraciously ended with a truce, denying wannabe CinC John-Boy the ability to play the “Russians are coming!” panic card he so obviously salivated over like Flounder in Animal House: “Oh, boy, is this great!” Naturally our leash-trained Punditrocracy and their fellow carnival performers in the BM barked on command to spotlight McCain’s fear-inducing drivel, most of which sounded like it was lifted straight out of some Red Scare pamphlet from the McCarthy Era. For days, I heard all about McCain’s ‘leadership’ for informing us the Russian Bear was back with teeth and claws; of his daily intimate phone chats with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili; and about how totally awesome it was that he dispatched Tweedle-Dum Joe Lieberman and Tweedle-Dumber Lindsey Graham to illegally conduct US foreign policy overseas without portfolio. Had the vacationing Obama done any of this, he would, of course, have been grimly called to account by the BM for being too presumptuous – the nerve of the guy, pretending to be president when he hasn’t been elected — particularly if he’d attempted, as the arrogant McCain did, to speak for the American people. But one question left unasked in the midst of media praise for the GOP Golden Child — a seasoned military leader who’s never commanded anything that didn’t end in disaster, and a master at foreign affairs who advocated the idiotic Iraq invasion and has supported nearly every Bush catastrophe since – was this: What did all of McCain’s speechifying and posing and dispatching of minions actually accomplish? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between zip and zilch. If this is an example of his ‘leadership’ in a crisis, it may be time for the nation to collectively take the gas pipe, should McCain wheedle his way into the presidency.

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August 19, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Corsi for Dummies Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:25 pm

Was ‘The Obama Nation’ Author Convicted of Distributing Child Pornography in 2003?

Jerome R. Corsi is the author of “The Obama Nation,” [1] a book that includes what influential columnist Joseph A. Palermo has dubbed an “excrementitious narrative” [2] packed with lies [3] and achieved The New York Times’ bestseller list by suspicious means [4]. Corsi also co-authored, with John E. O’Neill, the equally excremental “Unfit For Command” [5] in 2004, which helped sink decorated Vietnam war hero John Kerry’s bid for the presidency.

Now a reputable news source [6] has reported that Corsi was convicted of peddling child pornography in 2003. “In early 2003, authorities indicate, Corsi was indicted for the distribution of child pornography. …Corsi was handed a lenient sentence that included no prison time.” [7] This is not difficult to believe since those on the Republican right, such as former Congressman Mark Foley, have a consistent inclination towards this sort of vile pornography and the despicable use of underage children for sexual satisfaction [8] and typically receive lenient sentences from Republican judges. [9] It’s undeniable that Corsi has a deviant obsession with, as he puts it, “buggering boys” [10a] and “boy bumpers,” [10b] as evidenced in his past statements.

Is Corsi a Racist?

Corsi has demonstrated his strong affiliation to racist white supremacists, both in the past and recently. [11] It is not hard to imagine that someone of this mindset would agree wholeheartedly with these words of David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, “Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.” [12] The idea of a black man as president no doubt has Corsi crawling the walls. [13]

What we are left with is a clear picture of Jerome R. Corsi as a perverted white racist peddler of lies and child porn who would be welcomed by NAMBLA. [14] This is a man, plainly, who is not to be trusted. [15]

(Please make sure you read the footnotes and my final paragraph below the fold.)

Footnotes:

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August 15, 2008

The Tattlesnake — Wolf Woman On the Prowl and Other Howlers Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:33 pm

Is There a Full Moon?

– Hawaii Jive-O: Cokie “Larry Talbot” Roberts just can’t get over Barack Obama going on vacation in a – gasp! – “foreign, exotic” locale like Hawaii, where he was born and raised, and where his grandmother still lives. It just “doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” she blathered dementedly on ABC’s This Week last Sunday, even though she reluctantly admitted that she knows “Hawaii is a state” and all, but it seems in Cokie’s World it’s not a real blood-and-guts American state like, say, one-time secessionist Louisiana, her birthplace. (It’s a uniquely dumb angle of attack on Obama, especially considering that the audience for Cokie’s Sunday morning entrail-readings on ABC generally have intact frontal lobes and go on vacation there themselves, and a flip-off even the rest of the Punditocracy apparently thinks is too goofy to echo.)**

Then the very next day on NPR’s Morning Edition, the radio network’s Senior News Analyst “Two Hits” Cokie — part of the Steve and Edie Roberts power couple who no doubt vacation in the blue-collar Indiana Dunes when not busy traversing gossipy Washington cocktail parties, primping for TV appearances, and regurgitating David Broder’s latest conventional wisdom — reiterated her batty babblings regarding the “exotic” and “odd” vacation spot of Hawaii, but omitted her ABC suggestion that Obama instead go to mundane Myrtle Beach, SC, for his down time. Gee, if he had, I wonder what she’d be carping about then? “It’s incredible to me that Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and still has his 85-year-old white grandmother living there, would take this opportunity to politicize even his vacation by going to Myrtle Beach – why, he has no family or connections to that area! Is he ashamed of his white grandmother, afraid it might put off some black voters by reminding them of his mixed racial heritage? He should have visited her in Hawaii – I mean, it is a US state, after all!” And that’s the way the sausage is made these days by our ‘Obama-friendly’ Big Media, folks.

**(Correction: <Today’s New York Times features an article by Michael Falcone that repeats Cokie’s nonsense.)

– They Like Me; They Really Like Me! Check the people surrounding McCain at a real public event, as opposed to those green-screen Berlin beer hall meetings with the obvious party-hack GOPbots cheering as one at his Talking Points and giggling at his lame jokes. I saw a clip just the other day on MSNBC from a factory in Ohio, and the ‘average workers’ standing behind McNasty all looked like they just ate wallpaper paste. The moneybags Republican factory owner, drooling over paying no taxes under the GOP, no doubt ordered his wage slave proles to provide PR window-dressing for Johnny Mac’s eruptions, but they just couldn’t force themselves drag a smile along. ($100 bucks to gas up the beast and losing your home will do that to you.) Reminded me of the facial expressions of real combat troops in Iraq when the loathed Rummy came calling – “You can order me here to greet him, but I don’t have to look like I enjoy it.”

– Unprecedented: Speaking of the military, Jack Cafferty reported on CNN on Aug. 15th that, for the first time in many years, the military is donating more money to the candidate without military experience than the veteran. Obama’s campaign is apparently racking up the bucks from our people in uniform, nearly twice as much as the Republican ‘War Hero.’ Perhaps they’ve realized that the screwy GOP doesn’t know how to fight a war or take care of the troops.

– What does it say about McCain’s integrity that he’s willing to take money from this slick pile of money-humpin’ Christopublican offal? Read on:

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August 13, 2008

The Tattlesnake – ‘Underdog’ McCain’s Rocky Road Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:44 pm

Does the Superficial Stupidity Never Cease? CNN reported Aug. 12th that at a McCain rally in Pennsylvania recently, his campaign played the theme from ‘Rocky’ to announce his entrance. Oh, boy. Yep, we know the not-so-subtle subtext: Long-shot working-class white guy crawls into the ring against a snooty, pampered black champ for the Heavyweight title. Has anyone in McCain’s zoo actually seen this film? In the first ‘Rocky,’ the black champ ends up winning the fight after the white guy takes a bloody beating.

Incidentally, where are the Big Media fulminations over the presumptuousness of McCain speaking for “every American” regarding the Russia-Georgia conflict? If that isn’t presumptuous, I don’t know what is.

Praying For Reign: You may have read that James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is trying to stir up a mass prayer asking the Lawd to provide a deluge of rain to drown out Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver, August 28th. Nice folks these far-right Christians.

Aside from the fact that Dobson so far does not support McCain, and has said he could never bring himself to vote for him, what if the weather in Colorado’s largest city is nice that day? Will the wingnut Family Focusers admit that the Almighty isn’t listening to them and prefers Obama for president? Furthermore, will they stop invoking God’s name for the crass political purposes of influencing an election and go pound sand? (Update: The video advocating that Obama’s speech be rained out has been removed from the FF website and the perpetrator is now claiming it was all just a joke.)

August 11, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Double-Take On the News Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:38 pm

You Could Get Whiplash

“Somewhere between the stained blue dress and the vice president shooting a guy in the face, between swift boat lies and ‘war on terra’ alibis, the absurd became the ordinary, facts became optional and satire became superfluous.”
– Leonard Pitts Jr., “When Hysteria and Satire Meet,” The Miami Herald, July 17, 2008.

McCain the Antichrist?Huhhhh? I’m not a big fan of Johnny MacFlipFlop, but the Antichrist in the flesh? Whoa! I smell Rove: This is perhaps the only way the GOP will get far-right Christians to vote for McNasty – by convincing fringe Christopublicans his election will hasten the End Times and bring on the Rapture. Oh, brother. Or maybe Obama is the Antichrist, as Time Magazine postulates the McCain camp is trying to depict him, and the Fundies will vote for BHO to bring about Armageddon. Or maybe they’ll vote against the Antichrist, depending on which one it really is – if you’re a wingnut who believes in a Republican Country Club Jay-zus backed by his Invisible Omnipotent Dad, you certainly have a lot of figurin’ to do this election – and these are Godly folk who taint fond o’ that thinkin’ stuff much. What to do, what to do…who’s got the snakes this week?

– The Big Media Fatuous Fathead of the Week Award: It’s a squeaker, but the prize goes to Amy Chozick of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for devoting over a thousand words to speculating whether Obama is ‘too thin and fit’ to be president. (more…)

July 31, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Cup ‘O Joe Info, LIV Knocks, McCain Blown By Cox and More Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:02 am

Coffee Politics, For What It’s Worth: Carl’s sister works in a Starbuck’s located near an Obama campaign office and a McCain campaign office. Every weekday morning for many months the Dems and Republicos have crowded the shop for their AM caffeine buzz and the occasional regulatory muffin. Over time, she’s gotten to know who works where and the McCainiacs are definitely in defeat mode – depressed, surly, downcast — “Limit the damage” is a phrase she hears often from the Republican camp. Meanwhile, the sunny Obamanians are upbeat, funny, and wish the election were being held tomorrow. Not surprisingly, the Dems have more women and minorities working in the office; the Republicans tend to be older white men, just like their candidate. The McCainers are also less likely to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when ordering than the Dems. If worker attitude is any gauge, Obama will win in a landslide. BTW, in case you wondered: The Republicans order lattes twice as often as the Democrats. Latte-drinking Republicans? Another GOP smear bites the dust.

– ‘Low information voters’ is the latest knobby Big Media euphemism for identifying the slack-jawed morons out there. Last month it was the ludicrous ‘lunch pail workers’ who haven’t existed for thirty years. What’s next – ‘Paleo-Americans’?

– Dumbest, But Most Truthful, Quote From a Member of the BM on McCain’s Bus: “Covering McCain is a blast. He genuinely likes reporters: He’ll joke with us about our drinking habits, playfully request our cell phones in the middle of a call and tell some unsuspecting editor or parent that the phone’s owner has just been hauled off to rehab, and engage in gleefully sarcastic banter about both our colleagues and his. The campaign’s atmosphere of hectic improvisation—its freewheeling ‘what-the-fuck-ness’—is entirely absent from the more disciplined outfits he’s run against.”
– Ana Marie Cox, “Running Wild,” Radar Magazine, July/August 2008.

Oh, wonderful, another aging frat boy who wants to be president – “Hey, your kid’s just been carted off to rehab, Mom! Haw, haw, haw!” Yeah, what a scream. Cox – ahem — used to be funny when she babbled on at Wonkette; now she’s just trivial and annoying but, then, she’s working for Time Mag these days, so she’s in appropriate company. If you want to know a good lube for an anal probe, Ana Marie’s your go-to gal – come to think of it, that’s really the role she plays covering McCain’s campaign – keeping the dildo greased for her ‘lovable’ old coot’s victims – AKA the American public.

– I’m copping this from Media Matters just because I think it’s funny, well-written, and puts the subtle yet creepy corporate media bias toward John “Flipper” McCain into proper perspective. It was written and posted to Eric Alterman’s Altercation by Robert Hawks of Carpentersville, Illinois:

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July 26, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Obama Globetrotting Triggers McCain Jealousy Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 9:28 am

Jealousy Thy Name is McCain: The GOP and the Punditrocracy are livid over Obama turning his world tour, which was supposed to expose his bumbling inexperience as he committed an endless string of gaffes, into a victory jaunt, the images sent back to America showing a confident and relaxed Obama at home and presidential on the world stage. As anyone who has studied Ronald Reagan’s campaigns knows, the successful image is often more important than what was said in the speeches, especially to those with the TV sound muted or who only catch a part of the news, as so many Americans do. Obama, I think intentionally, wanted to show himself as ‘The President,’ getting white America comfortable with the idea of a black man as their leader, and in that he has succeeded beyond expectations. Another aspect is the palpable tinge of jealously displayed by the McCainiacs – they well know that their withered and dull candidate couldn’t attract an adoring crowd of that size overseas and it preys on them to no end. The McCain campaign was out-played and outclassed on this one, as Globetrotter Obama vanquished the amateurish McCain team in their home court.

A Campaign Metaphor? Barack Obama goes to Berlin, Germany, and is greeted by over 200,000 cheering Germans waving US flags; John McCain goes to the German Village neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, and chows down on bratwurst and cream puffs. (Did Ron Fournier of the AP pick up the tab?) Isn’t this pretty much the prevailing zeitgeist of both campaigns: Obama’s large and in charge and McCain’s left sitting there forlornly chewing on a sausage?

Speaking of the Out-of-Touch Punditrocracy: Following Obama’s spectacular Berlin appearance, many of the cable news pundits oddly obsessed, as did NBC’s Brian “Broadcast Newshawk” Williams, on Obama admitting that McCain’s ‘surge’ in Iraq had been right and Obama had been wrong. Obama wouldn’t play their game and correctly attributed the current less violent conditions in Iraq to many factors, so they pouted that he was evading the question. As Eric Alterman at Media Matters wrote the other day, “Why is the surge being reported as an undeniable success when it still has not accomplished most of the things it was promised to do and has likely accomplished nothing that will last once its unsustainable numbers are drawn down?” But that’s the kind of question that our infatuated Big Media somehow never gets around to asking McCain. Gee, it’s a good thing we have a liberal media – imagine what they would do to Obama if they were really McCain sympathizers at heart?

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July 24, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Humor You Can Use Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:18 am

Or: Further Examples of Why It’s Hard to Write Satire These Days

“Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this?”
– Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) from the film “Casablanca,” 1942.

Be Careful What You Wish For: Republicans snickered and goaded Obama over not visiting the Middle East; Obama took the bait, called their bluff, and turned the trip into a three-point photo-op score showing him looking presidential with various world leaders and greeting smiling US troops. For a bonus, he even got an endorsement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his 16-month Iraq troop withdrawal plan, leaving Blinky McCain to impotently twist in the wind. Obama also defined the role of a US commander-in-chief in strong Trumanesque terms – no more of the weak Bush Boy’s lame ‘I’ll leave it to the generals to tell me what my policy is’ nonsense. Meanwhile, back stateside, Ol’ Crazy-Eyes is left with egg dripping off of his face, peevishly grousing about the amount of media coverage Obama is receiving and whining that The New York Times won’t publish his op-ed wherein he waves the bloody flag of victory in Iraq without bothering to define it.

12-Step On You Program: “Wall Street got drunk,” dribbled our Worst President Ever last Friday trying to explain why the country’s headed into its second Great Depression. Gee, how’d that happen, Junior? Was Cheney providing them with firewater while you were on vacation in Crawford, recovering from your ‘hard work’ vacationing in Washington? Remember when this goof was advertised as the first MBA president? Was that ‘MBA’ as in ‘Master of Bumbling Assessments’? Oh, brother.

Hit and Run Off at the Mouth: Creature of the Night Bob Novak emerged from the Soil of his GOP Homeland recently to float the story that McCain was going to name his Veep pick this week in a desperate attempt to counteract the massive media coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip. Then the Prince of Darkness flipped later in the week, and claimed he thought the Republicans may have played him and the story wasn’t legitimate after all. “Pretty reprehensible,” is the hilarious way Bob the Impaler described the possible McCain camp attempts to ‘use’ him to garner publicity for their candidate. Imagine that – Rove’s Water Boy on the Plame leak and the shoehorn for scores of other GOP-inspired balderdash entering the media mainstream ‘shocked, shocked’ to discover gambling at Rick’s Café. Roll your eyes and laugh, children.

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July 3, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Newsweek’s Cindy McCain Puff Pastry Falls Flat Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:34 pm

Surprise! The Recipe is Not Original

This isn’t really intended to criticize Cindy McCain – God knows the woman has suffered enough from 30 years of marriage to John McCain – but rather to dissect the puff profile Holly Bailey concocted for Newsweek June 21, “In Search of Cindy McCain.”

In her often risible attempts to slab on sugar frosting over the rocky-road history of John McCain and his second wife Cindy, Ms. Bailey, a young Corporate Media go-getter plainly anxious to avoid ruffling any powerful feathers, instead leaves gaping cracks through which the careful reader can detect glimmers of harsh reality, rendered as it is by the leaden hand of an ardent, if inexpert, propagandist.

For those of us who relish chuckling at such obvious kiss-up buncombe, here are just a few of the more entertaining highlights, but read the article for the full head-slapping impact:

– Without an ounce of shame or regret, Ms. Bailey persists in inserting flag-waving quotes from Mrs. McCain which sound as if they were invented by McCain’s campaign staff. To explain her “long-distance marriage” and “together but apart” relationship to political animal Johnny, Holly has Cindy comparing Mr. McCain going to Washington with a Navy officer’s deployment overseas: “It was almost like a deployment …What I told the kids from the time they were little is that their dad was deployed and serving our country in Washington.” She followed that selfless patriotic tearjerker with Mrs. Sen. McCain admitting that when she married her husband, she knew that he would “put country first” before his bride and kids. Rather than the portrait of a dedicated pol with his nose to the grindstone in Congress that Ms. Bailey tried to etch, one could also take from this that John McCain didn’t much care for his wife or children, and preferred staying alone in Washington to hanging out at home with the whole damn family.

– Ms. Bailey also notes that exemplary Good Citizen John somehow didn’t notice his wife was addicted to both booze and painkillers for years “brought on in part by the stress of politics,” as Holly writes, but doesn’t think this angle is worthy of further pursuit. Cindy herself is quoted, somewhat pathetically, as saying she’s her husband’s “best friend, best adviser and closest confidant” yet she neglected to tell him she was strung out on drugs and liquor, so apparently that relationship didn’t cut both ways. Just to review: Here is a man who seeks to be the president of one of the most powerful nations on earth, yet he is completely ignorant of what is happening to his wife right under his nose? Voters might care to know how that’s even possible unless it was willful, and if it was willful, how McCain could be that unfeeling and blind toward someone he supposedly loves? After all, his calling card is his love for his country – as president, would he refuse to face reality as it declines as well? Ah, but don’t rely on Ms. Bailey bring up any of those uncomfortable questions – she’s on a mission to fluff up the hair and apply cosmetics to her subject’s past, not commit any actual acts of journalism.

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