[Note: This column is a work of fiction. It is chock full of speculation, hypothesis, and conjecture and is slated to be the World’s Laziest Journalist’s official entry in the 2010 Lunatic Organization of Conspiracy Theorists’ Nutty Idea of the Year competition (which, like Fight Club, can’t be discussed).]
Sometime between 1973 and 1998 a clandestine group of patriots met (in secret, of course) and selected a group of young Democrats who were screened by a committee of psychologists as being fully qualified to be manipulated clandestinely for Republican Party purposes at a future date.
Members of the group were young, intelligent, highly motivated members of various Democratic minority splinter groups.
The psychologists were, like their highly paid associates who specialized in advising lawyers about the selection of potential citizens for jury duty in a specific case, looking for more than just a high IQ. The right candidates had to show several specific qualities such as a tendency to be headstrong, proud, strong willed, arrogant in private, eager to please, and have high moral principles.
Interesting sidelight: some tests used in the selection questionnaire used in the past by various Personnel Departments to evaluate potential employees contain the question “Do you ever lie?” All applicants who respond “Never” were automatically eliminated from further consideration.
The selectees were then subjected to a close inspection of their paper trail and a few who had interesting inconsistencies were advanced to the next elimination round.
The best candidates had to show a strong aptitude for self-deception. For instance, a guy with a minor speech impediment, such as a slight bit of teeth whistle (it would be noticeable in words with an “s”) while speaking, had to be susceptible to flattery especially the kind that promoted the idea that he was a powerful and charismatic orator. That’s just one example. There are others, but we assume you get the picture.
The Democrats who made it to the “groom for success” elimination round, were then given some stealth boosts to their career. We are not suggesting that the art of election deception via electronic voting machines was being used at that point in the history of democracy in action, rather, we are asserting that some bits of “off the record” assessments, such as “don’t say I said this, but we are really afraid of candidate X (Is that a deliberate pun on Malcolm X’s name?)” were fed to eager political pundits, who dutifully spread that idea as far and as fast as they could.
In America, it is absurd to maintain that the journalists, who value the fact that (as Mike Malloy is wont to say) theirs is the only profession with Constitutional guarantees (The First Amendment – Freedom of the Press), would play the Judas role for forty pieces of silver because we all know that America has the best journalists that money can buy. They would never knowingly play along with this hypothetical scenario which suggests they were played by Republican strategists, but it could happen in another country and so we will press this impossibility into use for this example of a lunatic theory. (Didn’t Sinclair Lewis say it best in the title to one of his books: “It Can’t Happen Here!”?)
Back to our ridiculously absurd (Welcome Dadaists) confabulation (If Word says it is a word and you still want to challenge it; we say: “Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.”): Some of the unwitting Democrats were put on the fast track to success and subjected to some extensive media fawning. They were given more “we really fear that guy” boosts.
The best was selected (by this point in history, the electronic voting machines were “in play”) to become the Democratic Party nominee to play the rodeo clown who would divert America’s attention away from the budget bloating effects of the invasion of Iraq, Osama bin Laden’s miraculous escape from the trap in the Tora Bora mountains (which was just like a Three Stooges episode?), the 2004 election results in Ohio, the questions about Building 7, the convenient timing of the Spectrum 7 Energy Corp’s stock deal with Harken Energy, and last, but certainly not least, the biggest blunder in 43’s life when he traded Sammy Sosa. [Not to mention the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Ronald (St.) Reagan’s former costar, Bonzo.]
The backroom Swengalis aren’t done with their fall guy yet. His greatest service to the Republican puppeteers is yet to be played. When the Republican majority in the House is sworn in next January, our hypothetical hero would (subjunctive mood for conspiracy theories) be called on to play the greatest victim role in the annals of American History.
What could be a better way to divert America’s attention away from JEB Bush’s campaign than the Impeachment Process? Our hero shut down the idea of a war crimes trial for Dubya. It worked so well in the past, why not make a sequel? Gees, do you have to be a Hollywood insider to know how well the sequel gambit works?
When the hapless fellow is accused of lying he’ll have to deny it, even though all the personnel departments in the world expect honest applicants to admit that they have told lies. It’s OK to tell lies, just don’t take it to the level where the bogus information is supposed to be considered “true under penalty of perjury.”
Like a rookie baseball player who is goaded into taking a lead off first that is one step beyond the point of no return, this hypothetical example fellow, unfortunately, has however inadvertently provided the Republicans with a bit of paperwork that will be terrible binary choice: either the fellow has committed perjury and should be impeached or he wasn’t born in the USA, which disqualifies him for the office he holds.
Maybe an Impeachment Hearing would finally answer the nagging question: “Who would want to kill Dorothy Kilgallen and why would they want to do it?”
Some pundits will urge the fellow to resign before things get that bad. No way, Jose! The Republican psychologists are staking their professional reputations on their profiling abilities and are predicting that their guy will hold fast and challenge the Republicans to “bring it on!” He will challenge the legitimacy of the paper work.
When Bruno Hauptman was forced to provide the police with an example of his handwriting, wasn’t he also coerced into using the same misspellings found in the kidnapper’s’ ransom demand? Wasn’t that “fact” later used in court against him?
Note: the same experts who would testify that the signature “could” be a forgery would be challenged on the basis that their “expert” testimony was just as valid as that given by so-called scientists who are helping drive up the cost of polar bear (Uris martisimus) memorablia by asserting that the white creatures are on the verge of extinction. Didn’t one of the signers of the Constitution once warn his fellow Americans: “Never trust a scientist farther than you could throw him!”?
One clear hint that the Impeachment process is just about to start will be the fact that the Republicans will steal the focus of attention and the media coverage for the State of the Union Speech by boycotting the event. Fox News will cue the Journalism Industry that the only possible explanation is that the Republicans have “evidence” that the President isn’t qualified to sit in the Oval Office and they will refuse to endorse the charade. They will drop hints about what makes them think like that. Then a day or so later, they will again take the initiative and the offensive by announcing the grounds for Impeachment.
When the Vice President gets sworn in as the replacement, all the GOP politicians will then resume their sit-down strike in the legislative branch of government and start ridiculing and belittling the non-Republican President.
If the above isn’t good enough to win the Conspiracy Theorists’ Nutty Idea of the Year Competition, what would be?
Well, don’t say you read it here, but some people say that this year’s dark horse nominee will be a column submitted by a crazoid who asserts that if you hold a photo of the once prominent Ayatollah Khomeini next to one of the few pictures in existence of Howard Hughes, you will immediately come to an astounding conclusion.
That conspiracy nut columnist is quick to point out that no one ever saw those two men in the same room at the same time. “Gee, Lois, did you ever notice that Clark Kent has yet to be a witness for any of Superman’s amazing feats?”
The fact checker is still working on the idea that the first words that Lee Harvey Oswald said to newsmen in the Dallas jail were: “I’m a patsy!”
We need a better closing quote than that one.
Texas congressman, Martin Dies Jr. (not to be confused with his father Martin Dies Sr., who was a congressman from 1909 to 1919), who was the Chairman of the House Un-American Committee during World War II, in a 1932 statement about the fundamental issues, said: “During the past decade a radical change has taken place in our economic life. Although we still retain the external form, the professions and precepts of a democratic Government, there has grown up in our midst an industrial and financial oligarchy as absolute in its sway as ever existed in the heyday of mediaeval feudalism.”
(Martin Dies The John Day Company hardback page 33)
Is it too late to mention that Australia is celebrating Remembrance Day?
Now, the disk jockey will play “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and Sloppy Secondz’ “Whacky Weed.” We have to go and participate in a Veterans Day debate on the topic: “If Bush and Cheney are War Criminals are they entitled to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery?” Have a “Why didn’t the NTSB reassemble (in a nearby warehouse) the jet airliner that hit the Pentagon, just like they did with TWA flight 800?” type week.
–Republican Tea Party senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell, when not busy denying she’s a witch, told Fox News she was refraining from national campaigning to focus on the concerns of Delawareans. (That would be the denizens of tiny Delaware, not a race of talking plants in “Star Trek-The Next Generation,” although any confusion is completely understandable.) Howsomever, as
Nihilism for fun and profit
The confluence of three items, recently, in the World’s Laziest Journalist’s “in” box produced a Eureka moment when the nihilistic lessons of this columnist’s favorite movies snapped into focus.
The first item was a feature news report, from Scientific American, heard on KKGN, San Francisco’s progressive talk AM radio station, about a psychological study that indicated mice who worked harder for a reward enjoyed it more intensely. It was said to reinforce the traditional parental lesson that most kids are taught that the harder they work, the more intently they will enjoy reaping the fruit of their labor.
That, in turn, precipitated some college era memories about a deal whereby this writer would, if he pulled his grades up to a B average, be given permission to hit the bank account and buy a used car. One A, three B’s, and a C produced the B average and a high level of euphoria for the student. Unfortunately, the parent, in his best Republican style, said he couldn’t recall any previous quid pro quo agreement about good grades and an automobile. Say “so-long!” to the “value of hard work” lesson.
In the 2010 mid-term elections, the Democrats lost their majority in the House and almost lost their Senate Majority. Even the Democratic President had to assess the results as a “shellacking.”
At the end of the classic film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, two prospectors watch the gold that they have risked their lives for, and work feverishly for, blow away in a strong wind. Howard, the old prospector, tells his partner: “Oh laugh, Curtin, old boy. It’s a great joke played on us by the Lord, or fate, or nature, whatever you prefer. But whoever or whatever played it certainly had a sense of humor! Ha! The gold has gone back to where we found it!… This is worth ten months of suffering and labor – this joke is!”
Long before having an allergic reaction to the lesson of the mice and hard work experiment, this columnist had been primed by life to promote a happy-go-lucky response (picture Earl Flynn scoffing at danger in a classic pirate film) to misfortune and disappointment.
If a person adopted such a cynical-cavalier attitude towards life, could he maintain it at that point in his life where he found himself lying on the pavement of a remote highway with a broken leg and a fracture skull? Does saying: “You know in the movie how they always say: ‘I think I have a broken leg,’ well when you have a broken leg, you know you have a broken leg” qualify?
Bleeding out the ear is a battlefield symptom of a fractured skull. When you arrive in the emergency room and the doctor wants to know if you have a concussion, he might hold up his hand and asks “How many fingers?” Would responding “Do you count your thumb as a finger?” qualify as an example of a proper cynical-cavalier attitude, at that moment?
[Personal aside: It wasn’t until 1982, when we reread 1984, that we identified the “déjà vu” quality to the “How many fingers?” question.]
When all three of these factors came into alignment after the results of the mid-term elections became known, this columnist shrugged his shoulders and asked himself: “What would Fred C. Dobbs do?”
We diligently searched the limited progressive media available for a result analysis of the “Eat, drink, and be merry – because tomorrow we die!” kind (often attributed to the men in World War I who faced the prospect of aerial combat with the Red Barron). “Where is it?” The progressive talk radio hosts were not as ebullient sounding as Rush Limbaugh.
Where has the hippie generation “Age of Aquarius” optimism gone?
While working on staff of a daily newspaper in Santa Monica, we had a boss who advised the workers that if there was an atomic attack on Los Angeles (just imagine that there is a foreign sub with missiles lurking off the coast of Southern California), then we all should: “Run towards the flash!” if an attack should take place.
So, where is the progressive talk radio with an excellent example of a cavalier attitude?
(Note the Berkeley area musical group “the Grannies” offer their fans a bumper sticker proclaiming: “My middle finger says you’re wrong!” Where can I get one?)
The Democrats, who expect (like the mice in the aforementioned Scientific American item) their hard work to pay off, are in a funk. The people, who enjoy the annual “Lucy pulls the football away” episodes from the Peanuts comic strip, will have to be content with reviewing all their favorite nihilistic movies.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Howard’s speech at the end.
Citizen Kane to understand the “Rosebud” moment
Apocalypse Now for the “call in the air strike” denouement.
Help for the “Who wears the ring, must die!” line
The Third Man for the remark about what 500 years of peace and brotherhood produced for Switzerland.
Easy Rider to hear “We blew it, Billy.”
Cool Hand Luke just to see that last smile
At the end of The Sound of Music, didn’t the Nazis march into Austria?
Rebel without a Cause to hear “Ray, I got the bullets!”
Maybe even Treasure Island? Could the image of Long John Silver heading solo out to sea in big row boat be a metaphor for the plight of the Democratic Party at this point in time?
Some old Hollywood hands will offer the insight that all comedies end with a wedding and all tragedies end with a funeral.
Do you think that the Democrats and the Republicans are going to “kiss and make up” or is an Obama impeachment a very likely political development for next year?
Who was is that once said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again . . . then give up ‘cause there’s no use looking like a damn fool”?
After more than six years of writing columns asserting that George W. Bush was a war criminal, this past week we got to hear some other folks say the same thing based on casual remarks the former President made during his triumphant round of promoting his new book on various TV shows.
Will his casual confession lead to a war crimes trial or will it mark the turning point where Dubya’s bad press no longer became a factor for assessing the potential for JEB’s quest to restore the legacy of the Bush Dynasty and win the 2012 Presidential Election?
Perhaps one of W. C. Fields’ comments gives the best clue: “If a thing’s worth having; its worth stealing (to get).”
Now the disk jockey will play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “If You Wish upon a Star,” and Joan Baez’s “Prison Trilogy (Billy Rose).” We have to go and try to convince one particular website proprietor that we will recant and repent and henceforth espouse a sincere Pollyanna attitude towards everything the Democrats do and should be welcomed back like the prodigal son in the Bible parable. Have a “Where’s Buzz” type week.