“First in the series of Tales told Based on True Stories Ripped from the Headlines.”
True Headline:
Fire hits Palin’s church in Alaska
“‘Craft’ ladies escape.”
YOSNS (Ye Olde Scribe News Services)- Friday night a suspicious fire struck Appallin Palin’s church. No common sense survived, not that there was any there to begin with. A “craft group” escaped, bringing their cauldrons and pig snouts with them. Sarah the Shrill, wasn’t present.
MSNBC recently ran a story about holiday gift horrors, “Used socks, old candy: Holiday gift horrors” by Rina Raphael, wherein TODAYshow.com readers shared their stories of weird, inappropriate and sometimes cruel holiday gifts.
For example, a Betsy Murphy of Mukwonago, Wisconsin writes: “My mother-in-law, who not only was usually drunk, but cheap, gave me a pound of ground beef — right from her freezer. She stuck a bow on it and made such a big deal over it. And it was very greasy!” (‘Mukwonago,’ BTW, sounds suspiciously like the way a juicer would pronounce ‘Milwaukee’ when they were in their cups.)
Over in Connecticut, Susan was disgusted with this choice: “My worst gift ever was from my mother-in-law. A used popcorn popper with old, rancid butter in the melting cup! (And it wasn’t a joke!)” (Hey, Mom’s recycling!)
And the understandably Anonymous checked in with: “I received two from my ex-mother-in-law when I was about 19. The first was a large faux wood Jesus clock whose arms spun around for the hour and minute hands and the second was a see-through polyester crotch-less lingerie in a size 2 times bigger (I was a size 9 in juniors at the time). Funny now, but boy what a Christmas that was.” (A Jesus clock and crotchless pantyhose – what was on Mom’s mind?)
Well, that got Yer Ol’ Tattler to thinkin’ about some of the bizarre holiday gifts he’s heard of over the years, presented forthwith and without commercial interruption:
– There was the matronly Aunt who, forswearing the usual hated sweater, tie or pair of Argyle socks, gave her relatives unrefrigerated Cornish hens one year, delivered in festively gift-wrapped boxes five days before Christmas. The stench of rotting flesh when the boxes were opened was overwhelming.
– Ned had never gotten along well with his boss, so it surprised him his third year with the company to receive a Christmas present from the guy – a large box of Harry & David fruit covered in green and red plastic wrap with a large red bow. He was nearly touched until he got the gift home and unwrapped it – someone had removed all of the good H & D fruit and replaced it with small bruised apples, overripe pears and misshapen oranges. Ned responded by giving his boss a cheap plastic Mighty Mouse watch from the ‘factory-seconds’ bin at local Big Box store with a gaudy band that read “Here He Comes to Save the Day!” They never exchanged presents again.
– The eight Hanukkah gifts from a mother-in-law to a new daughter. First day: an economy-sized canister of Comet cleanser; second: a toilet brush; third: a package of scrubbing sponges; fourth: furniture polish; fifth: large box of plastic trash bags; sixth: a toilet brush and caddy; seventh: a gallon of pine oil disinfectant; eighth: a 12-roll box of paper towels. Gee, what was Mom trying to say here?
– Then there was the jocular college boy trying to impress the parents of his new love on Christmas morning by gifting Dear Old Dad with a year’s subscription to Juggs magazine; Mom with a box of ‘ribbed-for-her-pleasure’ prophylactics, and his paramour’s 15-year-old sister with a 12-inch-long black plastic ‘marital aid’ called ‘The Anaconda.’ He thought they’d all laugh. Shock wasn’t the word for it as his girlfriend’s parents and sister unwrapped their gifts – it was all she could do to keep Dad from tossing him out of the house on his head. Incredibly, they ended up married for twenty-five years and had children. Today, he’s waiting for Karmic revenge as some boyfriend of one of his daughter’s gives him a weird gift and notes that his thrice-married sister-in-law still has The Anaconda in her dresser drawer – with new batteries.
(Or: Scribe and friends sans pants.)
Christmas is coming and our economic goose is getting
cooked! This week Scribe offers to expose his “shorts:” very brief “stories;” some fiction and others not. Enjoy!
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
In previous editions of The Tattler, some drunken idiot wrote piffle such as:
“Well, it’s three days after Thanksgiving and Hillary Clinton has still not been named as Obama’s Secretary of State. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Well, it did happen, last Monday, and, I confess, the drunken idiot was staring back at me from the mirror this morning. (I am now hunched into a Basil Fawlty ball, hopping around with my head between my hands in disgust with myself.)
In another edition of The Tattler posted here November 18, 2008, “The Tattlesnake – Big Media Hillary Silly Season in Full Swing Edition,” I hilariously typed:
“Lost in most of their [the Big Media] circuitous gossip is any sort of common-sense analysis: Why would Hillary give up her powerful senate seat, and an excellent chance to be Senate Majority Leader, to serve as a peripatetic foreign service factotum in Obama’s government? The appointment would also proscribe her from criticizing him should things go sour, thereby tainting her bid for the 2012 nomination. Quick, name the last five Secretaries of State before Condi and look at what has happened to them. I think it’s fair to say the energetic Sen. Clinton doesn’t desire to live out her days lounging in academia, playing golf, or filling space on the board of some think tank or corporation, publishing occasional knotted-brow op-ed pieces in The New York Times.”
Those were, I felt, valid questions IF Sen. Clinton wanted to be president some day but, since then, I’ve checked with an Anonymous Source Close to the Obama Camp (just like the Mighty NYT!) and gathered some exclusive background that changes the picture considerably.
First off, my A.S.C.O.C. says Hillary doesn’t desire the presidency any longer. She allegedly feels that 2008 was her best shot and she hates ‘mass-market’ retail campaigning. (Hubby Bill is the political animal who loves that glad-handing stuff.) Although she likes talking to people in small groups, the speaking to large gatherings, the endless traveling, the repeated stump speeches, and the sheer exhaustion of running for president turned the fire in her belly into a bad case of dyspepsia that she never wants to experience again.
Secondly, while she liked the Senate, her ability to work on the issues that most animated her — health care, economic justice and children’s rights — was limited, and she supposedly got The Word: even with her national celebrity, there would be no jumping ahead in line – the junior senator from New York would have to wait her turn to become Majority Leader and that could take decades. (Even NY colleague Chuck Schumer is ahead of her in seniority.) Aside from that, the appointment as SoS relieved her of having to campaign for office again, and she and Obama have actually become friends since the summer and work well together. She’s willing to respect his office and policies, so there should be no conflict there, and she’s a popular figure overseas. Her keen intelligence and ability to quickly process new information are a relief to foreign leaders accustomed to dealing with the Bush-bedazzled Condi Rice.
Riff, Raff and Other Chaff
“For your information, I would like to ask a question.”
– Samuel Goldwyn
Worried about Obama’s experience as a leader? He just ran an organization for two years that had outlets in all fifty states, took in over $600 million dollars, and successfully completed its goal, against long odds. Compare his performance to the overpaid touts on Wall Street and the dunderheads of the Big Three US auto corporations, begging for bailouts.
Latest Hot Under-the-Door Rumor: Word is, Al Gore is topping Obama’s list of nominees for the next Supreme Court vacancy. This means Big Al could be there every day, within spitting distance of three of the five justices who denied him the presidency in 2000. (Does the irony never stop?) Also supposedly on the short list: University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, Georgia SC Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, fired Bush prosecutor David Iglesias, and Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
Speaking of the ‘high’ court, 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens is alleged to be aching to retire, as is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75, who is in poor health. Antonin Scalia is getting up there at 72, and has no intention of quitting, but his health is said to be questionable. Anthony Kennedy is also 72, but in better shape than Scalia. Obama could name as many as four new SC justices during his term.
MSNBC’s loudmouthed sometime-neocon ‘Morning’ Joe Scarborough has been consistently offending his colleagues, his viewers and his bosses. Plus his ratings are soaking in bilgewater. The ‘Countdown’ is on – how long until NBC management buys out Joe’s contract and packs him on his way? (Stephanie Miller and other able portside replacements wait in the wings.)
Speaking of MSNBC, looks like Chris ‘Tweety Bird’ Matthews is going to bring his Hardballs to Pennsylvania, challenging ancient GOP vampire Arlen ‘Single Silver Bullet’ Specter for his Senate seat in 2010. Although Matthews publicly denies he’s a candidate, it’s said he’s been in close contact in with some of Obama’s team about making the run. I can see the bumper stickers now, “Screamer for Senate 2010.” (Perhaps Chris divined that his career as a TV talker is coming to a close.) So, when is Pat Buchanan tossing his spiked helmet in the ring to become Lord High Chancellor of Germantown, and when will Tucker Carlson be running for Dog Catcher – excuse me, Chief Executive Canine Control Consultant — of Park Avenue?
Don’t waste your time on D.L. Hughley’s Saturday show on CNN, “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News.” The man’s a stand-up comic and good in his element, but this ain’t it. Hughley does his best, but he’s trying to coax laughs and knowing nods out of an audience of what appears to be mostly white undertakers who’ve huffed too much formaldehyde. (I think they pine for the cozy family jokes of Cosby’s Dr. Huxtable.) Well, it’s CNN, after all, where Lou Dobbs is just short of donning Napoleon’s bicorn hat and proclaiming himself Emperor of El Norte; Prince of Mars Dan Senor’s wife Campbell Brown has a job; Larry King calls the likes of Suze ‘Invest in Your 401K!’ Orman a ‘financial expert,’ and they have the odd notion that Sanjay Gupta is a real doctor rather than a Bollywood wannabe. (Say, CNN, Dennis the Miller’s looking for TV work…)
Aside from our personal and family connections, America has much to be thankful for on this fourth Thursday in November:
1. The Bush Boy will soon be gone. Regardless of all of the dismal forecasts of martial law and suspended elections (and accepting that he still has 54 days left for this kind of mischief), the Reign of Error is nearly over and, as a parting gift, Our Worst President Ever has ruined the neocon movement as a political force; proven Milton Friedman’s untrammeled free trade and Arthur Laffer’s supply-side ‘Trickle Down’ economic theories a bitter joke by implementation; soured the majority of America on the right-wing agenda; lessened the political influence of the Christopublicans; eliminated the chance of any future spawn of the Bush family holding national office for a generation, and nearly destroyed the Republican Party to boot.
2. President Barack Obama – if he does nothing else, just by dint of his election he has changed the way the world sees us, and the way we see ourselves. And it will be refreshing to have a president that we can be proud of for a change, and one who can even complete a full sentence in grammatical English.
3. Big Media influence is waning as ‘Citizen Journalists’ on the Inner Tubes present opinions not found in the corporately-owned mass media. Americans now read more of the foreign press online than ever before, meaning we are gradually becoming less parochial and xenophobic in our knowledge of the world.
4. The GOP might actually nominate Sarah Palin as its presidential nominee in 2012, thereby guaranteeing its decline into a regional, mostly southern, party sure to lose national elections for generations to come. Even short of that, the GOP will be wandering in the wilderness – they have to either go left, and lose part of their base, or stay to the same course and swallow defeat.
5. Karl Rove and his minions are finished as a force in politics, and Rove himself is likely to face indictments up the ying-yang after January 20th. He may be frog-marched in handcuffs yet.
6. Word is, hundreds of federal employees, silenced by fear or fiat during the reign of BushCo, will be blowing the whistle following Obama’s inauguration. Can investigations, indictments and convictions be far behind?
7. Science and the rule of law will be respected once again by our government, and decisions will be made by a president who uses his brain for the job rather than his gut.
This was just a quick list; add your own reasons to be thankful, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Still wondering how to best give your family and relatives the bird? Yes! It REALLY IS TRUE. YOS, the family chef, tried a variation on this a few years back and… YUM! …it works well. Like Junior “worked…” for eight, long, hideous, nightmarish years. So grab ahold of your personal giblets… WOAH! Not THAT hard, Bucko! OK, now that you’ve stopped moaning in pain; or pleasure: depending on how kinky you are, be prepared for a tasty treat of the likes you’ve never, ever had since Momsie cooked pig’s liver in 50 weight; 100,000 mile worth of over used Pennzoil.
A Recipe for Dirty Diaper Turkey
With a hat tip to Jeff Foxworthy, it’s time to play:
You Might Be a Neocon If…
… you believe any of the following: Barack Obama is (a) a socialist; (b) a Muslim; (c) the illegitimate son of Malcolm X; (d) the illegitimate son of Uncle Ben.
… you think Obama was a domestic terrorist who helped Bill Ayers plant bombs in the Pentagon; that he doesn’t have a legal birth certificate proving he’s an American citizen; and that his middle name indicates anything more than sheer coincidence.
… You believe President Obama’s first act will be to make the ‘nation’ of Africa our 51st state and send every resident a free Cadillac.
… you heard Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 and don’t think it was a state then, thereby making it illegal for him to be president, but are too lazy to look it up before you forward the email.
… you believe Sarah Palin is really intelligent and informed and that the reason most of America thinks otherwise is due to the liberal media and their evil ‘gotcha’ questions.
… you think an unwed teenage girl’s pregnancy is a sign of the moral failings of permissive secular parents and liberalism in general, except for 17-year-old Bristol Palin.
… you believe Sarah Palin is (a) a real feminist; (b) a true populist; (c) a ‘good ole gal just like me!’; (d) winking at you seductively through the TV.
… you think it was fine for the Big Media to criticize every detail of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and excoriate her for her laugh, her clothes, her personal taste, or minor mistakes, yet Katie Couric asking Sarah Palin to name what newspapers and magazines she reads ‘every day’ is an outrageous and out of bounds ‘gotcha’ question.
… you thought John Kerry’s record of military heroism didn’t entitle him to be president, but John McCain’s did.
… you believe that, despite everything, this remains a ‘center-right’ nation.
… you think any of the following windbags are still politically relevant: (a) Rush Limbaugh; (b) Bill O’Reilly; (c) Sean Hannity; (d) Michael Savage; (e) Glenn Beck; (f) John McCain’s brother Joe.
… you actually believe that Big Media corporations are owned by flaming liberals, except Fox News.
… you think Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch is ‘too liberal’ because he once held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and employs Alan Colmes.
… you believe any of the following are real-live conservative intellectuals: (a) Bill Kristol; (b) Pat Buchanan; (c) Dinesh D’Souza; (d) Joe the Plumber.
… you think prayer in school is more important than a good education in school.
… you believe that courts should not ‘make law’ but go by a strict interpretation of the Constitution, except in the case of Bush v. Gore, Terry Schiavo, and keeping those designated as ‘terrorists’ by the president in prison without due process.
… you think Swift Boater Jerome Corsi is a great investigative journalist.
… you think Michael Moore is a communist dedicated to overthrowing the country’s health care system and forcing you to go to a government doctor for free.
… you’ve never read anything by Karl Marx other than a quote or two, yet consider yourself an expert on what is Marxist.
… you believe liberals and/or Democrats are all (a) atheists (b) liars (c) commies (d) America-haters (e) arugula eaters (f) always sitting around trying to think up ways to take away your guns.
… you think anyone who disagrees with you is unpatriotic, even if it’s an old woman in a wheelchair yelling at you for parking in the Handicapped space.
… you think Handicapped parking spaces are liberal commie plots to take away our freedoms.
… you believe wearing a flag pin is more important than living up to the Constitutional law of the land.
Americans don’t read. Ask anyone. Educators and sociologists will tell you that Americans don’t read. We watch TV, we play video games; if we read anything it’s more likely to be someone’s opinion than documented facts. Who needs books when you have the Internet? Who needs to form an opinion when there is a smorgasbord of opinions to choose from online? Pick one that feels good and download the talking points to FWD to all your friends. It’s almost like having a conversation. When you all buy the same brand you can all sign up for the email alerts and always seem like you all know what is going on. It’s nice to hang out with people who think you’re smart.
Or not.
“I don’t have a rearview mirror. I look only forward. And I still see the day when I can remove the cloud that currently surrounds me.”
– Disgraced and defeated Sen. Ted Stevens (R-VECO), on the Senate floor, Nov. 20, 2008. (Perhaps he can bribe it to go away.)
Even in politics, a business known for honking weirdoes and depraved lowlifes, outgoing Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is Weird with a strut and horns and as crooked as a pig’s tail. Yet there were his Senate colleagues standing and applauding the convicted-on-seven-counts-of-corruption felon last Thursday, proving, I guess, that there is some honor among thieves — or, at least, praise. No wonder the Senate Ethics Office is a toothless farce – what do you have to do to engender the disrespect of these ‘public servants’? (Oh, right, tell the truth.) Utah’s ‘Mr. Republican’ Orrin Hatch, another blazing nutball with a hard nougat center of Petrified Kook, publicly ejaculated without shame that Ted was “one of the greatest men I ever met,” while his colleague from the Planet Strange, Sen. Jim Bunning, GOP marital aid of the KY-Jelly state, spread it on less grammatically: “If only you knew the Ted Stevens like I knew.” Democrat-turned-Wolfman Norm Coleman, verging on a well-deserved term limitation up in Minnesota, bayed to Ted’s moon-that-don’t-shine, “Those of us who know him also see the love that’s in his heart, reflected in love of country, love of family…” unnatural love of sheep. Even I-da-ho Spud Stud Larry Craig felt moved to knock three times on Stevens’ pipe with his own spit polish, so to speak.
Jebas, what if Uncle Ted had shot a man in Memphis just to watch him die? Would the Senate just rise as one to elect him King – or maybe Pope?
It’s too bad that AG Michael Mukasey collapsed suddenly during a speech Thursday night, but what the Big Media didn’t remark on was who Mukasey was speechifying to – the frickin’ Federalist Society, home base for the Unitary Executive malarkey that the departing Little King has used to justify dodging the Constitution. Sure, BushCo is on its way out the door, but you might think that the BM would be a little discomfited at the idea that the Attorney General, dressed up in a tux, was addressing a meeting of a group that basically believes in an American monarchy, much like democracy-distrusting icon Alexander Hamilton, who once encouraged George Washington to declare himself King of the United States. [Take a gander at FedSoc’s founders and current members: Ed ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ Meese, Robert ‘Nixonite’ Bork, Ted ‘Florida Recount’ Olson, John ‘Bob’s Dad’ Roberts, Tony ‘Bush v. Gore’ Scalia and Sam ‘The Sham’ Alito.) For a rough political equivalent, imagine the hew and cry if Obama’s new AG Eric Holder passed out while speaking to the Socialist Worker’s Party — think the venue would go unnoticed by the still-unjailed Press Gang at Newsweek and Time?
She Stoops to (be) Flounder: Remember those stories about a young Danny Quayle seeing the Robert Redford film, “The Candidate” and thinking it was a primer for a career in politics? Now it seems the Alaska Hockey Momster has aimed even lower; she’s apparently using Tim Robbins’ satirical flick, “Bob Roberts” as a roadmap for political success. For more cinematic inspiration to further Sarah’s future in government service, may ‘oui’ suggest “Amazon Women on the Moon,” “Idiocracy,” “The Aristocrats,” “Weird Science,” “Ernest Goes to Jail,” and “Linda Lovelace for President”?
And finally, the Vatican has forgiven John Lennon – imagine that? (Hint: it has to do with something he said in 1966.) I wonder if they’ve caught up with the news that he was murdered in 1980? (Lennon’s lucky; it took the Pope about 400 years to forgive Galileo for finding out the earth is round and circles the sun.)
(Quotes re Stevens from “We Salute You, Ted Stevens!” by Benjamin Sarlin, The Daily Beast, Nov. 20, 2008.)
WHY DID THE CHICKENHAWK CROSS THE ROAD?
You know those “Why did the chicken cross the road” jokes? Well, here are some with a slight twist. If you weren’t sick of them before, you will be now…
George W. Bush: To stay ahead of that Dan Rather lawsuit.
Dick Cheney: To get to Dubai before anybody else indicts him.
Karl Rove: Don’t interpret that chicken crossing that road as anything other than the eventual fulfillment of my subtle master plan for a permanent Republican majority!
Ed Rollins: Nixon’s chickens crossed that road while Rove was still not screwing cheerleaders.
Alberto Gonzales: I just don’t know anything. I was never informed of anything having to do with chickens or roads and, if I was at any time, I don’t remember it. That’s all I can say until my best-selling book comes out next year.
Clarence Thomas: Ask Scal or Alito about that; I’m heading out to lunch at Long John Silver’s today, and I might have a – ha, ha — Coke with my stuffed clams.
David Frum: To run screaming from Rich Lowry’s lurid masturbatory fantasies.
Norm Coleman: To avoid a legal state-mandated recount.
Ann Coulter: Quite obviously to stock up on vodka and gin for the next four years.
Michelle Malkin: To escape Obama’s secret plan to enslave America in a future of hope and change for the better!
Sarah Palin: To, ya know, get on over there and work on that other side of the pipeline with them bipartisan public servants like myself for the people’s business on that good health care and tax cuts and jobs ’cause that’s what they want us to do and see if God has any doors open for ya over there on that other side there for me to just plow right through there, ya know, even if I don’t drink, and even if it’s only cracked open a little teensy bit, and it’s not my fault the great war hero John McCain lost, unless it is, and then I’m sorry, ya know, but it’s not.
Saxby Chambliss: To see how low he can go.
Henry Paulson: Just give the chicken the $700 billion to take across the road with no questions asked.
Matt Drudge: Because no one takes him seriously on his own side of the road anymore.
Pat Buchanan: If Britain had just left Hitler alone after he crossed the road into Poland in 1939, there wouldn’t have been any World War II!
Newt Gingrich: To make sure the other side of the road wasn’t full of gay and secular fascists trying to take over the nation!
Lou Dobbs: That’s a Mexican chicken crossing that road to steal the eggs of an American chicken! My viewer poll says 97 percent are against Mexican chickens taking the eggs of patriotic American chickens! Why doesn’t Washington make policy exclusively based on the opinions of the people who watch my show?!
Rush Limbaugh: Dumb-ass liberal socialist Obama-loving chicken. If he were a smart conservative talk-show host chicken, he would have sent his maid across the road in his place.
Sean Hannity: I’ll only answer this question if the chicken was crossing from the left to the right side of the road.
Glenn Beck: He crossed the road and now nobody pays any attention to him on the other side; he’s lost in the shuffle.
Bill O’Reilly: Roger, is it time for a War on Chickens or a War on Roads?
Roger Ailes: Stop bothering me with dumb questions, O’Reilly. Just check your fax machine for your talking points, as usual.
Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby: To get a full pardon from Bush come January.
David Addington: Whatever the president wants to do with that chicken or that road is entirely within his constitutional powers in time of war, and I’ll ruin you if you dare disagree with me.
John Yoo: I had no idea when I wrote those memos that actual chickens might be tortured.
Samuel Joseph ‘Joe the Plumber’ Wurzelbacher: To buy a business for $250,000 that I still can’t afford on the chicken feed my 15 minutes of fame nets.
DITZWATCH
“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”
– Gov. Sarah Palin, in her best former beauty pageant contestant form.
FINAL FUNNY
“There’s no such thing as same sex marriage.
After marriage, sex is NEVER the same…”
– Phil’s Phunny Phacts, from Phil Proctor’s Planet Proctor, 2008-22, Nov. 19, 2008.
Secretary of State Clinton? Much A Doo-Doo About Nothing
If it hasn’t been foreclosed on yet, don’t bet the family ranch that Hillary Clinton will be the next Secretary of State, nor even have a cabinet post in the Obama Administration.
With the long, slow political-junkie orgasm of the presidential campaign fading in the rearview mirror, the ‘Pundints’ now have little to talk about; certainly they don’t find the baffling Bush Boy’s latest incoherence on the economy – “I continue to support the neocon free market policies that caused this horrible financial meltdown!” – worth examining – to do so might remind the audience of how much the Big Media Cognoscenti had to do with leading the lemmings off the cliff; the Palin Reality TV show – “Who Wants to Be a President!” also has its limits – how long before even avid dupes of Little Debbie Shortcake begin wondering why she hauls that baby around to every public appearance and detect that her political ideas are mostly an ungrammatical noun, an opportunistic verb, ‘Nothing’s my fault,’ ‘You betcha!’ and ‘God’s gonna show me the door’?
Even the three undetermined US Senate races don’t hold the BM Short Attention Span long – the vituperation back and forth is good for a brief goose, but those complicated state voting laws! The crashing economy was respectable breathless stand-up fodder for a while – “Melanie Blandstick, reporting from Wall Street, Ground Zero of our money crisis!” – but the pampered Lads and Lasses of the Golden Corporate Microphone are not employed for their intimate knowledge of the financial markets, nor much else, and there are only so many interviews you can do with ill-kempt and boring hustlers from the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute, still pushing Milt Friedman’s Cap’n Capitalist Crunch cereal after the product has poisoned the country, and who’s Ayn Rand anyhow – wasn’t she the wife in “Father Knows Best”? Iraq? Afghanistan? Iran? Whoa, dude, you’re bumming my trip!
So, of course, with little they consider ‘real news’ going on, they retreat into their favorite past time – endless speculation based on sketchy evidence, as shouted through a megaphone in the Grand Canyon to insure every Big Media Mouthpiece is regurgitating the same dull incantations.
The latest prime example of this is NBC’s Andrea “Mrs. Greenspan” Mitchell floating an anonymously-sourced story last week that Obama would offer the position of Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton, when the only thing that has thus far been confirmed was that Hillary flew to Chicago for a meeting with the President-Elect. For days since, the Punditrocracy has been foaming at the mouth, leaving no entrails unturned in their white-hot desire to tiresomely discuss to death the possibility of Hillary as the top national diplomat.
Using the same superior detective skills that in the past led them to deduce that the 2008 election would be about national security; that Republicans just loved Rudy Giuliani, that McCain would inevitably pick either Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty as his running mate; that Obama had to choose Hillary Clinton as his Veep or lose the election; that American women would mindlessly flock to the GOP after Sarah Palin’s unveiling; that Obama would have a tough time attracting working class voters in Rust Belt states; and that the Dem presidential ticket would, maybe, possibly, eke out a tiny victory in the Electoral College in a very tight race because, after all, this was basically a conservative nation – in spite of this dismal record of comic prognostication, they forge ahead, this time with the latest vapid gasper of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
Lost in most of their circuitous gossip is any sort of common-sense analysis: Why would Hillary give up her powerful senate seat, and an excellent chance to be Senate Majority Leader, to serve as a peripatetic foreign service factotum in Obama’s government? The appointment would also proscribe her from criticizing him should things go sour, thereby tainting her bid for the 2012 nomination. Quick, name the last five Secretaries of State before Condi and look at what has happened to them. I think it’s fair to say the energetic Sen. Clinton doesn’t desire to live out her days lounging in academia, playing golf, or filling space on the board of some think tank or corporation, publishing occasional knotted-brow op-ed pieces in The New York Times.
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Where’s my Flying Car?
Where’s My Flying Car? (A Question For The Big 3 On The Occasion Of Their Bailout)
I live in the future. I can tell; I have a telephone in my pocket and I am typing this on a home computer. So, where’s my flying car?
http://mrfuture.com/2008/11/10/from-england-to-timbuktu-in-a-flying-car/
(more…)