From the AOL message board:
This to all democrats:Fuck You. At every turn Bush makesyour there to call him an idiot or a dumb jackass. Yall have no opinions of your besides the opinion to disagree with the republicans. The media always writes what yall say because the media is a bunch of fuckin liberals.Actors like Clooney actually think i care what he thinks.Clooney and all his actor friends are stupid and incompetent. The act thats all there not a higher form of society. Besides there Fucked up ideas Clooney is no more intelligent than any citizen in the U.S..So shut the FUCK UP!
(Note: Not edited in any way)
Do I sound like this? Is it possible to be this incoherent? Is this so different from what guys like David Horowitz and Ann Coulter have to say? Do rhetorical questions annoy you? Is it time for me to eat an eggsalad sandwich?
(Answers: Maybe, I guess, Not really, Of Course, Hells yeah...Mmmmmm...eggsalad....)
As if making a string of recent shitty movies wasn't enough,
LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson and his parents are under fire today from a leading Jewish group for reportedly anti-semitic impulses in the former's new film and the latter's denial that Al Qaeda executed the Sept. 11 attacks.
The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, told The New York Times he flatly rejected that the terrorist group led by Usama bin Laden had any role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11.
"Anybody can put out a passenger list," the elder Gibson told The Times.
"So what happened? They were crashed by remote control."
He and the actor's mother, Joye Gibson, also told The Times that the Holocaust was a fabrication manufactured to hide an arrangement between Adolf Hitler and "financiers" to move Jews out of Germany to the Middle East to fight Arabs.
"Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body," Hutton Gibson told The Times. "It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now six million?"
Said Joye Gibson: "That weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe"...
Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic, is directing and co-wrote an upcoming movie "The Passion," rooted in a theological movement known as Catholic traditionalism that seeks to return the faith to its pre-1962 period, before the Pope issued what is known as Vatican II, a series of proclamations that did away with the notion that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Pete recently told me that Gibson was defending his AWFUL movie We Were Soldiers by saying something like, "yeah there are too many anti-Vietnam movies out there. I wanted to show the other side and make a patriotic movie." What was I thinking seeing something like that?
Sorry no more Mel Gibson movies for me. Or Arnold Schwarzanegger (sp?). If he get's elected governor, I'm going underground.
As you may have seen, Bravo recently started a new show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," the premise being five gay guys give shopping and fashion advice to, well, a straight guy. Pretty self-explanatory.
As you can imagine, some conservatives have taken this as yet another sign that the world is about to end. (To these people, it seems like the world is going to end almost every day.) Brent Bozell III, nephew of William F. Buckley, hyper-Christian, ultra-conservative, arrogant SOB, rails against the program in his latest column. I find the guy more humourous than offensive at this point and I pity those who take him seriously.
The highlights:
-i> Bravo's publicity copy also explained: "Straight guys turn in their pleats for flat fronts, learn about wines that don't come in a jug and come to understand why hand soap is not a good shampoo (and vice versa). When the journey is done, a freshly scrubbed, newly enlightened, ultra-hip man emerges."
And I want to vomit. (emphasis mine)
-It's stereotypical to think of only gay men as top-notch connoisseurs of food, wine, culture, design and grooming. How heterophobic. It's the Gay Supremacy Hour. I'm sure I'm not the only one who reads Bravo's ad copy and wonders if we're talking hate crimes here. (what the hell?)
-Try this idea for a show, and tell me how many seconds it would last in a Hollywood pitch session: "A team of five fabulous straight guys teach a masculinity-deprived gay man how to throw a football, hunt for game, drink something manlier than fruity wine coolers and appreciate the fiction of Tom Clancy. When the journey is done, a newly enlightened, ultra-manly man emerges." (With respect to that list: football-good, game hunting-retarded and the least impressive "skill" ever, wow you can hit an animal with a high powered rifle and a huge scope from a mile away, gee hiz... wine coolers-not my thing, Tom Clancy-more offensive and vapid than game hunting)
-Let's try it with a racial twist, where blacks are cured of their stereotyped fancy for fried chicken, watermelon and malt liquor. Any takers in enlightened Tinseltown? (hillarious Brent...idiot)
-But it evolves -- yippee! -- into a we-kid-because-we-love ethos, and the show ends with everybody being thrilled about how the fairy godfathers have created the straight man's new looks and new confidence. (okay, the fairy godfathers remark was kind of funny)
-i>It's also -- surprise, surprise -- drenched in references to raw, perverted homosexual sex. (you know, it's perverted because its homosexual, obviously)
-i>This crud may be acceptable for that element in our culture that's already earning an advanced degree in Sin Acceptance. But it's also acceptable to the gang at NBC and the suits upstairs at General Electric? Remember this when you buy your next light bulb: Is GE always bringing good things to life? (that was your fucking ending, Brent? THAT made me want to vomit. And where can I obtain one of these degrees you speak of?)
A leading public intellectual of the right ladies and gentlemen, right in front of you.
Last week, Jeff Kofman of ABC news ran a story on flagging morale among US troops in Iraq. The piece hit the administration pretty hard, particularly Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the Chimp himself.
F A L L U J A H, Iraq, July 16— The sergeant at the 2nd Battle Combat Team Headquarters pulled me aside in the corridor. "I've got my own 'Most Wanted' list," he told me.
He was referring to the deck of cards the U.S. government published, featuring Saddam Hussein, his sons and other wanted members of the former Iraqi regime.
"The aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and Paul Wolfowitz," he said.
Nice. Another soldier when asked what he would say to Don Rumsfeld should the secretary happen to wander into camp replied, "I would ask him for his resignation."
You didn't really expect the notoriously thin-skinned White House with its thick-headed president at the helm to just let this one pass, did you? So following the high-minded and magnanimous approach that this administration is known for, a source from the White House this week decided to give Matt Drudge a call and let the gossipmonger know that not only is the ABC journalist Kofman gay, he's also Canadian of all things! I know, I was just as scandalized as you when I learned that ABC employs queer foreigners at its news organization!
Some folks in the White House were apparently hopping mad when ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman did a story on Tuesday's "World News Tonight" about the plummeting morale of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq.
So angry, in fact, that the next day, a White House operative alerted cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to the fact that Kofman is not only openly gay, he's Canadian.
Yesterday Drudge told us he was unaware of the ABC story until "someone from the White House communications shop tipped me to it" along with a profile of Kofman in the gay-oriented magazine the Advocate. On Wednesday, for 6 hours 38 minutes, the Drudge Report bannered Kofman's widely quoted ABC story -- in which enlisted people questioned the Army's credibility and one irked soldier went on camera to call on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign -- and linked to the Advocate piece with the understated headline "ABC NEWS REPORTER WHO FILED TROOP COMPLAINT STORY IS CANADIAN."
Then there's this gem:
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan "is having a rough first week," Drudge said. "The White House press office is under new management and has become slightly more aggressive about contacting reporters. This story has certainly become talk radio fodder about the cultural wars-slash-liberal bias in the media."
A network insider was less sanguine about the White House tactic: "Playing hardball is one thing. But appealing to homophobia and jingoism is simply ugly."
The second part is right-on, albeit "ugly" is too nice a word for this kind of thing. The first part makes me want to unplug my computer and begin to un-learn how to read. Some days I think illiteracy would indeed be bliss. "Fodder about the culture wars-slash-liberal bias?" Pathetic. To Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, US soldiers really aren't complaining, it's the liberal media. These liars bitch and moan about any story they don't agree with and refuse to acknowledge the facts of the piece. And of course, we all know you can't be gay and/or Canadian and write an honest story. Nor can you love America. And by damn, that's what matters most in journalism! Unflinching, unquestioning fidelity to the official point of view....
Jesus wept.
White House leaks irrelevant info
Some questions from the phone interview I just had and the answers I should have supplied.
Q: So what do you do on those morning when you get up and you just don't feel like going to work?
Me: Well, actually the stuggle that I have most mornings involves whether or not I want to go on breathing. The first emotions that hit me once I open my eyes are profound disappointment and rage that I didn't die in my sleep. That's followed by about 5 minutes of crying. Eventually, I just accept it and eat a bowl of Coco Puffs.
Q: I see. That bird on the Coco Puffs box is one sexy character isn't he?
Me: Yes he's a sexy bitch.
Q: What is he anyway? A rooster?
Me: Look, I don't really know. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the bird. Pervert.
Q: So anyway, it says here on your resume that your skilled in urban guerilla warfare.
Me: Yes that's correct.
Q: Have you ever killed a man?
Me: Well, I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Q: Wait, that's a Johnny Cash song if I'm not mistaken.
Me: (whispering but still too audible) Fucking hick country fan knows the song.....(Louder now) Yeah, well, the song is about me and Cash stole it. He's an asshole.
Q: He really is. So I just have one more question. Can you speak in a high falsetto?
Me: I don't know let me try (clears throat). I...me...uh....no I'm sorry. My vocal range consists of four notes, none of them consecutive.
Q: Well allright then! We'll be in touch. Enjoy the cereal (laughing).
Me: Uh, yeah I guess....weirdo. *Click*
So I've been digging my way through Sid Blumenthal's new book, The Clinton Wars and it is a very good read. Short bio: Blumental was a journalist who wrote for the Washington Post and the New Yorker before joining the Clinton White House in 1997 as Special Adviser to the President. Mostly he worked in communications.
There's some of Blumenthal's personal history in the book, but mostly the book's 800 pages focus on the bullshit psuedo-scandals that the GOP used to tar Clinton during his eight years in office (I've read about half of the book at the time of writing this. You can read the chapters in any order really, which I've done liberally). Whitewater and all the other "character" issues the GOP howled at are all brought up in this book, and all ripped apart.
So two things, 1) Blumenthal's position does not automatically make him a partisan hack. This is not the Left's version of Ann Coulter, i.e. it's a real book with real facts. It's not even Michael Moore. Too weighty to be thrown in the same category. 2) This is a very strong book with a few, a few, genuine flaws.
Some of my greatest anger is reserved for writers who always feel compelled to split the difference. Thomas Friedman comes to mind ("The Palestinians need to do this...and the Israelis need to do this...and here's where they're both wrong). Then there are always these other jerks who think they've come up with some kind of brilliant idea like,"It's not about liberal vs. conservative thought. Both sides have terribly flawed ideologies...." Then they propose some weak-ass theory that tries to make themselves look like they're above the partisan fray. Note to un-original schmucks: Nobody is above this shit. You may have a foot in each camp, or you might not give a damn, but no one's thought is completely independent. So stop pretending that you've found some new solution to politics.
I'm not saying that one needs to choose a side and stick to it, by damn. I'm not even arguing for consistwncy here. Just don't pretend that you've reinvented the political wheel.
I'm writing this now because I don't want to leave the impression that the book is a 50-50 split between its good and bad points. If I had to split it, I'd say it's 90-95 percent good (in my opinion, which I shouldn't have to indicate, it's my fucking blog so that should go without saying I guess). So now that I've lambasted some unknown spirits for employing the hackneyed "On the one hand..but on the other hand...." approach, I'm going to do something similar and list some weaknesses here. I'll save the strengths for part 2 (excited? Yeah I didn't think so.)
Blumenthal, for all his talents, every once in a while sounds like he's been sucked into the right wing's echo chamber. This is also his boss's flaw. In order to gather more public support, whether for issues or for individuals, Clinton often acts like his political theory just sprang up from the earth. He and Blumenthal are reluctant to credit past movements, particularly ones that the GOP has effectively smeared. As a result, we get Blumenthal writing of the "collapse of social democratic institutions," and "the old Left-wing." Walter Mondale is compromised by seeing politics through the "prism of the Minnesota Democratic Farm-Labor Party," and Michael Dukakis is faulted for being too stale. Ralph Nader, of whom I am no fan, is labeled "anti-Isreal." That's a flat out hatchet job and one of the most common slurs making the right wing circuit these days, used mostly to attack someone who is actually just "Anti-Sharon" or "Anti-Likud" or simply not a fan of some particular policy. "Anti-Israel" labeles someone an enemy of the entire country and makes that person sound like he doesn't believe Israel should exist. Ralph Nader is nowhere close to holding this kind of attitude. But I digress.
In all these criticisms, Blumenthal isn't attacking actual policies. He's attacking the ability to sell these policies. He seems to be saying, "Look, Mondale and Dukakis had it right, but they were useless since they were bad salesmen." Horseshit. They had it right and voters were misled by some of the dirtiest tactics on record. Blumenthal's whole outlook seems to be that a candidate's TV image is more important than his policies. Like I give a shit if Dukakis appears too stale, or if Gore appears too "wooden" (never got this one, look at the asshole he was running against and tell me that Gore was more wooden than that fraud.) If TV appearence is more important than substance, than we're all doomed.
Actually, that may be my biggest problem with the book. Blumenthal is an optimist, while I'm clearly....let's just say not an optimist. I don't think democracy as most Americans think of it will exist in 50, 75 years. Yeah, there will be political parties and voting and a lot of rhetoric, but it will be Tamany Hall type democracy, not the real deal. Whatever the real deal is.
But again, the book is great. Tomorrow part 2: the praise. Then some notes about butterflies and kittens. Maybe a rainbow or two. Yeah, and right after that happens I'll mail my campaign contribution to W......