Campaign '08: Republicans' Law

If It Can Go Wrong...It Absolutely Will. Yikes!

From the Department of “From Bad To Worse”, you may remember this piece of news from the recent GOP bed-shit post dealing with the potential loss of New York's one Republican Congressional seat —“Baby Daddy Trauma: Vito Power-less

NY's wingnuts finally found a sap to run for Fossella's abandoned seat, Todt Hill resident Frank Powers, but not without having several candidates they asked say 'Are you out of your fucking minds? I got belly-button lint to pick, man!, and keep on steppin'. Thus with one fell swoop, or actually several rather unfortunate boudoir up-swoops and down-swoops, yet another Empire State Republican not only screwed up his political career and for extra measure, very possibly chucked a sure seat the party desperately needed to hold against an elephant-drowning sea-change on the way...

Well, even having chosen Vito's replacement candidate, that seat was going to be a tough one to hold, especially with the rampant apathy towards Republican candidates in New York City. But hey, there was a chance to hold serve at least with a fill-in firmly in place, right?

I mean, what could happen next? Powers ending up as the old saying goes “caught with a live girl or a dead boy”?

Er...I guess there's no delicate way to say this...Um...how about just ending up dead.?

Yes...D-E-A-D, dead.

Francis H. Powers, a retired Wall Street executive who was recently selected by Republican leaders on Staten Island as their candidate for the Congressional seat being vacated by Representative Vito J. Fossella, died on Saturday at his home on Staten Island.

Mr. Powers, who was 67, died in his sleep of a heart attack, family members and friends said. His death came less than a month after he became the Republican candidate after other potential candidates decided not to run.

Mr. Powers’s death leaves Republicans in the Congressional district, which also includes part of Brooklyn, with a new set of political challenges. The decision to endorse Mr. Powers came after a long and dispiriting process for party leaders, who had initially hoped to get one of the island’s Republican elected officials to run for the seat.

But one by one, each of them declined to run, citing a variety of reasons.

You can not make this stuff up...

So now, the party is back at square minus eleven or something like that, scratching about yet again for someone...Goddammit, ANYBODY! Please!, to run in Fossella's stead—a seeming herculean task to begin with as the initial approach-ees as noted above upon Vito's fade-out ran from the opportunity like it had a big, runny boil on its lip and was movin' in close, whispering “Kissy-kissy!”

New York State's GOP isn't just imploding, people—it is imploding on a freaky karmic level that mere coincidence can't explain. Now, I'm not reveling in any way in Powers' death, but my God, just looking at the situation electorally you just have to shake your head and say “Wow. Right about now, it truly sucks to be a wingnut in New York”.

Well, suck might be too light a word for what's going on for them in New York State. Vacuums like a space-station airlock gone awry is more like it. Enter, or rather...exit...stage right, the state's highest ranking GOP pol—State Senator Joe Bruno...

Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader and New York State's highest-ranking Republican, said Monday evening that he would not seek re-election in November, after a 32-year career in the Senate.

His announcement startled people in the Capitol, many of whom have come to view Mr. Bruno, a former Army regimental boxing champion who still spars for the cameras, as almost indestructible at the age of 79.
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The Daily News reported this morning that when Bruno made his decision to leave, he had his lawyer call the FBI to ask if his stepping down might influence their investigation.

According to the paper, the FBI never got back to Bruno's lawyer, and no deal was ever offered.

But Bruno has denied that the FBI investigation had anything to do with his decision. For the time being, Bruno will continue in his Senate seat, but he says he has not decided if he will carry out the remainder of his term.

Meanwhile, CBS 6 political analyst Fred Dicker is also reporting in today's New York Post that federal agents removed some 30 boxes of papers -- some dating back more than a decade -- from Bruno's office just before he made the decision to step down as Senate Majority Leader.

Bruno if you don't remember was the beté noir of disgraced former NY Governor Eliot (“Black Sox”) Spitzer. Those two went at each other hammer and tong, macheté to hatchet for years, going back to Spitzer's Attorney General days upstate, and Spitzer's ignominious exit should have cemented Bruno's power cornerstone-hard. He was at the point of his retirement/booking the hell up, the state's second-most powerful politico, and not to put too macabre an edge on it, the next in line of succession to the Governorship under the state's arcane rules. Were anything to happen to the present governor David Paterson, (and the way the NY press has swarmed him seemingly every week since his swearing-in for term-ending dirt, the possibility wasn't a terribly distant one) Bruno stood the most to gain.

But inexplicably to outsiders, and painfully clear to even casually-acquanited NYers, Bruno's stepping down and away was very much related to the increasingly intense federal investigation around his years of upstate skullduggery and feather-bedding for himself and a northern state GOP that ripped off the more populous and higher revenue-generating downstate to the tune of billions of dollars.

It was the nerdy, bean-counting, pasty-faced and sock garter-wearing ghost of Eliot Spitzer's investigations coming a' calling. That, and a punk-ass's fear of a couple of other things too...

One: The state senate's going Dem majority for the first time in thirty-odd years, (on the verge of and with a Dem wave, a near certainty) relegating the high-flying, egomaniac Bruno to the low-down bust-down to minority back-bencher—which in the New York State Senate is to be powerless to the N'th anti-power. That is a bruising insult he could not stand, and his beloved senate district of Muttontown (NY's a big state people, and that's a tame name for an upstate hamlet—trust me...) bearing the brunt of Democrats retribution for his own punishment of opposition party cities was probably too much to take.

And Two: Fear of being held responsible in any way for the state's GOP strengths melting away like a bodybuilder's physique when the he can't get the 'roids any more. The coming Republican debacle is going to spawn one lovely schadenfreude-ic thing for a lot of people—namely the Republican Party's calling out of scapegoats for the disaster. When the party bosses tally up the carnage, especially the utter defoliation of elected Republican pols in the northeast, they're gonna look to blame people. And while Bruno doesn't run the state party per sé, he is its most powerful member in New York, and his upstate fiefdom was the incubator for the party's congressional talent. They're all gone now though. GOP Reps Sue Kelly, John Sweeney and Sherwood Boehlert all lost their seats in the House during the last disastrous “The Math”-filled go-round. All of 'em. And when the man comes around lookin' to “git somebody”, 'cause somebody's always got to be 'got' when the shit goes down, I don't think Joe Bruno wanted his name in that unholy number.

We see this in spades (insert obligatory wingnut racist Obama joke du hour here) all over the country as Republican fortunes become as popular as buy orders for Countrywide stock and candidates run from the party's damaged brand like light-struck roaches. The only wingnut stupid enough to proudly run on typical GOP talking points and the ValuJet-like Bush legacy is the odious Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and that saggy, nad-faced viper isn't even up for re-election this year. Not that you'd know that from his seemingly twice-weekly TV appearances from his office in Outer Idiotville—Population: Him. It's comical really, watching him run with stale-ass talking points that barely carried the day post September 11th, today in 2008.. This so-called former “democrat” (small “d” in-fucking-tentional, thank you) mind you, embarrassingly waving the standard like an extra in a dinner theater “Les Miz” for his fucked-to-all-hell masters, singing “One Sellout More”—and not realizing that the damned thing is ablaze in his hands, and there is no “crusade” to join. Just him. Woefully out of step with the reality his “new” friends are running from.

But perhaps a better visual for the folly of Lieberman's dim-witted pimping all of that old, laughable folderol is one that actually involves...a pimp. Picture a goofy, over-the-top, one-time “playa” who's been “away” from the game for too long—and decides to make the public scene again.

Except he's out of step with everything going on and looks like a Goddamned fool sporting the hopelessly dated trappings of his one-time heyday.

Joe...you are so, sooooooooo not a “fly guy”...



The words that breaks the poor pimp's spirit—and his glass-bottomed, fishy-filled platform shoes are the guffawed “This brotha is an endangered species!”, and “You look like a clown!”

“Endangered species”, indeed. It's the plight of elected Northeastern Republicans like Joe Bruno, Vito Fossella, and the Connecticut Dodo-to-be himself, ol' “Short Ride Joe” Lieberman himself. It's an almost sad spectacle to see. Like seeing old faded photos of slow-moving Bison being picked off by blunderbusses from the caboose of a hunting train. And it's not just northeastern GOP'ers fearing the electoral shotgun's blast. Embattled Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon doesn't want anybody in the Beaver State to think for a second during this election season that he even knows the letters G-O-and-P are in the Goddamned alphabet. His grasping little campaign ad makes him out to be a first-class “P.O.O.” (“Pal Of Obama”) and doesn't dare ever mention the Republican party that got him in there any-fucking-where.

God! Either they don't wanna run for office at all, or those that are pressured into it, have the worst of luck befall them. And the ones fighting to remain in office don't seem to even wanna identify with the party proper.

Oh yes...the GOP's fortunes this year certainly are shaping up to be what we on the internets like to call a “fail”.

An “epic fail” in fact. Where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, Like the ironic fire truck fire shown at the top of this post.

But confidentially...I think the picture below just might sum up the nature of things GOP that...much...better...

There's more...

Baby Mama Drama—“Hate On, Haters”

“Um...Excusemeplease?”

“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-annnd...they're off!”

No, not horses, or the two—(actually, one-and-a-half) Presidential candidates, but rather, the folks with the syphilitic, nerve-ganglia-ed remnant brains over at Fox News—right on cue as the general election season kicks into high gear with the end of the Democratic primary season.

We've already seen Bill O'Reilly's championing of a lynching party against the so-not-White Michelle Obama because she's...“angry” about things. As soon as it became clear that Senator Barack Obama was going to wind up a serious contender for the Dem nod, the folks at Fox fairly licked their hate-dripping chops at the prospect of tearing at a prominent Black woman of prominence. And just as soon as the primaries ended—mere hours in fact—we were treated to the in-need-of-a-helmet-at-all-times E.D. (As is “Special E.D.”) Hill blurting out crazed drivel about the Obamas victory-night “Dap Heard 'Round The World” being some sort of coded “terrorist fist jab”. (!?) Hill would later have to back off from that super-flammable, Hi-Test stupid when even her fellow wingnuts (along with most sane folk) said in perfect Borat-ese of her dimwitted body-language analysis, “Eh...not so much.”

But now, as the creeping dread over the soppy, bed-shit of a failure-ific McCain run can be seen in stark relief, the pointy-hooded hamsters who spin the Fox News engines have gone into panicky overdrive. With the dangerously flawed warmonger of a senator's damaging 1.5 gaffes-a-day diminishing GOP hopes by the second, the mattreses have been gone to over at Cro-Mag Central. Having nothing else—no guile, “snark, or even a touch of subtlety, they're reaching into their bag of tricks and pulling out...only their own hands stained with burnt-cross soot. Ass-nekkid racism, folks. The awful gift that just like herpes, just keeps on—“Yecch!”—giving.

We saw this last week when the …“news network” trotted out their prodigal daughter of dipshitttiness Michelle Malkin, ostensibly as a correspondent on “Women's Issues”. Now, we know that Malkin's bona-fides on issues important to women rank up there with those of Alan Keyes' on average Black folks concerns, but there she sat, in all of her grumble-faced, flop-sweaty glory before the cameras during a segment dealing with attacks on Ms. Obama and whether people should lay off her. Of course Malkin, shiv-jabbing little viper that she is defended the attacks on Sen. Obama's wife, referring to her as... “Obama's Bitter Half”.

?

Yes, Michelle Malkin referred to another woman as someone's “Bitter Half”.

Call “CSI” folks. Irony's as dead as a busted cinderblock and Malkin's got the dusty sledgehammer in her hands.

But it gets better. You see, the graphic that appeared under the once-banished-from-Fox Malkin (for a combination of not being able to cut it after repeated opportunities at the net, and a sanctimoniousness that put even them off) in a chyron was the ass-kicker.

It read, “OUTRAGED LIBERALS: STOP PICKING ON OBAMA'S BABY MAMA”.

Um. Baby Mama? Baby-what-the-fucking-fuck? Really?

Really.



It would be so easy to just go off on this at the most superficial of levels, but you know what, oh Klan-tastic folks at Fox? I'm gonna break this shit down James Brown-on-the-bandstand style, to the bare essence and build it back up from there. First—a hard finger-point back to the band to lay out—'cept for the drums and bass...

“Band!”

Okay. Malkin continued above that lovely graphic, with her usual “Nellie Olesen” huffy bullshit spew supporting the savaging Ms. Obama, because you see folks, that's her fucking job. Malkin is that special wingnut attack droid—used specifically for those nasty jobs that the big guns don't wanna catch direct hell for. Her special forté? Attacking women, children, college students and others on the lower end of the power ladder that it might look unseemly for the big boys to chomp on.

And she relishes her job because of a particularly nifty bit of psychotic transference going on with her. She's a loser, in spite of the right's bigwigs best efforts to cram her into the media mainstream. Allegedly “cute” just ain't enough to cut it, unfortunately. She's dim. She's an awful liar. And she's bereft of any vestiges of what one could remotely call “style” or “pizazz”. She couldn't connect with viewers if you coated her with Krazy Glue and fired her into an audience full of them. The poor thing is wooden to the point of petrification, and when on-camera, is about as on her toes as Cindy-Fucking-Brady on a game show to boot. Throw in the sad fact that she also has all of the charm of a roiling bucket of lye. Michelle Obama is everything Michelle Malkin is not. Stylish, damn smart, a success in her own right and the posessor of the charm and people-connectability that her alternate universe opposite has none of.

So yeah...there is some serious hateration and holleration goin' on up in Malkin's chintzy, Strawberry's™-outfitted danceree. They trotted her out there and she as usual cipher-ized the report with what she typically brings to the table—which is nothing. But then...(cues the band with another finger-point)

“Band!” (Guitars in now)

...because the network too has nothin', they weakly opted to shore up their “report” with that patently offensive graphic. Now I know the internal excuse is that some fucknut who just got their communications degree thought it would be all funny and cool and shit to rhyme something catchy with the Obama name (“Baby Mama”), and that they were just trying to be “hip”. But the real deal is evident to everyone with eyes and ears and any sense of the campaign season's present trajectory.

Fox “News” is in desperation mode in their trying to spin for the GOP this election year. The Republican brand is so damaged by the eight years of Bush and a pliant GOP-run congress that they'd be better off trying to spin a three-ton granite block half-buried in a tar pit, than winning talking points for Republicans. The ham-fistedness of this incident along with the lame “terra-dap” episode is clear evidence of that. They've. Got. Nothin'. And in having nothin', all that's left is the hewn-from-crazy-wood buckets they're carrying that flimsy-ass nothin' around in. It's gotten so bad that they're reduced to choppin' those up and burnin' em for fuel, wearin' em as clothes and making dinner out of 'em. Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm, not very good. But here's where we're gonna signal the whole band to come back in for the last chorus—the big finish if you will. (Clenched fist-pump)

“Band!” (Horns and keyboards come in now, filling out the sound)

What they are doing, or rather trying to do to Michelle Obama here and for the forseeable future is to reduce her to the lowest common denominator “Black Chick” that they possibly can. The woman is Princeton and Harvard educated, a law school graduate, a former Dean at the University of Chicago, and a VP at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She's a doting mother of two daughters and has long been politically active. But what Fox News wants to do is bring her back to a place where their viewers and otherwise confused (by her status in spite of her color for them) Republican voters can deal with her on the party's terms.

Bluntly...she must be “re-n*ggerfied”.

Which is why she's spun as Hattie McDaniel “mouthy” and “sassy”. It's why she's being cast by them as the off-putting, “off-the-corner”, 'round-the-way, loudmouthed ghetto-gal with loose ways—evidenced by the “Baby Mama” misnomer. That phrase is generally applied to an urban woman of color who has children by an absent or otherwise unknown father. What reason could be given for the bandying about of that very distinct moniker other than to cast her in a negative light? Fuck the rhyming and word games—there are scatologically obvious plays one could make on Bush's name, but Fox wouldn't dare do that, right? Right?

So yeah, spare me. Please.

Oh yes, there lies a secondary element of racial dissery here with this bit of classic Fox-ism.

It is the age-old switcheroo American society has long pulled on its Black female population.

From the days of slavery, one of the main ways to break the spirit of Black women was to forcibly convert them into sex objects and play-toys for the majority population. “Bed Wenches” or “Bed Warmers” they were called, and basically that meant that they were just random pieces of ass to be grabbed whenever lust struck ol' “Massa”. Black women could be taken, used, discarded and disregarded as little more than sex toys—never mind free will or attachments to someone else. As such, those hyper-sexualized chains of the the “Black-Woman-As-On-Demand-Superfreak” go well beyond someone who might unfortunately have been forced to sexually submit, but is also extended to effectively restrain the aspirations of women of color who would dare to live beyond stereotypes. “Focus on dat body.” “Oooooooh those lips!” “You know how they like their sex!” et.al. It's the ultimate diminishment of a person down to a single, furtive, physical act.

Hitch it to its cross-gender counterpart and you have brilliantly evil construct of subjugation:

Black men are scary and violent! The women? Sex-crazed banshees!

And then, in the ultimate mind-fuck, when the Black man's potential for physical threat becomes too difficult to handle in pop culture, along with the intoxicating allure of many Black women (both in spite of what other things they may bring to the table) the script is casually flipped—de-nuding them of all vestiges of physicality or soul to speak of to create one-dimensional, safe “Negroes” for the masses in pop culture, alá MIssion Impossible's “Barney Collier” (as played by the late Greg Morris) and yes, Josie and The Pussycats' “Val”. It's these pre-fab “Negroes” whose imagery and temperament are deemed acceptable, while the inverted and equally pre-fabbed image of the n*gger to fear / n*gger to fuck is deemed unacceptable. However, both images are force-marketed to the majority population. There's no room for complexity at fearful racists' table. You are either a hyper-emotional, carnal beast or or a soul-less dusky automaton. Whichever fits the necessary negative needed at the moment.

Right about now, for Fox, it's about Michelle Obama, dat ol' wanton wild-woman. An' lawty-lawd—she done had herse'f a whole mess a kids, too! An' dat au-tomatically makes dem babies questionable!

Thus, “Baby Mama”.

Now of course, just like the terrorist fist-jab thang, this was so over-the-top that the Foxies had to back off it as well—albeit in their typical half-ass apology / screw you style, leaving the poor, rage-o-holic Malkin out there all by her lonesome to defend the deed. And she didn't disappoint, simultaneously pooh-poohing the flap while also trying to absolve herself of any blame ('I don't write the captions, so there!'). And you know you've struck a nerve with her when she's forced to fall back on her old doomsday play, “But I'm the victim here!”—as she paraded out the usual few rough e-mails she got from people who chewed her narrow ass off for her part in Fox's shitty little segment. “Waaaaaaaaaah! Look at how badly I'm being treated!” cries the wretch who in the offending piece crowed about Ms. Obama's somehow being “fair game”.

Yeah. Okay. Lemme run that Fox screenshot through my own little chyron-generator to fix the obvious-to-all goof...


There. I think we've got it right, now.

Oh, here's a song for your ass, oh, Michelle The Lesser. And hey—try not to fracture a hip spazzin' around to dance to it. Okay?

There's more...

WORLD PREMIERE—Get Ready To Shake Your Moneymaker—It's A NEW Group News Blog Video Production!

But first...some background...

When the GOP picked its logo for the '08 Convention in Minneapolis late last year, I wrote the following:

“As I work in graphic design, I'm highly sensitized to...oh, how do you say...gaffes of the graphic sort. I was on vacation once, and wasn't able to supervise a promotional brochure my company was sending out. It was a book promotion featuring the Judy Blume series of “Fudge” books. (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Fudge-a-Mania, and Double Fudge—all about a kid named Peter Hatcher whose little brother was nicknamed “Fudge”) It was bad enough that the marketing division had myopically given my department copy—that no one caught—calling the asssortment of books a “Fudge Pack”, but then, the designer for the ad depicted the books on a brown “splash” field with the words “Fudge Pack” on what appeared to be a dark hole. Ostensibly done to pop the letters out, but you can imagine what it looked like.”

I've worked in advertising and graphic design for close to thirty years, and in TV and radio for twenty. Been in the office when a goof came back from the printers—been on set when things got shot and we looked at them later on air and said “Oh my God...how did we miss that?” There is an amazing level of planning that goes into producing content, and simultaneously a lot of by-the-seat-of-your-pants flying.

There's the contrived, shoe horned-in, subtle “message”.

There's the “What the fuck were we thinking?” myopic miss of a gaffe.

And lastly, there's the “Um...have you been hitting the Goddamn rubbing alcohol again, dude? You are fucking seeing things!” delusional moment of making something out of absolutely nothing.

Our exclusive video today is a response to one such recent example of the barking mad latter.

I wanted to think this was a joke, but it wasn't. Evidently, everyone's favorite lunatic midwestern law professor (who's unfortunately doing a semester here in New York at Brooklyn College) took the time to watch Senator Hillary Clinton's latest ad, the controversial “3.a.m. Phone Call” spot meant to promote her readiness in the event of late-night craziness on the part of foreign threats. Call it what you will—a play to fear, a call to “security moms”, “Goldwater's Revenge”—in the end, it's a hardball ad that tries to burnish her national security image. Whether it passes or fails at that is purely subjective.

Law Professor Ann Althouse however sees something in the ad so sinister, and so destructive that she found it necessary to blogospherically ride through the streets alá a buck-nekkid, keening Paul Revere and call our attention to...

“Gasp!”...a subliminal racist dig in the ad on campaign Clinton's part at Barack Obama through...I'll give you a moment to swallow any liquids you're drinking now so you don't ruin your computer screens...

...The shocking appearance of the letters “N-I-G” on the sleeping child's in the ad's pajamas.

Mind you, the pajamas read with the words “Good Night” repeated all over them everywhere (and part of the word night is those three letters), but...somehow, only the eagle (and bloodshot) -eyed Professor Althouse has sussed out the deep, mean-spirited racist code-ology of the artful cropping of the frame so that the word—or word-let “N-I-G” (actually reading “N-I-C” as part of the “G” is obscured)—is left there, all out-in-the-open to inflame...

...what exactly in the flying fuck?

I swear I thought this was a joke. A piece of parody on the oversensitivity of this campaign season that was rejected by the fine folks at “Sadly No!” because it was too off the wall to even get a laugh—instead, just a head-cocked “Ehhhhhh?” But no, Althouse is deadly serious with this—down to posting screen grabs and digital enhancements that would get laughed out of an “I Shot My Own UFO Pics” convention as being “Uh..pretty fucking dubious, man.” I mean...this is straight-up hate-fueled hallucination—all wrapped up with a bugfuck concern-troll bow garnishing the top. Wingnut projection-slash-race baiting--slash-delusions--slash-hide all the sharp stuff when you see this kook coming near—please!

I can't...I won't link to it—because I just have a personal policy of not doing direct linky-love with batshit stuff. Kind of how I vowed in my early twenties to not sleep with people I knew were certifiable. Instead, I leave it to Kevin Drum to say his piece...

BAD DAY TO STOP SNIFFING GLUE... This is one of the most harebrained posts I've ever read. I guess that means it's bound to get a link from Instapundit, right? Chris Matthews might want to investigate too.

...As do the fine folk at Lawyers, Guns & Money, and the estimable Thers at Whiskeyfire.

I mean...I know it's the so-called “Silly Season” politically, where a cartful of hay can be made from a stray fluff of kitten down, but sweet Jesus—this is simply one of the most batshit, glass-chewing lunatic blurts of hot, blogospheric air I've ever had the chuckling pleasure / deep, pitying regret to come across.

And it's NOT the first time for the professor—thus rendering the “Silly Season” moniker inoperative for her. This kind of crazy is year-round' for her. It's fucking evergreen.

She's the one who spazzed out over the “Bill Clinton meets the bloggers” photo-op a year and a half ago—freaking out about one attendee's breasts in the picture and basically...crazily accusing the woman (who she didn't know from Adam or Eve) of posing to entice President Clinton”. All in the guise of “I'm here to call bullshit on feminism”, when her dim, retrograde ass was bent on raw, unfettered Clinton hatred—of Bill and Hillary. And then when called on that hatred proceeded to simply wig the fuck out—and have it captured on internet video for-ever.

She's also the one who upon seeing Senator Clinton's Sopranos finale-inspired “Choose the campaign song” ad, mixed warmed-over Freud and peyote buttons and came up with and promoted a weird psycho-sexual angle involving the absence of onion rings in the spot, how they (somehow)represented vaginas and carrot sticks as phalluses.

I shit you not.

I let those examples of mad-cow brain-nibbled raving slide—as well as a few others, but this one...The crafty subterfuge of the “N-I-G” pajamas” is just too fucking much. It is...a desperate cry for help...followed by a nose-stinging burp, and then a projectile spewing of the deep purple contents of an entire box of wine. For the sake of those poor law students under her tutelage—who could learn more about jurisprudence from a tryptophan-hazed half viewing of a TBS-chopped showing of “My Cousin Vinny”...I am forced to act.

Thus, with apologies to the Ray Bryant Combo (doing one of my all-time favorite oldies), filmmaker John Waters, and all you old-school tail feather-shakers out there, I give you this toe-tappin' rebuttal to all things utterly insane from the mind and keyboard of our dear, “Nutty Professor”...

“It's Batshit Fool From Madison Time”

What can I say, save for...POST IT!

There's more...

Secrets and Lies

I Am The Eggman. I Am The Eggman. I Am the Douchebag!

“You know, just when I think you're the shallowest man I know, you somehow manage to drain a little bit more out of the pool.”
Elaine to Jerry—Seinfeld, Episode #59, “The Implant”

I know not to expect anything remotely resembling class from a bottom-feeding miscreant like Matt Drudge, what with his track record for blaring, and then cowardly running away from self interest-serving lies, operating as an unabashed smear hit-man for the right, and of course covering the asses of his wingnut benefactors through widely disseminated push-back (written by them). He's a disingenuous hack, masquerading as some sort of next-wave “journalist”, when in the end he couldn't write his way out of a wet paper back if his pen had a diamond tip. The key to his “success”? It is in no way related to the quality of his “reportage”. It merely is the manifestation of something my father used to tell me all the time about seeming unfairness and how merit oftentimes does not win out.

“Sometimes son...it isn't about being good. It's about being FIRST.”

Drudge? Merely the dude with an idea and a faster baud modem than his pre-histor-internet peers.

Add to that good timing a petty, and vindictive personality and his having all the scruples of a rabid jackal loping about the unguarded newborn wing of a hospital and you get the man in whole.

However, give the devil his due. The one thing the marble-mouthed cyber-thug has going for him is a well-cultivated network of snitches and lapdogs waiting with bated breath for his every gutteral utterance.

Thus, when he breaks a story—regardless of how damaging—it can hit with the force of a stray spark in a vapor-filled gas main.

He did just that late last week when he blared in a banner headline the till-then-clandestine presence of Britain's Prince Harry's serving with his fellow British troops in Afghanistan. Clandestine because of known threats against the young Royal's life, and his unit should his location become known.

Just...wow. (via Crooks & Liars)

Tsk...tsk...tsk...
The 23-year-old prince was posted in mid-December to the restive Helmand province of southern Afghanistan under a cloak of secrecy following an unusual agreement reached between the media and the army.

However, the arrangement collapsed after news was leaked on the US website, the Drudge Report, yesterday.

The ministry said the decision to withdraw the prince, who is third in line to the throne, was taken primarily because “the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier.”

So, this lunk-headed bomb-tosser basically jeopardized not only Prince Harry's life, but that of his unit-mates just-fucking-because? I am no fan of war—it's a disgusting, life-coarsening thing whether justified or not, but I will give serious credit to those who put their asses on the line to fight—for the poor grunts humping it for college money, or a sense of duty or family tradition. And for someone like Prince Harry who deigned to serve when he—unlike the VAST majority of the children of political privilege here in this country—could have sat on his ass, sippeing at Pimms and Sevens till he was a silver-haired do-nothing King. Via birthright he could have ducked anything—he could probably garotte “Who Want's To be A Millionaire's” Chris Tarrant in the middle of a programme and in the end, walk away unscathed.

But...he chose to serve and was doing so with an understanding that it would be kept secret as a matter of national security until apparently Matt Drudge ran out of unflattering Hillary pics to run and ran dry of synonyms for ragheaded darkie to pillory Obama with—so, he went with a stupid, attention-getting, red-cheeked shit-in-the-street leak of confidential and potentially danger-increasing information.

You know Goddamned well that were it one of President Bush's responsibility-phobic daughters' Apple-tini sodden asses on the line in a secret war-zone location, Drudge would've made the Sphinx look like a sodium-pentatholed Chris Tucker with not only his silence, but a vicious lashing out at anyone daring to break that silence.

And that's the crux of it—his naked partisanship and a-moral “fuck propriety—I'll run with any manner of story about anyone who isn't fellating me with deference and perks” style. He'll trash you not out of any sense of wrong or right (or whether what he's pushing is actually true or not—as Sidney Blumenthal, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton all would painfully find out), but just because he can, because it serves his wingnut masters, and because dirt fucking sells.

The ultimate irony is that for all his incessant muckraking on others, he's often the first to rail about someone or some entity endangering national security or his backers' interests through their actual tough investigative reporting. And the right-wing media he funnels his swill to join him in that double-standard. “How dare you release the Abu Ghraib pictures! They're inflammatory!” “We need to prosecute those in the press who leaked about this goverment's illegal secret prisons!” “Someone must pay for daring to talk about the depth of our illegality in spying on Americans”. But of course, you've barely heard a word about Drudge's shitty little line-step because he's “their boy”. Add into the mix the fact that Drudge has some nasty “secrets” about himself that he litigiously fights with all of his hypocritical, indignant might—via Crooks and Liars:

Many have asked about the egg reference in my earlier post. It comes from an article in Salon back in 2000. Jeannette Walls had a spat with Drudge over her book entitled “Dish” in which she revealed some of Matt Drudge’s preferences. She actually never mentioned anything about eggs in the book. Matt brought it out into the open:

After a mutual friend of both gossips tipped off Drudge as to just what these “lurid allegations” (about him—LM's note) were—a nasty case of pubic lice, a penchant for fully clothed sex in the shower and a bizarre egg fetish—he began to spread them himself….

“He likes to have sex with eggs. He likes them smeared all over naked male bodies.”

“It’s all very well sourced,” she told the New York Post’s Page Six. “If he offers you a bite of his omelet, take a pass.”

Splat!

And here, via Raw Story:

Drudge is a fine example of a nut-job. He’s obsessed with being known—starting non-gay rumors about himself, pestering big papers to get coverage—but wants absolutely nothing “out” about his personal life. Certainly not the kind of details he’d splash across his page, anyway. Unless it’s a rumor he tried to start about himself and Laura Ingraham. He even reportedly asked the New Times that no full body photos accompany that interview. That is either one of the gayest things I’ve ever heard or one of the craziest.

Pretty secretive little panty-sniifing (or should I say,“tighty-whit-ey sniffing”), garbage-picking parasite...ain't he? He uses his contacts and “ins” all over the place to gather dirt on pissed-off, would-be retaliators to keep them from ratting out his own creepy-fuck behavior. The day's gonna come though when somebody bigger, badder and with a more powerful “gun” than him will cut him off at the knees and leave him choking on the refuse cloud in history's dustbin. It happens to 'em all. His political and temperamental forefather Walter Winchell saw his once-mighty influence first blunted, and then quickly drained away as people finally tired of his knee-jerk reactionaryism and then saw himself mocked mercilessly in the media—particularly the scathing classic film (One of my all-time favorites) “Sweet Smell Of Success”...

“The real Walter Winchell, no longer as powerful as he'd been in the 1940s but still a man to be reckoned with, went after (screenwriter) Ernest Lehman with both barrels upon the release of Sweet Smell Of Success. Winchell was not so much offended by the unflattering portrait of himself as by the dredging up of an unpleasant domestic incident from his past.”

In the end, the once omnipotent and widely read Winchell was reduced to standing on a Hollywood street corner handing out mimeographed copies of his “column” for free to disinterested passers-by like some sandwich-boarded, nudie-show barker passing out coupons for “Live Girlz!” Drudge's years of hypocrisy—just like Winchell's—and rank amorality will certainly bring him low when the worm turns, as it always does at some point. It'll be the ultimate comeuppance for a turd-gobbling little cyber-thug like him. Countless people unfairly outed. Security and highly sensitive relationships fatally compromised. Reputations...trashed. Lives actually endangered.

All for the sake of a nasty addiction to running people down, spreading gossip, and shilling for parties who mean no one well. All that and what cheap, fleeting fame it grants. That day of payback's pimp-slap'll be a sweet and vicious one...as it is for all “can't take it” bullies.

The prescient words of a then-Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson come rushing to mind...

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

How true those words rang...especially when the bullying Tyson would ironically find himself on the receiving end of a sea-changing “punch in the mouth.”

Do “dirt” and you set yourself up for a “dirt-nap” Trade in shit, and you'll find yourself eating it. Callously play around with people's lives and you'll eventually see your own ruined.

Pimp a secret...push a lie. When fate bites back...don't wonder why.

There's more...

“Hello Malcolm...Hello Martin...”

“Here I am at...Camp Black Powah...”

What is fall-on-your-ass hilarious about the way the campaign season is shaping up is the full-on desperation of many on the right (and a few who purport to be on “The Left”) in their attempts to take down the presumptive front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama.

It's like watching some totally freaked-out kid on the playground spastically windmilling his open, slapping hands—with eyes closed of course—at a much savvier opponent. He hits nothing, and ends up embarrassing himself with the scattershot attempts.

Simultaneously, Barack Obama is being slammed as...

...a milquetoast moderate sellout...

...a Reagan-worshipping caution...

...a literal red-diaper baby...

...a bomb-chucking, dirty fucking hippie...

...a naive, callow know-nothing...

... and lastly, a string-yanked marionette at the beck and call of a secret cabal of takeover-minded “Black Geniuses”.

No, the last one I mentioned there is not a spoof. It was actually said on a major news outlet—albeit FOX News, and from the mustache-awningned mouth of one Geraldo Rivera. But yes, it was said in the heat of frustration over how a Black man could thus far evade the political landmines and bear-traps that have wrecked every other presidential run by a person of color. There's an order to things, and this candidacy is running counter to it—thus eliciting the spluttering wonderment—and naked racist condescension that poured from his mouth late last week.

I know you don't wanna hear it, but here it go anyway...

On the Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, Geraldo Rivera was keeping the flames of the Barack Obama “plagiarism” story alive. The Fox News commentator argued that the Illinois Democratic senator had developed a “formula” for taking political power, and he knew where that formula came from.

“When I saw that they were the same words that Deval Patrick, the black guy who won the Massachusetts mayor, the Massachusetts governor had used, I said to myself, it seems so premeditated. It's almost as if they went to a camp where these black geniuses got together and figured out how to beat the political system in a sense that alright, let's reference the civil rights movement, let's talk about change, it's almost formulaic," Geraldo argued. "What seems so spontaneous and original now to me seemed kind of driven by advisors and media consultants and premeditated, and it really left a sour taste.”

So, let me see if I have this straight...

Because a Black person succeeds in “beating the political system” (ostensibly admitting that said system/construct is built to work against that ambition), it happens NOT because that particular person may be a quality candidate, but rather, because said Negro is backed by a “Star Chamber” of calculating negro plotters mapping out his every power-grabbing move?

Okay. Let's take that at face value for a minute or two.

Hey, imagine that! It spawns questions.

1. What then, does a seasoned “journalist” like Rivera have to say about the majority of White politicians who succeed?

2. Are they just folk of regular intellect who somehow miraculously get by?

3. Why does it in his mind take NOT MERELY ONE so-called “Black Genius” to make the push, but a shady, invisible team funneling help to their standard-bearer?

4. What does that say about the “political system”?

5. What does it say about pundits like him that the idea of Black folk perhaps finally “breaking the code” leaves a “sour taste in his mouth”?

6. And what does it say about his inadvertent exposing of a rich vein of long-time American fear—visualizing a crafty “Black horde” plotting a takeover of some sort?

The questions sort of answer themselves when you read them—and will probably make your blood boil when you go to the link and see Rivera in the video uttering his concern-troll-cum-town crier act as he lays this crackpot theory out.

In his words, and his intonation you hear three things—Fear, Anger, and finally more than a little Disgust. There's almost a “how dare you” tone in his voice as he tut-tuts the whole un-sporting development.

If you're a Black person who's had to deal in the greater corporate world, academia, journalism or the entertainment industry, you have almost certainly run across that same goggle-eyed wonder/condescension/hostility to your success.

Toss out a ten-dollar word, quote a classic, or in a brainstorming session—craft an ass-kicking idea out of whole cloth and you'll get a back-handed compliment version of Geraldo's shpiel at some point.

“Where did you go to school/grow up/come from?”

Because dammit, you have to justify your ability to cope in “The Man's” world. They must know your provenance, and in that desire—no—oft-times it's spat as almost as a challenge or demand, it reminds one of what a freed Black probably felt like 150 years ago when challenged to show his or her “freed person” papers on a dusty back road somewheres.

Yes, ultimately we're dealing with people whose minds are calibrated to see Black people as intellectual and social lessers and when we fly in the face of those cork-smeared tropes, it is disquieting to those in the power structure. “There must be some beyond the pale (pun unintended) explanation for this person exceeding my expectations of his type.”

Thus, “The Black Genius Camp” silliness.

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson—probably a victim several times over of this exact form of condescending idiocy, took note of it:

Ridiculous? Of course -- this is Geraldo, remember. But it's absurd in a way that's new and refreshing. If Fox viewers are being invited to entertain the notion of a Black Genius Camp where young Afro-brainiacs are busy plotting world domination, something has changed.

Whether Obama wins or loses, his campaign has made it impossible for anyone so inclined to cling to certain racist assumptions -- just as Hillary Clinton has blown some old sexist assumptions to smithereens.

In this day and age, no one can claim to be surprised at encountering an African American man of superior intellect. But whether or not you think Obama would be a good president, his campaign brings the often-overlooked reality of mainstream black America into the nation's living rooms every day -- and into the nation's subconscious.

----------------------------------------------------

He (Geraldo) didn't envision a basketball camp, or a prison camp; he saw a genius camp, presumably for African Americans who had figured out just how white America works and just what buttons to push. How diabolically clever.

Hey, if I'm trying to catch a taxi late at night, I'd rather have the cab driver wondering if I'm secretly plotting world domination than thinking I'm about to mug him.

The Obama campaign hasn't had success just on black America's terms but on white America's terms. For all the impact of Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric, he wouldn't be where he is without a campaign organization that is second to none. He's the one with more money and more offices. He's the one who made the better decisions about where to spend resources. Obama has won overwhelming support from black voters, but there's nothing stereotypically "black" about his campaign. It's as if a black American is beating white America at its own game.

Robinson mocks Geraldo and his equally insecure fellow travelers as the idiots they are, but I think misses an annoying undertone in Rivera's ‘realization”. That cab driver he scoffs about certainly does fear that mugging—he's conditioned to. But I would seriously doubt the paranoid thought of so-called Black “domination” (through the election to high office) is any cold comfort to someone so racially twisted about.

What strikes me about this—to go back to an original point at the top, is that racist folk get so Goddamned discombobulated over a person of color breaking the perception chains placed upon them that said racist folk invariably fall over their own feet trying to impugn and hinder the colored folk who so fascinates them.

There is a passive/aggressive power play at work when the majority considers people who break those hoary old molds.

“Read! Achieve! Succeed! Get beyond the ghetto and leave that to your lessers! But hey—now that you've done that, you can't leave your people behind. You have to go back and help them—that's your responsibility. Oh, but isn't it just a tragedy that they dislike you because you are so different from them now? You're not Black enough for them anymore! You must be so conflicted. Wait a minute—you're going back to teach them things? Why them? What are you? Some sort of reverse racist? A radical? I find your focus on them, troubling. It's a bit...insular, don't you think? Separationist? I'm just sayin...”

Geraldo's fear-and-flop-sweat stained yammering was just another example of trying to stifle Black success by stuffing it into a denigrating trick-bag. “It's a secret society of bean pie snarfing seditionists what's behind the dude—watch out!”

Bullshit.

I came by what I know, and all of my friends came by what they know the old-fashioned way— we went to school, we read our books and listened to our teachers. We soaked up what we could, when and where we could. There was no “Jared/The Pretender” black-ops (pun again unintended) genius program snatching us up as kids and jacking the Encyclopedia Brittannica into our heads “Johnny Mnemonic”-style. There never has been nor will there ever be.

Take your precious, insecurity-spawned “Bell Curve” and kindly shove it.

Some of us are smart, some not-so-smart, and some are as dumb as a box of rocks—the same as you. When you come across one of us whose intellect or ability to connect and express him or herself gives you pause—a.k.a. bugs you the fuck out—that person is not some freak-tastic evolutionary anomaly to be “ooooh-ed and ahhhh-ed” at.

He or she is simply a person your negative racial pre-conditioning has forced you to see as some bizarre “other”.

Get. The. Fuck. Over. It.

Over the irrational fear of Black people and their bumping up against you in society. 'Cause ultimately—it's confusing and contradictory in mind-boggling ways. Cringe in fright and clutch your purse at the dread-locked dude in the elevator—spazz out and drop your jaw at the brother who casually slips a line of Shakespeare into a conversation. Which is it? Unless...the desire is for us to reside in that easily ignored middle—neither the angry, put-upon underclass or the hyper-achieving, ego-threatening super-n*gger. Hate to tell you this, but we will not live down to a psychosis that swings back and forth between a phobia of Black violence and Black excellence. We will live, and grow, and achieve on our own terms—as we have since the days of slavery when “book-learnin'” was effectively outlawed for the dusky free-labor underclass. It's just what folks do...excel on their own terms, with no need for a “Genius Camp” propping them up and funneling words and ideas into their mouths.

Speaking of which—exactly what was it two years ago when the Right think-tanked the hell out of its slate of contrived, high-profile “Black” candidates? You remember 'em—Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell? Remember the fact that this off-key, shitty karaoke, theme-park, pre-fabbed assemblage of funk-free “O'Jays” were being foisted on the voters as the real deal? By yes—a “Star Chamber” of focus-grouping wingnut power-brokers bent on an insipid “Pinky and the Brain” scheme to re-jigger (Sweet God—you can't avoid inadvertent racial wordplay in dealing with this...) the racial electoral dynamic in pushing their own “Idiot Camp” of would be candidates.

Only to see it fail miserably. Totally. Little bit of sour grapes on the part of Geraldo and his peers I think in having to absorb the to-this-point success of the Obama run. “Our Negroes failed—which reflects on us. Their n*gger's succeeding—Grrrrrr! How do we piss on that achievement and simultaneously short-circuit it? Trot out the spectre of a scary dark horde clandestinely backing him. Yeah! That's it!”

Whatever it takes. Shut your eyes. Shake your head. Drink up and pass around the thick, sweet wine of racial fear-mongering. Do what you must...to get rid of that aforementioned “sour taste.”

Do not share that precious recess yard tree. Tie your message-laden nooses in the night and place them accordingly in the pre-dawn light. Careful you don't get caught! Soak in your bitterness. Rag the red-shirted, brown-skinned golfer who out-drives and out-putts you every sunny, Sunday afternoon. Crack wise about lynching being the only way to stop him. And in between bites of falafel and bouts of creepy onanism, bully-mouth a Black candidate's wife with threats of a virtual lynching.

Go for it.

But I ain't goin' nowhere. We ain't goin' nowhere. Yes, I said ain't. Just to make you more...comfortable.

Although I could have gone for a full-out Buckley-ism (and a Harlem-born Black man whipping his language about like a cat-o'-nine tails is I think, a certain sweet post-passing revenge) and said...

In spite of your troglodytic and hyper-pathological zeal to relegate me and mine to the psychological ghetto-comfort-zone of your bigotry-atrophied mind, I...we—refuse to be imprisoned there. Your socio-political dungeon walls are of mere sand. The bars? But brittle straw. It was Bertrand Russell who said: “Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.” I say, Your irrational fears shall not harness my desires.

But I won't, Geraldo. You too, Bill-O, and all the rest quavering in race-struck fear. “I ain't goin' nowhere. We ain't goin nowhere” sums it up just fine.

Besides, I've got things to do “at camp”. Making an aircraft material and ceramic afro-pick/Type 2 superconductor to bring home to Mama. Wish me luck in managing to combine mega-afro blowout tensile strength with those copper perovskites while somehow...somehow maintaining those pesky 2-to-3 metal-to-oxygen ratios and whatnot...

There's more...

GNB NEWS DESK BREAKING NEWS: FRED THOMPSON ENDING PRESIDENTIAL RUN

FRED THOMPSON propped up in front of standing in front of a campaign banner that he apparently has no clue about—Photo manipulation: LowerManhattanite

MCLEAN, VA./NASHVILLE, TN: In a move that stunned...somebody, former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) ended his bid for the presidency via a statement delivered by Western Union Telegram to various news agencies. Ironically, the message's delivery method seemed to very much encapsulate Thompson's difficulty in communicating his message during the arduous 14 1/2 hours of actual campaigning he undertook.

His dismal performance in the South Carolina primary last week was “the straw that kinda laid there on the rotting, buzzard-picked, camel carcass' back” said one campaign insider who chose to remain anonymous out of simple embarassment.

Thompson campaign headquarters at the historic Fall School Building in Nashville was abuzz with activity minutes ago as a truck in front was filled with the detritus of a campaign at its end. Scores of cellophane bagged pillows, box upon box of Dearfoams™ slippers, and what appeared to be several large, unopened cartons from the Barcalounger™ company were loaded out and onto the truck as many Thompson '08 staffers looked on with wet, sleep-crusted eyes.

“This was my first campaign.” said Kit Hobbleson, a young staffer who stood on the sidewalk in flannel pajamas and a robe. “It was so much fun. We had theme days. I guess you can see that this was 'Pajama Tuesday'”, he added. A female co-hort chimed in “Pajama Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays were pretty nice too. We're going to miss it. Big time.”

Workmen grappled with a heavy instant hot Postum vending machine, trying to squeeze it through the front door of the headquarters. Hobbleson and his co-worker held hands at the sight.

“Damn. It really is over.”, he said with a catch in his throat.

There were though. some shocked reactions to Thompson's campaign's end. Particularly certain higher ups in the Republican Party. Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan seemed quite surprised at Thompson's departure.

“I am shocked at this unfortunate turn of events...and saddened.”, Duncan said. “Our bookkeeping situation here at headquarters is not what it should be and we were not aware until today's announcement that Fred was even running. That's a tragedy. That so capable a man could run a campaign without his own party even being privy to it. It's a loss for the party, a loss for me personally, and I can only imagine how Frank himself must be feeling.”

When reminded that the candidate in question was “Fred” and not “Frank”, Duncan shook his head and quietly mused. “Like I said...this is a tragedy.”

(DETAILS AT ELEVEN)

There's more...

Freddie...And The Dreamers

“Yeah, uh...Dick Wolf's office? Hey, it's me, Fred! Fred...Thompson? “Sigh!” That's capital F...R-E-D, T-H-O...

The final line from Prince's boy-toy group Vanity 6's one big hit has been ringing in my head like mad for the last 24 hours:

“Wake me when you're done. Guess you'll be the only one having fun.”

The reason? No, not a flashback to the 80's Minneapolis Fop/Pimp phase (that even I lustily participated in), but...the seeming end of a courageous, hard-fought...“Yawn!...campaign for the...“Yawn!”...presidency. Shit. I can't seem to keep my eyes open! I'm 'a take a nap. Thers, take it away while I grab forty winks:

Over at Red State one of the inmates has written rather mawkish obituary for the Fred Thompson campaign, which is a bit like shutting the barn door after the horse fell asleep in the hay watching Matlock.

The Thompson campaign has been fascinating to watch, as would be any desperate attempt to slap a saddle on Grandpa. Fascinating, but disturbing, like one of those sadistic japanese game shows. The constant equestrian metaphors alone were enough to make the sane queasy, and they still haven't stopped with them. From the lachrymose Red State eulogy linked above:

...when it seemed that the Republican field needed a White Knight to ride in on a shiny steed and save it (and us) from itself, we didn't call on Newt Gingrich or Jeb Bush; we called on you.

And he promptly snoozed to the rescue in his Comfy BarcaLounger.
The notion of Shamblin' Fred as the Childe Geritol of the GOP is not merely hilarious on its face, however -- though, to be sure, it is that. The episode tells us more about Greater Wingnuttia than it does about Thompson, about whom there was never much to learn, or care about. What did he ever have to offer, anyway, this erstwhile Savior of the Party of Ideas?

Appearing on ABC Radio, on the Sunday shows, and at speaking engagements, you spoke to the parts of us on the conservative end of the spectrum that weren't being spoken to by the other candidates. Immigration reform, strength in prosecuting the war on terror, a return to Federalism -- all issues for which you were the most articulate, and (it appeared) most viable, spokesman.

Oh. Dusty-assed wingnut bullshit, then. But it goes deeper than that. Examine this, from a maudlin Byron York, describing a brief moment when Fred seemed at least vaguely lifelike, startling half to death a clump of drowsy supporters:

“We’re having a little discussion in the party nowadays about what that means for the future,” Thompson told the crowd. “Some people think we need to get away from the Reagan coalition, because it doesn’t exist any more.” The audience erupted into boos. “Some people seem to think that we need to be a little bit more what they called progressive… Well, I reject that concept with every fiber of my being.”

Even, presumably, the fibers that derive from Metamucil.

(SOUND OF NECK SNAPPING AS HEAD BOBS FROM DRIFTING INTO DEEPER SLEEP)

Owwww! Damn! Where was I? Oh, yeah. South Carolina was to be Papa Derf's supposed firewall. Where the big guy was to start his roll, or at least his rheumy-eyed trundle to the nomination. But alas, as predicted at The News Blog way back in April of last year, this was a vision only for delusionaries, rope-belted perfessers of “de law”, and dreamers:

Onto Mr. Thompson now. Or, "Toad" for this discussion. Leave us to peruse his appeal. This lumbering, hangdog, mountain of southern manliness! This champion of the rope-belted Perfesser Glenn Reynolds--fellow disingenuous scolds and Tennesseans both. Possessor of a honeyed, Eeyore-ish drawl, which he wraps around folksy catchphrases and homilies that'd make even Dan Rather say "Um...what the f*ck did that mean?" A "star" of Law & Order in his role as the anachronistic, imported-from-East-Bumf*ck, Manhattan D.A. Arthur Branch--antagonizing the belief suspension of every viewer of the show, save for those few flyovers who you can best bet, rooted for William Windom's Prosecutor Gilmer to triumph over Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird".

But, but--the real selling point of the Shar-Pei faced, would-be candidate lay in something more tantalizing. It's that pathological GOP quest for someone new to slip on the smiling Reagan mask. The glamorous mask that allows one to push for the vilest, most retrograde sh*t imaginable, but get away with it because of a bit of Hollywood charm. So, as Ron Silver's too C-list these days (and too Jewish for a hateful Grand Olde Party), and Schwarzenegger can't "Hasta la Vista" the Constitution away, the mantle falls to ol' croaky Fred--who make no mistake, deftly espouses the freeper wet-dream list of poisonous policies, baked deep in a rich, gooey cupcake of message delivery for those whose addiction to political "sweets" trumps the common sense of how bad they are for you in the long run.

Alas, our "baker" is a well-known lazy son-of-a-b*tch. Reknowned for his sloth and flagging interest during his brief tenure in the Senate, and doubly demonstrative in his ponderous, galumphy performance style. Not a helluva lot of fire in that broad, prosperous belly of his. The image the right wants to sell of Thompson is that of folksy Sheriff Andy Taylor. The reality is more like Griffiths' twisted, down-home Lonesome Rhodes character--shot through with a heapin' helpin' of "Paw" from "The Hillbilly Bears".

And now that reality is even more like that of “The Hillbilly Bears”—an old, slow-paced cartoon, good for a yuk or two, but now pretty much cancelled and soon to be just as much a memory.

I'm kind of sad. Not as much as the drama queen at RedState crying tears over the death of his dream of a Fred-led D.C. Sham-a-Lot, but sad at the apparent loss of a rich, but slow-moving target like Fred.

I never got the chance to set his shameless bleat for reaction from a captive, half-asleep crowd to the tune of The Four Seasons' “Beggin” like I wanted to, or mash up one of his speeches with a fine “Paw Rugg” soliloquy on YouTube.

But in the end, all it means is that my original take on Fred was dead-on. He was nothing but a joke. A thing to be made sport of and nothing more.

To everyone except Mike Huckabee that is. Fred's staying in the race in South Cackalackky may well have drained just enough votes from Huckabee's Lawdamercy Fever Swamp to derail his campaign—much to the delight of GOP big-wigs who were anxious to geld his campaign with a half-melted spork. Staying in and campaigning as heavily (I use that word ironically) as he did in Jesus-in-my-french-toast territory may have been a calculated final act to aid the party on Fred's part, kicking the NQOCD Huckabee in the nuts—and making it the one fucking impactful bit of effort-giving on his part during his whole non=campaign.

“Thanks for playing, Fred. Johnny, what's our lovely parting gift?

“Why...Sominex! Imagine that!”

Which leaves us with three so-called “major” candidates in the GOP. Mitt Romney—the wooden suit-hanger that breathes and is reviled for triangulating more than a Phil Jackson offense, John McCain—who may actually be hated even more by GOP hardballers than Romney.

And of course, the next most popular Republican candidate in terms of actual votes, R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-

-Ron-fucking-Paul.

And then it's Rudolph W. (and the “W” stands for “What a fucking waste of time”) Giuliani, and his own turn at a Southern Waterloo, the Florida primary in nine (as in “9-11's where it's at, babeee!”) days. The one hanging precariously and greasy-handed off the side of a quivering bubble of hope.

How sweet the irony and justice were Rudy, an actual bastard former U.S. attorney to suffer the same fate as Fred Thompson—fellow candidate and fictional brother-in-judiciary-arms in getting his lazy ass bounced from the presidential ring once and for all.

And yes, Fred Thompson's campaign goldfish-float did indeed move me to think of Vanity Six. Although to be frank, it really doesn't take much to move me to think of the lovely Prince-powered, one-hit winders. I mean, look at this dude again:


Can you fucking blame me?

There's more...

It's All About Listening

The Victorian Web

Through the Looking Glass

The Victorian Web

A-dressing the White Queen

Sir John Tenniel

Wood-engraving by Dalziel

Illustration for the fifth chapter of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1865)

(Alice): "Am I addressing the White Queen?"

(Queen): "Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing"..." It isn't my notion of the thing, at all."

[The verbal humour here results from the confusion of the pun "a-dressing" and "addressing".]

At Orcinus our beloved Sara Robinson has up a post you must go read now.

Go. Shoo.

She's right.

Take them at their word. They absolutely are who they say they are.

Sara was a fundy. I spent many years working with LGATs. Large Group Awareness Training.

LGATs have a justly deserved reputation for mixing pop psychology with new age nonsense, for taking people who aren't as strong as they might be and finding their weak points (while claiming publicly to only want strong healthy people), and especially for pressuring people to take their courses.

"The pressure, the pressure, oh God, they made me take the course" is the constant refrain.

I'll let you in a secret... it's absolutely true.

People are pressured into taking LGAT courses. In most of these organizations, volunteers are trained relentlessly (and really well) at finding people's weak points and converting them into sales. Yes, duh, it really is all about the money. Disguised of course, in enlightened jargon about becoming more effective, building confidence, and increasing self-esteem in an interconnected world in which one makes better choices through taking advantage of opportunities of which they were previously unaware. And so on, and so on, and so on.

That isn't to say some courses from some LGATs don't have positive effects, at least for a while. Others are a fast ride into danger. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

What all of them have in common however in my view, is a carefully hidden intent to get you hooked, deeply, on needing their jargon-filled language and their courses to stay on the high you get there and (so you are intended to think) only there. None of them teach you to think for yourself, give you library citations, or show you where they learned how to do what they do with you. You always have to run home to Daddy -- ca-ching! The cash register rings -- when you want a fix of that sweet, sweet feeling so good.

Eventually you learn you can get that special feeling by selling others. So you learn to sell the program.

You learn to listen carefully to precisely what people say. Whatever it is they say when they say "NO -- I don't want to sign up because..." is precisely the thing you then turn around and use to put them in the program.

It goes like this...

"NO -- I don't have enough money." "People get better jobs out of our programs all the time."

"NO -- I don't have enough time." "People become more organized, more able to get more done. Just by signing this paper you're committing yourself to become more organized."

"NO -- I don't trust you guys." "And I don't blame you. To sign this registration form you'd have to trust someone for the first time in a long time, wouldn't you? Signing up for this course requires you to trust. The course actually starts with your registration..."

Whatever someones says, you listen. Accept it as the truth about them. And then use that to be THE issue which they must work with in order to register into the program.

Never argue with their premise. Accept that premise, and let them know this program will fix it... and they're in. It's that simple.

Sara is saying the same thing. She says (in her brilliant article) the Fundies are telling us who they are with every word they say.

1. Listen.
2. Believe what they say; it is true for them, even if they don't know it. They reveal themselves to us every time they speak or write.
3. Act based on their premise. Close the sale (whatever the sale may be.)

Got it? Welcome to The Looking Glass.

There's more...

Every Damn Thing You Need To Know About Republicans

Darcy for Congress: Part 4

Earlier this week I was listening to Aaron Sorkin and Tommie Schlamme give the commentary on the Pilot episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

In speaking of casting Steven Weber to play the network executive, they said the one thing you can never act is smart. You have to be smart already. From the moment they saw Steven audition, the part was his. He was so smart, so powerful, so obviously right for the part, no one else had a shot.

All week long I've been coming back to how with Republicans, acting smart, acting patriotic, acting moral, acting as if they give a damn for people -- being seen to appear as if this or that were true, that is what truly matters to Republicans... Appearances.

Real intelligence, authentic patriotism, genuine morality, and above all, truly taking care of people such that at the end of the day or the week, at the end of the month or the year, people are left saying reflexively, "Yeah. I've been taken care of. These people really took care of me."... it's not them. They can't even fake it. Like an actor can't act smart.

Republicans not only aren't interested in the genuine article, they're actively opposed.

Why?

Because the genuine article shows the Republicans up as no different than either the thieves, or the two who passed by the man who lay dying by the side of the road in the parable so long ago:

The Bible

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO