Dobbs Quits Before He's Fired

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GOP Misadventure Comics

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Frank Luntz -- The Early Years

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Why the GOP is Dying, Reason 3

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The Tattlesnake – Post-Election Portents and Predictions Edition

…And How the Big Media Speculators Got It Wrong Again

The usual Big Media Punchinellos were out in force the past few days, blaring and bleating the Beltway Conventional Wisdom that the Democratic Party's loss of the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey are a sure referendum on Obama Administration policies. This is the sort of doomed facile reasoning found in the bottom of a Washington cocktail glass typical of Our Pundit Class who, from non-existent Iraq WMD to Fred Thompson's popularity with voters, can never seem to fit the square peg in the round hole, pound though they might.

A brief review of the Dem candidates in VA and NJ clearly shows why progressives and like-minded independents didn't bother to vote for Creigh Deeds in Virginia or Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and it had nothing to do with Obama. For various reasons explained below, they were both terrible candidates.

Creigh Deeds: In an era of change, Deeds was a shambling throwback, a dismal campaign clunker with four flat tires, who rejected Obama's advice and help until it dawned on him in the final weeks he was going to lose in a landslide. He ran a miserably negative campaign, devoid of ideas, and presented his pap on toast so dry even peppy Dem loyalists fought to stay awake during his speeches. A Dem Blue Dog so blue he threatened to opt out of a public option should it become available to Virginians, he was nearly as conservative as his GOP opponent Bob McDonnell. Why leave the house to vote when the choice is between a Republican and a Dem who thinks like a Republican? Seen clearly, this was a referendum, and portent of the future, for Blue Dog Dems rather than President Obama.

Jon Corzine: The one-time US Senator who was just bounced from the governor's mansion is a Goldman Sachs Golden Boy who made piles of money on Wall Street and insists on spending it on vanity campaigns. Why he doesn't just buy a new summer home or sumptuous overpriced yacht instead of squadering his fortune to impose himself on our political process is beyond me, but Corzine has never shown much talent for governing once elected, and what few things he has accomplished were always moderate to the point of invisibility. Jon is the kind of drab Dudley Do-Nothing the Democratic Party needs to send packing, if they expect to keep the majority in the future. Again, the portentiousness of Corzine's defeat was not his affiliation with Obama's policies, but the yellow line up the middle of his back from avoiding tenaciously either the right or left lane. He will not be missed, at least by this writer.

The point? Neither of them were progressives and didn't stir independents or liberal Dems to go out and vote for them.

And now to stare into the crystal – but not Kristol – ball for some predictions on the Republican winners of those two elections:

Bob McDonnell: The Republican who just won the governor's race in Virginia is a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University and has been steeped in Christopublican politics his entire adult life. McDonnell campaigned on a Chuck-E-Cheesy slogan of "Bob's 4 Jobs" but when Virginians discover Bob's secret plan to create jobs is to pray twice a day, they'll be anxious to dump him in the next election. Either that or, Ted Haggard clone that he is, he'll get caught up in some lurid sex scandal, perhaps involving farm animals – male farm animals, of course, in a stall in the Minneapolis airport. "Hey, how did you sneak that horse in here?!"

Chris Christie: The GOP candidate who swept Corzine from the New Jersey governor's mansion was once a NJ federal prosecutor, appointed by the Bush/Rove locus of governmental crime. While in that job he had been repeatedly tied to corruption and malfeasance, including handing out no-bid contracts to friends, using his office to help his brother's shaky Wall Street firm, connections to a Genovese Family crime boss (Tino "The Greek" Fiumara), and he was censured for refusing to prosecute Bristol-Myers-Squibb for criminal fraud, instead letting them pay a $311,000 fine and donate $5 million to his alma mater, Seton Hall University School of Law. (Considering the billions B-M-S makes, the fine and donation were a slap on the wrist.) And keep in mind it's New Jersey, next to Texas the most corrupt state in the union, and this guy has been a major player in the Bush mold -- it's only a matter of time before he sells some indulgence, takes a bribe, or springs some crook and then he's on his way out the door. The only thing you can say for Christie is that he was smart enough to refuse Sarah Palin's offer to campaign for him.

Meanwhile, the real action was in New York's 23rd Congressional District, the most reliably conservative and Republican in the state. Even after GOP bigwigs like Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Dick Armey, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck sang his praises, Conservative Party candidate Doug "The Bullet's in My Top Pocket" Hoffman was defeated by liberal Democrat and union-supporter Bill Owens. The Republican civil war has started in earnest and I think when the Christopublican-Teabagger wing of the GOP nominates Palin in 2012, that will be it -- many Republicans will pull out and vote Libertarian or nominate their own candidate, someone like Colin Powell. When Palin is beaten by the largest landslide in American history, bringing many other Republicans down with her, the GOP will be no more, just as the Whigs became extinct when Lincoln was elected in 1860. I don't know what will replace the GOP, but I'll bet it won't have 'Republican' in the name.

If you're looking for a bellwether of future elections and the direction the country's heading, this upstate New York congressional election presents a far better portent than do the elections in Virginia and New Jersey, but you'd never know that from watching our puerile Punditocracy diddle itself dizzy on nationwide television.

Contact the author at editor@ltsaloon.org

© 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

Sarah Palin's Kiss of Death

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KBR Employees Monthly Magazine

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Tales From The FOXholes Pt. 11

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Young Rush: The Happy Halloween Special Edition

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Beck The Great Halloweenie

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New GOP Rebranding Ad

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The GOP on the Skids

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The Who Said What? Quiz

The Tattlesnake – Who Said What? Edition

Time for a quiz? I thought so. Grab your paper and pencil and no cheating with the Google machine. As you read, you'll catch on to the theme of this baker's dozen of questionable quotes:

1. "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

2. "Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

3. "War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

4. "We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

5. "The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

6. "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

7. "The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

8. "Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

9. "Direct threats require decisive action."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

10. "I cannot be mistaken – what I say and do is historical."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

11. "When we have won the war, who will question our methods?"

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

12. "While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines [the nation's] security."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

13. "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep repeating it, and eventually they will believe it."

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

And here are the answers:

1. A. Benito Mussolini

2. A. Benny again!

3. A. Still Il Duce.

4. C. This one's from Dick.

5. A. Benito is back!

6. B. Der Fuhrer said this.

7. A. Back to Benny.

8. B. Hitler again.

9. C. Dick at his finest.

10. B. That Paperhangin' SOB said this.

11. B. Hitler again.

12. C. Ann Coultergeist.

13. B. Back to Adolf.

Contact the author at Editor@ltsaloon.org

© 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org.

The Sharpest Knife in the Drawer

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A Politically Incorrect, But True, Cartoon

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Rush the Bubble Boy

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Teabaggers: The Useful Idiots of the Right

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Tales from the FOXholes, Parts 9 & 10

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Iowa at Year's End: Media Sleepwalking in the Field of Bad Dreams

"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome."
-- George Orwell

The sister-state-with-a-good-personality that advertises as a tourist trap the actual Field of Dreams from the eponymously-titled 1989 film primps its porky self every four years and welcomes in the gentlemen callers and call girls of the Official National News Media, the camp followers of the dingy foam of beady-eyed political pros and effervescent caucus volunteers that cling like barnacles to the campaigns of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, their carnival-colored buses, turgid classic rock anthems, and overbearing optimism blaring with certainty that Something Wicked This Way Comes. "Open wide, Iowa, while I shove my meglomaniacal happy-face ersatz altruism down your throat," is the tacit campaign slogan of every candidate, no matter in what slot of the political roulette wheel the ideological ball has fallen.

While the Field of Dreams Movie Site, 200 miles west of Chicago in Dyersville, Iowa, is closed from November through April, the frenetic campaigns fueled by dreams of power are open for business, even as snow piles up on the state highways and cars veer crazily in uncontrolled ice skids; proof that indomitable ego is stronger than poor weather or plain sense. It's not a fit night for man nor beast out there, so in what category should we place these relentlessly upbeat glad-handers lusting to be your next president?

It's a moot point how many of the candidates actually visit the movie's cornfield-edged baseball diamond as the whole state becomes a living nightmare of bull-horn marketing and meals interrupted by the forced handshakes of grinning creatures dedicated to 'public service,' still trying to tie up that Senior Class Presidency that eluded them ages ago, hoping to convince the next suspicious yokel or milk-fed maiden, high on the fumes from deep-fried corn dogs or congealing pork grease, that only they can master the Free World by dint of eerily whitened teeth and EZ-Read soundbite solutions. Meanwhile, parts of the state have been gutted into ghost towns by the sacred corporate Free Trade Economy touted by most of the Serious Candidates as the Ultimate Cure, along with ethanol subsidies, for low-wage work, outsourcing jobs overseas, the disillusioned unemployed, higher prices, and the recently emerging housing catastrophe. Said ghost towns and vacant factories are rarely on the itinerary of the candidates unless it's to make a point about their ineffectual opponents: Too many uncomfortable angry questions; too much blatant misery for an upbeat flag-festooned backdrop amiable to the national camera eye. "This is America? Boarded-up windows, 'For Sale Cheap' signs, empty plants and desolate streets?" the discomfited viewer might ponder. Just add some Wal-Mart boxes with 'Made in China' crossed out and you've hit a home run of the utter despair that's hollowed out pockets of the Midwest and Plains states, all but ignored in the roar of cars and buses hastening to the next campaign stop.

Instead of risking a damaging collision with brutal reality, the potential presidents tend to hew to the wood-trimmed Affluenza of chummy restaurants and whole-bean coffee shops where the home-grown clientele is more likely to be employed and willing to ask pre-digested questions provided by the candidate's advance team. That the Solons of Big Mediocracy often edge out the local bumpkins in the front rows at these events is only as it should be -- the candidate needs video of him or herself issuing proclamations from Mount Sinai of optimistic change, hard-won experience, lower taxes, and fun for everyone but terrorists, and must impress the media Conveyors of Conventional Wisdom to cite an attribute of probity or wit for the next day's column, stand-up report, or TV chatterbox visit. That the Sages of the Print Page or Plasma Screen often instead meander into lengthy disquisitions on the price of the candidate's haircut, where they attended elementary school, or whether they prefer pearls or diamonds, gossipy effluvia that would have made Walter Winchell cringe, never dispels this hope. Of course, should the candidate shout with joy too close to the microphone or claim to have seen something inexplicable in the sky, the Bought and Bored Press Corps, and their Masters back at Corporate News Central, will verbally straight-jacket the candidate and reprimand them to a media rubber room as 'unelectable' with the not-so-subtle subtext: 'They're too crazy to be president.' That's all right, goes their thinking -- they were, coincidentally, just a little too uncomfortably populist for corporate branding anyway.

While the Big Media can't bring themselves to call the sitting president a liar as he laughingly flaunts his prevarications repeatedly to their faces and carefully self-censors any mention of that protuberant personality flaw, they eagerly tag themselves junior psychologists as they ferret out the 'true character' of the various deprived-of-sufficient-childhood-affection Senators, Governors and Congressional inhabitants running for the office from such trivia as the price of haircuts and the depth of necklines.

And just who is this regiment of over-paid Invaders from the East who desert their McMansions and Significant Others to traipse into the cold barrens of the Midwest, delivering news of the future Electoral-College-chosen King or Queen to the Boobs couched in front of the Tubes, Internet, broadcast or cable? They are bright eye-winking ornaments on the acceptable vanilla frosting of the Big Media cake; dependably and willingly servile to the interests of the Corporate Class, and therefore incapable of making waves if they were drowning. The worst excrescence of the Broadcast News school of journalism, exceptional as to facial features or modulated voice or hair texture, but neutered in pursuit of any story other than those pre-approved by the glass-walled fortresses of malarkey in New York, or the flourescent-lit shrines of anonymously-sourced information in Washington. They remember Dan Rather and the Bush AWOL documents; they won't be going there.

While some may be aware that the tripe they promulgate would disgust any self-respecting fish caught wrapped in it, the forgettable and often erroneous vapors they exude satisfies the dictates of Conventional Wisdom -- that sour stew cooked up by their editors, publishers, program directors, or executive producers of what is safe to say and what opinions match the ongoing effort to keep the parent corporation profitable and the public subdued. Their careers, mortgages and children's college funds all depend upon them ignoring the sacking of Rome to provide reports on how the Visigoths were dressed or a detailed analysis of the sharpness of the weapons used.

It's illustrative that the newly-minted Despot of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, reportedly prefers being interviewed by Western journalists, specifically those from the World's Only Superpower. As Tariq Ali writes in "Daughter of the West": "...the general [Musharraf] often contrasted the deference with which he was treated by the US networks ... with the 'unruly' questioning inflicted on him by local journalists: it 'misled the people'."

The current crop of candidates crisscrossing Iowa need have no real nightsweats; we have the best-trained, most deferential journalists in the world -- no truly 'unruly' questions will drop from their lips to 'mislead' the people, only trivia tricks and shallow 'gotchas' to numb their minds into ignoring the sources of their thin wallets and vanishing Constitution.

As in every election year for the past two decades, it is incumbent upon any American who cares about the country, and the dimensions of the southbound handbasket into which it's being deposited by our corporate and governmental elite, to find out about the candidates using the Big Media only for a point of reference or comic relief. Aside from the backbone of the Internet, C-Span is offering the speeches and public events of the various Party Chosen, a much better way to gauge their character than the strained pap presented by our biased American media, assiduously working on behalf of their corporate parents and Washington overseers.

"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). ... You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair."
-- Milton Mayer on the rise of fascism in Hitler's Germany, from "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45," published by the University of Chicago Press.

©1955, 1966 by the University of Chicago.

Twisted Songs of the Season, Republican Edition

Bush Junior: "All I Want For Christmas is My Three Front War"

Dick Cheney: "(It's Lovely Weather for a) Slay Ride"

Ann Coulter: "Goy to the World"

Rudy Giuliani: "Rudolph the Long-Nosed Reign-Deer"

Sean Hannity: "The Little War-Drummer Boy"

Mike Huckabee: "(I'm Dreaming of) White Christians"

Duncan Hunter: "Nasty the Low Man"

Joe Lieberman: "Missile Joe and Folly"

Rush Limbaugh: "Ding Dong! Merrily I'm High"

John McCain: "I'll Be Home Next Christmas"

Michael Mukasey: "My Nuts Roasting On An Open Fire..."

Rupert Murdoch: "Deck the Halls (with Bags of Money)"

Bill O'Reilly: "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

Mitt Romney: "Have Yourself a Mormon Little Christian"

Fred Thompson: "(Walking in a) Winter Blunderland"

Congressional Republicans: "A King Is Born on High"

Closeted Gay Christopublicans: "O Come All Ye Faithful"

Neocon Talk Shows: "Unsilent Right"

Wall Street Investors: "Jingo Bears"

Christmas in America, 2007

"What were you thinking letting those two stay in our barn?"

"The woman's pregnant -- she's going to have the baby any time now. What's the harm?"

"Why doesn't she go to a hospital then?"

"She can't -- the governor signed a law preventing people from other lands from using our hospitals."

"Well, I still think you made a mistake. Why don't they stay at a hotel or something?"

"They're poor -- they don't have a dime. Don't worry, they won't cause any trouble in the barn."

"That old man seems pretty shifty to me -- what if he barges in here and cuts our throats while we're sleeping?"

"I talked to him, he seems like a nice man. I doubt that's going to happen."

"That's another thing -- what is that old man doing married to that young girl?"

"That's the custom where they're from."

"Weird customs and they're flat broke. Great. Why didn't they stay home to have this baby; why are they on the road? Did it ever occur to you they're wanted by the law?"

"Would you calm down? They're just going to stay here a few days and move on. They don't seem like the criminal type."

"Oh, yeah, well, what are they going to eat while they're here?"

"We have more than we need; it won't hurt us to help them out with a little food."

"Are you going to start letting every bum you meet stay in our barn and eat our food?"

(Just then, the sound of a baby crying is heard.)

"Looks like she had the kid. I'm going to go out and get a good look at these foreigners."

"Be nice."

(Ten minutes later.)

"Do you know what she named the kid? 'Hey-Zeus.' What -- are they greeting some pagan god? What kind of weird name is that?"

"It's a common name in their land."

"And they've got three more of their bum friends out there, hanging around looking suspicious. They're dressed up pretty strange and they don't seem right to me. This might be their gang who're here to slit our throats and take our money. You'd better do something."

"I'll take a look."

(Several minutes later.)

"It's fine; just some visitors from the east here to pay their respects. They aren't going to stay long."

"Sure -- why not just bring in everyone they know and have a party!"

"Just relax -- look, the three men are leaving. Everything's fine, let's go to bed."

"I'm going to sleep with one eye open and a knife under my pillow."

"Believe me, that's not necessary."

"What if these people like it here? What if they decide to stay and live here, taking our jobs and sending their kids to our schools? Do you want to pay for all that? Our taxes are high enough as it is!"

"So, they'll work and earn their way and pay their taxes, just like we did when we started out."

"You're really stupid. You don't understand these foreigners, they aren't like us -- all they want to do is sit around and get high and have kids and live on welfare."

"That's what they said about your grandfather when he moved here."

"That was different; he was a religious man with faith and a hard worker."

"I have a feeling these folks are, too."

"If they were, they would have thought about how they were going to support this kid before they had it."

"Not everyone is as fortunate as you."

"That's too bad for them.""Merry Christmas to you, too."

"Are you being sarcastic again?"

"Are you?"

[End]

You Might Be a Neocon If...

With a hat tip to Jeff Foxworthy, it's time to play:

You Might Be a Neocon If...

... you believe Bush and Cheney are moral men with your best interests at heart.

... you believe Bush's press secretary Dana Perino (or any Bush press secretary in the past) is actually telling you the unvarnished truth.

... you don't want to pay a dime for national health care, yet expect a taxpayer-funded emergency room to treat you immediately after you've had an accident.

... you think Bush is right even when he's proven wrong, again and again.

... you think Karl Rove is a great historian.

... you think there actually is a War on Christmas outside of Bill O'Reilly's head.

... you think Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" is a pack of lies from start to finish, yet you've never seen it and have vowed you never will.

... you've ever rendered a strong opinion on ANY book, magazine article, website, film, TV show or play you've never actually read or seen.

... you think waterboarding is a new sport for teenagers.

... you think any government program that helps ordinary people is horrible socialism, but when our tax money is spent to pay contractors for shoddy work and overcharges, that's free market capitalism at work.

... you think questions surrounding the events of 9/11 are ridiculous, but firmly believe that the Clintons had something to do with the death of Vince Foster.

... you think Bush ignoring the August 6, 2001 CIA brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in United States" was understandable, since he was on vacation.

... you think Rudy Giuliani is a hero for making a few speeches and posing for some photo-ops after the 9/11 attack.

... you think Osama bin Laden is a lying terrorist sack of crap, yet he was telling the truth when said he wanted John Kerry as president in 2004, right before Election Day.

... you think every problem America has can be traced to liberals and/or Democrats.

... you've ever called anyone a 'pinko' or 'commie,' especially someone who demonstrably isn't either.

...you don't know the difference between socialism and communism and you don't really care either.

... you think a) Saddam Hussein had WMD and hid them somewhere outside of the country right before the US invaded, or b) you think we found WMD in Iraq.

... you think the torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was no worse than a fraternity initiation.

... you think former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame 'deserved' to be outed because her husband is a 'traitor' who revealed the truth about Bush's phony claims that Iraq tried to buy Niger uranium.

... you think junkies should spend long sentences in jail but Rush Limbaugh should be forgiven for his human frailty.

... you think Ann Coulter is hilariously funny.

... you think talk show blabber Dennis Prager is either a religious expert, conservative intellectual, political philosopher, entirely sane, or all four.-- you are a Christian who experiences temporary blindness whenever you read the Sermon on the Mount.

... you think every word in the Bible was written by God in English, even the letters to the Greeks by Paul.

... you are waiting for Armageddon and believe you will be taken up into heaven during 'The Rapture,' even though you lie to your customers, sell products that are made by slave labor overseas, or own a private mercenary company that murders people in other countries.

... you think individual people need strong laws and strict enforcement to keep them in line, but corporations should be able to make their own rules without government interference.

... you think no-bid contracts are a smart way for the government to do business.

... you think Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney are 'good Christian men.'

... you think Richard Nixon was brought down by the 'liberal media.'

... you think 'habeas corpus' has something to do with hamsters, so what's the big deal?

... you hate the theory of evolution even though you've never read it.

... you've ever read a rant by Michelle Malkin without laughing out loud at its sheer rancorous stupidity.

... you think Charles Krauthammer is sane.

... you think Norman Podhoretz should be the Secretary of Defense.

... you can't find anything that Don Rumsfeld did wrong as Secretary of Defense.

... you watch "24" and believe if we only had a guy like the fictional Jack Bauer in charge of our intelligence operations, we could lick the terrorists in a month or two.

... you are a self-hating closeted gay male politician.

Whatever Happened to Ann Coulter? Edition

Her Influence Nearly Gone, She's Still Out There Slipping Further Into Inconsequence as Reality Proves Her Wrong -- Even to Many Conservatives

"Facts are stupid things."
-- Ronald Reagan, at the Republican National Convention in 1988.

On Dec. 3, 2007, C-SPAN aired a speech Ann Coulter gave at the National Press Club in Washington on Nov. 28th, sponsored by the neocon Young America's Foundation and it's Orwellian adjunct, something called the National Journalism Center, which has as much a relationship to real journalism as Ann's Christianity has to the principles expressed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. The NJC is very proud that Coulter herself went through their program twenty years ago -- which gives you a good idea of its journalistic worth -- and invited her to address its 30th anniversary dinner.

Appearing a tad raccoonish in her heavy black eye make-up, Coulter's negligible grasp of fact and logic has now exited stage right completely, leaving her resembling nothing so much as a piece of smirking Swiss cheese framed by long blonde hair, shakily babbling with intermittent coherence into a microphone.

Plowing the same rut she has turned into a muddy grave by sheer repetition, and sketching the typical Coulter cartoon portrait with a house painter's brush, Ann attacked her usual enemies; all of those horrid 'liberals and Democrats,' the amorphous grab-bag target for her hate; an evil entity with one mind who, in Ann's hilarious political psychosis, run the country with an iron hand suppressing poor brave conservatives like herself, while simultaneously meekly surrendering to 'Islamofacist' terrorists and anything larger than a bedbug everywhere else. If you detect a little 'cognitive dissonance' here, congratulations and welcome to Coulter's home planet where the mental landscape is a continual funhouse ride requiring a 'memory hole' to forget what you just said every three paces.One example of this would be Ann's baffling delirium that liberals and Democrats started demanding "Where's Osama?" after Saddam Hussein was captured, and only then because former Iraq War supporter and sporadic Bush apologist Peter Beinhart chiseled the embarrassing question on a tablet and handed it down to the rest of us. In the earth-orbits-sun cosmos Coulter shuns, 'Ls & Ds' were asking this long before the Iraq War even started, and it had nothing to do with Beinhart, as a few minutes at 'the Google' will reveal.

But in her hasty slide to media oblivion, fast-and-frothing Ann has no time for Googling or fact-checking -- that sort of thing is strictly for the wimpy liberals who dwell in the fringe moonbat minority, loathed by 'real Americans,' yet are powerful enough to destroy our country.

Included among the other lowlights of Coulter's addled presentation was a swipe at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman alleging that "no one reads him," although this may have been mere literary envy: Krugman appears regularly in one of America's highest-circulation newspapers and his columns are seen by millions; Ann's flaky diatribes are buried amid the 59 other conservative columnists at TownHall.com and surrounded by the tasteful 'Liberal Hunting Permit' and '3 books for a buck' Conservative Book Club ads at her own website.

She also made the bizarre statement that no one listens to Air America Radio or watches MSNBC and asserted that, to cover its embarrassment, MSNBC will not disclose its ratings. In fact, AAR's ratings are up, as are MSNBC's, especially in Keith Olbermann's time slot vs. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, and the ratings information is easy to obtain -- Olbermann himself has talked about MSNBC's ratings several times on his program. But, then, that would require doing a little research before you open your mouth and pick up your foot, not, as we've seen, Ann's strong point.

She riffed on classic Coulter standards as well, and with as much underwhelming logic: Hillary Clinton is a 'whiny feminist' who, if elected president, will put every American woman in a burqa, which should induce a double-take even in those who don't like the New York Senator and, once again, places Ann at odds with her own expressed doubts about women having the vote in this country.

Then she moved on to her strong support for the Second Amendment, but a smirking dismissal of the First as "highly overrated" -- you know, the same constitutional amendment guaranteeing free speech and a free press that Ann and her colleagues in the right-wing media habitually abuse to 'get their message out.'

And Good Christian Ann wants to kill more "moo-slims" (that's how she pronounced it), not in the name of defense, but for revenge, and it doesn't seem to matter to her if they're actual terrorists or not. After all, she did want to bomb their countries, kill all of their leaders, and convert them to Christianity, apparently just for following Islam. On Coulter World, the thought never intrudes that this might be a very poor way to introduce people to your religion, but Ann figures that it worked so well on Native Americans and Filipinos that it should be tried again. That many of them had to be massacred in the process of being rendered safe for Jesus doesn't enter Ann's mind. Oh, I forgot -- to a neocon, this is a 'funny' remark, and not in an ironic sense.

She also briefly engaged in the fringe right-wing lunatic history myths that have become her trademark: the drunken Sen. Joe McCarthy was a Great American whose demise came solely at the hands of the 'liberal media' and not anything he did to himself; the Democrats have always been the pro-slavery, pro-segregation party since Lincoln was president in the 1860s, ignoring a large chunk of the 1940s thorough the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson finally passed the various civil rights acts that legally ended segregation in the Old South, leading to 'integrationists' such as Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and other Dixiecrats becoming Republicans, and ushering in Nixon's tacitly racist Southern Strategy in 1968. But then, this is all in a day's work for the historically-challenged Coulter.

However, to be fair, let's give Ann credit where it's due: She did freely confess that she's "not a builder," she's "a destroyer," and she just loves to "tear people down."

Reflecting the utter ideological chaos that is the current Republican Party, she also admitted she doesn't much like Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mike Huckabee, although she previously spoke highly of Romney at the CPAC 2007 convention. (A flip-flop?) These days her favorite candidate is the troglodytic Rep. Duncan Hunter, under investigation in a 'Duke Cunningham'-style bribery scandal and listed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) as one of the "22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress." However, she did allow as how she'd vote for "any idiot the Republicans nominate."

Well, I won't belabor this topic further; suffice it to say that her speeches and ideas are mired in the moldy "I'm a victim" neocon carping of two decades ago and her enemies and attacks are always the same, except now she's donned the mantle of Christianity to try and gull the faithful into buying her books. If you want to know what else she said in her speech, all you need do is read a dozen of Coulter's columns at random, then make sure to cross-check her 'facts' with 'the Google,' so you won't be misinformed; and her crimes against common sense and logic will be apparent to those who possess an average amount of either one.

Times have changed and most Americans want to dump the neocon Republican failures in the nearest trash heap, but Coulter's still playing her pathetic one-note samba that's now turned into a whiny funeral dirge.

During her talk, the C-SPAN camera occasionally panned the room and the faces were revealing; Coulter's well-worn lines were greeted with tepid applause or subdued laughter and some of the conservative Republican audience, heeding the reality of the last six years under Bush and the anger of the citizenry at the GOP, simply stared at Coulter as Rupert Murdoch might stare at a speech by an avowed Marxist. It's said by those who managed to escape the mass suicide at Jim Jones' People's Temple in Guyana that, while some fanatics willingly drank the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, others had to be forced at gunpoint to pour it down. A feeling similar to that of the latter faction was in evidence here -- Ann was the crazed Jones, bleating blabber to the end, while some of her acolytes were scheming ways to save themselves and their party from the sure doom ahead. To use a dreaded sports analogy, the team was getting a pep talk at the two-minute warning, but the smarter players had faced the reality that the score is 63 to 3 against them, and their eyes had glazed over in anticipation of defeat.

Coulter was ironically followed on C-SPAN by Bill Clinton; considering her ongoing obsession with his sex life, perhaps that's Ann's secret desire as well.

At least Ann admitted she "didn't really have a job."

Observing the weak reaction of this supposedly Coulter-friendly crowd, she might soon have to find one.

The 'New' GOP Strategy: Let's Make It Worse! Edition

Phony Anti-Immigrant Distraction Will Come Back to Haunt GOP

MSNBC interviewed Oklahoma State Representative Randy Terrill on Nov. 27th, the Republican behind that state's strict new anti-immigrant laws. The legislation denies jobs, unemployment compensation and other state services to undocumented workers, and has resulted in a marked downturn in local business profits as the immigrants move elsewhere -- one store alone reported losses of $75,000 a week due to Terrill's terrible bill that's driven immigrant workers out of Oklahoma. So what's Randy's answer to all the grief he's created for small businesses in OK? More and tougher anti-immigrant laws, including tossing people out who were born in this country!

Following the CNN/You Tube Republican debate Nov. 28th, the good puppies working for Time Warner Inc. as 'analysts' -- blithely ignoring the extreme improbability that no questions were asked by the public about Iran or health care, and few about the faltering economy -- dutifully peddled the GOP's phony illegal immigrant issue as the 'hot' topic of the coming election. Prediction: Look for this Rovian distraction to explode in the face of the Republican Party like a trick cigar as more of these anti-immigrant laws are passed -- that's the blowback that the GOP never counted on when they unleashed this plague of thinly-disguised racism: all of the money illegal immigrants pump into local economies and, just wait, next the already-strapped border states will be complaining about the loss of tax revenues from the departing immigrants. As the saying goes: watch out what you wish for, you just might get it -- and before the next election.

Oh, and more-fool Randy? He'll soon be seeking honest employment as angry voters turn him out of his soft government job. So far, he only seems qualified to be a ditch digger, if such jobs exist anymore -- he's certainly kept digging at this fetid issue long after a sane person would have stopped.

Big Media Giving Another Pass to Rudy?

Imagine for a moment that Barack Obama, when he was a candidate for the Illinois state senate years ago, had attended a rally of drunken black police officers shouting insults and racial epithets at Chicago's white Mayor Richard M. Daley and, in the heat of the moment, Obama leapt up and, gesticulating wildly, went on an obscenity-laced tirade against Daley, to the cheers of the angry crowd. The local daily newspapers the next day are filled with reports of the incident, one calling it "shameful," and Daley accuses Obama of trying to incite the black cops to riot. Later, when asked by reporters why he did it, Obama refuses to apologize for his outburst, saying only that he tends to get over-emotional when talking about black police officers. Just how would the mainly white media have played that story these days as an indication of Obama's character and fitness to be president? Wouldn't they have questioned his maturity and judgment for making the profane remarks? Wouldn't they have pondered soberly the dire consequences should a President Obama suddenly become 'over-emotional' during a world crisis? Wouldn't they have further taken him to task for supporting a mob of racist police officers? And that's just the MSM -- the right-wing blogosphere and Fox News would have had a field day pummeling Obama.

Yet Newsweek on Nov. 24, 2007, published "Growing Up Giuliani," by Evan Thomas and Suzanne Smalley, and here are the two paragraphs that open the article:Newsweek story:

"On Sept. 16, 1992, the police in New York City held a rally that spun out of control. The cops wanted a new collective-bargaining agreement, and they were angry at Mayor David Dinkins for proposing a civilian review board and for refusing to issue patrolmen 9mm guns. More than a few of them tipsy or drunk, the cops jumped on cars near city hall and blocked traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge. According to some witnesses, they waved placards crudely mocking Mayor Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, on racial grounds, while at the same time chanting 'Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!' to welcome Rudy Giuliani, the crime-busting former U.S. attorney who had arrived in their midst to shore up his political base.

"It is not clear Giuliani knew exactly what he was getting himself into -- he later denied that he did --but video shows him wildly gesticulating and shouting a profanity-laced diatribe against Dinkins. The next day the New York newspapers were sharply critical of Giuliani (a Daily News editorial called his behavior 'shameful'), and Dinkins, years later, accused him of trying to stir up 'white cops to riot.' At the time, Giuliani refused to back down or apologize for his remarks, saying only: 'I had four uncles who were cops. So maybe I was more emotional than I usually am.' Giuliani's performance that day lost African-American voters, some permanently, but it guaranteed the informal backing of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, which helped him get elected mayor in 1993."

So where are the questions concerning Giuliani's maturity and judgment in the MSM? Where is the sober pondering of the dire consequences of an 'over-emotional' President Giuliani during a world crisis? Where is the outrage over Rudy encouraging a crowd of racist cops?

I'm waiting.

The Larry Craig Saga: The GOP Thing That Won't Go Away

Incredibly, the 'Spud Stud' Now Makes Noises Like He's Going to Stay in the Senate

"He sounded almost as convincing as, 'I did not have sex with that woman.'"
-- Gary Bauer, referring to Larry Craig's speech on August 28th where he denied that he was gay, as quoted by The New York Times, August 29, 2007.

September 4, 2007 -- Potato State Republican Sen. Larry Craig, after supposedly resigning on Sept. 1st, is now giving the public whiplash by implying he might stay in the Senate, based on some mumblings by Sen. Arlen "Magic Bullet" Specter (R-Ding Dong), to the effect that he didn't think Craig should quit his office on a misdemeanor charge.

Do you ever get the feeling that the GOP is as suicidal as a Baghdad car bomber? Let's examine the various problems for the Republicans if Craig decides to 'tough it out' and retain his Senate seat until 2009:

-- If you read the transcript of the interview between arresting officer Sgt. Dave Karsnia and Craig, where 'Wide Stance' tries to pawn off his various bathroom stall motions -- staring into Karsnia's stall in the opening between the door and the frame; playing footsy with the cop; reaching into Karsnia's stall for a piece of toilet paper -- as innocent and misinterpreted by the cop, you'll hear Karsnia's reaction, which boils down to "You're sitting here lying to a police officer." Sure, the right-wing noise machine may try to paint Karsnia as some kind of Dem Gore-lover, but the fact is, he has a picture on his desk of him proudly shaking hands with Dick Cheney when the police sergeant received an officer of the year commendation in 2003. Right-wingers perpetually flap jaw about their love of law enforcement. In this 'he said-he said' encounter, they're either going to have to believe the cop or Craig. If they back Craig, they're saying this officer is either lying or incompetent, and they may hear some grumblings from disgruntled law enforcement groups. Do they really want to go there? Besides, if it was all so innocent, why did he plead guilty, even to a reduced charge?

-- It's only a matter of time before one of Craig's other public restroom romances comes to light. Just as Ted Haggard was outed by male prostitute Mike Jones, the other shoe to drop in this case would be one of the three anonymous men who have admitted to having sex with Craig in men's rooms going public. One is said to be a prominent Republican. A man with a name and a face saying he had sex with Lar in public restrooms would finally sink Craig and indelibly damage what little credibility the GOP has left. Paging Gary Hart!

-- The best gift the GOP could give the Dems would be to let Craig hang in there until 2009, whether he runs for reelection in 2008 or not. Larry's seriously damaged goods and his presence in the Senate will be a reminder of the hypocrisy and sleaziness of the Republican Party. The GOP even risks losing a reliable Red State seat due to Craig's obstinate ego.

Side Note: I have yet to hear the Big Media carp about the GOP being in disarray and the Republican leadership toothless, as they inevitably do when a Democrat does something outrageous and refuses to resign for the good of the party, such as Rep. William Jefferson and his illicit $90,000 freezer bank.

I wonder, after this close-up encounter with GOP hypocrisy and deceit, Sgt. Karsnia will ditch the picture of him and Vice President Shotgun on his desk; I wonder if he'll ever vote Republican again.

Karsnia had it dead right, when he responded to Craig's arrogant attempts at deception by disgustedly remarking, "No wonder why we're going down the tubes."

Indeed, he had met one of the plumbers laying the pipe, so to speak.
==============
As GOP Runs From Larry the Lout, They Now Must Face Their Own 'Stall Tactics'

"No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field and live."
-- Mark Twain

August 31, 2007 -- In a swirl of recent events that started with the advertised evacuation of Turd Blossom Rove from the White House Inner Circle today to spend more time annoying his family, and continued with the wiping of Alberto Gonzales from the Justice Department AG's office, has culminated in self-righteous Idaho prig Sen. Larry Craig flushing what's left of Republican credibility straight -- or not, as the case may be -- down the drain.

His absurd tale of inhuman feats of contortion in a Minneapolis airport restroom -- sticking his foot into another man's stall and desperately pursuing a piece of toilet paper with his hand in the same stall, all the while allegedly heeding the call of nature -- is worthy of the Rose Mary Woods Improbable Physical Achievement Award. Next we'll hear that his Stupid Human Bathroom Tricks were merely rehearsal for his job with a carnival freak show, perhaps the only place that will employ him after he resigns in disgrace from the Senate next week. (Don't feel too bad for Lar -- he'll still get his munificent retirement benefits from his terms in the House and Senate, courtesy of us sucke -- er, taxpayers.)

Incidentally, you remember Woods, Nixon's secretary who took the blame for some of the infamous 18 1/2-minute gap on one of Dick's Watergate tapes, even to the point of re-enacting for the media the awkward Twister position she would have had to maintain for nearly twenty minutes to erase the tape. Just looking at her was enough to induce a hernia. Nobody believed Woods' ludicrous story then; nobody believes Craig's nonsense now.

Added to all of the other putrid effluvium gushing out of the GOP sewer pipe these days, from the broken-float Porcelain God in the White House on down, the Craig cringer comes as the clincher, that golden moment; a point of no return from which, strain as they might, the hilariously hypocritical and routinely deceitful Republicans can't recover -- moving the party from the realm of the simply awful to the awfully ridiculous. As GOP campaign mentato Scott Reed was quoted on Aug. 29th, noting the Craig scandal:

"The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness. You can't make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country."

Indeed, it seems Mr. Reed has blundered into the truth, except the 'level of ridiculousness' has been passed; the Republicans are now in full-bore fright-wig Emmett Kelly mode, their constant stream of excuse and piety sounding like so many horn honks from a clown car to the average schlub and schlubette. Oh, the Big Media (BM) and the Punditocracy still treats the rogue elephant act and its ringmasters with some amount of respect, but out there in the retail seats the overflowing GOP cesspool inspires only rude punchlines or ruddy-faced anger.

If the Comedy King of Crapola and his Devoted Dissemblers can hold office for another 16 months, Pat Robertson can claim a miracle, but it won't be due to any help from the Republicans in Congress, gradually coming to realize that the retiring Rove, with his obsessive appeals to religious cranks for votes and manifest White House incompetence, has left them with a red rubber nose and little else to run on.

More than any other issue, the next election is shaping up to be about the Sleaze Factor, a distinct disadvantage to those who wear an 'R' after their names. Hill-Billery may have her drawbacks, but none of them involve playing footsy in a men's room for sex or coercing underage boys into iniquity. Such subjects give deep pause to the very Values Voters Count Karlo has been assiduously cultivating for the past ten years -- the core of his down-the-tubes strategy for maintaining a permanent GOP majority.

The cantankerous fundamentalist Christians might very well stay home in disgust next election while independent wafflers, not overjoyed with Sen. Clinton or the quivering Dems, but appalled at the staggering stench from the backed-up Republican septic tank, cast their votes against the cynical Party of Public Morality and Private Hypocrisy.

Fred Thompson, that shy political pornographer of the right, has flashed his supporters again that he will finally lose his presidential virginity in early September and officially become a member of the cast of They Were Expendable. Reagan Number Two, dive right in -- and try not to swallow the backwash as you sink into the landslide mud of the malodorous Republican scum who came before you.

"The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in ... passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life."
-- Bertrand Russell

"The Christian Right is Neither."
-- Bumper sticker cited by John McCain's Campaign in 2000.

"The phone number of Senator David Vitter (R., La.), an advocate of family
values and of Rudolph Giuliani, was found on the client list of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is accused of running a Washington, D.C., area prostitution ring." [...]
"Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R., Merritt Island) was arrested for offering to perform an unspecified sex act on an undercover police officer for $20."
-- Sam Stark, Myth: Republicans value sexual morality

Headlines at a Glance Edition

Who Knows -- They Might Even Be Real Someday

Bush Seeks 'Decision Czar' to Run Executive Branch
"I'm the decider," says president, "and I decided we needed somebody to make the decisions around here."

Rice Asks for 'New Strategy' in Middle East
"But no one should imply that the old one isn't working fine, of course," the Secretary of State tells reporters

New GOP Bill Says Illegal Immigrants Should Be Sold to Highest Bidder
"This is the traditional American way we dealt with unskilled workers who came over here for jobs," says bill co-sponsor Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, "I think it's time we tried it again."

Cheney: Iran Bought Yellow Cake Uranium from Niger
"We have the proof," claims vice president, "We just received the intelligence documents from Italy."

Phil Leotardo Named New US Ambassador to Iraq
"So he's not real and he's dead," says White House press aide, "He'll fit right in over there."

Bill O'Reilly Wins Nobel Prize in Fiction
"It took them long enough," jokes political pundit as Stockholm committee names "Culture Warrior" for top award

Paris Hilton to Run for L.A. County Sheriff
Celebrity heiress: "This is my first move to show everybody I'm not really dumb."

TV Actor Arrested in Motel Room with Rental Car Navigation System
"This is unnatural, disgusting," says police spokesperson, "Pants down, drooling -- I can't even describe what he was trying to do to it -- he was mumbling something about 'awesome Chinese' when we caught him."

US Senior Found Who Exists Without Prescription Medication
"Not even an aspirin," says Hugo Wayback, 81, "and I'm healthy as a horse."

Hasselhoff Slated for Hip Operation
"Everybody thinks I'm passé, out of it," says actor, "I'll show them."

Super TB Man Hired to Prosecute JFK Plotters
Andrew Speaker claims if there's a case here, he'll find it

Comparing Plastered Paris and the Plastic GOP Edition

Twenty-One Incredible Similarities Between Paris Hilton and the Republican Party:

1. Both are famous for accomplishing nothing.

2. Both have large amounts of unearned income derived from an intimate relationship with the wealthy.

3. Both constantly pose for empty photo-ops.

4. Neither one has a brain cell between them.

5. Both deserve jail time for sheer incompetence and stupidity.

6. Both have exploited pornography for media attention.

7. Both retain a tiny fan base of faithful idiots who believe they can do no wrong.

8. Each causes grief for themselves whenever they 'Rove.'

9. Both try to solve complex problems with simple-minded answers.

10. Both have trouble separating fantasy from reality.

11. Both have a Bush.

12. Both like Dick.

13. Both whine and cry like babies when held accountable for the trouble they bring on themselves.

14. Both rely on cheesy marketing ploys to manipulate the media.

15. Both wish they had some acting talent to salvage their futures.

16. Both are held in contempt by most Americans, sick and tired of their silly antics.

17. Both are vain and self-absorbed, and pretend to be something they're not.

18. Both should never be allowed behind the wheel again.

19. Both are usually drunk on something.

20. Both have a habit of attacking their old friends.

21. Both would look good in orange jumpsuits.

Defining the Neocon Lexicon Edition

Translating the Republican Can-Do Cant to (Nearly) Plain English:

Abu Ghraib: A character from the Gasoline Ali comic strip who specialized in tortured logic. (See also Woo Woo below.)

Bush's Economy: Something that seems good only when dropped into a neocon think tank, or the Wall Street Journal editorial boardroom, and cooked for six years by deaf, dumb and blind economists. The resulting elixir is called champagne by the wealthiest 10 percent, but tastes like low-paid Kool-Aid to everyone else. (See also the Great Depression.)

Bush Intelligence: Cheney telling the CIA what the White House wants them to say. (See Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.)

Christian Right: Two words erroneously applied to a highly vocal religious sect of the Republican Party as they represent neither the philosophy of the former nor the definition of the latter.

Communicate (as in "communicate to the public our beliefs"): To lie unabashedly. (See also the Frank Luntz Dictionary of Political Evasion.)

Compassionate Conservatism: Screwing the citizenry blind, but calling it a "program for the improvement of visual acuity" for the sake of the mass media and the twits who believe them. (See also the Differences Between Grapes and Golf Balls.)

Election: An opportunity in 2008 to test the new 'secret proprietary code' voting software that will work better for the GOP than it did in 2006. (See also the Help America Vote (Republican) Act.)

DeLay: What inevitably results when a GOP politician gets too much of de money and de power.

General: A supporter of Bush's war in Iraq, until he or she retires from the service.

Giuliani Time: A festive period in New York City when minorities are allowed to party with the business end of a police officer's billy club or taser and, in some cases, the lead slug from a service pistol.

Gonzalizing: The ability to complacently tell an unbelievable lie to cover a previous unbelievable lie and smile afterward, even in front of adults.

Goodling: A poorly-educated and naive incompetent who is nevertheless installed in a position of senior governmental power, the better to attract the blame when the proverbial feces slaps up against the electric fan blades. (See Sap, Sucker and Yellowbelly.)

Immigration Reform: Allowing poor illegal Pablo to work for rich Peter cheap and on the sly so that Peter's corporation can make a huge profit, while maintaining a flowing sewer of coded rhetoric to satisfy the party racists. (See Nixon's Southern Strategy.)

Iran: The repository of all human evil and Bush's next war, now that Saddam Hussein is dead and North Korea has the bomb. Like Saddam, they had no connection to 9/11, but that's a distinction worthy only of sissy peaceniks and pinko commies. (See also Making Osama Smile.)

Military Recruiters: Non-commissioned officers who don't bother to set up a table at Young Republican events. (See also Chickenhawk Yolks.)

Rice Pudding: A visit from an American dignitary for the sole purpose of taking a picture while smiling and shaking hands. (See also World's Silliest Publicity Stunts.)

Rove Toast: A slice of stale white bread that has been baked in hubris until it falls apart. (See also Fatal Diseases Caused by Mold and Arrogance.)

Romney: A car that runs on unleaded grassroots or GOP premium, depending on which way the wind is blowing. (See also Forked Tongue Syndrome.)

Serving the People: In the same way a tennis ball is placed across a net. (See also The Twilight Zone's Best Episodes.)

Think Tank: When referring to neocon foundations that dash out lofty-sounding reports to justify idiocy, it means to literally sit there and ponder how best to use a heavily-armed military vehicle to solve every problem, from unrest among foreign civilians to border control. (See also Attila the Hun; Vlad the Impaler.)

Thirty-Second Spot: The byproduct of a cow's digestive system put into a blender, heated in a pot, and served as gravy; all is fine until you take a bite. (See also Optical Illusions.)

USS McCain: An old battleship built with two aft ends and no bow; in action, the props tend to cancel each other out, leaving the ship dead in the water and sinking fast. (See also The Wackiest Ship in the Navy.)

Victory in Iraq: A sand castle built in a neocon's mind, held together by the glue of persistent ignorance or the sugar of insistent greed. (See also the Psychopathology of Losing Gamblers.)

Weekly Standard: The equivalent of 'Fantastic Stories' for the educated neocon. (See also Geek Mythology and Kristol's Pistol.)

Woo Woo: Any neocon with a law degree who attempts to legally justify torture, trespassing, wiretapping, and a host of other criminal acts the current administration seeks to redefine as virtuous for the state, but still illegal for civilians. (See also Torquemada; Henry VIII.)

A Speech Bush Will Never Deliver Edition

Unfortunately, Bush's Swan Song is Only in the Imagination of This Nattering Nabob of Nutty Neoconservatism

The neocon natives are getting restless. Their bungling Texas hero and his trusty sidekick Deadeye Dick are tied to the track and the cavalry isn't on the horizon to save them. (It's bogged down fighting a civil war in Iraq.)

What's left of the Bush Believers -- that hardy little band impenetrably immune to fact or logic -- sense the downfall that's coming next, and they're desperately seeking a fallback position, one where they can claim that Bush would have prevailed in his screwy plans, if not for treasonous DemoRats, lefties, atheists, feminazis, pinkos, commies, Michael Moore, and the New Yawk Times, all of whom wield the levers of power in America, or, at least, that's what they'd like you to believe. Remember, these are the same types of mental giants who continued to insist on Nixon's innocence long after the tapes proving otherwise were made public and he had resigned in disgrace.

In the past six months, Your Intrepid Tattlesnake has received several emails from disheartened neocons, finally facing the reality that their little wax god is melting in the hot lights of his own unbelievable hubris and incredible incompetence.

Their bitter reaction, as evidenced by the email below, advises Bush to 'teach the country a lesson' for abandoning him by quitting because, to them, if you can't succeed you must always do something appallingly dumb as a parting shot to show others how bad things could be without you -- like the good Republican who slashed his own tires so that his wife couldn't go shopping on Sunday only to have to ride the bus to work on Monday and spend $1000.00 for new tires to prevent her from spending $200.00 on new clothes, which she eventually spent anyway. Guess he showed her. (Of course, in this case, Bush would actually be doing the country a favor by resigning, but the neocons don't know that.)

The piece of wincing scrap below, a fantasized speech by George W. Bush no doubt churned out by some so-far-unindicted Bush Goodling in the bowels of the RNC, is chockfull of laugh lines and eye-rollers by itself, but I couldn't resist adding my comments in bracketed italics.

It's concluding threat, that Nancy Pelosi would become president, is particularly risible. To rational people, the threat of a President Pelosi doesn't sound so bad -- how could she possibly do any worse than Ol' Blood & Oil and his greedy Halliburton Veep?

Here's the email in full, author unknown:

The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.

[Love it or leave it, Mr. Bush? Take the 28 percent who are still Bush lovers along with you when you go.]

I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit.

[Yay!]

Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

[Well, except for incarcerating Americans for years without the right to due process and illegal warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, both contrary to your oath of office to uphold the Constitution; lying to get us into a war, violating international agreements by invading Iraq without UN Security Council permission, exposing a covert CIA agent for political reasons, sanctioning torture in defiance of the Geneva Convention treaty, using the Justice Department for political ends and about a half-dozen other impeachable offenses.]

The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.

[The feeling, judging by all the major polls, is mutual.]

I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

[Ha, ha, as if a pumped-up preppy rich kid, a hothouse flower and Yale legacy with a phony Texas accent who's been surrounded by bodyguards for six years, would have any idea of what's really going on in the world. In fact, the majority of us have been doing our homework, which is why you're so unpopular.]

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

[The majority think the economy's in the tank because they've seen their good-paying jobs fly overseas leaving them wearing a blue Wal-Mart vest or flipping burgers for a living, if they even have a job. And if it hasn't happened to them, it's happened to a friend or family member. There are a record number of homeowners, and a record number of foreclosures and bankruptcies as those homeowners are unable to keep their homes, due to the situation described in the first sentence. There may very well be a record number of minority-owned businesses, but there are also a record number of small businesses going under. The official federal employment rate is culled from the number of people collecting unemployment benefits; the rate is low simply because many have run out of benefits, not necessarily because they found jobs.]

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

[While your pals in the stock market are getting richer, thanks both to the market temporarily rising from job cuts and GOP tax breaks for the wealthy, the rest of us 'whiners' out here are getting hit with the highest gas prices of all time, courtesy of your friends in the oil industry, who are earning record profits. Already other prices -- such as for food, clothing, etc. -- are rising as a result of the devaluation of the dollar and the high oil cost. Soon we'll be paying six bucks a gallon for regular, and it's not because of 'noisy idiots' who want to preserve polar bears and beaches, they don't set the price per gallon: it's because of your campaign contributors in the energy industry gouging us for all we're worth.]

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell.

[That's precisely what you did.]

And don't give me this 'Bush Lied People Died' crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.'

[You tried and failed at that, too.]

Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.

[That's true: your intelligence is faulty; has been your entire life. The rest of the world may have thought Saddam Hussein had some kind of bio-chemical weaponry (no nukes, though), but, except for you, your poodle Tony Blair, and a few small countries you bribed with our tax dollars, none of them thought the threat was serious enough to warrant an invasion of Iraq.]

Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

[Let me remind you that Clinton wasn't foolish enough to invade Iraq; in fact, he turned down a request in 1998 by Don Rumsfeld's Project for a New American Century to do just that. And you were the one, with Rummy and Dick, who cooked up the new Iraq War plan even before 9/11. It's pathetic and weak how you always try to blame all of your failures on Clinton. Can't you take responsibility for anything -- even the dumb wars you start?]

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

[We spend more than every other nation on earth for defense, and yet we can't find terrorists who live in caves and hijack airliners because they don't have an air force. This is what's making you shudder in fear? Coward. Maybe we need better police work, a better president and less of the Pentagon -- a howitzer isn't the most effective way to get rid of gnats, you idiot. And, by the way, when are you going to declare your 'War on Stairs'? After all, stair-related accidents cause more death and injury in this country than terrorist attacks.]

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.

[And your belligerent policies are creating more of them every day. Unfortunately, they can't get to you, so they kill us. Why don't you, Cheney and Rumsfeld make a sacrifice for the nation and do this: Offer to the terrorists that you'll surrender to the International Court in The Hague to be tried for war crimes and we'll pull all of our armed forces out of the Middle East; in return, they vow to stop trying to kill Americans. If anyone attacks Israel, we'll go after them, but otherwise we'll let the nations there work out their own problems without our help and our blood. We'll pay whatever price they charge for oil while we convert our country to a sustainable energy source that doesn't enrich Saudi despots and keep them in power. The money saved from our leaving Iraq and other military installations in the Middle East would be enough to cover this conversion and the increased price of oil. Meanwhile, the US taxpayer will pop for the best lawyers we can find to defend you, Dick and Rummy at your trials. I think that's a pretty generous offer, considering that your administration has wasted so much of our military and our tax money, and ruined our standing in the world.]

You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.

[No one has any idea because you've classified everything, only leaking that which makes you look good. Sorry, but your self-serving word isn't good enough.]

When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.

[That's an outright lie. In fact, we were told that Iraq would be a cakewalk; you even declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1, 2003. Apparently you don't recall that silly 'Mission Accomplished' PR stunt on the aircraft carrier -- you know, the one where you wore a flight suit and forgot to disconnect one of the straps so that it dug into your groin as you walked.]

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

[We defeated Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire in less time than it's taken to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and we still haven't pacified Iraq or Afghanistan. Now, would that be due to the disastrous incompetence of the Commander in Chief? So far, every corner you've said has been turned has led up a blind alley and every prediction you've made about Iraq has been dead wrong. In the short lens of history, Al-Qaeda has prospered and Osama has gained influence while increasing numbers of the billion Muslims in the world hate us. With that track record, why should we trust your notion of what the 'long lens of history' will show? You can't even get the short term right.]

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well Fed Ex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

[Oh, brother, are you full of crap. Glad you're not politicizing the war on terror.]

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter.

[That's right, Mr. President, it's all over 'the Internets': read Think Progress, Common Dreams, Buzzflash.com, Truthdig, Make Them Accountable, Bartcop, Disinfotainment Today, The Daily Kos, FAIR, Media Matters, and others to get the truth. Use 'the Google' to find their URLs.]

Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

[Most of us would rather not worship as an American idol a hapless and inept president who always tries to avoid responsibility for the disasters he causes, especially one who was originally installed in office by the Supreme Court rather than the votes of the majority of Americans.]

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

[Apparently your head of Homeland Security was just as stupid. Michael Chertoff, and others, testified that he didn't know how bad things were in New Orleans until he read the paper after the hurricane hit. Mike "Heck of a job" Brown, your director of FEMA, wasn't prepared for the emergency either. The Army Corps of Engineers also assured the state that the levees they built would hold back the waters of Lake Ponchartrain in the event that a hurricane raised water levels. You yourself were warned (it's on video tape) before Katrina of the possibility of a hurricane ravaging New Orleans but you couldn't be bothered to take any action, just as you didn't do anything when you were warned by the CIA in a presidential daily briefing on August 6, 2001 that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States. After all, in both cases you were on vacation in Crawford at the time.]

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from.

[Thanks for that, President Pickpocket. You head up the largest, most expensive government in our history, and you're constantly adding new layers to the bureaucracy -- now you want a 'War Czar.' That used to be the president before you came along and decided the buck shouldn't stop with you.]

I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

[Please don't try -- listening to you talk about anything these days is painful for most Americans.]

So, I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient.

['Fully self-sufficient' as long as Daddy and his friends are standing by, and there's plenty of cheap domestic help to be had, and there will be, thanks to your rotten economy.]

No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.

[Thank God! The place is a hellhole where the temperatures during the summer soar over 100F; only an idiot would take a vacation in August in Crawford, Texas.]

Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

[Before you can pull them down.]

Oh, by the way, Cheney's quitting, too.

[Double yay! Break out the champagne!]

That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it.

[How could she possibly be any worse?]

Watch what she does carefully because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

[If by 'turn this thing around' you mean making it better by reversing your ignorant policies, then 'bring it on.']

So that's it. God bless what's left of America. Some of you know what I mean.

[Yes we do, and it's frightening, unless you believe America should be a theocracy.]

The rest of you, Fuck off.

[The last two words of that sentence sum up your entire occupancy of the White House. It's just a shame we'll be paying a half-million a year to support you for the rest of your life after you quit, just as we paid for that disgraced crook Nixon to live in leisure.]

Rev. Falwell's Visit to Heaven Edition

A Short One-Act Play Featuring God, Jesus and Dick Nixon

(It is much as he thought it would be. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, shucking off the corruption and wretchedness of the flesh, flies through puffy white clouds, heading toward a pinpoint of light in the distance. As the pinpoint gets bigger, Jerry sees it is an enormous Eveready flashlight, the shiny silver six-battery Urban Enforcer model, held by an elderly black man with a long white beard in a terrycloth bathrobe. "We've been waiting for you," he says, as he leads Jerry through yet more clouds to a large golden door. "Go on in and make yourself comfortable," mutters the elderly man, opening the huge door. Inside there is a golden throne, the biggest he's ever seen, and sitting upon the throne is the Almighty God of the Universe. Twenty feet below the front of the throne is a plain wooden chair. Jerry sits down in the chair and stares up at God, his mouth agape.)

GOD: "You look surprised, Jerry."

FALWELL: "Well, ah, uh, Lord, you're not what I expected."

GOD: "Oh, really. How is that?"

FALWELL: "Well, ha, ha, I mean you're, ah...black, uh... and a woman... and, uh, you sound like Moms Mabley."

GOD: "That's right, Jerry. You got a problem with that?"

FALWELL: "Oh, no, no, no -- not at all, Lord..."

GOD: "Now Jesus here tells me that we have a little accountin' problem with y'all."

(Jesus emerges from behind a cloud, a tall man in a flowing white robe who strongly resembles Paul Robeson.)

FALWELL: "Jesus H. -- uh, I mean, Jesus -- you're black, too?!"

JESUS: "As you taught, Jerry, humanity was created in God's image, and the first real human beings were black folks in central Africa. If you'd studied science, you'd know that."

GOD: "Jesus, what do your calculations say Jerry owes us?"

JESUS: "Well, Mama, I figure in his lifetime Jerry collected about $1.5 billion in our names and he hasn't paid a cent to us."

GOD: "Whoa, another deadbeat. Okay, Jerry, pay up the $1.5 billion you owe and you can enter heaven."

FALWELL: "What -- I can't believe this! You use money in heaven?!"

GOD: "In heaven as it is on earth, Jer. And don't get cute with God -- you pay that money in good old U.S. currency."

FALWELL: "But I'm dead! I don't have any money!"

GOD: "You don't have any money? You collect $1.5 billion in the name of God and Jesus and YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY FOR US?!?!"

JESUS: "See, Jerry, the way it works up here is that whatever was the most important thing to you in life is what you must pay to get into heaven. Now, on the contrary, if you had renounced wealth and dedicated yourself to something altruistic like helping the poor or peace on earth, you would get a free pass into heaven. You really should have read the Bible more closely; I talked about this at length."

FALWELL: "I'd be glad to give you your money, but I don't have any in this these circumstances!"

GOD: "Hmmm, guess you shoulda thought of that while you were alive. What say, Jesus -- thumbs down?"

JESUS: "Oh, you know it, Mom."

GOD: "Sorry, Jerry, you don't have no money, you can go straight to hell."

JESUS: "Good for the company, I hear."

GOD: "Dick, we got another one for you."

(At that, Richard Nixon, his skin a bright red and sporting horns and a long forked tail, steps from behind a cloud, chuckling deeply.)

NIXON: "Come with me, Jer."

FALWELL: "This is crazy! I can't believe you're sending me to live in hell just because I don't have any money!"

GOD: "Just like on earth, Jerry."

NIXON: "Don't worry, Jer, hell's not so bad if you ever get used to the climate and the toxic smell, and you'll be surrounded by all your friends."

FALWELL: "But, but -- I dedicated my entire adult life to the glory of God and bringing Jesus' message of hope and salvation to the people! This just ISN'T FAIR!"

GOD: "Jesus, look who cares about being fair all of a sudden. Take him away, Dick."

FALWELL: "You can't do this to me -- I'm BORN AGAIN!"

NIXON: "Huh, huh, huh -- good one, Jer, but save your A material until we get downstairs."

(End)