Political/Political Humor
Sunday, September 28, 2003[10:39:52 PM]
"We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.
"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." --George H. W. Bush
[10:36:47 PM]
What about Al Franken, Tim Russert, and Tucker Carlson? Carlson and Franken appeared on Russert's show to promote their books.
Franken's book became wildly popular when Fox News (sic) sued him for using "Fair and Balanced" in his title. The judge then laughed them out of the room. Franken said Joe Conason had suggested Fox News should change its slogan to "Wholly without Merit" -- the judge's opinion of their lawsuit.
So what's the deal with Tucker Carlson, anyway? He says he's an "ideologue", not a "partisan". What he means by that, apparently, is that he wouldn't lie or use different criteria to judge people who he agrees with or disagrees with. It makes him seem noble -- if you listen to him talking about himself.
In fact, he reminds me of Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly is also an amazing guy -- to hear him talk about himself.
Both seem very smart with strong opinions. O'Reilly is surely much louder than Carlson. Carlson didn't yell "SHUT UP!" at Franken. Not even once.
But I see Carlson on Crossfire a lot, and he tends to ask questions in a pretty 'sick' way. That is, you can ask a question straight, or you can ask it with moral or emotional baggage. Carlson often loads his questions outrageously. "Aren't you ashamed...." I guess that's what Crossfire is about, to some extent. It makes it really sweet when someone slaps him down effectively. I'm reminded of a woman from the ACLU talking about the recent ten commandments monument debacle....
Carlson doesn't bother to contain his contempt. Lots of sighs. Lots of "That is so *sad*." A lot of times, it seems, it is faux contempt. That is, it looks like he couldn't come up with anything to say, so he tried to bluff his way out with a contemptuous dismissal.
Basically, if he talked to his wife the way he talks in political debate, most of us would consider it inappropriate. Whether a manipulative debating style should be held against him is a different question.
Mostly, of course, he's just outgunned and outclassed on Crossfire. Carlson and Begala use their "briefing" time to get to the heart of major issues facing the country, while Carlson more frequently resorts to discussing trivial media spectacles -- typically that are just embarassing. There is no end of embarassment. The national discourse is rarely moved forward by mocking someone's human frailty. Perhaps Carlson just finds mocking people amusing, and views amusement as a high priority. But it makes him seem light-weight, as well as smarmy.
When Franken drifted into his canned schtick, Carlson did his dismissive, mocking act. It was a low point for Franken. Carlson didn't need to attack emotionally. He could have said something like "hey, you're off-course, let's get back to the key issue." You could say that isn't Carlson's job, but then it makes it sound like Carlson's job is belittling people who aren't as good at debate as he is. There's no honor in that....
[4:51:54 PM]
Now that it's pretty clear Saddam had destroyed all his anthrax and other so-called WMDs, it's time to revisit Powell's UN speech where he waved a vile of white powder as evidence that Saddam is a bad man.
If Powell wasn't waving Iraqi anthrax, what white powder was he waving?
Wouldn't it explain everything if he was waving his Coke stash? We'd know what the powder was, how he got it, why he had it with him, and it would also explain how in the world he could think that waving a little bottle of white powder was evidence that we should kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, get hundreds of our own people killed, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars.
We take the simplest explanation: Powell was coked out of his mind.
[2:24:41 PM]
If stinkin' Schwarzenegger gets elected with 15 percent of the vote, I say we recall him and run Warren Beatty.
[12:45:22 PM]
Doonesbury [doonesbury.com]:
Hedley: So where has your cell been operating, Commander?
Terrorist: Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kosovo -- you name it.... But then we heard about Bush's challenge to the Jihad community to "Bring 'em on" in Iraq. What kind of commander *invites* fire on his own troops? A few days later, we took Bush up on his dare.
Hedley: Why the delay?
Terrorist: No one believed it. I had to get it re-translated.
[12:09:35 PM]
"In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." --George W. Bush
[9:27:33 AM]
General Anthony Zinni [thenation.com]: "Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan."
[12:07:08 AM]
Almost a giddy week for America.
General Clark made the point that patriotism *requires* discussion and dissent. Vile Republican propagandists took their best shot, but Democrats held firm.
Junior's popularity polls continued to sink like the Titanic.
One poll even showed two Democrats whupping Junior, and a pack closing in for the kill.
Meanwhile, the White House has been harboring two felons. *Two* felons acting in coordination is a conspiracy. The perpetrators are known within the White House, but the White House didn't have them arrested. Looks bad for the White House. I mean, it may just happen that we see the first Bush Junior felons walk the plank. And if Junior's poll numbers don't come back around, there would be more.
You know, the right thing for Democrats to do is to investigate the Bush family fully. Even if we don't prosecute Poppy, we should have a public, complete report about the scope of criminal activity, including all the black operations that are blowing up in our faces.
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Last update: 10/1/03; 10:30:25 AM.