Wednesday, June 29, 2005

All Hail Dear Leader!



Wait a minute? You're…not…Dear Leader!?


I didn’t intend to conduct a non-scientific survey tonight: I just wanted a beer.

A friend of mine and I went out to talk work and history, women and politics and we ended up at a fairly (for Chicago) conservative-y sports bar; lotta fine young GOP cannibals in khaki and buzzcuts...and a lotta dirty looks when I might have used the words “Republican” and “douchebag” and “Cheney” and “lying cocksucker” kinda loudly.

Tempus fugited along rather faster than we expected, and 8:00 suddenly tolled, but with over 600,000 televisions, we could swing around and find The Big Speech on at least 20, and closed-captioned on five or six.

Had we been playing the Lying Republican Cocksucker drinking game – taking a shot every time 9/11 was invoked – we both would’ve been knee-walking hammered by the time the speech hit the eighth paragraph.

It was also fun and exciting to see how many words were blown in the type-along transcripts -- especially amazing given that the text of the speech was released in advance to the media and the internets, and GW isn’t exactly famous for his Churchillian riffing on the Big Speeches, 'cause he tends to "disassemble" quite a bit.

I mean, (if I remember correctly) the “softer Middle East” I can understand. And “Our messing in Iraq is clear” is OK, but what’s a “blexiter”?

We concluded that the speech was probably going fine, but closed-caption dingus was picking up what was actually going on inside Bush’s head.

A lot of people were watching. This was, after all, a Major Prime Time Address on a matter of Great National Importance, in a room that looked to me to be loosely packed with 1-A, draft-age Bushite males. So my pal and I, we were just starting to relax into the rhythm of it, such as it was, when the signal cut off.

Shit.

Not that this was anything other than Bush Campaign Stump Speech Number One, edited to take out all the “pause for incoherent, retard applause” stage direction, and reshod in slightly shinier 2005 shoes, but I had wanted to hear it (OK, perhaps for the same reason that W.C. Fields once said he read the Bible.)

Several of the teevees flickered, which was kind of weird and momentarily chilling, and then one of the barristas pulled down a HUGE white screen and fired up the projection box in the ceiling and I figured she was putting on the Major Prime Time Address of Great National Importance and I thought, “OK, well they may be kinda fascist-y here, but at least they take this seriously.”

Because it was, as I have said, a Major Prime Time blah blah blah.

Nah.

It was 8:15. And the NBA draft was on.

And every teevee, including the Very Big One, flickered a few more times, and all settled on it. And everyone just kept right on, and no one asked for any one of the 600,000 channels to be changed back to Bush and the Big Speech (And remember, this is Chicago, where we have no stake whatsoever in the NBA draft.)

We laughed, my friend and I, finished our beers, and left.

Iraq? War? Just another fucking rerun.

So I came home, not intending to be drawn in, but just had to know the score. Who was up and who was down, so I got on the internets and here’s where things stand:

First sentence, second paragraph: September 11 invoked.

Third Paragraph: September 11 invoked.

Fourth paragraph: “New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania” invoked.

Eighth paragraph: “Osama Bin Laden” invoked.

Twelfth paragraph: September 11 invoked.

37th paragraph: September 11 invoked.

First full sentence, second to last Paragraph: September 11 invoked.

How depressingly predictable.
How utterly damned this man is.
How completely he has failed us.

And stupid me, I foolishly decided to play the Lying Republican Cocksucker game while I read the speech at home, and as a Child of the Game, I felt honor-bound to strictly abide by the rules.

I am now completely blind.

56 comments:

Watch 'n Wait said...

Perfectly all right. You're entitled, after having to read that drivel that was devoted to "catapulting the propaganda."

Anonymous said...

I posted this elsewhere and someone sent me to "Billmon" who already had noticed, dissected, and commented on the interesting new phenomenon of dividing "insurgents" into two groups tonight: "terrorists" and "insurgents"

Guess whose going to be rehabilitated as part of our new partnership running Iraq? Of course, the "insurgents" because we don't negotiate with "terrorists"

These people are so predictable in their lies and language-shifting games at this point that it isn't even sporting to point them out.

Oh, and in the five minutes I actually watched the thing, what the hell was he grinning about? he was talking about death and he was grinning! What a damn maniac.

Sometimes I wish I did something else for a living---being a historian gives you the long view (not always encouraging) but also keeps what has been lost in clear view. Everything this gang of criminals does has gone past disturbing into a realm of its own. I've run out of analogies and precedents ---in-country or out.

Mister Roboto said...

Knowing nothing of sports, I have to ask, who's the guy in the pic? He's jaw-droppingly freakin' beautiful! Oy!

Anonymous said...

The preznit gave a speech last night? Shit, I was watching old Looney Tunes (TM) cartoons with my kid. I guess it's the same thing. Bush has all the brains and bluster of Foghorn Leghorn, and the ability to survive disaster like Wile E. Coyote. Now if we could only find a Dem with the fundamental savvy and likeability of Bugs Bunny...

Anonymous said...

I run and lift in a large fitness center every night. The room holding all the treadmills, stairmasters, rowers, etc. has a dozen TV's scattered across 3 walls. Not a single one was tuned to the speech. No one of any age, gender, income or political persuasion cared to watch or listen. And this is in a decidedly Red State. Dubya is irrelevant right now.

RossK said...

watch 'n wait--

Of course it only takes about 15 minutes to load and fire a catapault.

So, maybe this short-lived, shiny-shoed juxtaposition with The Draft (draft's are beautiful, and as loveandlight pointed out, draftee's are fine....) was actually part of, I dunno, what's the word for it....

Plan?

.

Anonymous said...

Love', it's Andrew Bogut, the Croatian/Aussie 7 footer, an early-out from the Univ. of Utah, who just went to Milwaukee as the #1 draft pick in this year's NBA draft.

He now has a large collection of pictures of dead presidents.

Anonymous said...

Yikes! been away a few days and got behind on my reading - and unca drift, no take this personal, mon, but uh, no, i did na miss it one litt-el bit, mon!
if ya need a lift, spend 3 days out in the wild northern california wilderness, at wavey gravey's ranch, widda buncha hippies, listn'in to some great music! it does wonders for lifting the spirits right outta them doldrums! wavey gravey is livin' the life doin' the right stuff! he's takin care of the inner city youngsters sendin' 'em to camp. and his ranch is clean, and safe and organic and recycled, and the folk i shared camping with were the real thing-
just tellin' y'all that i'm feelin' hopeful again. try it.
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oops - make that:

www.cumuluspresents.com/kate/index.html

Mister Roboto said...

He lives in Milwaukee now? Oh goody! Stalking potential!

{Just kidding, Andy, in the extremely unlikely event that you are actually reading this. ;-D )

Mister Roboto said...

Wait a minute, just looked at some other pics of the guy online. Bleah. Nevermind.

Anonymous said...

Love', I was thinkin' that myself, but the photo that Drift used was taken from a distance, and didn't do justice to Bogut's jock moonpie epressiveness...

But I wasn't going to mess with your "view" of him.

I mean, I'd LOVE to get in Lily Tomlin's britches, if for no other reason than to hear her "monologue" when we got in the short rows...:-)

driftglass said...

jedwards,
thanks for the link: looks like heaven.

weinerdog43,
Well the closed-captioning helped a lot. Hearing that smirk-giggle combo (smiggle?) every time Dear Leader says something simple, declarative and idiotic is almost too much, ever for beer fortified smartasses.

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