Sunday Morning Came and Went

A Retrospect Of Tea Leaves ™ at the bottom of the Cayman Trench-Deep Navel of the Mouse Circus.

2008: What did it all mean!?

Based on my scattering of beer-soaked notes from the Sunday morning puppet show, God knows.

The most intriguing turn of events happened on “Meet the Press” where you could almost hear the off-camera gear-grinding of the network's clatteringly awkward attempt at a party-line shift.

Of course you had typical, MSM comfort food. Things like a video of Noot! Gingrich taking a bold position that “People are tired of Republican-style attack politics” which for some reason was not followed by 20 solid minutes of artery-bursting, pee-spigotting, coffee-gushing-from-nostrils-like-David-Bowman-being-blown-out-an-airlock

laughter.

Which ceases only as the laughers pass out from chortle-induced hypoxia, and awake, moments later, gasping and asking “He wasn’t really serious, right?”

I mean, Noot “Call ‘em traitors” Gingrich denouncing “Republican-style attack politics” verges deeply into Professor-Moriarty-standing-up-in-Parliament-demanding-stronger-Victorian-era-anti-fictional-supervillainy-laws territory.

So there was that.

And there was Rich Lowry pulling a wholly voodoo-based reading of recent history out of his ass to advise that we’re maybe having a “paradigm-shift” election because whatever it is we’re pissed about is coming to a head before Inauguration Day. Or something.

But it is a strange an magical day when a Washington Post financial writer (Michelle Singletary) quotes Proverbs – “The borrower is slave to the lender” -- at the Mouse Circus, and got even more entertaining as I watched the strong parallel between the collapse of the credit markets and the collapse of Conservatism play itself out in sharper relief than warm snuggly Centrist Committee Teevee usually allows.

Sunday the specific object was Rich Lowry.

Lowry is another in that subspecies of talent-challenged Conservative hacks who have commandeered serious media time and attention for far, far, far too long: those proudly turgid supporters of Sarah Palin and tireless advocates of “It's not torture if we do it. To brown people. Who scare me.” school of foreign policy who have gone so politically cyanotic rebreathing their little Randite beer-farts of Freedom that their faces have permanently frozen into blue-tinged smirks. But like the Banker Bubble, the collapse of the Wingnut Bubble means the careers of people like Lowry are now backed by worthless paper. He is now stuck in the drying mudhole of evaporating Republican delusions, pooping out tired retreads like “Both. Sides. Equally. Bad.” and “Iran/Contra = Monica Lewinski” and “No attacks on American soil”.

He is, in other words, every bit the same mendacious and ideologically-arterioscleratic organ-grinder's monkey screeching for coins he has always been, but instead of being Villager-polite and clubby-insider-deferential...

Richard Wolffe reacted as if Conservatives had tried to buy his mother’s houses with AIG stock and dollar-off Hummer coupons...

...while Michelle Singletary --

"Imagine if Bush had succeeded in dumping Social Security into the stock market. Bush should be ashamed of what he has left us."

-- summarily refused to play the "All sides equally to blame" game at all.

Which is to say, they generally pulled Lowry's nuts off and used them for hacky sack.

What an interesting place the Mouse Circus would be if this became the norm.

It ain’t gonna happen, but we can dream.


Later, on “This Week” I may have heard this exchange:

Why are we having a stimulus package?

To impress chicks. Chicks love the stimuli.

What should the standard be for allocating money?

Does it make the ladies go “Ooooh!”

Or I may not’ve.

Then there is that vexing problem of the complete lack of oversight for the Wall Street bail out and the fact that the bankers seem to be believe that “Taxpayer Dollars” = “Balloon Payment for Their Fuck-You Money Funds”.

Sherrod Brown: Treasury has screwed this thing sideways. And with a new Secretary of the Treasury we’ll have more oversight.

Then, a panel of the lesser-well-known: Kurt Andersen, John Dickerson, Alison Stewart and David Brody.

At some point someone predicted that Newt Gingrich is going to become the spokesman for the Republican Party. Because he “has ideas” and he’ll do it by saying mean things about fellow Republicans.

Which hurt my tender head.

Then Kurt Andersen noted that, if anybody still cares about good journalism, they need to find a way to pay for it and stop pretending that everything comes free from Jebus and Teh Internet.

Which made my head hurt less.

Oh, and a final note to David Gregory.

Put.

The.

Bong.

Down.

Because, Dave, for all of his relentless, lumpen defense of the Villager banner, at least Russert never spent 30% of his time coughing up ditchweed gank smoke

during his Sunday morning MSM reacharounds.