Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

“The Most Important Yet Underreported Story of the Decade” edition.

So what was the most the Most Important Yet Underreported Story of the Decade?

I would argue that it was

this guy.

Really.

Consider that, for decades, American media partitioned itself into a Villager Division (which exists to promote a wholly ridiculous establishmentarian narrative based on an artificial set of “real” American values) and the Wingnut Division


(which exists to promote a purely fascist/corporatist agenda by endlessly and obsequiously praising

this guy.

By telling him – endlessly and obsequiously -- that he is really

this guy.

This guy will slavishly listen to anyone – at a bar, at the gun show, at church and on the teevee -- who reinforces his ridiculous conspiracy theories, bigoted beliefs and debased Christianism. He will, in fact, pay any price to any clown with a microphone who promises to absolve him of utter failure as a citizen, take him down from a bloody cross he himself built with his own, two hands and nail some imaginary Dirty Fucking Hippie up there instead, which is why Rush Limbaugh is sitting on top of a mountain of gold, why Glenn Beck’s rating and ranting go up and up and up, hand-in-hand:

Fox News host Glenn Beck's national domination

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, January 3, 2010

It's official: Americans admire Glenn Beck more than they admire the pope.

This news, at once unsettling and unsurprising, came from the Gallup polling organization on Wednesday. Beck, the new Fox News host who has said President Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for white people" and alternately likens administration officials to Nazis and Marxists, was also more admired by Americans than Billy Graham and Bill Gates, not to mention Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. In Americans' esteem, Beck only narrowly trailed South Africa's Nelson Mandela, the man who defeated apartheid.

The 45-year-old recovering alcoholic and Mormon convert has become the first true demagogue of the information age. His nightly diet of falsehoods and conspiracies on Fox, and his daily outrages on the radio, have propelled his popularity past even Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. His method is simple: He goes places where others are forbidden by conscience.

Death panels? Government health insurance for dogs? FEMA concentration camps? An Obama "civilian national security force" like Hitler's SS or Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard? An administration official advocating forced abortions and sterilization agents in drinking water? Beck trafficked in them all in 2009.
...

If we were a nation with 30 million angry, active rocket scientists, political historians, economists or religious scholars…then the president of PBS would be commanding the high seven-figure salaries, and Conservative cesspit dwellers would be busking for change on America’s street corners, reciting goony free-verse “values” paeans to tax-cuts, shotguns, Reagan and Jebus.

GOP chief: Post-Reagan Republicans compromised

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer Douglass K. Daniel, Associated Press Writer
...

In "Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda," released Monday by Regnery Publishing, Steele says the GOP should acknowledge where "we most glaringly compromised our principles" in the past decade and hold its elected officials accountable.

"We must support Republican officials who assert these principles," he writes. "When elected Republicans vote against Republican principles, the voters must withhold their support — withhold it vigorously and consistently."
...

The GOP chairman also defended former Vice President Dick Cheney's harsh criticism of President Barack Obama, saying that he, too, believes Obama tries to avoid directly acknowledging a war on terror.

Steele focuses much of the book on familiar GOP denunciations of President Barack Obama's overall policies ("a roadmap to failure"), the $787 billion stimulus bill ("a reckless, wasteful, pork-laden spending spree"), liberal views on manmade global warming ("A threat to life on Earth? Depends on whom you ask") and other issues.

To regain the public confidence, Steele says the GOP should, among other things, expose the "reign of error" inherent in liberal policies, contrast conservative and liberal principles, and highlight the damage caused by Obama's policies while explaining conservative solutions.
...

But we’re not.

We’re a nation with 30 million angry Goobers whose bloody political paw prints are all over virtually every act of Conservative fuckuppery and treason this country has suffered for the last generation.

We’re a nation with 30 million "Party of Personal Responsibility" Pig People who are desperate to skip out on taking Personal Responsibility for eight years of cheering on the catastrophes they're now whining about; eight years which had been preceded by another eight years during which these same mob of drooling halfwits screamed for Bill Clinton's "socialist" scalp.

We’re a nation in which those 30 million culture war cannon fodder idiots – lovingly hand-crafted by Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove – are also 30 million voters.

30 million viewers and listeners.

30 million consumers.

This guy

and 30 million more like him, have created a Black Hole of Stupid so large that has swallowed American civilization, and from which virtually nothing intelligent, thoughtful or honest can escape. It is the tidal forced caused by the sheer metric tonnage of this guy’s fervent, screeching, indestructible ignorance and rage that has warped the culture, dragging us all inside an Imbecile Media Event Horizon from which honest journalism cannot escape.

Because of hard-wired need to pander to this guy, old “Five Deferment” Dick – who spent eight years dealing with the press like he worked over prisoners at Abu Gharib; keeping them shackled, harmless and abused by underlings until they said what he wanted them to say – now no longer has to even bother with cameras, microphones and follow-up questions. Now this disgraced war criminal that holds no political office at all can literally phone his treason in

POLITICO CUDDLES WITH DICK CHENEY
Dick Cheney is an unemployed man with a lot of dyspeptic grievances to bleat out into the world. But for whatever reason, he lacks the means to type out his malingerings himself, so it's a lucky thing that John Harris and Jim VandeHei have agreed to be the webmasters of his LiveJournal, which people call The Politico. There, he can make all sorts of nonsensical assertions without ever being asked a follow-up question. This is the journalistic equivalent of watching two succubi re-enact some of the more graphic and degrading scenes from Requiem For A Dream, on the internet. I could say a lot more, but let's face it: I'd only be repeating Alex Pareene's excellent summation of this wonderful, life-giving relationship.

And be 100% certain that it’ll get be bumped to the top of the news queue on virtually every major network.

On “Meet the Press”

DAVID GREGORY: Republicans have been very critical of this President. And accuse him of returning to a pre-9/11 mentality. Of becoming lax in the face of terror. Of essentially letting America's guard down. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said this to Politico this past week. Let me put his comment up on the screen.

"As I've watched the events of the last few days, it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think-- he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11th to New York, give him a lawyer, and try on civilian court, we won't be at war.
...

On “This Week” :

MORAN: That will be part of the (inaudible) if you know, no question about it. And I just want to turn, Congresswoman, to the – to the political issue. These -- these disagreements about Guantanamo Bay and the response of the administration raised the political stakes undoubtedly and inevitably in Washington.

The former vice president, Dick Cheney, had this to say in a statement. He said, "We are at war, and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe. Why doesn't he want to admit we are at war? It doesn't fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn't fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency, social transformation, the restructuring of American society."

Do you think that's an appropriate comment from the former vice president?

On “Face the Nation”

BOB SCHIEFFER: Chip Reid, Vice President Cheney has been leading the Republican attack. He says that the President simply is pretending that we’re not at war with al Qaeda. Isn’t-- isn’t the President going to really have to step out and take some decisive action here if for no other reason and just to counter this kind of criticism from the other side?

On “Fox News Sunday”

WALLACE: I don't have to tell you — we've got a little over a minute left — politics has reared its head in the discussion this week about the response to the Christmas day attack. This week, Vice President Cheney had this to say about President Obama.

Here it is. "He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases hardcore Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words "war on terror," we won't be at war. But we are at war, and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe."

Because however continuously and catastrophically wrong they are, however many times everything they touch turns to radioactive shit, and however many, baldfaced lies they tell,



there will always be a Douchbag Conservative chair permanently held open at every media table

because of this guy.