Tuesday, May 01, 2018

Today In "Both Sides Do It": Mushroom Cloud Guy Bitches About America's Declining Rhetorical Standards



You may know Mr. Michael Gerson as George W. Bush's chief speechwriter and senior Republican policy adviser who put the lie of "a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" into Dubya's mouth.  Or you may know Mr. Gerson as yet another Bush Regime Dead Ender who was bequeathed a wingnut welfare media sinecure for life after the Bush Administration collapsed around his ears.  Or you may know Mr. Gerson as America's emergency backup David Brooks -- a  reliable Beltway Republican stalactite who has spilled countless barrels of ink insisting that there exists some other, perfectly rational and humane Republican Party out there somewhere which he can clearly see, and which you can see too if you just stare directly into the sun long enough.

But however you have come to know Mr. Gerson, you know him to be a fop and a fraud who, at long last, has but one rusty tin drum remaining in his orchestra of bullshit.

That always-reliable Both Sides Do It drum.

And my oh my doesn't he pound it as if his life depended on it.

From the Washington Post (with emphasis added to amuse me):
The rhetoric of our era has reached its vile peak

In Washington — at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — comedian Michelle Wolf...

In Washington, Mich., President Trump gave an 80-minute speech in a stream-of-semiconsciousness style that mixed narcissism, nativism, ignorance, mendacity and malice...

In both Washingtons, political discourse was dominated by the values and practices of reality television and social media...
Mr. Gerson suggests the source of this scourge, and its cure as follows:
[Trump's] degraded language results from a degraded politics. And the repair of our public life will eventually require a restoration of rhetoric.
Wow.  Sounds like a big job.  But as an unpaid, Liberal pariah blogger and master of all thing rhetorical, let me do my small part to get the ball rolling.

Fuck you, Michael Gerson.

Fuck you sideways.

With a steam hammer.

In the form of a mushroom cloud.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

6 comments:

Andrew Johnston said...

My favorite line:

For starters, I would deny that most people would have anything to do with such revolting garbage in their own lives. A guest at your dinner table like Wolf who profanely attacked other guests would be politely (or not so politely) asked to leave.

Yes, it's so terribly gauche when you have a comedy roast and the comedian dares to mock people. The best take on this thus far has to be from Seth Myers, who compared this reaction to hiring a stripper for a six year-old's birthday party and then expressing shock at how dirty is was. Motherfucker, why have a roast if you're this thin-skinned?

Andrew Johnston said...

Oh, and a quick follow-up: I checked out Gerson's Twitter feed and was delighted to discover that it's comprised almost entirely of RTs of people kissing his ass. And also reposts of his favorite lines from his own column (he is so fucking proud of that thing).

And just for irony's sake, a clip of Bill Maher calling people "fragile."

jim said...

Very civil, friendly & quiet dialogue Chamberlain had with that nice Mr. Hitler.

steeve said...

We must restore rhetoric. I suggest electing a centrist, conciliatory president whose whole life's work is to be a calm inoffensive mediator. Also, change the calendars to 2008.

Mr XD said...

Those last several lines, from "WoW" to the final syllable, represent rhetoric as it should be did ~

dinthebeast said...

If all she had done was walk up to the podium and say the one bit about how the media actually loves and profits off of Fergus, she still would have contributed more to US politics than Gerson.

-Doug in Oakland