Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

The "Damn, but I'm tired" edition.

On “Face the Nation” — Dick Lugar talked like a grownup about Iraq. Unfortunately this is not 2004. Too late, of course. And Lugar’s President has proven beyond any doubt that he would rather see the world go up in flames than back off one millimeter from of Chancellor Cheney’s doomed Armageddon On The Installment Plan.

Q: Iraqi’s haven’t done shit, right?

Lugar: Right. These are people who have no experience in government. Who don’t come to meetings. Many of whom hate each other.


On “Meet the Press” — Patrick Leahy talked like a grownup about the criminality of this Administration
.
Then, nothing but horse race toutage.

Oh, and Hillary.

Oh, how she laughs.

Oh, how she smiles.

Oh, how lifelike her hair is.

On the media toxic waste spill that is “Fox News Sunday” — Skeletor Chertoff does his job as a closed tape loop of Administration talking points

Wallace: Why aren’t you raising the Terror Alerts in America?

Chertoff: The election is still too far away for scaring Americans into voting for pinheads. Like a taser to the taint, jacking up Terror Alerts is a very short-duration behavior modification tool.

Chertoff: If, before 9/11, anyone would have suggested that terrorists would hijack planes and crash them into buildings, they would have been laughed at?

Yes, he really said that. The lying, “No one could have anticipated” meme that follows on behind every Administration failure.

In fact, he said it over on “This Week”

On Immigration:

Wallace: Why not fuck all the touchy-feely, “long term solution” crap and just resubmit the requests for all these enforcement-only tools – laser cannons, attack droids, orbiting particle beam platforms -- and use the plight of illegal immigrants to force the Evil Democrats into an embarrassing corner?

Wallace: So…the Preznit is not going to submit his own plan?

Then, “Fairness”

Wallace: Should Congress pass a law to put more Liberal voices on the air? We’ll have a Fair and Balanced debate, next.

I love that Wallace doesn’t even pretend to be anything other that a Bush Regime toady anymore.

Thence came a “debate” between Michael Gallagher – wingnut Hate Radio rodent who never stopped smiiiiiling for a single second -- and Mark Green of Air America Radio.

Gallagher: The “Fairness Doctrine” is an antique, 1949 dinosaur. Like the Constitution. Or the Geneva Convention. An my One Party Christian State has no need of such ephemera (OK, Gallagher wouldn’t say “ephemera”. Would not understand the term “ephemera”. Would perhaps assume it was something queer. Or perhaps a kind of Brazilian snack-cake.)

But the “debate” was easy to deconstruct.

On the one side, Wallace feeding Gallagher softball questions, while Gallagher repeated (because when you serve the Big Lie, that’s the only way it works) “Fairness Doctrine. Fairness Doctrine. You want the Gummit the mandate speech!”

While smiiiiiling.

On the other side you have Mark Green giving a calm explanation of the process of allocating scarce bandwidth and the social compact that is supposed to guide the exchange of these scarce and valuable licenses in exchange for the use of the public airwaves.

“No one here is proposing mandating speech. Nowhere in any written or spoken remarks has anyone on my side ever suggested that we want to mandate particular speech.”

“You want the Gummit to take away mah Free Speech!”

Back and forth and back and forth like that; facts and reason “rebutted” by Gallagher repeating the same lie over and over and over again.

All while smiiiiiiiiiling.

But it works, because of one, simple fact; people who get their opinions from Hate Radio and Fox are as dumb as a pig’s ass on a stick.

You know, these people:

From Newsweek (h/t C&L) (emphasis added)

Poll: What Americans (Don't) Know
We asked Americans about current events, history and cultural literacy. And we got some pretty disheartening results.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 4:53 p.m. CT June 23, 2007

July 2-9, 2007 issue - For our What You Need to Know Now cover story, we asked our polling firm to test 1,001 adults on a variety of topics, including politics, foreign affairs, business, technology and popular culture. The results were mixed, to be charitible. NEWSWEEK's first What You Need to Know Poll found many gaps in America's knowledge—including a lingering misperception about an Iraqi connection to the September 11 terror attacks, an inability to name key figures in the American government and general cultural confusion.

Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in 10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right—and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq.
…

The most powerful nation on Earth.

The most prosperous nation in history.

A democracy, in command of a mass, interactive communication technology so potent that, outside of science fiction geeks, two generations ago it would have been considered magic.

Given all of our blessings, all we have going for us, our public discourse on the most vital issues of the day should resonate like so:

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

Richard II, III.ii

Instead, we get this:

We represent the Agitprop Guild,
The Agitprop Guild,
The Agitprop Guild
And in the name of the Agitprop Guild,
We wish to welcome you to Punditland.


Sigh.