Sunday Morning Come and Gone

“Dear Future Generations of Humans…and Biologically Uplifted Raccoons, Bears, Dolphins and Gorillas…or Representatives of the Cockroach Solar Empire…depending on how things turned out" -- Edition.

A Gratuitous "Sleeper" Clip

to set the mood

Should you ever get the urge to understand exactly why the American Political System at the beginning of the 21st Century was so wholesale fucked up, you need look no further than the Mouse Circus (apologies to the Uplifted Mice of Tomorrow) of November 25th, 2007.

Not for any specific content – that moves around a lot week-to-week -- but for an opportunity to peek at the three radically different paths public conversation would eventually follow, at a moment before they completely diverged.

A look at evolution “in medias res”, with three transitional forms laid out side-by-side;

Of course, by your day, the Great Phuquetard Purge has already happened and “Russert Hunts” “Wallace Whacking” have become largely a matter of myth and custom; the ritual decoration of potatoes and pumpkins with toupees and blazers, and then the beating of same with sticks.

But in the here and now, “Russert” and “Wallace” and the rest of the characters from your children’s boogie man campfire stories are actual, real people who walk the Earth, make huge salaries and turn everything they touch into ass water.

The First Subgenus is “Grown-ups talking”. This is more-or-less what political discourse should be like.

On “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer gave a workmanlike example of this kind of programming with Robin Wright (Washington Post), "Looming Tower" author Lawrence Wright, Rick Atkinson (Washington Post), and retired General Anthony Zinni.

They talked about…

…the upcoming Annapolis Peace Conference.

…Kurdish North Iraq and the tensions that causes since they’ll cheek-by-jowl with Turkey.

…Iran

…local elections are being discussed in Pakistan in just the right way. Not who’s up and who’s down in the polls, but what the social and military pressures are on civil society.


In other words, they talked about regional problems in their proper context. Lawrence Wright pointed out, for example, that Osama bin Laden doesn’t care about Israel. He cares about the Israel/Palestine problems only insofar as it creates recruits for his movement.

Nothing Earth-shattering, but a fine example of what The Media Commons can sound like when people actually care about matters of substance.


The Second Subgenus is “Lying Liars Lying” and on “Fox News Sunday” you see unvarnished propaganda in its purest form.

Fox, for your information is what we called a “news network” that isn’t with “reporters” that aren’t. It is, in fact, a corporate life-form viciously inimical to democracy that gets very, very rich telling bigots and imbeciles that they are not bigots and imbeciles.

This Genus survives largely by camouflage: By using a format that is superficially similar to “Grown-ups talking” -- men and women with very good hair, wearing very nice suits, in front of big signs that “News” –- the bigots and imbeciles are reassured that all of the lies they are being told really must be true.

This particular Sunday they had on a man named Fred Thompson. He is an “actor” who played a “senator” for a little bit and then did other things that were less strenuous and paid better. He is running for President, which is weird because we are often told that energy and zazz are important factors in winning elections, and Fred Thompson is as “charismatic” a “lemur on a heroin nod dozing in a bowl of cold oatmeal.”

This is a sample of what Fred “No Campaign for Old Men” Thompson sounds like, and thinks like:

Th’ Rev’nuers izza cuming for yore munnies!

Mo’ tax cuts is always better ‘cause that makes Teh Economy grow, which is why corporating shouldna hafta pay no tax munnies

For reg’lar taxpayers, you should have two rates (rich and po’)

And his is a sample of what Chris Wallace sounds like:

Wallace: But we’ve done Teh Maths on your ideas, Fred, and it look like you want to cut 10% off the Gummint Budget. Which means you’d end up with a two trillions dollar shortfall of munnies.

(In these days, before the Housing Meltdown, Peak Earl, the collapse of Techno, the rise of Hechno, the Zombie Tit-Rabbits from Callisto, The Lil' Armageddonette and Rapture Hoax, it didn’t cost a billion dollars to buy a Genuine Costco Guaranteed-Carbon-Neutral Drive-Thru Handjob...so a “trillion” it was still a lot of munnies)

Thompson: We’ll y’know, then damned e-lites are always wrong about estimating taxes. Experts are always wrong.

(Translation: “e-lites” are people who are not actually stupid enough to get their information from Fox News and Fred Thompson”)

Thompson: To save Social Security – which is goin’ bankrupt bitches! – we should junk it and have people open private accounts. A whole buncha experts like “The National Review” think that’s a great idea. And it will save the gummint, like, four trillion dollars of munnies.

Some stuff future people should know:

1. Social Security isn’t broken. Or broke. It is, however, hated by a group of people called “Conservatives” because it was created by a man named Franklin Roosevelt during something called the New Deal.

2. Franklin Roosevelt believed that old people and sick people should not die alone and in agony just because they’re poor and Social Security helps prevent that from happening. Conservatives hate the poor, the old and the infirm and hate Social Security because it taxes a tiny, bitty fraction of their munnies to try and make sure the poor, the aged and the sick don’t die alone and in agony.

3. Conservatives mostly call themselves “Christian”.

4. Conservatives call taking a tiny, bitty fraction of their munnies to try and help the poor, the old and the infirm Evil Socialism! And yet.

5. Jesus Christ –whose Conservative “Christians” claim to follow more perfectly than any other fucking people in the history of forever – was all about helping the poor, the old and the infirm. On the other hand, Jesus Christ never said “Boo” about gay people.

6. So…Jesus Christ was a Very Bad Christian Indeed!

7. Fred Thompson is a Conservative. Or at least plays one on the teevee, which for Fox News viewers is the same thing.

8. Fred Thompson did not bother to elaborate on what length of time his four trillion dollars of munnies would cover, whereas Chris Wallace did specify that Fred Thompson would need to come up with two trillion dollars of munnies every year, and not over 20 years…or ten years…or after a “spell”

(Translation: “a spell” is a span of time short enough for Conservatives to get into office and fuck everything up, but long enough so they can sneak away and start blaming “Bill Clinton” for it.)

Thompson (on abortion): We should direct our energies to something that “might could git done”. Federal judges. The Supreme Court.

Wallace: But what you said – that states should be able to decide what they want to do – isn’t that the essence of the Pro Choice position? That people should have a right to choose?

Thompson: I don’t know of any states that have abortion on demand. Mebbe some do. And if some states did, other states wouldn’t.

I know it is hard to understand why this intellectual speed-skater is running a panting third behind a reprogrammable, Vinyl-encased-vacuum named “Mitt”, a mobbed-inflected, cross-dressing, pro-Choice liar and serial adulterer named Rudy, and the corpse of Ronald Reagan.

Wallace: You said we don’t know the “real” Mike Huckabee. So tell us about the real Mike Huckabee.

Thompson: The “process” will take care of this. The Cato Institute gave him bad tax grades. As bad as Clinton. Also on ‘bortion.

(Translation: “The Cato Institute’ were a bunch of screwheads who hate every idea that involves taking munnies away from some people to pay for things.)

(Translation: “(Bill) Clinton” was a U.S. President who presided over a period of extended prosperity, peace, job growth, fiscal restraint and budget surpluses. But because he was a “Democrat”, Conservative “Christians” spent seven years undermining, slandering and trying destroy him using every means at their disposal. They finally impeached him for having sex with a lady who wanted to have sex with him and then not admitting that he had sex with that lady.)

Which was, according to the Conservative “Christians”, worse that nine Hitlers.

Thompson: (on Giuliani and gun control) New York doesn’t necessarily have the same values as the rest of “Murrica.

(Translation: Hellooooo Klansmen!)

Wallace: There’s a poll that sez you’re Sleepy. And Dopey. And frequently Grumpy. But not Sexy at all! How do you counter critics who say you’re a lazy old man who though he could slip into the White House on a flotilla of corn pone and an IMDb ranking somewhere between Wallace Shawn and Powers Booth?

Thompson: This has been a constant mantra at Fox.

Wallace: Hey! That’s my motherf%^&ing paycheck you’re talking about! Quit saying bad things about my pimp! And anyway, a lotta people have said that.

Thompson: Yeah, but you used (Fred) Barnes and (Charles) Krauthammer. You pig-fuckers only highlight the negative, and then you put on your own guys who have been against me since the beginning.

Then on came Carl Levin and Lindsay Graham, who at this point have been put through their paces so many times there they have laminated passes to the Fox News cafeteria.

Levin: The Surge was a means to a specific end. Saying that there is decreased violence is fine, but it isn’t why we are there.

Wallace: Well, OK, that’s true. What about that, Gomer?

Graham: By January 2008 the de-Baathification law will be fixed.

Wallace: But isn’t it true that the Preznit is already lowering expectations?

Graham: The Surge is working! I’m not gonna play that game. No "That Game Player" am I.

Levin: Shit, it was the Malaki government themselves who set these benchmarks. For a year ago. To sit here and keep saying that if they don’t meet them we’ll… maybe… eventually….sorta ...do something is ridiculous.

Levin: We have been there four-and-a half-years. Why in the name

Graham: The Surge is the most successful counterinsurgency in the history of the world! I won’t set idly by and watch us go ahead and go back to the Old Strategy and let Congress run the Greatest War Evah! Congress setting deadlines. Congress cutting troops strength.

driftglass: Graham is simply a liar. At no point in the history of this bloody disaster has “Congress running this war” been the strategy, Old or New. For 3.5 years a Conservative Congress rubber stamped every deranged, treasonous, thieving decision the Bush Regime made. Then, for the last 11 months, a Slightly Less Conservative Congress has been pushing back a little bit.

Levin: Fuck you, you mealy-mouthed asshat. All we have done is support the troops. Period. The commanders on the ground are the ones telling us that the failure of the Maliki Gummint is the reason for the troubles they face.

Graham: Fuck you! The Surge is Working. Gomer out!



The Final Subgenus…I think is going to require a little more room.

Gomer Out!