State of the Outrage
Because Barbara Bush taught him to "use your words, George," her son the president, rather than actually mooning some Senate Democrats at the joint session of Congress on Monday night as he would like to do, will instead call them terrorist-lovers for refusing to give retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms in the FISA bill, and he will call them partisan obstructionists for wanting to extend unemployment benefits in the economic stimulus bill now pending.
Because the political media's machismo depends on admiring cynicism as realpolitik, when the Clintons claim victory in the Florida primary this Tuesday, the mandarins will pronounce it a brilliant chess move, rather than revealing it as a desperation-borne contempt for the rules of the nomination game they had previously agreed to, and as condescension toward those who still naively care about playing by them.
Because there is no accountability in punditry -- outside, that is, of Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann -- Rudy Giuliani's flameout in Florida, like Fred Thompson's before him in South Carolina, will occasion no reminders and no regrets for the jock-sniffing musk-addled crushes once harbored toward them by the Chris Matthewses and Bill Kristols of the political locker room.
Because there is nothing like necrophilia and hagiography to prolong our national addiction to historical amnesia, this week's Republican debate at the Reagan Library will prompt no admission that the sub-prime meltdown now dragging Americans into a painful recession, except for the nouveau gazillionaires insulated from it, is the godchild of the Reagan religion of faith-based deregulation, fundamentalist market worship, and a massive government-engineered transfer of wealth from the middle to the top.
Because "the surge is working" -- because, that is, of the indefinitely long presence of more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq, paid for by trillions of dollars that even the Bush administration no longer has the nerve to put in its budget, combined with the absence of any meaningful progress toward the administration's own benchmarks for political success, coupled with the media's inability to cover the war as anything except the kind of occasional traffic fatality story found on local TV news -- a presidential campaign that might have been a referendum on Republican deceit and incompetence, and a frank conversation about America's real security interests in the world, will instead be a moronic barrage of empty slogans about change.
And because the Framers were unable to anticipate the genius at gaming the Constitution possessed by the power-mad viceroys of a future King George named Cheney and Rove, nor could the Founders conceive of a corporate press hooked on revenue-generating junk and intimidated into abandoning its role as Fourth Estate, the year of onanistic Legacy coverage and good-poodle bipartisanship that will be kicked off this week by the State of the Union address will be left unspoiled by erased emails, unmarred by unenforced contempt citations, unsullied by unacknowledged high crimes and demeanors, and unblemished by disgraces that cannot be rectified by pardons for the past and pay packages for the future.
But hey, it's gonna be a great Super Bowl, Romney sure is good-looking, I wonder what kind of cake Jenna and Henry pick, Joe Lieberman really understands how to reach across the aisle, and did you know Obama's middle name is Saddam?
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
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Have you seen this one . . .
"This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day.
It is an ironic juxtaposition:
one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication.
The other involves a groundhog.
In this case I'll be watching the groundhog because, although he is not always right, at least I trust him.
This country will never change. I cannot understand how people who say they love GOD and have family values can vote for someone who loves war, power and killing. And they not only vote for them, they still listen to them lie and believe every word. Are there very stupid people in the world yes. And there is a big percentage in the U.S.A. They are called republicans.
Clinton's claim victory in the Florida}
Yet to be seen but she likely may?
In the end it is who wins nomination in all States and who wins the final election? And from that do the people of this nation and the world finally win?
It is written that whose whom cause division and decision between people are an abomination or are detestable by our creator! So it is so with many of the voters of this nation. The GOP spin made up the religious right of this nation that brought us into the first war preemtively created by rumor rather than by fact proves this so.
Because "the surge is working" Working for who? It was and is a war where the wrong enemy that was proclaimed a part of the axis of evil. A war that has cost not only God Given human lives on all sides but has taken out of the economy money that could of been used to save lives and paid for feeding, housing and medicating the sickest of our nation and others! As it is written, if they son asks for a loaf bread to give him a stone!
Our national addiction to historical amnesia,
Guess were all to stupid to realize? As it is written, the past is gone, and future is not yet here and do we not have enough evils of the day to contend with!
Yeah, but what's new? Call me when we finally become a Parliamentary democracy.
The whole of the bush family are Cowards and perverted money grubbing traitors, from the old CIA head the one that somehow is still alive after his more patriotic successors have been murdered, to his "other" sons that both "protected" the WTC in their job of security head at WTC to their position on the insurance board that allowed him to make his prearranged payments to his friend that blew it up according to plan.(at least that is what it looks like to me or let me see the insurance investigation if indeed there was one.)
We do not have a Government we have a mob of perverts that love money and the illusion of transitory power and imaginary control more than their own people.
I live near the Manzanar National Historic Site. Our local museum recently hosted a traveling exhibit entitled "The Soviet Gulag: A Celebration of the Human Spirit and the Quest for Freedom." It's now at the Martin Luther King Home in Atlanta.
Part of that exhibit was a video loop of the Deputies of the Soviet Duma rising repeatedly in long standing ovations while Nikita Krushchev spoke from the podium. This monitor was juxtaposed with images of slave laborers interred at camps of the Soviet GULAG.
Bush got 51 standing ovations at one of his State of the Union addresses, and the resemblance to that old black and white footage of the Duma is striking. This is not Democracy on display, it is Despotism on parade.
If John Lennon rose from the dead he would not get 51 standing ovations. Bush deserves a firing squad a million times more than a standing ovation.
When an airplane from one country flies over another and drops a bomb in a war of agression and a little child is killed, that is murder. When a million die, that is mass murder.
Please keep that in mind when you are unfortunate enough to see footage from the Congress of Bush and the jack-offs-
While I was hoping by now we'd be celebrating the impeachment and upcoming war crime trials of Bush and Dick, I am thrilled Bush will be delivering his swan song tonight.
Not that I intend to listen to the slimeball telling any more lies, I'm just glad this is it for him.
Bush's administration has been like enduring an 8-year mammogram.
I just want my breasts back.
The State of the Union by George Bush challenges his speech writers. What can he say that is positive - unless he visits the State of Denial.
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Members of the Congress and the Senate allowed Bush's illegal spying and they are trying to make the TeleCos the scape goat by using the FISA bill to point out their complicity. Expect the FISA bill to be defeated and the TelCos, already burdened by what is loosely referred to as deregulation in a scheme that continues to regulate them while stealing their property and revenue, to be further punished.
Hillary, who voted for the illegal spying, has announced that she is rushing to D.C. to vote against the Bill. The thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that you don't want to vote for any of the candidates who are currently being supported by the media and their investment banker owners.
There's no accountability in punditry (outside Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart), because our media has taken on the awesome responsibility of "Jerry Springer politics". They try to spark sensational stories by asking the sensational questions, just like Jerry Springer. For instance, yesterday's interview of Barack Obama by George Stephanopolous was a joke. The entire interview consisted of GS asking Obama about Hillary's platform, trying to incite harsh words. This is how all our media "professionals" (besides Olberman and Stewart) are doing the job... right from the "Book of Jerry Springer". Fits right in with the new American thought process... in national times of trouble, go shopping, and sit our fat asses in front of the tube and watch 24-hour Jerry Springer.
The bloggoshere is misinterpreting Mr. Kaplan's essay as some sort of attack on Bush 2.0, when in fact he is condemning the lethargic, bloated and ignorant masses that that popularly elected such a POTUS.
He may be a juvenile, towel snapping product of the privlidged, but his handlers know us better than we ourselves. Afganistan and Iraq rage on without a murmer or an end, our Democratic Congress actually approved more torture and spying, and the build up to Jenna Bush's wedding is going to be bigger than the Super Bowl! Don't count on Oprah to save us, she is going to be competing with the other networks for her exclusive interviews.
It is a tired retread, but we have found the enemy, and he is us.
Yes, where is the outrage?
Just like Hitler, why didn't anyone stop this mad and idiot King?
The mere sight of him and his stupid smirk make me want to throw up.
I have vilified for expressing my views in this country with free speach?
It is a bloody joke!
Contacting our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES is a waste of time and energy! They no longer depend on their 'CONSTITUENTS' to be reelected, but on the power of money provided by their corporate masters.
Marty, your post transported me to a revival tent in the south on a warm summer night. I could hear each Beee-CAUSE, with sweat being mopped from a brow, hot with outrage and sincerity. "Amen!" seems appropriate.
To put it bluntly, Mr. Kaplan you have nailed it. I was especially moved by your comments about cynicism being macho to the punditry class. What a sorry bunch of do-nothings. I also am amazed that the NBC, ABC, CNN, of this world decide who is allowed into a public debate. They claim their exclusions of candidates is because they are not viable enough. As if winning is what a public debate is all about. But ratings? Market share? That IS what it's all about.
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