Sillius Sodus

I'm not generally given to reading Rabbi Gellman, but thanks to Atrios I couldn't avoid him. Of all the takes I've seen on Joe Lieberman's collapse that were not uttered by the candidate himself or one of his few remaining flunkies, this wins the Palm D'or for fatuous punditry:

Please understand, this is not a political rant. Yes, I support the war and yes I support and admire President George W. Bush, but I understand and respect those who have come to another conclusion about how best to fight the war on terror. My disappointment is with my people. I simply do not understand why so many Jews bailed on Joe. I cannot understand why Joe's percentage of the Jewish vote was not in the high 90s instead of the 54-57 percent range (according to Lieberman’s campaign). I have opinions on way too many things I don't know nearly enough about, but I know about Jews. I am a professional Jew, and yet if you asked me to explain why Jews did not vote for Joe the way blacks voted for Barack Obama or Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy I would not know what to tell you.

In truth I am also bewildered about why Jews do not support President Bush more than the pathetic 22-26 percent (depending on which exit poll you look at) he received in 2004. Bush would win a landslide in Israel, and never once invited Yasir Arafat to the White House, but that is a bewilderment best left for another day. What has frozen me is the lack of support for Joe by Jews. Joe voted the Democratic line 90 percent of the time. Twenty-nine other Democrats also voted for the war and none of them was targeted (yet). Joe is the most famous Jewish politician of all time (unless you count former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia whose mother was Jewish). He is an observant Jew and obviously he was on the presidential ticket in 2000. He is modest and self effacing. He is moral and faithful. He is principled and intelligent ... and he is one of us! What more do you want of the guy?

Well, leaving aside the hyperbole of Joe Lieberman as the most famous Jewish poltician of all time (I didn't know he beat out Golda Meir and Yitzak Rabin), the rest of Gellman's argument rests on a fundamental misreading of U.S. politics. Voters in the U.S. don't vote strictly along ethnic or religious lines. U.S. catholics did vote for John Kennedy, but split pretty heavily when it came to the other JFK, John Kerry. Yes, Barak Obama won the vast majority of the black vote in Illinois, but a white candidate would have probably done just as well among black voters because even though the republican in the race was black, he was also a raving lunatic.

Ethnic voters living in this country are not going to necessarily vote the same way, or for the same reasons, as people who live in their country of origin. Pakistanis in London don't see issues the same way as Pakistanis in Islamabad do. And I'm sure U.S. Jews see issues differently from Israeli Jews, Russian Jews, Polish Jews, Canadian Jews or Ethiopian Jews. The politics of any diaspora is complicated, with generational, regional, and religious dimensions. It can't be reduced to "he's one of us" because it begs the question of who "we" are.

It is possible that many Israeli Jews would vote for George W. Bush (and they can have him if they want him). Israeli Jews didn't live anywhere near Hurricane Katrina. They haven't had to put up with stagnant wages, jobless recoveries, "Kenny Boy", or Guantanamo. Their tax dollars and their kids aren't being shipped off to the blood and money pit of Iraq. There are a lot of things going on in this country that are not their problem. So they may just look at him and see a man who supports Israel. Fine. But U.S. Jews, QED, have to live here. They get a closeup view of Bush, and many of them apparently don't like what they see. And I guess they don't much care for politicians, Jew or Goy, Democrat or Republican, who make a habit of parroting the President's talking points.

Now, a few parting shots. "He [Lieberman] is modest and self effacing. He is moral and faithful. He is principled and intelligent..."

"Modest and self effacing": I really have to question whether a man who abandons his party after losing a primary to run on the ticket of "Connecticut for Lieberman" is either.

"Moral and Faithful": I know nothing about Lieberman's marriage, and if that's all Gellman is talking about I'll provisionally take "faithful". But Lieberman doesn't seem that faithful to his party, his colleagues, or to his youthful ideals. He'll jettison those the moment his career is threatened. (Once upon a time a young staffer for McGovern became a politician. He lost a race somewhere along the line--beaten up for being too liberal. So he, well, you know the rest...) As for "moral"--again, as long as it's a question of whose sex organs interact with whose, I'll accept the word. But Lieberman's backing of Alberto Gonzales's archipelago of torture farms, and his willingness to throw downfield blocks for people who lied us into a war don't sound moral to me.

"Principled and Intelligent." I think we've sufficiently covered Lieberman's principles. As for his intelligence, one need only look at the campaign he ran against Lamont to see Lieberman is completely blinkered and out of his depth. He can't really defend his views convincingly, and propounds ideas that six-year-olds could see through. Osama is really more evil than Hitler and more dangerous than the Soviets, Joe? A vote for Lamont is a vote for Osama? Only an idiot would think that, or in Lieberman's case, a principled, intelligent, useful idiot.

Maybe I'm just spitballing here, but I'm guessing that around 43% of Jews in Connecticut noticed some if not all of the things I've noticed about the erstwhile Democrat, and decided Joe Lieberman wasn't "one" of any "them" that they wanted to be associated with. I hope this cures your bewilderment, Rabbi Gellman, for a few minutes anyway. Good night, and good luck.

New Blog

Now that football season is nearly upon us, I have a new, all-Raiders all-the-time blog called The Raider Diaspora.

Vote

If you're from Connecticut, a registered Democrat, and here because your dryer is squeaking (it's probably either the belt or a missing screw in the bearings--either way, easy fix, don't panic), get out and vote for Ned Lamont. You'll have whiter teeth, fresher breath, fewer cavities, and sexier, tighter abs to attract whichever gender you prefer to fuck. Well, okay, but you'll at least pull a pretty nasty thorn from your side, and that's sure to make you feel better.

So vote, and call someone about the dryer. It's a cheap fix. Really.

Howard Johnson's Right About Olson Johnson's Being Right

Kevin Drum quotes from a Publius post that says that, while the blogs actually weren't at the center of Joe Lieberman's political problems, Lieberman's supporters are hell bent on making it look as though they are. This will, because perception is reality in these matters, make bloggers more powerful in the Democratic party. I doubt this was the effect that guys like Marshall Wittman and Jonathan Chait had in mind when they placed bloggers at the center of the Lamont campaign, but I guess that's how it worked out.

All this will obscure the truth about this race, but I still think that people who care will be able to find it. And when they look, I think they'll discover that it was Joe Lieberman's strategy of aligning himself with right-wing figures over the course of his career--Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity, and (though Lieberman has at times disputed it) George W. Bush--that ultimately led to his downfall. Now I know that Lieberman's remaining supporters will protest "But that's not the real Joe Lieberman!" But, in these matters, as Joe Lieberman forgot when it counted, perception is reality. It looks like that mistake will cost him his career.

Someone (I suspect Lanny Davis but I could be wrong) said of Joe Lieberman that he doesn't think politically. I'm sure he meant that as a compliment, but watching Lieberman flail through this primary against a rookie I can't help but think that a politician not thinking politically is a bit like a scientist not thinking scientifically or an athlete who doesn't think athletically. It's a good idea for a politician to appear apolitical, but underneath it there must lurk a shrewd political mind that monitors both enemies and friends and keeps close track of where the best political ground is located. Both Hillary Clinton and Maria Cantwell avoided serious primary challenges because they kept watch on local party officials during their tenures, stopping potential rivals before they could start, and because they knew when to throw the base a bone or two. If only Joe Lieberman had their sense. Too bad. So sad. Fuck him.

Joementum Defined

Joementum. n. A state or condition in which the identity of the loser is known to all observers of a contest except the loser, who believes he's winning. [ORIG: A speech by Joe Lieberman in which he claimed to be surpassing his rivals in the 2004 New Hampshire Primary. He ended up finishing fifth.]

I can't help myself

From Salon we get word that Ann Coulter thinks Bill Clinton is a latent homosexual. Here's why:

Her evidence? Well, all those sexual relations he's had with women, of course. "I think that sort of rampant promiscuity does show some level of latent homosexuality," Coulter explained.

Other famous homosexuals (real and in fiction):

1. John Kennedy
2. James Bond
3. Babe Ruth
4. Hugh Hefner
5. Charlie Sheen
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Captain James T. Kirk

So just remember kids, if you have lots of sex with members of the opposite sex, it means you're gay. That'll throw a kink in your sexual identity, won't it?

Good For the Foreign Office

I haven't had a lot of cause to say that recently, but this time, they're saying more or less what I've been thinking:

And it's very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they're chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation.--Kim Howells, British Foreign Office Minister.

Yeah. I'm afraid this is what's been bothering me about the whole mess. Is it really a sensible strategy for Israel (with tacit U.S. encouragement) to devastate Lebanon in order to pursue a cadre of terrorists in the southern part of the country? Doesn't that risk busting up the Lebanese central government and restarting the factional warfare that helped fuel the formation of these terrorist groups in the 1970s and 1980s? Why would Israel want to have that nightmare on their northern borders again? Hell, the Lebanese only recently kicked the Syrians out of Lebanon. Doesn't chaos there form a basis for their coming back in?

Israeli officials, in every interview I've seen, tend to focus on their right to engage in this kind of warfare. They were attacked, they say, and they're responding. Fine. But wouldn't it be better if their response actually brought Israel closer to desirable goals, instead of prolonging the misery and spreading it around?

I don't like the various World War analogies that local opportunists have been spewing in hopes of attracting the stupid vote, but there is one thing that George Kennan said about World War I that seems appropriate. I don't have the book with me, but he observed that World War I was evidence that suffering didn't always make people better, that war frequently gave people the excuse to believe self-flattering lies and imagine only the worst about their adversaries. War is intoxicating stuff, and it looks to me as if the Israeli government is already pretty sloshed.

The New Worst Movie Ever Made

Those who know me know that I have in my time watched a lot of crap. Red Zone Cuba, Amityville 2, Yor, the Hunter From the Future, Outlaw of Gor, Armageddon, Ringmaster, Pearl Harbor, Manos: the Hands of Fate, Glitter, The Lonely Lady, Battlefield Earth--these and many many other horrors have left craters on my retinas at one time or another.

But I have never seen a film so bad, just so unutterably stupid, as Monster A-Go-Go.

Monster A-Go-Go is the story of...hmm. What is it the story of? There's no monster. There's no A-Go-Go, and notwithstanding the protestations of the narrator, there's no horror. What there's a lot of is dark. Indeed, the movie The Dark didn't have this much dark. There are long periods where the screen is literally blank. Sadly, these are the film's better moments.

Essentially, the film consists of a few randomly placed shots of a tall man with oatmeal on his face interspersed with...well...the mind rebels against calling them scenes where characters talk about...actually, it's never quite clear what they're talking about, because the sound guy apparently didn't think that the audience needed to hear the actors. (I'm not sure whether I should condemn or praise him for that.) Characters come and go inexplicably. We never miss them when they're gone. We never really notice when they're there. The activities of Quaker-Oats Man, which are allegedly horrifying, take place largely off-screen. It falls to the various random characters to stumble upon the aftermath of the monster's mayhem and break into indivdual discussion groups to compare findings, which we never hear. In the end, a parade of stock footage tells us that preparations are taking place for something having to do with the monster, but then the narrator informs us that there was never a monster at all! Fade out. The end.

As I said, I'm a crap veteran. I was sure that when it came to cinema, I'd been to the ninth circle of hell, where Satan's three mouths chew on the worst offenders in all of film history: Coleman Francis, Hal Warren, and Michael Bay. But no. The Inferno has a subbasement, where Monster A-Go-Go lives and rolls in the filth of its own wretchedness.

From what I understand, the producer got his mitts on some footage from a movie that ran out of money. He then decided to add some other footage, mix in some stock footage, and run the confection as the bottom half a double feature. I can guess how it went over. It's a wonder he's still alive.

My My My

According to Political Wire, a Rasmussen poll not only has Lamont ahead of Lieberman by 10% for the primary, but he's also tied with Lieberman for the general election.

I guess there are lots of crazy bloggers in Connecticut.

Mr. Shyamalan, Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

I haven't seen Lady In the Water, so don't worry. I can't reveal the twist. But I did find a small measure of amusement in the name he gave his magical being: "Narf".

Mr. Shyamalan, are you by any chance familiar with Pinky and the Brain?

Nice Try For An Analogy, But I'm Unconvinced

From Bullmoose:

Almost forty years ago, the Moose witnessed a good and decent liberal unfairly slimed by the ideological predecessors of the nutroot blogosphere. In 1968, the New Leftists didn't have the internet, but with their voices they shouted out and heckled Hubert Humphrey with the chant, "Dump the Hump." The Moose will be damned if he stands by while another progressive leader suffers the disgraceful treatment that was accorded the Happy Warrior so long ago.

The progressive leader he's talking about is Joe Lieberman, but before Wittman gets too excited about his analogy, there are a few things that want pointing out. Hubert Humphrey was, for many years, the darling of the left. The appellation of Happy Warrior was placed upon him not for hawkishness, but for his outspoken way of pushing for social programs and civil rights. When Humprey was chosen as Johnson's Vice President, liberals felt like they had a voice inside the administration (particularly important because of the strains between LBJ and Robert Kennedy). Humphrey actually came to oppose war in Vietnam; but Johnson threatened to sink his candidacy for president if Humphrey refused to back his war policies during the 1968 campaign. This lost Humphrey a great deal of support among liberals, who tranferred it first to Eugene McCarthy and then to Bobby Kennedy. When Kennedy beat Humphrey in the California primary only to take a bullet in the head in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel afterwards, liberals, already pretty raw after the death of Martin Luther King, were doubly heartbroken. They could hardly be expected to transfer their enthusiasm to Humphrey, who they felt had let them down at the same time that murderers had robbed them of their heroes. It was a sad business all the way around, really.

Lieberman, by contrast, was never what anyone would call a darling of the left. When he's been a happy warrior it's been more often than not (or at least, more famously than not) for conservative issues than for liberal ones. He doesn't seem to like liberals too much, and they don't like him back. I don't think Lieberman actually disappointed anyone with his support of the Iraq War (which I take to be genuine rather than tactical), but it did confirm an opinion that many inside the Democratic party already had of him from his behavior on other issues.

So, Mr. Wittman, nice try, but I'm not buying. Incidentally, you can read more about this topic at Talking Points Memo.

Lame Questions Entertainment Reporters Ask

These are some questions that the L.A. Times's Channel Island is nominating for its Jiminy Glick awards (named for Martin Short's bizarro entertainment reporter character):

"Where do you get the bear spray? Where can you buy it?" - To Jenny Bicks, creator of ABC's "Men in Trees," which is set in Alaska

"When using an ATM, do you find yourself getting nervous?" - To the cast and creators of ABC's "The Nine," a drama about the aftermath of a bank robbery

"Do you try to solve mysteries? Like, if you are just sitting watching a mystery movie or something, would you try to figure it out before the credits roll?" - To Kristen Bell, star of CW's "Veronica Mars"

"What makes you really cranky and irritable? Is there anything?" - To the usually perky cooking expert/talk host Rachael Ray

"I'm very serious, looking for a serious answer from you: Have you ever had an experience where you truly felt there was an angel or a higher being looking out after you?" - To Rick Worthy, star of ABC Family's "Fallen," about a character who's half-man, half-angel.

The last one is especially funny. It has that faux-hard-hitting intro followed by a question that makes the actor fear that the reporter is going to whip out a holy book and insist he read marked passages.

Hunh

When it comes to this moment, I'm afraid I have nothing brilliant. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently to the impulses that would drive the President of the United States to give a spontaneous, unsolicited massage to a fellow world leader. I do think, however, that before the President strikes again, he might want to remember the story of Tony Rocky Horror.

James Woolcott has a good post on this.

A Strange History

Gregory Rodriguez praises Barak Obama's speech (a speech I actually liked as well), but in doing so he asserts a history of the Democratic party that misses a lot:

That was not always the case. Some scholars point to the Democratic National Convention of 1972 as not only the moment Democrats edged toward secularism but the event that created the religious rift in American politics. Before 1972, both major parties were essentially indistinguishable in their approach to religion. The activist cores of both were dominated by members of mainstream religious groups: the GOP by mainline Protestants and the Democratic Party by Catholics and Jews.

But the Democratic delegation that nominated South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for president at the '72 convention represented a profound shift from what had been the cultural consensus in American politics. Whereas only 5% of Americans could be considered secular in 1972, fully 24% of first-time Democratic delegates that year were self-identified agnostics, atheists or people who rarely, if ever, set foot in a house of worship. This new activist base encouraged a growing number of Democratic politicians to tone down their appeal to religious voters and to seek a higher wall separating church and state. With little regard for the traditionalist sensitivities of religious people within or outside of the party, the Democrats also embraced progressive stances on feminism and homosexuality that the public had never openly debated.

Meanwhile, the Republican delegation — and by extension the party platform — remained unchanged, and the GOP essentially became the party of tradition and religion by default. "The partisan differences that emerged in 1972," writes University of Maryland political scientist Geoffrey Layman, "were not caused by any sudden increase in the religious and cultural traditionalism of the Republican activists but by the pervasive secularism and cultural liberalism of the Democratic supporters of George McGovern."

While I certainly hate to underestimate the power of 24% of Democratic party delegates, the major shift away from the Democrats occurred for reasons largely outside of Democratic party's religious policies. White southerners left the party less because of religion than because of race. Over the same period, blacks, both northern and southern, religious and not, switched overwhelmingly to the Democratic party. In the end, the demographic shift sank Democrats in the South, though it put them on the right side of history. Also, the 1972 Roe v. Wade deicison energized millions of fundamentalists and evangelicals nationwide and drove them into Republican politics, generating enthusiastic support for Reagan against Ford in 1976 and gradually driving moderate Republicans further and further northeast. The Republican delegation did not go "unchanged". It grew far more aggressively conservative through the 1970s and 1980s--so much so that George Bush Sr., known as "Rubbers" in the 1960s for his support of contraception and family planning, had to insist over and over again that he was anti-abortion enough for the GOP right to survive the 1988 primaries. Finally, in 1972, McGovern would never have been the face of the party had not Nixon's men ratfucked McGovern's primary opponents, especially Ed Muskie, the early frontrunner in the '72 primaries who was running ahead of Nixon before the forged Canuck letter sank him.

There have been religious changes in the Democratic party since '72. It's become less Catholic. Southern Baptists of various sorts--you need a program to keep track of the denominations--have grown in influence and power. In the last four Presidential elections we've nominated two all-Baptist tickets, a Baptist/Jewish ticket, and a Catholic/Methodist ticket. While Democratic candidates are typically less given to wearing their religions as if they were Captain Midnight badges, I don't see any effort to wipe out more overtly religious candidates. (Quick, which party was the last one to run an ordained minister as a Presidential Candidate, and from whence on the political spectrum did he run?)

The column's equation of secular left with religious right also ignores a vast difference in power. Religious right politicians hold the White House, the Congressional majority and its leadership, and four Supreme Court seats. Atheists and agnostics control...well...the Skeptics Society, the Socialist Worker party, Bernie Sanders, and, for at least a few years, the Minnesota Vikings's offensive backfield. We don't have the power to push politicians to do anything at all, though I'm perfectly willing to admit that our mere presence in the Democratic party suffices to help the Pat Robertson/Bill O'Reilly types spin conspiracy theories (as do a variety of lawsuits involving coinage and the Pledge of Allegiance that have nothing to do with the Democratic party).

The narrative the column spins--that once upon a time the world was stable and everyone agreed on unifying religious precepts until one day a cabal of evil atheists came and wrecked it all--resonantes deeply in our history. Unfortunately, the places where it resonates are pretty nasty. It would be nice if more religious Democrats would drop this kind of paranoid nonsense. It would also be nice if the Cubs were above .500 and the Raiders had a more solid front seven. Life's a bitch, huh?

If you want more: Digby has it.

Bad Naked

It's funny the stuff you think about when it's too hot to sleep. Tonight, my musings took me in the direction of movies that use nudity in ways that are corrupt, foul, and painful (in a bad way). In my time, I've watched no end of films with nudity in them. Some of it was sexy. Some was shocking or disturbing in a thought-provoking way. Some was comic or meant merely to provoke low grade thrills. Then there's the bad naked: the naked where it's impossible to even feel purient interest, the naked that makes you wish that you and the rest of humanity were dead.

Having now finished my preface, I give you five movies containing the worst kinds of nudity:

5. Amityville 2: The Posession: The Amityville series never scored many points for class, but the true nadir of the franchise was an icky incest scene that takes place about a third of the way through. I can understand why the demon possessed boy wanted to get it on with his sister, but the way his sister casually tossed off her clothes upon request drained my soul. I don't think I'll ever get all of it back.

4. Showgirls: For the rape scene mainly. A well-done gang-bang scene is possible (Last Exit to Brooklyn had one, as I recall), but not when it's just another excuse to get an actress out of her clothes. Joe Bob Briggs said it best: "What movie is so sleazy that, after you see it, you have to go to a Times Square live-sex show to feel better about mankind?"

3. Caligula: Have you ever seen dogs eat recently severed testicles? That's just a preview of the fun you'll have with this movie. Gore Vidal took his name off this thing. He should have taken his name off anything that might have been adjacent to this thing as well.

2. Ringmaster: There are many, many bad sex scenes in this one, but the worst involves Jerry Springer. During this movie I believe I briefly lost the will to live.

1. The Lonely Lady: HBO was a wonderful thing when I was twelve years old. I waited until my parents were asleep, sneaked into the living room, turned on the TV with the sound down, and switched over to the rampant nudity that would arrive once the clock passed midnight. One night, I turned on the TV, checked the TV guide by its light, and discovered that, yes, a movie with nudity and strong sexual content was upon me. I thrilled. I panted. I watched with great intensity as the credits rolled. The Lonely Lady. I saw Pia Zadora. I didn't know this was, on its own, a harbinger of doom. I pressed on. Come on nudity! I saw Ray Liotta. I saw Ray Liotta wrestle Pia Zadora to the ground. I saw him rip her top off. Bingo! Here we go! I saw a...garden hose? What's he going to...? Oh my God! Where's the remote? YUCK! WHY? HOW? WHICH?

It scarred me for life. Sometimes I have flashbacks, and I weep.

Sweet dreams, kiddies.

The Tribute Vice Pays to Virtue

Wes Clark on Dailykos:

I am a proud member of the Democratic Party, and I believe it is our party's responsibility to support the will of the Democratic primary voters in Connecticut. I personally look forward to supporting the candidate CT voters elect as the Democratic nominee. Though, as an aside, I must say I find it ironic that Senator Lieberman is now planning a potential run as an independent after he continually questioned my loyalty to the Democratic Party during the 2004 presidential primary.

Gee, for a guy with Lieberman's principled reputation, he sure seems to have a habit of saying whatever he thinks he needs to say to get what he wants. Of course I'm sure he only does it because he has the best interests of the nation at heart, and those best interests just happen to involve his perpetual presence at the center of power. In this, he's not all that different from someone we all remember.

Two Elements That Need to Vanish From Horror Movie Marketing

1. Whispering children

2. Kids singing familiar children's songs in minor keys.

I'm Telling You For the Last Time

It's time once again for a dissection. Next on the table, Jonathan Chait:

Part of what I'm arguing, though, is that the tactic of embracing the Lamont primary is more likely to make the problem worse than to make it better. Consider the scenarios. If Lamont wins the primary and the general election, which is akin to drawing an inside straight, then the direct effect is positive. But, as I argued in my previous Lieberman/Lamont column, if you defeat Lieberman, "he'll play the same role as before, only this time with the power of martyrdom behind him: the virtuous anti-Democrat, too good and honest for his party."

My response to that is this. If Joe Lieberman, private citizen, wants to spend his time in the wilderness pissing on the liberals who drove him from power, that's fine. It's a free country, and he can do whatever the hell he likes. Indeed, based on the way he behaved with Lamont in the debate, I'd expect some tantrums in the aftermath of electoral meltdown. Joe Lieberman is certainly the last person to ever blame himself for his problems. His attitude about the people whom he wants to vote for him reminds me of a certain heavyset, bald loudmouth:

Homer: [melancholy] My campaign is a disaster, Moe. [angry] I hate the public so much! [melancholy] If only they'd elect me. [angry] I'd make 'em pay! [melancholy] Aw, Moe, how do I make 'em like me?

I don't see why Chait sees Lieberman's future disgruntlement as such an enormous problem that we need to make Joe Lieberman senator for life. As a private citizen, Lieberman won't command nearly as much airtime, and he won't be able to do any damage during negotiations with Republicans. He can whine, but without portfolio, what can he actually do? Unless he's planning to climb to the top of the Capitol and pick off left leaning politicians with a deer rifle, I'm not scared.

On top of the tactical argument, I was drawing on the broader problems I see lying in the future. I don't think you can evaluate the Lieberman race in a vacuum. It's part of a broader fight within the Democrat Party and the liberal intelligentsia. Kevin Drum complains that my description of the liberal internet activists--"But in fact, they believe that any deviation from the party line--except for a few circumscribed instances, such as Democrats running for office in red states--is an unforgivable crime."--is too vague. "Deliberately vague," as Drum puts it.

Yes, I suppose the vagueness was deliberate--not, as he suggests, in order to conceal my own ignorance, but due to the aforementioned space constraints. Since I have space here, I'd offer up two prime examples of the party line. The first is Iraq. To be on the side of the angels, one must favor withdrawal and believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002. The second is the netroots themselves. To be in the good graces of the activists, one must believe not only that the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications, but to signal that one accepts a Manichean battle between virtuous people-powered activists and corrupt Washington insiders.

Well, to be strict about it, the belief that the netroots consists of virtous people-powered activists against corrupt Washington insiders is more a Dailykos belief than an actual party line, unless party lines don't require actual political parties in order to be enforced. That aside, I find Chait's description of the netroots's feelings about the war in Iraq insupportable.

Chait is right to say that you can't evaluate the Liberman race in a vacuum. What's significant to me about it is that alone among Senate Democrats who voted to authorize using force in Iraq, Joe Lieberman has drawn a substantial primary challenge. Why? Maria Cantwell voted the same way Lieberman did, and has also refused to reverse herself. She's also in a pretty blue state, yet somehow she's cruising through her primary. (Her leading opponent, and I use the word leading in its broadest possible sense, recently quit the race and endorsed her.) The only other Democratic Senator facing a significant primary challenge is Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, and his challenge comes from the right.

The left's problems with Lieberman go much deeper than Iraq. Lieberman's habit of adding a patina of bipartisanship to obviously partisan Republican enterprises--Impeachment, the War in Iraq, and of undermining Democrats--the debate with Cheney, the 2000 recount--has irritated Democrats in general in the left in particular for many years now. They read Lieberman as a man who doesn't act so much out of principle as out of a hunger for praise and recognition from pundits as a bipartisan statesman. He loves his enemies and hates his friends, and a good many of his friends have grown sick of it. Having spent years troubling his own house, he's about to inherit the wind.

So, Mr. Chait, if the current argument in the Democratic party worries you, I don't blame you. But place blame for the problem where it belongs, on Joe Lieberman: the arrogant, myopic, career pol who, more concerned with his own future than with the future of his party, spits on the voters who've always supported him in the past.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Syd Barrett Died.

Lieberman Creates New Party

It's called Connecticut for Lieberman. What an imagination that man has. I've read the platform, which lists the three main members of CFL's constituency:

1. Joe Lieberman
2. Senator Joe Lieberman
and
3. Captain Cool (a.k.a. Joe Lieberman)

Italia Vinse!

Brava! Chi ha bisogno del Papa quando abbiamo il campionato?

Lieberman or Bush Quiz

Go to Salon to take it. I got five out of eight. Despite some stylistic differences between the two, I actually found it harder to distinguish Bush from Lieberman than I did to tell Coulter from Hitler. No conclusion there. Just a fact.

Jeez, Joe, For Your Next Debate, Why Not Kick A Puppy?

Bob Schrum said that Lieberman's behavior in last night's debate with Ned Lamont made him wish that Lieberman had been half that aggressive in his debate with Dick Cheney in 2000. I expect he said that with a little extra bitterness, since Schrum ran that campaign and was no doubt backstage tearing his few remaining hairs out while Joe and Dick held their nationally televised singalong. The Lieberman/Lamont debate was less a discussion and more of a pistol whipping. Lamont gets much deserved points for simply emerging with an intact skull.

For Lieberman, though, it's a little more complicated, because it seemed to me that his vehemence was simply over the top. It reinforces an impression that's been hurting Lieberman all along--that he not only differs from other Democrats on policy issues, but that he also holds those Democrats with whom he differs in contempt. His manner indicated that he considered this primary challenge nothing more than a damned impertinence, and that showing up at all was somehow beneath his dignity. His attitude was to sniff and say to the audience "How dare you think that I shouldn't be your senator?"

Is it really wise to be that meanspirited and pugnacious toward a fellow Democrat during a primary debate? I guess we'll find out. But somehow I don't think the idea of Joe Lieberman's reserving all his venom for members of his own party will sit that well with primary voters. Instead, I wonder whether voters will think that Lieberman's disdain for Lamont extends to them as well. People like well informed, caustic, and funny debaters; but no one likes bullies, even when they win.

Strange Reasoning

Joe Lieberman, on CNN, said this when asked how he justified ignoring the wishes of Connecticut primary voters:
(From Crooks and Liars)

KING: But why have parties and why have primaries if the candidates
who may be backed by the establishment, but perhaps not win the votes of
the people who turn out on primary day can just take out insurance
policies and stay on the ballot even if they lose the primary? Why have
a party then?

LIEBERMAN: Right this is a very important question. And I would
answer it this way, John. This challenge to me is obviously a challenge
to my record of serving the state of Connecticut and the United States
of America, and it asks the voters of Connecticut to decide which one of
us, my challenger or I, could do a better job for them in the six years
ahead.

But it also raises questions about what do we mean by political
parties? And what kind of politics do we want to have? And when I say
that, here’s what I mean. The Democratic Party has always been at its
strongest when it welcomed a diversity of opinions.

My opponent is campaigning against me on one issue: Iraq. I have the
support of a host of progressive groups: the labor movement, the
environmental movement, the human rights political action fund, which is
the advocacy group for gay and lesbian Americans, Planned Parenthood. I
could go on and on.

I am a committed, loyal Democrat. And the question that is being asked
of the Democrats here in Connecticut is: will we impose a litmus test?
The same kind of litmus test that we criticized the Republicans for
imposing, particularly on one issue on which I have taken a principal
stand, clearly not one that is to my political advantage, which is the
war against terrorism.

And I’m taking it because I believe that it is best for the safety and
security of our country and our families. So that’s what’s on the line
here. The other thing to say is this: we don’t know how many people are
going to turn out in this Democratic primary. Most people — I said
this morning when I made this announcement, John, that I know that if
all the Democrats in Connecticut came out to vote or even half of them
came out to vote, that I would win renomination in the primary by a
comfortable margin.

Most of the people here think that at best, there will be 25 or 30
percent of the Democrats who come out. That means about five percent of
all the registered voters in Connecticut might have the final say as to
whether I continue to serve Connecticut and my country in the U.S.
Senate. I think all the voters of the state ought to be able to make
that decision. That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done today.

Okay, let's take this apart.

"The Democratic Party has always been at its strongest when it welcomed a diversity of opinions. My opponent is campaigning against me on one issue: Iraq."

That political parties, especially in two-party systems, are strengthened when they accept a range of views is true, but only to a point. Political parties will generally tolerate dissent when it's seen as either peripheral to the aims of the party or as driven by a purely regional interest. Democrats accept that their representatives will veer from platform elements that might hurt their local industry or offend voters Democrats need to hold a seat.

Democrats are most intolerant, however, when their representatives disagree with them on issues fundamental to them--especially when other winning options are readily available. In this they're similar to Republicans. That's why primaries were invented, to make representatives accountable to those who provide them with money, volunteers, ballot access, and organization. Those politicians who risk taking a position far outside the party's mainstream have to accept the consequences of those decisions: that primary voters will be offended, that donors will be turned off, that volunteers will find other hobbies or candidates.

Iraq is the major issue of our time. Democratic voters use it as way of measuring candidates because they're passionate about it to the exclusion of other issues. This isn't like Robert Byrd's shilling for the coal industry or Bob Casey's stand on abortion. The circumstances our entry into the war and the duplicitous arguments the administration has given for staying have frustrated and angered Democratic voters like no other issue since Vietnam. Primary voters have every right to ask why they should put someone on the ballot who not only fails to acknowledge the legitimacy of their feelings, but also makes every effort to show that he shares the administration's contempt for those feelings. They have every right to wonder whether a party that refuses to serve as their voice on this issue is a party worthy of their money and time.

Lieberman's trying to make it sound as if his disagreement is a trivial one, which means that he's either dishonest or completely ignorant of the salience of Iraq as a political issue. Either way, other candidates have every right to challenge him for it, and voters have the right to judge him on it.

"I have the support of a host of progressive groups: the labor movement, the environmental movement, the human rights political action fund, which is the advocacy group for gay and lesbian Americans, Planned Parenthood. I could go on and on."

Most politicians running in contested races can. Check out any voter guide during primary season and you'll see that, in contested races, both candidates can boast of a fair-sized list of endorsements. In the case of an incumbent fighting a challenger, it would be a surprise if the incumbent didn't garner more endorsements. Incumbents win most primaries, and groups would, all things considered, rather not unnecessarily offend the probable victor and lose a benefactor. Put another way, love inspires some endorsements; fear motivates the rest.

"I am a committed, loyal Democrat."

This sentence contains three lies in six words. Committed, loyal Democrats accept the process that nominates them to office. Since this is Lieberman's first primary fight, maybe he doesn't understand that. Maybe this will help.

Once upon a time, Joe Lieberman presented himself as a candidate for President. The voters looked at him, judged his record and his experience, and decided to give him the Joementum. He failed to garner votes, and he went away, leaving the field to other, more popular candidates. He did not instead decide to take his case to "all the voters" in spite of the sentiments of those voters who had already found him lacking.

It's possible that Lieberman has hung around Bush too long, and forgotten that loyalty, like bipartisanship, is a two-way affair that requires mutual respect and the capacity to accept refusal with a modicum of grace. By making this move, Lieberman is showing that he really doesn't give a damn what primary voters in Connecticut think of him. He'll do as he pleases. Well, Joe, if that's the way you feel, don't be too upset if the voters you've blown off feel the same way.

"The other thing to say is this: we don’t know how many people are going to turn out in this Democratic primary. Most people — I said this morning when I made this announcement, John, that I know that if all the Democrats in Connecticut came out to vote or even half of them came out to vote, that I would win renomination in the primary by a comfortable margin."

Again, chalk this up to Lieberman's lack of experience in primaries. Most primaries around the country suffer from low turnout. This is a reflection of voter apathy that is sad, but it can be overcome if a race is closely contested and one or the other candidates inspires fierce loyalties.

I imagine that everyone in Connecticut is aware that Lieberman and Lamont are in a close and fairly interesting fight. If in that fight, Lieberman can't inspire enough voters to put aside what they're doing on August 8th and go to the polls for him, that says something about him, doesn't it? Part of a politician's job is making voters care enough about him and the issues he fights for to get off their asses and vote. Those who can't do that should become ex-politicians. It's pathetic that Lieberman uses his failure to arouse voters as an excuse for bolting the party.

Still, if turnout is Lieberman's worry, maybe we should ask him this: "Senator Lieberman, if 50% or 60% of Democrats turn out for the primary and you lose, will you bow out and support Ned Lamont?"

Finally, this isn't part of the bigger quote, but I wanted to get it in:

" And I want to give my fellow Democrats here in Connecticut the opportunity to affirm my service and accept the diversity that I am part of in this party."

Well thank you very much, Senator Lieberman, for condescending to us but primaries have nothing to do with affirmation of service. They function to select candidates for the party's November slate. They are a chance for candidates to make their case and be judged. If your case fails, Senator, you'd serve the party much better by withdrawing gracefully from the race. Because if others follow your example and refuse to exit the stage when they've lost the primary, the party will cease to have any meaning as an organization and its voters, frustrated, will be forced to seek other avenues of political expression, splintering into ever smaller and weaker factions. If you have any concern for the cause of liberalism left in you, Senator, you'll back off this stand. But you don't, which I imagine is why you drew a primary challenger in the first place.

So, According To These People, I Look Most Like...

TV's Matt LeBlanc. (The link's in the title, and came courtesy of Ezra Klein/Billy Zane.)

Update: Credit where credit's due. Bitterspice saw it first.

Oh, For Fuck's Sake

Jonah Goldberg on Guantanamo and why it's the Democrats' problem (via Kevin Drum):

If Democrats want terrorists to fall under the Geneva Convention let them say so. My guess is most won't, if they're smart.

I am heartily sick of this tactic. What it breaks down to is that the administration will have the military act out whatever depravities rise from the stygian depths of Alberto Gonzales's mind, and whenever anyone calls for a halt, moral idiots like Jonah Goldberg will be right there to say "See, they're soft on terrorism! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Never mind that every story about torture at one of our little health farms makes our political job of dealing with terrorism that much harder. Never mind that...no, fuck this...never mind arguing the point because what's clear is that, as with education, Katrina relief, Iraqi reconstruction, infrastructure, health care, nuclear proliferation and everythefuckthing else, the Bushites don't take handling the terrorist problem seriously. They don't give a shit about solving these problems, because to them the only problem is how to see to it that their party retains permanent control of all the levers of power. Everything else is just a means to that end. That's why there was no planning for the aftermath of the Iraq war. After they took pictures of Saddam's statue falling in Baghdad and showed Bush landing on the carrier in his flight suit, Iraq had served its purpose. The people who live there? Fuck them. Forget them. Iraqi national treasures get looted? Fuck them. Forget them. Our soldiers get blown away riding around cities in vehicles without armor? Fuck them. There are more where they came from. Our troops need health care when they come back without legs? Fuck them. Cripples in the photo-ops are a bummer anyhow. Why does this administration show such lousy results across the board? Because across the board, they don't give a shit. As long as they've got the people scared and stupid, all they have to do is strike up the band, wave the bloody shirt of 9-11, and say their opponents root for Osama.

Honestly, why would the Bush administration want to solve the problem of terrorism? If they learned anything from Bush I, it's that you don't want the war that made you popular to end. Why bother actually working to shut down terrorists when the terrorists make for such wonderful enemies for staging a new pageant of America the Great/America the Good? Why take Osama out at Tora Bora, when having him out there gives you an excuse to spy on Americans and intimidate the press into accepting your daily bullshit as if it were Holy Writ? Why bother hunting terrorists down, or dealing with the serious political problems of the Middle East, when all those problems can be better used to showcase the Democrats' "weakness".

This War on Terror is a great gimmick, because even if the average American is thousands of times more likely to die from eating too many hamburgers than from the blast of a terrorist bomb, it's so much more delightful for Americans to be afraid of what they can't control than what they can. After all, you can cut down on the ground round, but that's hard because dead cow tastes good. Fearing terrorists, on the other hand, allows you, the consumer, to be as lazy as you want. Terrorism provides all the adrenalin of real fear with none of the responsibility that comes with actually confronting it. It makes crack look like New Coke. The Bush people recognize our national addiction, and they've made themselves the exclusive manufacturers of America's drug of choice.

In exchange for the gladiatorial spectacle that is the War on Terror (in which our heroes march into the arena and triumph over ugly but mostly inconsequential foes, and in doing so symbolically triumph over Terror itself), we pay the administration with our freedom and whatever sense of moral decency we once had. We've given them the license to kill, to torture, to spy on us, to whisk people off the street for no reason and take them to prisons that we're renting out from the KGB, all so that they'll keep us good and afraid. It's a cynical bargain, but what the hell? At least it'll allow us to distract ourselves until the money and the oil run out.

What Goldberg's really saying is "Why mess with such a happy arrangement?" And maybe he's right. As the immortal Eric Idle once sang. "You see it's all a show/Keep 'em laughing as you go/Just remember that the last laugh is on you."

Don't Get Too Happy

This David Horsey cartoon explains why.

The Secret To Movie Success

According to this L.A. Times article, being a visionary genius among Hollywood executives comes down to dumb, doo-dah luck. (And not hiring Joel Schumacher.)

The Definitive (so-and-so)

I've been thinking about this because of the release of Superman Returns. Which actors have so defined a role that it's hard to imagine another actor playing it in a remake or sequel?

My list:

Gregory Peck (Atticus Finch To Kill A Mockingbird)
Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock "Star Trek")
Colin Firth (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy Pride and Prejudice)...special recognition here for having beaten out Laurence Olivier's performance in the role.
Mel Gibson (Martin Riggs Lethal Weapon)
Jack Nicholson (get ready for a list: Robert Eroica Dupea in Five Easy Pieces, Jake Gittes Chinatown, R.P McMurphy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jack Torrance The Shining)
Joe Pesci (Tommy DeVito Goodfellas)
Marlon Brando (another list: Stanley Kowalski A Streetcar Named Desire, Don Vito Corleone The Godfather)
Jimmy Stewart (L.B. Jeffries Rear Window, George Bailey It's a Wonderful Life)
Bette Davis (Margo Channing All About Eve)
Peter O'Toole (T.E. Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia)
Marilyn Monroe (Sugar Kane Kowalczyk Some Like It Hot)
Maggie Smith (Jean Brodie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)
Orson Welles (C.F. Kane Citizen Kane, Harry Lime The Third Man, Captain Hank Quinlan Touch of Evil)
Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates Psycho, K. The Trial)
John Travolta (Tony Manero Saturday Night Fever)
Denzel Washington (Malcom X Malcom X)
Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle Taxi Driver, Jake Lamotta Raging Bull)
Malcom McDowell (Alexander DeLarge Clockwork Orange)
Christian Bale (Patrick Bateman American Psycho)
Kathy Bates (Annie Wilkes Misery)
Paul Newman (Fast Eddie Felsen The Hustler and The Color of Money)
Susan Sarandon (Annie Savoy Bull Durham, Louise Sawyer Thelma and Louise)
Sidney Poitier (Virgil Tibbs In the Heat of the Night; yes, I know about Howard Rollins's portrayal of Tibbs in the TV series, but the TV series was so different from the film that it seemed like another character entirely.)
James Garner (Jim Rockford "The Rockford Files")
Roger Moore (Simon Templar "The Saint")
Christian Slater (Jason Dean Heathers, Clarence Worley True Romance)
Cher (Loretta Castellini Moonstruck)
Harrison Ford (Han Solo Star Wars)
Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade The Maltese Falcon, Rick Blaine Casablanca)
Clint Eastwood (Will Munny Unforgiven, Josey Wales The Outlaw Josey Wales, Blondie The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and Harry Callahan Dirty Harry)
Gary Cooper (Marshal Will Kane High Noon)
John Wayne (Ethan Edwards The Searchers)
Jack Palance (Jack Wilson Shane)
Michael Douglas (Gordon Gekko Wall Street)

Justified Omissions:

Christopher Reeve (Superman): Yes, I loved him as Superman, but I also appreciated Tim Daly's portrayal in the animated series. I wasn't a big fan of TV's "Lois and Clark", but I know it did well.

Michael Keaton (Batman): He lasted a long time, but Christian Bale seems to have settled into the role comfortably.

Sean Connery (James Bond): Yes, he made a very successful 007; but so did Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.

Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones): I'm not just thinking of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", but also of River Phoenix's portrayal of young Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Mr. Phoenix might have been a worthy man to take the fedora, had he lived.

There are plenty of unjustified omissions as well, I'm sure. But I'm too tired to get to them. Anyone who wishes to make an addition can shock the world by leaving a comment below.

Say good night, Gracie.

The Ever Circled Wagons

The recent blog war between Kos and The New Republic has exposed a rift in Democratic politics as deep as it is tiresome. I've come away believing neither the Kos charge that TNR is a gay-friendly National Review, nor the TNR charge that Markos is Julius Streicher. Everyone's coming out of this looking pretty silly, while back in the grim world the tortures, the illegal detentions, and the ruinous Iraq policies of the Bush regime go on. I realize that nobody involved in this intra-blog squabble can actually do very much about these problems, but it would be nice if they could at least have some dignity in the face of them.

Then again, as George Constanza so aptly put it: "I lived my whole life in shame! Why should I die with dignity?"

With all the feces flying around, though, it's easy to forget that some good articles come out of TNR. Take this article by Rick Perlstein called "What Is Conservative Culture?" It addresses how the various factions of conservativism--from the vapid "South Park" conservatives to the prudish evangelicals; from the erudite, bespectacled scholars who've memorized Hayek and Friedman to the beer guts with pick'em up trucks who think that Straussianism refers to a fanatical belief in the power of loose fitting denim--hold themselves together by their common love of rebeling against a supposedly hegemonic liberalism (a belief that persists even though conservatives run almost everything worth running). I'd always wondered how these very different people succeed in getting along, and now I know. They hate me.

I'm not sure what it says about the left that we can despise George W. Bush but still have the energy to hate each other too, but four words spring to mind--The People's Front of Judea.

It is done.

At least unti the next revision.

I'm spent.

Good night.

The Future of Labor Relations

Felt a moment's despair over Majikthise's post on the Labor Department's collaborating with corporate lobbyists to shut down card check organizing of unions. During that moment, I saw a vision of the future, and it looked a lot like this:

From Blackadder the Third:

Edmund: (returns with Buxomly, who staggers) Your Highness: Sir Talbot Buxomly, MP.

Prince George: Ah, Buxomly! Roaringly splendid to have you here. How are you, sir?

Sir Talbot Buxomly: (Heartily?) Well, Your Highness. I dined hugely off of servants before I come into town.

Prince George: Um, you eat your servants?

Sir Talbot Buxomly: No, sir -- I eat *off* them. Why should I spend good money on tables when I have men standing idle?

That Rumbling Sound You Hear

is a nearly finished second novel.

That Old Move

Mike McGavick, our local Senate candidate, just came out to say that an ad from The Free Enterprise fund goes too far: (Fome the Seattle Times)

Mike McGavick, the Republican candidate challenging Sen. Maria Cantwell, says a television commercial that shows Cantwell's head superimposed on a vulture's body should be taken off the air.

But the Free Enterprise Fund, the pro-business lobbying organization running the ad that advocates repeal of the federal estate tax, says it's not pulling the plug.

"This isn't the kind of ad that I think is helpful to the political process, and I wish it would be taken down," McGavick said in an interview Thursday.

He called the commercial an "inappropriate and personal attack."

"I have said over and over that my campaign will be a civil one that does not attack Senator Cantwell personally," McGavick said in a written statement.

Yeah, sure. This is an oldie but a goodie in the GOP playbook. Get some "independant" organziation to run a untrue/racist/over-the-top attack on a Democrat, wait for it to do damage, then meekly call for its withdrawl. I first remember it from the Bush/Dukakis race, when Americans for Bush ran the Willie Horton ad. It's most recent variation was the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth in 2004. It's a sweet political move. It allows the GOP candidate to slime his opponent, then come out and say "See what my divisive opponent inspires in political discourse? How coarse and rude! Vote for me to return decency and civility to politics." You wouldn't think it would work every time, but it does.

Note to Cantwell: this is just the warm-up. The really nasty variations on this move won't come until Labor Day.

Thirteen for Fourteen

Like Matt Yglesias, I know my Hitler well. I've read about as much of Mein Kampf as a sane man could bear. (Hitler was not just a moral sewer; he was a lousy writer.) I've also read or seen a large sample of his speeches and other documents, and even perused, with great interest, the psychological profile of Hitler the OSS put together in the forties.

So I actually found it pretty easy to distinguish Ann Coulter from Adolf Hitler. (Take the quiz before you read on.) For one, A.H. seldom referred to Democrats in the sense of the U.S. Democratic Party. To him the word "Democrat" would have meant either someone who believes in democracy as a form of government, or a Social Democrat, the major left wing party in Germany; Hitler hated both. (As Yglesias points out, there's also a semantic difference between Coulter and Hitler in the meaning of "bourgeois")

For another, repellent as Ann Coulter is, her prose style is considerably sharper and more succinct than Hitler's. Hitler, who dictated most of his prose work to a secretary, favored long, rambling sentences and lists. Consider the original title of Mein Kampf. It was, in English, "Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice." (Hitler's editors were able to talk him out of that title, but they could only do so much with the rest of the book.) Coulter, as Ygelsias points out, works in the sound bite era of cable TV, and her prose fits it. The only way the quiz was able to make her quotes look as long as Hitler's was to use a lot of elipses.

So yeah, Ann Coulter's a noxious creature, but I can tell her apart from Hitler. Who she'll brag to about that, I don't want to know.

A Wish

Among the habits I'm less than proud of is my penchant for playing James Bond video games. I didn't get to play Goldeneye, which I understand to be a classic, but I've had loads of fun with Nightfire, Brosnan's Everything Or Nothing, and with Connery's From Russia With Love.

My one complaint about FRWL is that the film doesn't really make the best video game material. It's a taut story with lots of wonderful characters, but aside from the group battle at the gypsy camp, there aren't a lot of moments that seem ripe for videogame adaptation. The video game elements seemed tacked on, imported as they were from other Bond pictures (the Aston Martin from Goldfinger, the jetpack from Thunderball). The classic scenes on the Orient Express take place in cut scenes, depriving the player the opportunity to fight Red Grant as Bond did in the film. If they wanted to do a Connery film as a videogame, You Only Live Twice might have been a better choice.

Still, that is not my wish. What I'd kill to see EA do is release a videogame version of The Spy Who Loved Me. Now there's a Bond film with lots of gaming potential. Ski chases, car chases, submarine chases, a battle on a Supertanker, the fight with Jaws at Atlantis. It would be the ultimate 007 game, and I'm sure they could coax Sir Roger into doing the voice part.

I Think You Hear Me Knocking

I've been checking out a couple of takes on the Supreme Court's Hudson ruling. (The one that allows cops to keep any evidence they get when they barge into your home unannounced.) Because I'm almost finished writing my second novel, I don't have time to get into why I think Publius is wrong. Fortunately, Majikthise does it for me.

Pretty Lame Ad

I first read about Lieberman's ad on Talking Points Memo. I've also got to wonder what's on his campaign manager's mind. Lieberman beat Lowell Weicker for the Senate 18 years ago. Younger Democratic primary voters are probably too young to remember much about Weicker, or the issues that animated that particular race; and for older ones the memories of the Lieberman/Weicker race are less present in their minds than is the war in Iraq or the Liberman/Bush televised kiss.

Now it's possible that Lieberman knows his territory better than I do, and that Lowell Weicker remains some sort of bogeyman in the minds of Connecticut Democrats; but I don't see that. Indeed, though I'm sometimes wary of Wikipedia's information, their article on Weicker does fit with what I remember reading about the man in the old days. If anyone would see him as an ogre whose influence in Connectitcut politics should be eliminated, it would be hardcore anti-tax conservatives. Unfortunately for Lieberman, few of them vote in the Democratic primary.

Besides, just how firm is the connection between Weicker and Lamont? Yes, Weicker endorsed Lamont against Lieberman, but Weicker also endorsed Howard Dean against Lieberman. Does that mean that Howard Dean is also one of Weicker's bear cubs? Weicker also endorsed Bill Bradley over Al Gore in 2000. What does that suggest about Bill Bradley's connection to Lowell Weicker? Certainly Ned Lamont and Lowell Weicker share a distate for Joe Lieberman, but that doesn't imply mentorship.

In the end, what's more likely, that two left-leaning politicians of different generations happen to share a dislike for a more conservative incumbent; or that Lowell Weicker has been secretly grooming Ned Lamont for years, all the while nursing his hatred and plotting his revenge against the White Whale Lieberman, until finally Weicker decided the time was ripe and struck?

Lieberman probably believes the latter. Then again, Lieberman believes a lot of weird things politically, which is why he's in trouble now.

I can use the same sort of rhetorical tactic Lieberman uses in his commercial against Lieberman, by the by. Once upon a time, the National Review endorsed Joe Lieberman, and this year so did Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Does that mean that Lieberman belongs to William F. Buckley and the No Spin Zone? Well...possibly yes. Certainly, Lieberman's behavior gives us Democrats reason to wonder. But instead let's give him the benefit of the doubt: though Lieberman and Sean Hannity share a disdain for Ned Lamont in particular and liberals in general, one is not necessarily the mentor of the other. In that sense, Lieberman and Lamont are in the same boat.

Well, not quite. I don't think Democratic primary voters hate Lowell Weicker nearly as much as they hate Sean Hannity (though again, maybe Joe Lieberman knows them better than I do). And in this race, it's Democratic primary voters who count. It seems to me that this ad, far from hurting Ned Lamont, actually raises a lot of questions about Joe Lieberman that he'd rather not have out there. Does Lieberman really think (or expect voters to believe) this is all a Lowell Weicker plot? Does Lieberman actually want to get into a conversation about who endorsed whom? Does Lieberman really think that condescending to, and insulting the intelligence of, Democratic primary voters is a good strategy in a Democratic primary?

Just When You Think All Hope Is Lost

Weird Al gives us a necessary song parody for free. True, all hope is still lost, but at least it's a funnier ride through the abyss.

Roethlisberger Hurt

Big Ben, riding his motorcycle without a helmet, crashed and flew into the windshield of a car. I'm not a huge Steeler fan, as such, but I hate to see a player as exciting as Roethlisberger ruin himself and his team by taking stupid chances. Dude, isn't the prospect of having Jevon Kearse or Ray Lewis flatten you risk enough? Ben, if you recover, ditch the bike, buy a Mercedes, and save the Easy Rider fantasy for your retirement years.

Republican Admits that Society Causes Crime

Or, at least, his crime. From Political Wire:

Allen Raymond, the Republican strategist convicted in the New Hampshire phone-jamming scheme, told the Boston Globe that while he's responsible for the crimes that landed him in jail, he also blames "a Republican political culture that emphasizes hardball tactics and polarizing voters."

"In his first interview about the case, Raymond said he doesn't know anything that would suggest the White House was involved in the plan to tie up Democrats' phone lines and thereby block their get-out-the-vote effort. But he said the scheme reflects a broader culture in the Republican Party that is focused on dividing voters to win primaries and general elections. He said examples range from some recent efforts to use border-security concerns to foster anger toward immigrants to his own role arranging phone calls designed to polarize primary voters over abortion in a 2002 New Jersey Senate race."

Said Raymond: "A lot of people look at politics and see it as the guy who wins is the guy who unifies the most people. I would disagree. I would say the candidate who wins is the candidate who polarizes the right bloc of voters."

Pity these attacks of conscience don't take place before elections, or before convictions in court. Oh, well. It's worth a chuckle anyway.

While I'm Reviewing

Neil and I caught the first preview of ACTs production of Wine in the Wilderness Friday night. It's a great show, and though I didn't have to pay to get in, those of you who have to should, so that you can to treat yourself to two of the finest performances I've seen in Seattle theater in a long time: April Yvette Thompson as Tommy and William Hall, Jr. as Oldtimer.

So if you're in the city, take advantage of it.

An Inconvenient Truth

This is a compelling look at what carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are doing to our planet, as well as a revealing look at how much fun Al Gore can be. The scariest information comes in the description of how quickly, and catastrophically, ice fields like the land ice in Greenland and Antarctica can melt. The best news it delivers is that we have the technology to get out of trouble, if only we take the trouble to deploy it.

See it. Live it. Love it. Be it.

Professionally Foul

I haven't had a lot of time to actually view Ann Coulter during her book tour, but it seems like a lot of people wonder why TV programs like The Today Show or Whatever the Hell Tucker Carlson's Show Is Called put her on. Actually, there's not much to get there. Ann Coulter is a woman who makes her living by calculating just how horrible her colleagues have been, then taking it one step further. She's a right wing carnival geek act who hopes to appall her audience with the sight of her own degraded filthiness. Right wingers watch her because they sometimes love to view the nether regions of their own souls. Those leftists who do pay attention to her do so, I guess, because she's a distillation of everything the left finds repugnant in the right. And if you're willing to be an object of disgust, revulsion, and a certain kind of morbid curiosity, cable TV news has a camera waiting for you.

Actually, there have been times that I've watched more than a few seconds of Ann Coulter. (Yes, some of those times involved losing the remote, but stick with me here.) What I wait for on those occasions is the moment when she takes off the blonde wig and reveals that she is in fact Andy Kaufman, and that Coulter's entire act has been Kaufman's twenty year metajoke on news organizations, Regnery publishing, Andy Kaufman fans, and the world at large. I'll bet that's why Bill Maher brings Coulter on his show. If Andy Kaufman is going to step out of his Ann Coulter disguise, it's going to happen on Maher's set. You can come out now, Andy. We're wise to you.

Once More, Tugging A Tired Thread

The DLC has a column up accusing Democrats who support Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman of "liberal fundamentalism" or, in their words "an intolerance toward dissent and diversity that can repel voters and make an enduring Democratic majority more difficult to achieve." The article goes on to argue that what "the left" is doing in opposing Joe Lieberman amounts to a purge of dissenting voices from the party:

The Democratic Party today is far more unified in its basic values and policy positions than it was two decades ago, and also urgently needs to expand its electoral and geographical base. There's less of an excuse than ever to indulge in liberal fundamentalism, litmus tests, intimidation of dissenters, and purges, and much more to lose from shrinking the party's big tent.

But that's exactly what the national movement to purge Joe Lieberman represents. Comparing him to apostates like Zell Miller is crazy. As Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid points out in a recent letter endorsing him, the most recent independent analysis of Lieberman's voting record shows him in solidarity with Democrats 90 percent of the time, about the same as Reid's own record. He's a recognized leader among progressives on issues ranging from the environment and labor to taxation and fiscal policy. He was a loyal partner of Al Gore's in the bitter 2000 presidential election, less than six years ago.

Some Lieberman foes, dubbing him "Holy Joe," are angry at him for championing the expression of religious faith in the public square, and for standing up against corporate-sponsored trash culture on behalf of families struggling to control their kids' values and upbringing. But his main sin appears to be his staunch and very consistent belief that the war in Iraq was and is right, even if that means occasional agreement with a Bush administration that he criticizes on almost every other issue.

Okay. I wasn't aware that primary voters in Connecticut, opposing one Senate candidate, constituted a purge. If the left were really trying to purge moderate-to-conservative Democrats who don't support their agenda, you'd think the knives would be out for Kent Conrad of North Dakota or Ben Nelson of Nebraska. (An attempt to run to the left of those guys in their states would be suicidal, but since the column already calls Lamont supporters crazy...) Hillary Clinton looks like she'll cruise to re-election in New York, a fairly liberal state from what I hear, despite her support for the Iraq venture. And though John Edwards now expresses regret for his vote for the Iraq war, he wasn't doing that when he ran for President in 2004, and primary voters supported him fairly deep into the season. The only other candidate who might arguably be in trouble because of her Iraq war vote is Maria Cantwell, but her problem in her own party is much less severe than Lieberman's. You'd also think that lots of Democratic House candidates who voted for the war would be getting it in the neck, but I haven't heard anything serious there either.

Besides, is the comparison of Joe Lieberman to Zell Miller all that crazy? Voting records notwithstanding, both guys are best known for going to the political chat shows and trashing Democrats for being too mean to the Bush administration. (I covered this in an earlier post.) Joe Lieberman may vote with the Democrats a lot, but he goes out of his way to be seen as cozy with Republicans. The DLC's shock that this behavior irritates Democrats around the country demonstrates that the DLC is dangerously out of touch.

Joe Lieberman's problem with the party stems from a failure to recognize that his adopted persona of a moderate maverick who likes to reach across the aisle is not one with which many Democrats, tired of watching their party bend to the Republicans on issue after issue, can feel comfortable. After six years of Bush, Lieberman's act has long since passed its sell-by date. Now I know Lieberman's response is that he votes with the Democrats 90% of the time, that he's not really with the Republicans as often as he appears, and that he has much more sympathy with liberal causes than he demonstrates. But, as Kurt Vonnegut so aptly put it in Mother Night "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Witness Howard Dean, whom the DLC column lumps in with these renegade leftists. For Howard Dean's entire tenure as Vermont governor he was fiscally conservative and socially moderate. But the vehemence of his opposition to the Iraq war and his freewheeling public persona transmogrified him into Eugene Debs among both his supporters and his critics. Is he really a leftist, as the DLC claims? Is Joe Lieberman really Zell Miller? Is Howard W. Campbell Jr. really a Nazi? Does it matter? Consider this quote from Mother Night, where Campbell visits his father-in-law one last time and receives the most devastating compliment from him:

"Did you know," he [Werner Noth] said, "that until almost this very moment nothing would have delighted me more than to prove you were a spy, to see you shot?"

"No," I said.

"And do you know why I don't care now if you were a spy or not?" he said. "You could tell me now that you were a spy, and we would go on talking calmly, just as we're talking now. I would let you wander off to wherever spies go when a war is over. You know why?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Because you could never have served the enemy as well as you served us," he said. " I realized that almost all the ideas that I hold now, that make me unashamed of anything I may have felt or done as a Nazi, came not from Hitler, not from Goebbles, not from Himmler--but from you." He took my hand. "You alone kept me from concluding that Germany had gone insane."

Right now, Joe Lieberman serves the Republican party better than he serves us, which makes the question of whether he's really a liberal or a moderate or a conservative shill irrelevant. Lieberman gives the Republicans bipartisan cover, and he makes it harder for everyone in the Democratic party to make the case the the Republicans under Bush have gone off the deep end. Over the last few years he's gone on FOX News repeatedly to lend his name and his moral legitimacy (such as it is) to some despicable ideas. Given that, I'd say that the response of the so-called "angry left" has been altogether measured and proportionate. If only the DLC could make the same boast in its columns.

Caution: Planet At Work

A really cool picture of Mount Saint Helens from a passing plane. (from the Seattle P-I).

Cheers to Canadian Reporters

Apparently Canadian political reporters are already sick of Stephen Harper's bullying, Bush-like tactics. From the L.A. Times:

Since Harper's minority government took office after the Jan. 23 elections, his relations with the national media have become more and more strained. Determined to impose order on the traditionally chaotic press scrum in which reporters shout out questions, Harper said he would choose questioners from a pre-screened list.

The parliamentary media corps, which includes broadcast and print reporters from all over the country, worried that the new protocol would freeze out journalists perceived to be tough on the prime minister. After journalists refused to sign on to the list, Harper refused to take any questions.

On Tuesday, when Harper's press secretary announced there would be no questions after his announcement of aid to the Darfur region of Sudan, nearly two dozen reporters walked out, leaving the prime minister to make his statement in front of a single camera in a nearly empty room.

"We are responsible for asking questions, and he is responsible for answering them," said Yves Malo, the president of the Parliament's press gallery.

Nice.

Don't Make McCain Come Back There

Courtesy of Brendan Nyhan, here's John McCain's "fresh, daring, original!" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times) answer to our problems in Iraq:

"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit,'" said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

The first obvious question is, "Was he sober when he said this?" I'll take it that the answer to that question is yes until someone proves otherwise. The second question, sadder than the first is, "Has McCain reached the conclusion that the press train following him is so in the tank that he can get away with saying anything?" The third question is whether McCain is so glib and shallow that he takes the nonsense he sprays from his face seriously.

These three questions have been asked about a politician before (Hint: he's the twit with the smirk and the 30% job approval rating), and they lead me to a fourth question. Have we as a nation become locked in some horrible sisyphean matrix of eternal recurrance? Will we push Bush out of our lives only to turn around and find McCain? Will we still be sitting here ten years from now, listening to pundits tell us about how we've reached a turning point on [Iraq/the economy/energy/"American Idol"] and how we'll know in six months whether [the insurgents/interest rates/oil prices/Ryan Seacrest] will rise or fall.

To quote either Tom Servo or Crow, "What is it about the gates of hell that compels people to walk through them?"

Suharto Suffers Internal Bleeding

Considering how much internal bleeding he caused in Indonesia, I'll save my pity.

McGavick: His Elbow Is Firmly On the Pulse of the World

Mike McGavick, the Republican senate candidate from these parts, wants to bar Iran from the World Cup unless they give up their nuclear ambitions.

Yeah, that'll quell the Islamic Republic's ambitions of building a bomb to deter U.S. and Isreali military action against them. And if they don't get the message that way, we'll take away Iran's UN ambassador's pool privileges. With foreign policy thinking like this, why do we have a nuclear proliferation problem at all?

If McGavick existed, I'd laugh at him.

Bush On Iraq Today

If we don't flail around uselessly, wasting money and lives in a futile struggle against centuries of deep seated religious animosity, terrorists who had nothing to do with Iraq in the first place will win.

I wonder if anyone bothered to catalog all of Bush's turning point assertions, as was done for Tom Friedman.

In News From the Lord

Pat Roberston apparently got a fax from the Deity indicating that I'm dead. My question: could God not provide a date, or is Robertson not telling us because he wants us to suffer the wrath with the drowning and the burbling and the little shrimps going up my nose?

I'll make a note to be scared.

Eternal Return

Matt Yglesias finds an example of it in the rhetoric of Flat-Earther and NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

While I'm On the Subject

While I'm on the subject of portentous bunk, I checked out the trailer for the remake of The Omen. I wonder if people working on all these horror remakes (going all the way back to the remake of Psycho) understand what it means to try too hard. Horror and humor are pretty closely related in structure (in one the payoff is a scream; in the other, a laugh). These remakes, as well as a lot of contemporary horror pictures, are like someone who repeats a well-loved joke and then spends the next ten minutes elbowing you in the ribs going "Get it? Get it?"

It's especially dangerous for a film like The Omen to go over the top. The story is at bottom an Idiot Plot. There would be no story if the antagonist (Spoiler alert for people who live in caves or haven't seen the movie poster: the antagonist is the Devil) weren't a total idiot. The Devil doesn't make sensible moves given his goal of keeping Damien Thorn's identity a secret. He lets key figures in his conspiracy continue breathing long enough to spill their guts, and then kills them in ways guaranteed to maximize exposure instead of minimizing it. Even at the end, instead of killing Robert Thorn with an easily arranged plane crash, the Devil has to wait until R.T. has dragged the devil's sprog to a church so that the cops can shoot him, thus fulfilling the poorly known prophecy found in the appendix to the gnostic apocrypha, "And so it shall come to pass, that Thorn the Elder shall take his son unto an unlocked church to pierce him with many piercings. And yea, verily at that time, the constabularies shall follow after him, aiming their guns and gnashing their teeth. And it shall come to pass that they shall warn him with many warnings to lay down his gun so they can quietly hush this up anon, yet Thorn the Elder, well versed in the rules of diplomatic immunity, does prepare to slay the Child Beast but is himself slain anon by many bullets. And there shall be much paperwork and covering up."

That's a direct quote.

Getting back to my original point, and I did have one, The Omen is an idiot plot, and much depends on the audience failing to notice this. Consequently, the filmmaker must get the viewer to identify strongly with the Thorns and their problem--"What would you do if you discovered that your little boy might be the Beast of the Apocalypse?" But it's hard for viewers to identify with characters when the movie keeps pulling the audience to one side and telling them "See how scary this is? See how weird all this is? Isn't that little boy freaky looking? Check out all that CGI slow-motion breaking glass! That just screams scary, doesn't it?" How can the audience reach fear, or forget the flaws in the plot, when the movie keeps reminding them that what they're watching is only a movie? Richard Donner, who directed the original film, understood this, and he worked hard to maintain a feeling of verisimilitude. The makers of the new film, based on the trailer, don't seem to get it. Not that I'll shed a tear. I root for remakes to fail. If enough of them eat it, maybe producers will spend some bucks on something new (preferably by me).

I Can't Wait Until the Da Vinci Code Opens!

Because that will bring me one day closer to its closing. Now that this weak compilation of text-based computer game plots has elbowed its way into the national dialog, I'm now certain I can feel us all getting lamer.

Could the fans of The Da Vinci Code and the fans of the Left Behind books please sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up? Neither of your books is credible! Their plots are silly. Their popularity, and the respect their popularity accords them is further evidence that humanity needs to evolve a better organ for distinguishing shit from shinola. The arguments between you are pointless and they're giving me a fucking headache. You people are worse than trekkies! Yes, trekkies engage in brainless fights over Kirk vs. Picard, but they don't take the fight to "Nightline". The things you're squabbling over don't matter to life as we know it on this planet. You people aren't news. Stop pretending that you are!

Sorry I went off there, gang. It's just that seeing the umpteenth "Da Vinci Code" book-and-soundtrack TV ad (the most impressive story of this era my ass) put me off my feed. There are good books out there, people. Pass the display stands for these bound and wrapped bundles of offal, find these good books, and read them. There are genuine mysteries in the universe--is there life under the ice sheet of Europa, will we be able to employ negative energy to travel faster than light or backward in time one day? Once you start fiddling with these, tales of what Jesus did with whom after he died and what hokey secret code leads to which imaginary relic start to look small and sad and silly.

Things You Can Do With Phone Records

From Josh Marshall:

Isn't this the other shoe dropping?

The piece is written in a roundabout sort of way. But if I understand it, Brian Ross is reporting at ABC news that the US government is tracking the calling patterns of political reporters to further their leak investigations.

If that's true, then I think we can set aside any pretense that administration policy on all manner of electronic surveillance isn't being brought to bear on political opponents, media critics, the press, everybody.

I need a drink.

Holy Joe and the Bloggers of Doom

Majikthise, Atrios, Bullmoose, Kos, and Drum are in a war over Jon Chait's column. The column recommends that the Democrats in Connecticut vote for Lieberman even though he's a terrible senator with whom most of them disagree. Apparently Chait feels this is a way to beat back the angry lefties in the world of blogs who want Holy Joe to sleep with the fishes and to drag the party back to 1972. Not that anyone's asking me, but I don't see how one has anything to do with the other.

What's sinking Joe Lieberman among Democrats isn't his voting record (which looks pretty good, though it seems so out of sync with his public image that I wonder whether the people keeping the tally included votes that don't really mean anything--like voting for a law raising the minimum wage but refusing to vote to end the filibuster on it), or even his bucking the party on the Iraq War (as such). It's that every time the Dems summon up some momentum against a President that pretty much every Democrat, leftist or centrist, dislikes, Lieberman throws himself between the Dems and the President and scolds the Dems for being so mean. It's very deflating to see Lieberman defend Bush on Abu Ghraib, or imply that dissent against the war in Iraq helps the terrorists because it brings down "the only President we've got." It's almost as deflating as Lieberman's chumming it up with Dick Cheney during the Vice-Presidential debate, or (even worse) kissing Bush on the floor of the House before the State of the Union. He makes nice with the other side so often that a lot of us wonder: shit, Joe, why don't you marry them?

Other centrists don't have Lieberman's problems (at least, not to his degree). Maria Cantwell, one of my senators, is up for re-election this year. She's taking some flak over Iraq, and is almost as unbending on the subject as Lieberman is; but Cantwell will get my vote anyway because she picked fights with Bush and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens over oil tankers and ANWAR, fought dirty, and won. There are some on the left who remain pissed and won't volunteer for Cantwell, but they'll come home by the election. (Fear of Ted Stevens's clone, Mike McGavick, will see to that.) I'm to the left of, well, just about everyone really; but Cantwell's my senator for as long as there isn't a more attractive alternative who can win the general election. I can figure that in a fight she'll mostly belt the Republicans, not her own voters.

What's not at stake in the Lieberman election is the question of taking the party back to 1972. I expect that Kos and Atrios, their ostensible liberalism aside, would back just about any Democrat over Holy Joe. Left, right, or mainstream, any Dem who could restrict himself to a firm, cold handshake when meeting the President would be enough. Any Dem who could keep his face off Fox News for a few consecutive days would be enough. Any Dem whose first instinct isn't to attack other Dems would be enough. Ideology isn't the issue here. Joe Lieberman's continued self-aggrandizement at the expense of his supposed friends is.

Senator Lieberman, maybe this experience will teach you something. The next time you feel an impulse to kiss President Bush, make sure it looks like the kiss that Michael gave Fredo.

Oh, and Speaking Of Bombing

Donald Rumsfeld, who bombs for a living, demonstrates how not to handle a heckler.

"Did not!" Rummy? Snappy.

Giggles

John Rogers cuts through all the noise surrounding Stephen Colbert's performance at the correspondent's dinner (the first comedian's performance I've seen at the dinner that was actually worth the bother of watching), to explain what made it a good comedy performance:

In various circumstances as a road comic, I have seen every comic you can imagine, at some point or another, suck it. Hard. Seinfeld, Leno, Belzer, Ellen*, Ray Romano, pick 'em. Sometimes you just don't gel with an audience, but at that point you've been doing it long enough not to suddenly think the five years of good shows were somehow flukes.

But I have seen plenty of people "bomb" who left me breathless with the genius of their writing. Larry David, who a fair number of even the conservative culture mavens love, was notorious for his spellbinding nightclub routines that comics standing in the back of the room marvelled at but audiences hated. Garry Shandling famously worked open-mike nights for something like SEVEN YEARS before he was able to meld his brilliant writing with something audiences could relate to.

If Colbert "bombed", it was because the audience didn't like him. And you know what -- they WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO. We have been treated to toothless feel-good comedy for so long, we have forgotten what the court jester's job was: he was the only guy who could mock the King. And, seeing as we now have a President who acts like a King, it's only fitting that Colbert revive the tradition in its truest form. If I remember correctly, the toady court followers were also fair game for the Jester, and we could hardly call the modern media anything less these days, can we?

He also got into the comic mind in a way that sounds true to me:

I hate to play into the stereotype of all comics being angry, but at the very least we are all in some small way sociopathic. We do not process emotions and emotional context like other people. At the same time some civilized part of me was horrified by the first 9/11 joke I heard, some other part of my brain was impressed by its structure and transgressive nature. I'm not particularly pround of that, but it was as reflexive as a musician hearing a song he hates, but instinctively picking out what key it's in.

Me too. Read the whole post.

Crazy As A Soup Sandwich

Just a quick shout-out to Larry Dahlke (on the blogroll, to your right), who happened upon the comic book version of Harlan Ellison's "Crazy As A Soup Sandwich" and sent it to your friend and humble blogger. Well spotted, ol' buddy, and much appreciated.