mypersonalitycult

2008-09-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

WHERE'S OUR CUT?

As you know, the string of government bailouts of lending institutions continues apace with the government's essential purchase of AIG. I am 100% in favor of this. That doesn't mean I like it but I'd rather see the economy get away with merely being rocked as opposed to foundering. It's a lot like being in a car driven by the sort of jackass whose sarcasms are only outmatch by his ignorance in that a fatal crash would be so emotionally gratifying were you not riding along with him.

As the great Paul Krugman has pointed out, we are living in an economy where risks are being socialized but profits aren't. Would now be a good time to ask how come? If the rich folk are going to be bailed out when they screw up then don't they owe us higher tax revenue? Just asking.

2008-04-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

RABBIT TEST REDUX

It has been disclosed that an Oregon "man" is now pregnant and will be carrying "his" baby to term.

If it's a boy, is there any chance of he and his wife naming him Butch?

2008-03-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

YET ANOTHER RAPE STORY THAT SMELLS

According to FBI statistics, about 9% of all rape stories brought to the attention of police are lies. A little over a year ago, Amanda Marcotte made an ass of the Edwards campaign by calling sympathizers of the Duke lacrosse players "evil" long long long after their innocence was clear to everyone but those ultra-enlightened beings known as feminists who are so amazingly correct that they refuse to let a little thing like facts stand in the way of knowing when they're right. "Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?" she wrote "So unfair." This post was so enlightened that Marcotte was obliged to censor it on the grounds that "some people" were "Making hay" out of it and you just can't get any more enlightened and free of sexism than that. Feminists have over the years repeatedly damaged their own credibility by grossly overstating the incidence of rape and ferverently endorsing whole swaths of rape that don't even exist as they did when they got behind the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria back in the 1980s.

Which brings us to the latest blatantly fishy rape story from some character calling herself Jezebel DEMANDING THE RESIGNATION OF DEAR ABBY for not believing a woman's story that she was anonymously raped by one of her husband's many brothers. According to the story, she and her husband were sleeping in separate bedrooms while staying over at his mother's house with his brothers. The next morning the wife thanked the husband for sneaking downstairs and boffing her in the dark. You can perhaps see where this is going. The brothers admit that one of them had sex with the wifey but refuse to say which one because, get this, they didn't want to cause trouble. Dear Abby pointed out the unlikeliness of the wife's story. Brothers are different sizes, taste different and employ different sexual techniques and suggested that hubby give his wife a good grilling to see if her story holds up. Abby also advise him to cut off his brothers if they continue to refuse fessing up. She might have also mentioned the frank unbelievableness of a husband sneaking down to his wife's room, having sex with her and departing without at least some small attempt at conversation like saying "Hi, Honey, it's me," upon entering the room.

Let's go Jezebel's remarks after snipping off the top paragraph:

Maybe it's natural to assume that a guy helpless enough to come to you for advice on what to do about his younger brother raping his wife would be foolish enough to believe anything of his manipulative wench of a wife. Maybe you think this sounds like a pretty good way for a woman to confess a spontaneous dalliance without really confessing it. But to jump to one of those scenarios is not only misogynist, it's FUCKING CLUELESS. Let me tell you a little story about a friend of my mom who is pregnant with her fourth child. Guess how she got pregnant? She woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband fucking her. She didn't know who it was, at first. You know how sleep can be weird that way? People walk in their sleep, initiate sex in their sleep, eat in their sleep, dream they are doing it with Barack Obama in their sleep.

But you know what they don't do in their sleep? Get up out of bed, go downstairs, and start fucking their brother's unconscious wives. No, that takes some hardcore wide-awake premeditation, and while I hate saying this, it's a kind of premeditation that is all too common in modern dudes. Read our site sometimes, you'll see. I'm not sure what it's all about: porn, evil, testosterone, evolutionary biology, alcohol, or just a "culture of impunity" -- but I'm pretty sure the last part is the biggest offender. And if telling 110 million readers a woman who says she was raped in her sleep is probably lying isn't fostering that sort of culture, I don't know what is.

First off, the wife in the story was able to figure out that she was being fucked by her husband which mitigates against Jezebel's theory. Second off, Jezebel says nothing about her Mom's friend being in different rooms. Aren't you more likely to wonder about who's fucking you when no one besides you is even supposed to be in the same bed? Third off, I think her friend's husband is the problem. I've occasionally fondled someone I was sleeping with—when you're spooning naked, it's pretty hard to avoid. But I've never started fucking someone unless I knew they were awake. That would be truly loutish. In the third place, don't you think she and her husband would have talked just a little bit after it was all over? Also note how Jezebel complete refuses to address any of Abby's reasons for being suspicious. As for It's a kind of premedition that is all too common in modern dudes," which, naturally, she "hate[s] saying," there's a word for that. It's called sexism.

My money's on the wife being a cheat and a liar. It's really the explanation that makes the most sense.

2008-03-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

THE LAST OASIS

As an atheist, the Marx Bros. are the closest thing I have to a personal deity. When I was in high school, the Marxes were big cheese among college students and some of our more politically active dropouts. By the time it was my turn to be packed off to an institution of higher learning the tide had ominously shifted and it was now the Three Stooges who were in ascendency. A few short years later, Ronald Reagan was elected president. Coincidence? I think not.

I've probably squandered years watching reruns of their movies and have seen their Paramounts so many times as to view the world through grainy, black and white colored glasses. The only one I'd seen just once was "A Night in Casablanca," way back in 1974 at the Elgin Theater in New York, where I also once saw a triple feature consisting of "A Day at the Races," "Reefer Madness" and "Night of the Living Dead." I remembered it as being something of an odd duck. Then last week I finally overcame my miserly ways and bought a copy. For a Marx Brothers Comedy it's a very odd duck indeed.

Right from the opening credits, which are beautifully done, the most striking thing about the movie is that, for all appearances, no one seems to have told the director that he was supposed to be doing a comedy, though one might think having three Marx Brothers on the set would have been an important clue. Instead the film is stylistically dominated by a deadly-serious melodrama involving murderous ex-Nazis trying to get away with stolen treasure and an unfairly disgraced French pilot trying to restore his good name who the brothers are helping so he and his girl friend can live happily ever after. The movie looks so much like a period drama one half expects Humphrey Bogart to step onto the set at any moment and the score has only the rarest hints of anything like humor. Mostly, it's lush and romantic and, though a nice little earful, it hardly puts you in the mood for comedy.

As for those murderous ex Nazis, in films past the Marxes were put in situations where they could show off their irreverency for social convention (though Groucho provoking a war out of personal spite in "Duck Soup" looks less like satiric farce these days than it does an eerie precognition of the current administration). The brothers run riot through a snooty party. They disrupt normal proceedings at a college by mashing coeds or burning books to stay warm. They inflict themselves on the rarified world of opera. The climaxes were always overwhelmingly comic in tone even if the comedy wasn't always stellar as with "The Cocoanuts." But here Groucho finds himself being set up for murder and, though his plight does result in a few pearly moments, it severely crimps his style as the great effronterer.

And that climax! Though not without its comedic touches the overall tone is surprisingly serious. For one thing there's that music again which has the dramatic urgency one would normally expect when chasing after Nazis. And the brothers who in earlier times, would at least chop a train up for fire wood or ride around a department store on roller skates and a unicycle while trying to save the day in this picture earnestly risk their lives to keep the villain from getting away. At one point, Groucho is obliged to hit the main baddie (played with excellent finesse by the estimable Sig Ruman) on the head with a heavy blunt object. In previous days, this might have been an opportunity for some fine embellishments. Here, Groucho just slugs him.

Despite this, "A Night in Casablanca" has a lot going for it and is easily their best film since "A Day at the Races." It was also one of their biggest hits. If I were you, I'd have a look. But then, I already have.

2008-03-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

DR. FRINK SHE AIN'T

One of the classic negative stereotypes infecting society is the one which has it that scientific or medical people aren't sexy—a view I once admittedly held great sympathy for as the movie star my ophthalmologist father most reminded me of was Elmer Fudd. (His looks and voice, anyway. Personality-wise, he had an occasionally daffy charm somewhat similar to that of the regrettably late Phil Rizzuto.) One of the most disappointing things about being the male of the species is how often painfully beautiful women aren't the brightest bulbs on the Xmas tree and how many wonderfully intelligent women aren't exactly the stuff of dreams. Smart, beautiful women are a gift from The Great Deceased and, in this case, Stingy Deity in the Sky.

Which brings us to a biologist Olivia Judson who defies said stereotype big time over at NY Times with a blog called The Wild Side, who I just discovered and am now a fan of because, hubba, hubba, can that skirt write. I suppose I should be embarrassed for just discovering her. It isn't like she's been in hiding or something. She wrote a book entitled "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex."

And get a load of her picture. I've never seen any columnist or blogger with a head shot looking quite so mischieviously predatory as Dr. Judson's.

She currently as a piece up about fossils not from bones and what they say about the normal speed of dinosaurs plus what fossil DNA tells us about the evolution of birds plus other real interesting stuff.

Go. Read. She's great.

2008-03-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

As most of you are aware, there has been a rather glorious blowup regarding a very insulting column appearing in the Post Outlook Section basically informing us that women are stupid. The heat emanating from the liberal blog-o-sphere, as you may expect, has been something fierce. I would like to add a couple of observations to the ensuing pandemonium.

1) The lie isn't that women are stupid. It's the implication that men aren't. The Bush Administration is macho as hell. Anyone here want to tell me these guys are smart?

2) Exploding in anger and self-righteous snark, though understandable, is not the canniest political response. Instead of waxing like the Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang (an ancient cartoon character and my pet name for Atrios) we should be cheering. Intelligent liberals should want conservatives to insult women and insult them as egregiously and often as possible. Insulting women can do for conservatives what insulting white men has done for liberals: Drive voters who might otherwise be theirs deep into their opponents' camp.

Unfortunately, the tone on our side has consisted almost entirely of umbrage hardly leavened by the spice of bitter sarcasm. What a pity. This could have been so much fun that more people might have wanted to join the party.

And, BTW, if Atrios doesn't want people to think that women are stupid, why does he keep promoting Amanda Marcotte?

2003-07-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd put something in here to salve my ego into thinking it isn't all just an inglorious waste (though you just know it is).

Last weekend I took Amtrak's much-vaunted Acela express up to Boston and the ten-dollar Fung Wah Chinese waiter express bus back to hoary old Gotham. The Acela represents a multibillion dollar government investment in all the latest railroad technology.

Fung Wah beat my train by fifteen minutes and vitrually tied Amtrak's best advertised time of three-and-a-half hours.

I can just hear the Libertarians rubbing their hands and cackling from the inside of their SUVs.

I hate them.

2003-06-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Why Does Andrew Sullivan Hate Himself So Much?

We all know Andrew Sullivan is not exactly shy about throwing the vicious ad hominum attack. In fact one half suspects that he secretly feels cheated when the facts are on his side and has to use them. But has anybody else noticed how the more vicious he gets the less his attacks seem to resemble his intended target and the more redolent they are of his own self? See his absurdly hostile review of Sidney Blumenthal’s book “The Clinton Wars” if you want to get the full taste (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030516). I mean, mein Gott, he does everything short of accusing Blumenthal of engaging in unsafe sex practices. Or check out my brilliant 6/18/03 analysis (and if it isn't brilliant please don't tell me because I'm already this close to the edge and the abyss is singing to me). Or check out today’s criticism of John Kerry whom he assaults for voicing the manifestly rational suspicion that Bush may have lied to us about WMDs:

“The one thing that knowledgeable people have told me about John Kerry is that he doesn't know when to stop. He has no controlling mechanism when he goes on the attack. To accuse this president of deliberately lying to get this country into war is therefore a typical piece of Kerry excess.”

“Doesn’t know when to stop”? “Has no controlling mechanism when he goes on the attack”? “Typical…excess”?

That doesn’t sound much like John Kerry to me. People who “don’t know when to stop” aren’t elected and then reelected senator. And yet it does have a strangely familiar ring, no? (And please check my most prescient call at the end of my June 16th posting about Rand Beers that begins “The Spook That Went Out Into The Cold…” Of course, predicting that character assassination is going to be used against a serious Democratic challenger is like predicting that David Letterman is going to use sarcasm while interviewing Richard Simmons.)

The pathology is clear. Andrew Sullivan hates himself but can’t bring himself to acknowledge it and so reacts by attacking others for the very qualities he most secretly loathes within himself. Only by proving that other people are as bad as he thinks he is can he find peace.

Like I suppose you could think of a better plan.

harrybrain@mypersonalitycult.com

2003-06-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan and the Politics of Personal Destruction

If there's one thing you can say about Andrew Sullivan it's that he has a wit and style that's almost as infectious as he is. Offended? Cry me a river. As Andy himself might say, either way I've done my one good deed for the day and now it's time to get blown for it.

But then, what about the politics of personal destruction? Haven't we had way too much of that lately? I suppose you could make a case for that. Andrew Sullivan certainly could. After all, he has such a vast wealth of material to work with even if it does need an editor.

Take Andrew’s ad hominum-attack laden review of Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars," (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030516) which is inauspiciously titled "Sid's Id." Sid's Id? Sullivan seems to be saying that the book being reviewed isn't really the historical analysis and press criticism it pretends to be. Rather, it's Sidney's id talking. And those of us who remain steeped in the grand mythos of Freudian psychological theory know how irrational and demanding those ever fucking ids are. The sociopathic little buggers will use any vaguely passable rationale the ego can think of as cover to do what they really want. Ask Karl Rove.

In the first paragraph, Andy shares a small personal anecdote to show us what genuine affection he has for Blumenthal — a blatant tip-off that things are about to get very ugly. Referring to their days together at the New Republic, Andrew waxes smarmy. "I'd spent what must have been an accumulated few days of my life listening to him go off at length about this theory or that conspiracy or this historical analogy; and, for the most part, I have to say I enjoyed the experience…I'm still immensely fond of him, although it is quite clear…he is completely out of his mind. Those jokes that no one else in the universe got; those pauses at the end of anecdotes, while he grinned and puffed and waited for you to assent to his latest impenetrable concoction; the sweet natured way I which he assassinated characters who violated his sense of manifest destiny and the tenets of his secular religion…."

Now, doesn't that sound just like Sidney Blumenthal? You can see why Sullivan adores the man.

Next Sullivan, goes in a more theological direction.

"Which reminds me what The Clinton Wars evoked for me. It has the tone…of one of those 'Lives of the Saints' books most Catholic schoolkids were once forced to read… It's a Gospel. Its facts are assembled, as the facts in the Gospels were assembled…to affirm the faith…"

In truth, they're not really the same. For one thing, the Gospels don't stand up nearly as well to fact checking. But, say, isn’t Andrew Sullivan a devoted Catholic who reliably flies into a rage any time someone questions his religion? Why yes, come to think of it, he is. That might seem a little strange given what his religion has traditionally had to say about the eternal fate of those who enjoy his particular sexual proclivities, but the man is clearly devoted. Therefore you can see why he would consider the above paragraph to be so very telling about the true inner life of Sidney Blumenthal.

"Like all religious fanatics," writes Sullivan, "Sid sees no distinction between religion and politics…" which again tells us just so much about the mind of Sidney Blumenthal. Part of Sullivan's proof is Blumenthal's description of growing up in the famously machine-dominated burg of Chicago.

"Politics, as I grew to understand it, was just there. There was no distance in Chicago between politics and getting a driveway widened, having a tree planted, getting garbage picked up, having a kid getting a summer job. Many small aspects of life and many large aspects of business required connections… The schism between politics and daily life that emerged in the suburbs did not exist."

Later:

"From time immemorial, Democratic presidential campaigns in Chicago reached their climax with a torchlight parade of precinct captains…we marched up Madison Street to the ancient Chicago stadium. I pinned a Kennedy button to my jacket and carried a 'Kennedy for President' placard stapled to a wooden stick. There were men holding torches aloft as far as I could see, an endless trail of fire. In the stadium everybody was standing, bellowing and whooping."

This prompts Andy to remark, "In a scene Leni von Riefenstahl could have photographed well, little Sid had found his God. Three decades later, he found Mr. Clinton."

Wow. Now, that's objectivity. For those of you who are the unfortunate victims of a modern-day education, Leni Riefenstahl (the "von" is another of Andy's many gifts to us) clocking in at 101 remains the living embodiment of the immensely gifted but clueless artist who has unwittingly prostituted her talents in the service of the unimaginable (and let me assure you kiddies I am not referring to the fun unimaginable). Her film, "Triumph of the Will" which documents Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg rally is a magnificently beautiful paean to the man who rivals Stalin and perhaps even Joan Crawford as the 20th century's greatest monster. If Riefenstahl were a contemporary American, she'd be in advertising. (I ought to know. I'm in advertising. The field is just full of small-time Leni Riefenstals.) Riefenstahl treated Hitler like a god. Sullivan treats Bill Clinton like Sidney Blumenthal's God. Certainly this example shows us beyond all doubt how far Blumenthal has allowed himself to be unthinkingly carried away by the poison of partisan politics.

The next paragraph contains the following insight. "It's important to remember here that Sid is not, by any usual sense of the term, a journalist. Just as, for him, there is no separations between Church and State, i.e. between the interest of the Democratic Party and the interest of America, so for Sid, the concept of a distinction between journalism and politics was and is meaningless. The only reason for writing anything was to promote this political agenda."

My God, but doesn't that fucking Sidney Blumenthal sound like just an incredible asshole?

Addressing the heart of the book Sullivan explains, "I'll leave the endless sifting of claim and counter-claim to the people who still care who said what to Brock via Ingraham about Willey or Goldberg". I suppose it's small minded of me to ask but I can’t help but wonder why Sullivan refuses to tackle the larger contents of book whose eight hundred-plus pages are said to document the abusive and incompetent press coverage of the Clinton administration by vindictive yet intellectually lazy partisan fatheads. This is especially true since the very few reviewers (actually one) who tried it have had their asses handed back to them. Check out the following links to Joe Conasan in Salon: http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/05/12/lelyveld/index.html

Now compare Andy's treatment of his friend Sidney Blumenthal to his response when grim, angry moralizer Bill Bennett's little eight million dollar gambling problem was exposed.

"This invasion of his privacy and attempted smearing of his character have been perpetrated for transparently political reasons and are yet another sign of how our culture is making it increasingly difficult to any actual living, breathing, fallible human being to function in public life, without profound personal costs."

I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Of course one might ask “exactly when was the last time Bill Bennett defended anyone's privacy? Hasn't he spent a career arguing that privacy should be foregone for the public good? Doesn't he believe that all private activities are dependent for their morality and legality on their effects on society as a whole? Hasn't Bennett even defended the public shaming and stigmatization of ‘sinners’?”

Remember when Andy said earlier that Blumenthal was “completely out of his mind”? That is a very telling comment. Now you may have noticed that I started using quotation marks shortly after the beginning of that last paragraph while defending critics of Bill Bennett from Andrew’s victimized attack. That’s because I was actually quoting Sullivan. No really. Reading his blog on the matter is just a little mind bending. Like seeing a cartoon character with a split personality come to life and having a passionate argument with himself without realizing the absurd contradiction. Here are the links. Read, read. It’s genuinely strange:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_04_27_dish_archive.html (see “In Defense of Bill Bennett)

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_05_04_dish_archive.html (see “Bennett and Privacy”)

Sidney Blumenthal is not just a political fanatic. The man’s clearly insane.

Harrybrain@mypersonalitycult.com

2003-06-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

The Spook Who Went Out Into The Cold Or Will Be By The Time He Gets to New Hampshire

An important Washington Post article was referenced this morning by Josh Micah Marshall in his often riveting, yet indefatigably responsible, blog www.talkingpointsmemo.com. Turns out that Rand Beers, a 60-year-old former national security guy who has worked in three Republican presidential administrations, has quit the Bush White House to go work on John Kerry’s presidential campaign out of disgust for how Bush has been handling the War on Accurate Information, I mean Terrorism (sorry, but that's a very easy mistake to make). Below is the link.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62941-2003Jun15.html?nav=hptop_tb

And, to once again borrow a certain person’s phrase that always provokes such attractive imagery, here’s the money quote:

“Part of that stemmed from his frustration with the culture of the White House. He was loath to discuss it. His wife, Bonnie, a school administrator, was not: ’It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda.’"

Strong stuff. Let the character assassination begin! Andy?

2003-06-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

If We Hate Someone That Much They Must Be Evil

What is it about Clinton haters? When it comes to analyzing evidence Clinton haters exhibit all the dispassionate objectivity of porn-hating feminists — especially the ones who are secretly angry because they're infertile and can no longer bear children like Andrew Sullivan. I mean, they're just a little extreme. And I think it's fair to say that their critical thinking skills are not always operating at maximum efficiency. Instead, they use what intelligence they do have turning the most obscure and trivial crumb of information or rumor or even exposed falsehood into a feast for their sense of overweening self-righteousness and the conviction that they are fighting some kind of brilliantly manipulative, yet incredibly shallow, super villains. And while you chew on that please keep in mind that these are the same people who sent President Bush as their idea of a replacement.

The latest inane brouhaha was touched off by the almost simultaneous release of Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" and Hillary Clinton's "Living History." Since the inevitable agendas of both books are to make the Clintons look good and their enemies look venal (and why not? —it's a reasonable cop), it was utterly inevitable that the yowling fat heads of the right and their stooges in the news media would all gang up and do their level best to discredit them especially that EVIL BITCH HILLARY.

Most of us are familiar with their comic book vision which reveals that HRC is a completely insincere and vindictive power crazy whore who doesn't really love her husband (being, you know, a secret dyke), but is in a cynical political partnership that is just a show to fool the gullible masses into thinking she's a real person. The proof has not been completely convincing. In fact, the attacks have been so unrelentingly nasty yet hollow that, rather than destroying her, her critics have succeeded in making her a much bigger hero than she ever would have been without their help (and a big tip o' the hat to Joe Conason for making the observation first). That, of course, only goes to prove just what a diabolical manipulator that little C-person really is. And Chelsea is a baster baby.

OK so let's get to the insanity. The main argument says that the whole bit about Hillary being genuinely surprised, angry and hurt when Bill confessed his affair with the cherubic Monica Lewinsky is just a pack of lies to get everyone to feel sorry for her. If you want to know what the insane right is thinking about the Clintons there are few better places to go than AndrewSullivan.com. And he delivers. Here's the link: (http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030607)

First, Andy boy delves into Hillary's book. I'll quote from the above essay, which includes him quoting her:

"Until then, we are asked to believe, she had no idea that her husband would ever have contemplated an illicit sexual liaison with a young intern. The very idea was a product of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy' for which she blamed almost every failing of her husband's presidency. 'For me, the Lewinsky imbroglio seemed like just another vicious scandal manufactured by political opponents,' she writes. And then that dreadful morning, she found out the awful truth:

"'Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?' I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.'

"In almost any other instance of a spouse being told of her husband's adultery, there would be nothing but sympathy for the wife, and certainly no impulse to question her veracity or sincerity. But not with HRC."

Well that last is certainly news. First of all you gotta love the way Andy mocks her for attributing "every failing of her husband's presidency" to the "'vast right-wing conspiracy.'" Funny, I recall the Clinton presidency as being pretty successful: Strong economy balanced budget, high employment, mostly at peace — hey that's pretty good. In fact, if you'll recall, one of the knocks against Al Gore was that he, um, "lost" the election (mustn't grumble) after Clinton's hugely successful and popular presidency. So, I'm a little hazy at just what Andy boy here is referring to. Whitewater? They were exonerated three times. Travelgate? A KPMG Peat Marwick audit demonstrated real irregularities at the White House Travel Office so canning everyone was arguably a reasonable act. Katherine Willey? Even Michael Isikoff's original article in "Newsweek" admitted (in the last three paragraphs, natch) that her only corroborative witness went back on her story and said that Willey told her to lie. Willey's credibility only went south from there.

Andy now tries to undermine Hillary's story by quoting a book in which Peter Baker quotes Hillary's White House lawyer David Kendall as saying that he told her about the President's infidelity two days before the President did. Then Andy admits (and here he deserves some credit — a lot of conservative gasbags wouldn't even do this) that Kendall denied the quote. So far we've got exactly one witness who won't vouch for the story that's been attributed to him.

Andy then points out that the next day's New York Times ran a story entitled "President Weighs Admitting He Had Sexual Contacts." Aha!! You see? She had to know!

Anybody here remember Paula Jones's and the "distinguishing characteristics" bit (which Gennifer Flowers contradicted)? Hillary would have been in a position — several, actually — to see the lie to that one. And what do you think would be your evaluation of the news media general credibility if you had been falsely accused of murdering Vincent Foster and a bunch of other stuff you never did? I'd think she's be pretty skeptical. In fact, I think it's fair to say that she'd be nuts to believe anything the news media has to say at face value. But Andy knows she's lying and his proof that she claims to have finally reacted only when her own husband, the very dickwad whose word she couldn't refute and the very jerk she could most responsibly throw a fit at, finally told her. How very suspicious.

Now, he moves on to Sidney Blumenthal's book where he quotes Sidney quoting Hillary as saying "The President would be 'embarrassed' but that was for him to deal with." Andy is scandalized; "…Blumenthal doesn't paint a picture of a wife recovering from sudden and unexpected news of inconceivable adultery. He paints a picture of a supremely controlled woman, making cool political calculations…" Andrew is also scandalized that Hillary in her capacity as first lady would focus on the President being "embarrassed" rather than her own feelings and that this is further proof that she's a fraud.

It seems to me that the principal Andy is articulating here is that a woman can't yell at her significant other for doing something profoundly hurtful and then regain her composure a few hours later when she has to and still be regarded as sincere. Obviously he needs to date more.

Then we get to the next part where Andrew quotes the Associated Press quoting Hillary "While on the island, she felt 'nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger. I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade.'" Then he quotes Blumenthal about a speech the President just gave during the same period.

"'About ten minutes after [the speech] ended, my hotel phone rang: it was the president, asking what my reaction was. I told him it was all right. Hillary asked me what I thought. I told her the same... They handed the phone to James Carville and Mark Penn ... I could hear the president and Hillary bantering in the background ... They were still working as a team."

So was she furious, enraged, disappointed, shocked? Or was she colluding with her husband to spin the politics of his reluctant confession?"

The sign of a true fanatic is their willingness to indict people over normal human behavior. There is nothing at all odd about what Clinton has written. There is nothing at all unusual about a woman acting as though everything is fine and dandy between her and her husband when she really wants to kill him. Nor is there anything unusual about someone telling you that their summer was completely wonderful, forgetting that little fender bender or near catastrophic hangover or, yes, even a fight with their husband anymore than it is unusual for them to tell you that it was completely rotten while forgetting that beautiful sunset fantastic lobster dinner, thrilling flirtation, etc. People remember what their emotions tell them to remember. And Hillary was pissed. For good reason. What Sullivan is ironically doing is using normal human inconsistency and exaggeration as proof that Hillary is an inhuman calculating monster. Of course you have to do that sort of thing when fighting the infamous Clinton spin machine.

He goes on, but I haven't the heart. Read the stupid link.

The thing that has always impressed me about Hillary's haters is how much work they do. They spin such wild theories and extrapolate their conclusions from such tiny and questionable sources that they are forced to stridently insist that their interpretations of those sources are the only valid ones in order to make their case. And they do it with such unrelentingly viscous gusto that one finally sighs in resigned nostalgia wishing only that we could just somehow forget about all this and go back to obsessing over the Kennedy assassination. At least there we had a actual murder. And, don't forget it happened in Texas: the very same state the Bushes call home…

Now compare that to some of the stuff an intelligent person might note about George W. Bush. He forgave the students who looked down on him at Yale for not having any particular opinion about the civil rights movement or the Viet Nam War by explaining that it wasn't their fault for being intellectual snobs. He got a cushy position in the National Guard ahead of a majority of better-qualified applicants and then skipped out on the last 18 months of service while the war in Viet Nam was still on. He was a womanizer and a drunk. He was carried from one business failure to another by his cronies and finally became a millionaire by getting a 12% share on a 2% investment in the Texas Rangers which became a vastly more valuable team after they had gotten the state of Texas to build them a new ballpark at it's own expense (which is certainly consistent with his belief in keeping the government's interfering mitts off the poor). He signed off on 150 executions as Governor of Texas and said that he never lost a moments sleep even after DNA evidence proved that as high as 14% of all prisoners nationally on death row were actually innocent (and the state of Texas does not, shall we say, have a great reputation for being careful about how it convicts people). After being the hand-picked nominee of the Republican party, never mind having a former president as his father, Bush actually had the unmitigated gall to run as a political outsider — a lie so blatantly insulting that I still have trouble believing he wasn't shot by his own guards the first time he said it. He justified tax cuts first by claiming that they were needed to slow down the economy and then, after a recession hit, by saying that they were needed to speed up the economy but left most of them for the future when, presumably, the economy will have had time to recover. Then there's the little matter of the war in Iraq and those mountains of weapons of mass destruction that have somehow turned into weapon of mass destruction "programs" now that we can't find any.

What I'm trying to say here is that, unlike the Clintons, you really don't have to do much to make George W. Bush look really bad. You don't have to quote eyewitnesses who then deny the quotes that have been attributed to them. You don't have to ignore the value of corroboration. You don't have to insist on a particular spin or assassinate the characters of people who challenge you to make a case. It's just there. Like a naked woman lying on your couch whose showing off her perky backside and looking right at you with a twinkle in her eye and a big smile on her face. The invitation is almost too obvious to be acknowledged.

Which reminds me of a grand old chestnut. A man is trying to hitchhike through the state of Kansas. A car pulls along side and the man behind the wheel says, "Republican or Democrat?" The man, being an honest fellow and therefore evil, replies, "Democrat." The car peels away. About an hour later another car comes along. Same thing. About forty minutes or so later another car comes along. Only this time it's being driven by a corn-fed siren of dazzling proportions and a well-displayed cleavage in her homey American fashion. "Republican or Democrat?" she asks. "Um, Republican," he replies.

"Get in, Honey." she says, opening the door for him.

He tells her that he's headed for California and she offers to take him as far as Topeka. She has her skirt hiked up to make driving a bit easier and has rather nicely turned legs. Plus there's that cleavage. A mere three miles into the drive the man asks his benefactor to please pull over.

"What's the matter, Sweetie?" she asks.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. It's just that I've only been a Republican for five minutes and already I want to screw someone."

2003-06-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Andy will just have to wait

Apologies to the vast ignoring masses for skipping out on my posting today. I have tickets to see Roger Clemens slay the St. Louis Cardinals and gain his 300th lifetime victory. I also have to work on my idea for a new superhero: a Jewish boy whose parents forcefully convert him to Catholocism in order to assimilate. He becomes an altar boy and discovers that by drinking holy water he can turn himself into a golem and defeat his enemies while learning all about girls. It is possible to break the spell but only by annointing him with mayonaise. Frankly, I don't how it could miss.

2003-06-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

I hope you don't mind me sharing my continued obsession with our screamingly dysfunctional national discourse one more time but I think Zev Chafets has come up with one of the most amazingly illogical reasons yet for calling Hillary's character into question. He bitterly complained that she was so nice in her interview with Barbara Walters, so free of finger pointing and rancor while talking about her detractors that she was rubbing our faces in it like she's some kind of saint or something and just who does that little minx think she is anyway?

In other words, he was using the fact that she's obviously trying to handle her troubles the best way possible as evidence of her bad character.

The is the best one since Emmett Tyrell complained that the only reason people thought Republicans were a bit excessive in their hatred of the Clintons is because they were victims of the White House spin machine. I don't know about you, but I really wasn't expecting adulthood to be like this. I had this naive concept that adults were going to behave like adults. This of course only goes to show why the judgment of children can never be trusted .

2003-04-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, I’ve been away for a while. Since no one’s reading me anyway I thought I’d hand things over to a dead person. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. Walter Winchell….

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.

Although I naturally expected to go to Heaven following my corporal body’s permanent eviction from 21, it seems that I have been caught in a bizarre nonexistence here at Greenwood Cemetery where I can be described as neither truly living nor truly dead. Let me assure you that it’s stunk even worse than one of Groucho Marx’s old cigars, especially since I seemed completely unable to open my coffin from the inside. Any of those who have come down with a bad case of cabin fever have only gotten the slightest taste of what coffin fever is like. Time ground on seemingly forever with only the purification process to stimulate my senses. Like the kids are saying nowadays, it sucked moose cock big time. But after three decades I somehow finally scratched my way through the insultingly cheap wood paneling whereupon I had the surprising presence of mind to have my graveyard wired for DSL. So, here I am — back with my own blog just a brash and fresh as ever. Watch out world! Here I am!

Flash! A specially selected group of FBI narcotics agents was recently sent to Baghdad to investigate it’s wild drug scene. A mere three-minute search of one of Saddam Hussein’s notorious "pads" found five ounces of cocaine, a half-dozen joints and two bags of heroin. I now have permission to reveal the true reason for the invasion was to finally put a stop to this nefarious drug kingpin’s empire, which has been poisoning our children. This brave act saved them from such typical Democratic traitors as John Kerry who secretly opposed the war in hopes of being able to lick our young's' genitals. Kudos to President Bush and J. Edgar Hoover on this indisputably important achievement!

Casper Churlish and his Hotel Vichy Orchestra will be opening Ed "Machine Gun" Durgan’s Chinese Rathskeller located on 145th Street and Lennox Avenue the Wednesday after next featuring that Boop-oop-a-doop sensation Nirvana Smalling, formerly of the Smalling Sisters (who broke up following a small quarrel over religious practices which is still being investigated). Quipped Machine Gun himself, "I’d like to see some commie stinkball give head the way that little girl does." Machine Gun is both a patriot and a heartless killer. Here’s wishing him all the best.

A certain Andrew Sullivan stopped by to congratulate me on my having escaped the clutches of my dark airless fate and to justify his depraved and immoral lifestyle which is far more repugnant to me than even my own rank and liquefying flesh. Needless to say I would have certainly snapped his neck were it not for the surprising intervention of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn and Cardinal Spellman whom all dropped — or is it dripped? — by for a visit to plead for his life. Among their most compelling arguments was the simple reality that the last thing I needed in my humble crypt was a roommate, especially one who never shuts up and insists on wearing pink hot pants of such appalling scantiness as to leave nothing — that is to say his visibly dangling manhood — to the imagination. Quipped "Tail Gunner Joe," — as his friends are want to call him — in a bizarrely simpering manner, "You should let me handle him. I eat punks like him for breakfast."

Spellman and Cohn would have definitely busted their guts if they hadn't already been eaten away by bacteria.

2003-04-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

George Bush: Master Baiter?

Now that the streets are filled with dancing, jubilant Iraqis I am now going back over my earlier posts with the intention of rewriting them to show my support the war (which I always secretly favored anyway but was too proud to admit). Of course, as any Israeli who remembers their invasion of Lebanon and isn’t Ariel Sharon can tell you, victory can go to hell in a hurry so I’ll have to save most of my earlier work as originally rendered just in case. For if things start going wrong— as I’m almost certain they will someday perhaps very soon for, remember, God is great — they’ll be regarded by future generations as wrong in the particular but amazingly correct in predicting the overall arc of history. In any case, I think it’s only fair that we all get a chance to dance on the graves of each other’s reputation from time to time since fun, unlike the male orgasm, is something that’s meant to be shared by all.

And now that I’ve so graciously admitted defeat I think it’s time that I just as graciously remind everyone that President Bush is a liar and that most of our objections were based on assertions that were clearly untrue or extremely dubious. Saddam was not behind September 11th. There is no proof that he had successfully restarted his nuclear program and the administration’s prime piece of evidence that he had was a blatant forgery. There is no evidence of cooperation between Saddam and Osama. Saddam’s army wasn’t much of a threat to anyone other than the Iraqi people. Because of past history we had, and may still have, every right to be suspicious about the administration’s true motives. There is good reason to believe that this is the first in a series of wars the massive cost of which the President apparently intends to finance with tax cuts for the very wealthy. Those most responsible for September 11th, the Saudis, remain, for the time being anyway, our allies.

And yet the paranoid in me wonders if perhaps the President’s mendacity is all part of some great undetected plan. What I am suggesting is the possibility that the son of a bitch is baiting us. He lies knowing that it will drive his opponents crazy thereby misdirecting their attention so that they wind up marginalized as petty whiners when the dancing starts. After all, the bastard can only run for election one more time.

2003-04-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Balls to you

On the Today show this morning Ann Curry, a hot but severe-looking brunette with pouty lips, was interviewing Martha Burk, the visibly aging doyen of the National Council of Women’s Organizations. Ms. Burk has been making a name for herself lately by calling attention to the excruciatingly vital issue of sex segregation at the Augusta National Golf Club. World War III or IV, depending on how you count, has just premiered its opening act to amuse the Arab street into submissive docility (a strategy of unquestioned efficacy, so be quiet). Obviously with the world otherwise going mad, if there’s one thing we must turn our focus on it’s pressuring a bunch of overprivileged men into sharing space with some overprivileged women. Presumably, those who have had their sanctuary forcibly integrated will be moved to refrain from scratching their privates, sighing from below or telling jokes about certain body parts for which they have developed a longstanding affection as means of celebrating their liberation.

Ms. Burk has a small political problem when it comes to getting people excited. Being excluded from a golf club is a form of discrimination most people can’t identify with and so working up popular umbrage has proven difficult. To overcome that obstacle, Ms. Burk is now peddling the line that the captains of industry such as Christopher Galvin of Motorola by discriminating against women they are discriminating against 50% of their customers.

Actually, the real figure is more like 99.999%. The whole point of having a country club is to exclude people. And these people aren’t just there to exclude women. They’re there to exclude everyone who isn’t part of the power elite. I mean, let’s face it: Middle managers, teachers, secretaries, truckers and other such working slobs just don’t have the same sensibilities. I mean they’re just not their kind of people, if you know what I mean. I may have a dick but I haven’t got a prayer of getting into Augusta and, regardless of your equipment, chances are neither do you. And, besides, any woman who does get into Augusta is several times more likely to be another Catherine Harris than the next Gail Collins. Do we really want to go out of our way to give a person like that more access to power?

Naturally no one questioned Ms. Burk’s logic. There was some doofus from Sports Illustrated but suffice it to say that he was there to give Ms. Burk the same sort of powerful intellectual challenge Juan Williams regularly dishes out to Brit Hume. He was, in short, a genial cipher.

The issue of liberal slanting of news coverage is every bit as real as the issue of right-wing slanting of news coverage. And though liberals aren’t dictating news coverage with anything like the current dominance of the right, they still annoy me and, hence, represent a problem as important as any facing the world today. That and my hangnail.

2003-04-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Really Good Ones Never Know They're Lying

Now that our soldiers are amusing themselves by holding pissing parties in the bathrooms of Saddam’s Imperial Palace Hotel, I think it’s fair to say that, despite one very unseemly and perhaps overcommented upon strategic belch, the war has gone spectacularly well. I find myself honestly cheered and just as honestly disappointed. This last admission would be bound to get the hyenas of the right snapping after my testicals — optimistically assuming, of course, that anyone actually read this blog — so I’d better explain myself just in case anybody ever does. I have no love for that Shit Burger Hussein who is every toxic molecule the brutal dictator that’s been advertised. Nor do I wish American troops harm — that’s a definite even if I do look upon soldering as a career best suited to people who don’t read and are heavily into binge drinking. And, for all I care, Muslim hot heads can go take a flying leap at a rolling Koran. I am happy for the majority of Iraqis who will be relieved of unimaginable brutality and oppression and laugh in scorn at those who are now in danger of getting some of their own medicine. But I desperately wish that something bad, something really degrading and humiliating — and I mean humiliating — would happen to the Bush administration and soon.

Why do I breath such treason? Simple. George W. Bush is every inch the liar that reactionaries so desperately tried to convince us Bill Clinton was. He has lied with such insulting brazenness as to give a tobacco executive a hard-on. The connection between Sadddam and al Qaeda remains unproven. Saddam had nothing to do with September 11th. The evidence to show he was getting nuclear weapons was either misinterpreted or forged. The President kept pushing and pushing for a war and then claimed attacking Iraq was a last resort. Worse, after he gets done lying he invokes God. Not only that, but when it was his turn to serve, not only did President Bush land a suspiciously cushy position as a pilot in the National Guard despite glaringly poor qualifications, after hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent on his training he deserted before completeing the last 18 months of his duty. Such garish hypocricy and hubris must be rewarded. And, someday, it will be.

Unfortunately, George Bush will probably be so protected by his own god-given capacity for denial that he’ll never know it.

2003-04-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

We Bombed in New Delhi

Yet more evidence that the Muslim world is hopeless lacking in humor. According to the irrepressible Greg Palast in his fine book “See No Evil,” Dr. A. Q. Kahn, the “Dr. Strangelove of Pakistan and ‘father’ of the Islamic bomb” had been bucking to have it tested on, um, humans, specifically Indians. On April 25, 1998, Khan met at the Kushab Research Center with General Jehangir Karamat to plan a possible preemptive nuclear strike on New Delhi.

New Delhi? If these boys were any fun at all, they would have picked Bombay.

2003-04-04T01:27:00.000-08:00

This morning I would like to try and amuse you with a brief presentation of a delicious irony I uncovered while engaged in my passion for reading up on obscure bits of Americana that nobody else seems to care about. On June 15, 1971 Janet Uland was bludgeoned to death by one David Purnell, grandson of Benjamin Purnell, founder of the Israelite House of David — a once-notorious religious cult which at one time owned a world-famous amusement park in Benton Harbor, Michigan and also fielded an even more famous barnstorming baseball team that was so preposterously talented they once beat the Saint Louis Cardinals. Following an incompetent defense that was most certainly inspired by the desperation of his case, Purnell was found guilty. The sentence was severe and a masterwork of unintended humor. According to Clare E. Adkin's book "Brother Benjamin — A History of the Israelite House of David, David Purnell was found guilty of murder and "sentenced to prison for the remainder of his natural life with credit for two hundred and seventy three days already served."

2003-04-03T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today’s Item: Did you know that in Mississippi, masturbation is illegal but that incest has its own month? November, in fact, so they can take advantage of Thanksgiving. It’s obvious that I’m going to have to rethink some of my prejudices.

2003-04-01T07:41:00.000-08:00

Dick Jokes

I have been indefensibly remiss in maintaining my little-read blog but as a free-speech enthusiast as well as slave to the whims of Neal Pollack I would like to say a few words about Dick Cheney—the Dean Wormer of the Bush administration and the only Vice President in the entire history of the United States who was honest enough to sneer for his official portrait.

He is a classic comic villain. He’s snide, humorless, arrogant and a huge fuck-up who thinks he’s brilliant. He’s a pompous grump too.

His wife is a professional right-wing social critic who composes smutty novels with scenes of rampant lesbianism which, assuming that homosexuality is genetic, tell us something important about their daughter’s entirely laudable dykedom. Does Dick ever wonder whom Lynn is secretly visualizing when they make love and is he concerned that the person in question has even bigger boobs than he does? Let us hope so.

Another funny thing about Dick Cheney is that his job is to replace the President in case of Death or incapacitation but is himself a walking cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Sort of like replacing an SUV with a Pinto.

And finally, the one thing Dick Cheney doesn’t want to be is a funny man. Dick Cheney is a very funny man and there’s nothing he can do about it.

2003-03-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

The American Way

If America really is the greatest country in the world, what are the others like?

But enough with the unpatriotic cracks. They can only weaken us while giving undue comfort our nation's most dastardly enemies such as the French who have already damaged us upstanding Christ-muffins enough with the nefarious invention of fellatio. The subject I would like to discuss is how the ethos of American cutlure may have quite plausibly shielded us from suffering further monsterous attacks. Have you noticed that it's been over a year-and-a-half since September 11th and that in that time there hasn't been one domestic tragedy courtesy of fundamentalist outsiders? The dog is being wagged but he has not barked. This is startling when you consider that, in the meantime, a lone nut armed only with a quart of gasoline and some matches was able to kill 150 or so Korean subway riders while a couple of nebbishes with just a car and a semiautomatic were able to paralyze the Washington area for weeks. This prompts the question: What exactly have our supposed legions of domestically-situated terrorist been doing all this time? I suppose the Bush administration deserves some credit for making us safer even if they do seem to have a small jones for establishing a police state. But I believe the answer is something far more inspiring: They've been so influenced by the virtues of American culture as to have gone native. Rather than dying in a blaze of glory for Allah, they've decided that they'd rather call in sick so they can stay at home drinking beer and ordering pizza while watching porn videos.

Let those 72 brown-eyed lasses wait. They're all virgins anyway.

Hieronymus Braintree

2003-03-25T08:53:00.000-08:00

Corn-Fed Chickenhawks

The war on terror may not only have fractured historic international alliances that were our babies to begin with, it won’t just inspire the Muslim world to bring even larger acts of violence to our patios, it may not merely contribute to our bankruptcy, it looks as though it could wind up inducing the greatest incidence of domestic sectionalist rancor since the Civil War. Even my jaded eyes are dazzled by the perfection of President Bush’s masterful execution of his office which we all owe to the will of God. The really fun part is that the sectionalist rancor is resultant of that fact that a lot of the country’s rural states are utterly disgusted with us effete New Yorkers’ resistance to the war on terror. Places so Podunk as to be beyond even the remotest possibility of attack by those who fanatically revere the sacred teachings of Mohammed, have felt sufficient umbrage to rebuke as cowards us citizens of Target A. Ignoring as irrelevant the fact that if a nuke does shatter our national sanctity it will be us — or rather the still-cognizant remnants of us —who will be the first to know the advent of human history’s most single spectacular expression of the importance of religious faith in the betterment of world affairs.

Therefore, we have a delicious, irony-rich situation in which the citizenry of our yet-to-be-attacked red states are questioning the patriotism of already-wounded New Yorkers for not supporting a war that many of us suspect will lead directly to our own, destruction. Drink?

Hieronymus Braintree