December 21, 2004 by s.z.

Who Said It ? (Doghouse Riley Birthday Edition) First, let's all wish Doghouse Riley many happy returns of the day.  It must be hard to have a natal day that's sandwiched in between Yosefday and Festivus -- so we don't want Doghouse to feel like he's any less special just because his brithday is eclipsed by more important events, like the First Day of Winter.  So, Happy Birthday to Doghouse, one of our favorite commenters, and, in our opinion, the long-awaited Anti-Doug Giles whom the scriptures and astrologers promised would be born about this time of year. Now, on to "Who Said It?"  As almost everybody said (but Cash Flagg said it first), our last Mystery Guest was Neil Bush.  I got the text of that "Dear Jane" email he sent to Sharon from an amusing piece by Evelyn Pringle, who adds: Of course, Neil forgot to mention a few things in the email. Like he didn't tell Sharon about his Asian sex romps or that he was already having an affair with Maria Anderson, wife of Robert Andrews, a woman Sharon once regarded as a friend, but who she would later call "Neil's Mexican whore." In fact, he forgot to mention quite a few things. A review of exhibits from Maria's divorce deposition, reveals that at the same time that Neil penning the Dear John email to Sharon, he was also writing love letters to Maria, evidently looking to get his "core needs" met with her. In one email he tells Maria, "My heart is breaking with solitude. I can't wait to be free to dedicate all of my passion to love you. I hurt to have you in my arms, to make love with you and be a part of you  See, guys, being able to write mushy email is the secret to getting girls, especially married employees of Barbara Bush, and Thai hookers . But Chris V. brought up a good point: just who is Jamal Daniel?  Sure, he sounds like another adopted son who just came out of the closet and is penning a book about growing up with a homophobic, hypocritical, evangelical, wingnutty preacher for a father -- but is he? Apparently not. He is, instead, just another guy seeking to make money from the Iraq war and from his connections with the Bush White House. Here's part of a London Financial Times story: Neil Bush, a younger brother of US President George W. Bush, has had a $60,000-a-year employment contract with a top adviser to a Washington-based consulting firm set up this year to help companies secure contracts in Iraq. Mr. Bush disclosed the payments during divorce proceedings in March from his now ex-wife, Sharon. The divorce was finalised in April and the court papers were disclosed by the Houston Chronicle this week. Mr Bush said he was co-chairman of Crest Investment Corporation, a company based in Houston, Texas, that invests in energy and other ventures. For this he received $15,000 every three months for working an average three or four hours a week. The other co-chairman and principal of Crest is Jamal Daniel, a Syrian-American who is an advisory board member of New Bridge Strategies, a company set up this year by a group of businessmen with close links to the Bush family or administrations. Its chairman is Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's campaign director in the 2000 presidential elections. [...] On its website, New Bridge describes itself as being created to "take advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the US-led war in Iraq". And here's more of the story: Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with the younger brother of President George W. Bush to seek business in the Middle East, an FT investigation has found.   John Howland, the company president, and Jamal Daniel, a principal, have maintained an important business relationship with Neil Bush stretching back several years. In Mr Daniel's case, the relationship spans more than a decade, with his French office arranging a trip for Mr Bush's family to Disneyland Paris in 1992, while his father, George H.W.Bush, was president.  On several occasions, the two have attempted to exploit their association with the president's brother to help win business and investors.  [...] New Bridge was established in May and came to public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board - most linked to one or other Bush administration or the to family itself. Those include Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's presidential campaign manager, and Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H.W. Bush aids. So you can understand why Neil wrote to Sharon, "your belief that it was easy to make money, and that Jamal Daniel's plotting or Dad's influence will be the magic answer to our financial woes all cause me consternation." See, he just wanted to make an honest living without resorting to any plotting or influence, but it was SHARON who made him become the cheaper, sleazier Billy Carter.  Presumably, she was also behind the Silverado debacle. But now that Neil is married to his former mistress Maria, we hope the consternation has ended, and we're sure that we'll never hear of him in connection with anything corrupt or crooked ever again. Anyway, who said this: Every time an elitist condemns a person of faith as a "theocrat," or a scientist rejects an argument against embryonic stem cell research as a "fundamentalists' position,"  . . .I'll be there.   Sorry!  Back to the Mystery Guest: the effort to expel faith from the public square advances, and not via debate, but via the sneer. We know we've quoted this guy several times before, but he just keeps saying such stupid things that we can't resist sneering.  And adding to our irritation with him, he just came out with a really annoying book in July and he has another one scheduled for release next month (it's about "Blog").  Here's part of the publisher's copy: Up until now no influential blogger has written a definitive book about this phenomenon. Since [Mystery Guest's] blog site was launched in early 2002, more than 10 million people have visited this site. Why does this visitor traffic matter? People’s attentions are up for grabs. If you depend upon the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you. The race is underway, though, to gain mindspace and to be part of the blogosphere readers’ habits and to position yourself as well as your business or organization at the forefront of this information movement.  So, see, we HAVE to keep quoting him, because the race is underway for your mindspace, and we have to position ourself at the forefront of maximizing the syngery of customer service-centered excellence in mocking him, because people's attentions are up for grabs. UPDATE 12/22/04: Mr. Doghouse Riley emailed me and asked me to thank you all for the kind birthday wishes.  He is most appreciative.  I believe that he would probably stand you all to a round of drinks, if you happened to be in his town, and met him in his favorite drinking establishment, and happened to know who he was, and such. 4:31:18 AM

The War Continues The War Against Christmas, that is.  Sure, you haven't noticed it, but that's because you're not down in the trenches, like Derb. CHRISTMAS VS. HOLIDAYS [John Derbyshire] Interesting new angle on this at the weekend. Boris was taking me for my daily walkies when, coming towards me, I saw three persons. Two of them were "nodding neighbors" -- I mean, we smile and greet each other, know each other's names, but have no other intercourse. The husband is a college professor, the wife I don't know. They are very "blue" and their car bumper still sported a Kerry sticker last time I looked. The third member of their party was a guy I do not know, but whose turn-out fairly screamed "ACADEMIC!" Beard, long hair, open plaid shirt, fuzzy sweater, jeans pitched at just the right level of college-teacher scruffiness, sneakers ditto. Well, as they came up to me the husband & wife both smiled & said "Hello!" I chirped back: "Hello! Merry Christmas!" Stony silence. Smiles vanished. So apparently the blues are just as ticked of by the reds' "Merry Christmas" as the reds are by the blues' "Happy Holidays." Two nations. Mars & Venus. Guelphs & Ghibellines. Mets and Yankees.... (These three, I am willing to bet, are Mets.) Posted at 11:29 AM And that guy with the beard, long hair, and scruffy jeans and sneakers was ... Jesus.  Now you know the REST of the story. Okay, here's what I really think happened: the neighbors pleasantly said "hello" to someone who looked familiar, but it wasn't until they heard his British accent did they realize that it was the horrible John Derbyshire.  Then they all froze, realizing that they had actually spoke to the guy whose favorite topic is "buggery." Alternate theory: since last weekend WASN'T Christmas, when Derb said "Merry Christmas" instead of something like "I hope you have a Merry Christmas," the neighbors thought he was crazy. But Derb's anecdote does show that there rally are two nations: normal people and people who try to use a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ as an occasion for dispute, judging others, and for taking offense.  But speaking of wingnuts, Bill O'Reilly is STILL talking about "the siege on Christmas."  Here's part of Monday's posted agenda for "The O'Reilly, Lone Defender of Christmas, Factor". Christmas under siege... The debate over Christmas continues in this country as we countdown to December 25. So why are some people attacking O'Reilly for defending Christmas? We'll have the latest. So, why ARE some people attacking Bill?  My guess: because he's an annoying, pompous, lying twit.  I did try to watch the program to gather definitive info, but after listening to Bill O'Reilly explain "Islamofascism's" hatred of America to Deepak Chopra, I got annoyed and turned off the TV.  (When Chopra said that poverty is a large part of the problem, and Bill isn't addressing it, Bill replied, "The poor will always be with us, as the Bible says, so what are you gonna do?") But I did read the transcript of Friday's "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" for some clues about the vicious secular attacks on Bill and Jesus: As you know, we have been crusading for the Christian symbols of Christmas this season. We feel they should be displayed publicly, if other symbols of the season are displayed. Now one of the nutty left-wing Web sites —and there are so many—put forth that my analysis is based upon — ready— selling Christmas gifts on billoreilly.com. What the Web site doesn't tell you is that the money I make from billoreilly.com goes to charity. But, hey, honesty has never been the hallmark of the nutty left-wing Web sites. Of course, that's ridiculous, but so is being nutty. Now these people are truly pathetic. I guess I should be nicer. It's Christmastime. A quick Google search reveals that the nutty left-wing Web site is probably Salon.  Jerome Eric Copulsky has an opinion piece there called "Bill O'Reilly Hung Up On Me" -- so he and everybody else associated with Salon are presumably the "truly pathetic" people that Bill was bitching about.  Per the article, after hearing Bill tell the Jewish caller to go to Israel if he didn't like Christmas, Copulsky called Bill's radio show to float the idea that because of the separation of church and state, a holiday should have a secular purpose if it's going to be a national holida -- so the day has already been "secularized" by the U.S. government.  Here's what happened next: O'Reilly responded by stating that by deeming Christmas a national holiday the United States was honoring the "philosopher" Jesus. This recognition, O'Reilly continued, was similar to the recognition afforded to Martin Luther King Jr. The problem with this view, of course, is that, to most Christians, Jesus is not a simply a "philosopher," a thinker such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, John Locke or even St. Thomas Aquinas, for that matter. [...] If one is merely celebrating Jesus as a philosopher, albeit as a philosopher whose thought has significantly shaped American values, one is recognizing him merely as a moral teacher and as a human being. To do so is to water down the theological claim at the core of the holiday. Which is, one might argue, a way of "secularizing" Jesus and his message. One would think that O'Reilly would denounce this as part of the secularist agenda. I tried to make this point with O'Reilly, but at that moment my call was unfortunately cut off. Funny how that happened, isn't it?  But since Bill presumably read Copulsky's piece on the nutty left-wing Web site, he could have addressed Copulsky's point on his TV show.  Instead he talked about this part of it: But insofar as the courts have determined that there is a "secular" purpose to Christmas, it is important to take into account what that purpose might be. This secular dimension, one might think, is to foster a communal spirit of good will, and to promote holiday spending. O'Reilly may have missed the former but he clearly understands the latter aspect of the Christmas holiday, for he did not give up a chance to hawk his "Factor Gear," which he claimed would make excellent presents, not only for Christmas, but for Chanukah and Kwanzaa as well. Apparently, when it comes to cold, hard cash, these holidays are full-fledged American. That Bill donates his personal profits from "Factor Gear" to his personal choice of charities (for his own personal motivations, which might include giving alms in public to be seen of men) doesn't change the fact that he is willing to recognize the existance of holidays other than Christmas when it suits his own purposes. But let's let Copulsky have the last word: In the end, I wish that O'Reilly had kept me on the line so that we could have debated this question more fully. For one finds it somewhat paradoxical that in order to keep the Christ in Christmas, O'Reilly has maintained that the national holiday honors a philosopher. Unless he has been deliberately disingenuous here, self-professed Roman Catholic Bill O'Reilly may be something other than a mere secularist; he may be a heretic. Well, after reading what he talks about on the phone, it's clear that Bill is not going to be canonized any time soon.  2:52:21 AM