June 17, 2004 by s.z.

'Hafta' Family Circle Today's Cartoon (You can see it here -- extra credit points to Susie Dow and Pete M. for not working ahead of the group): A finger-pointing Dolly is lecturing a befuddled, unhappy-looking Jeffy: She says, "You hafta learn the alphabet so you'll know when your name is next at graduation." Background: As we have seen before, Jeffy is Keane's stand-in for George W. Bush.  In this strip, the bossy Dolly represents Barbara Bush.  She is telling Dubya that he has to go to Harvard Business School and learn the alphabet (pass his classes with a "C" average), so he can "know when his name is" (continue the Bush family political dynasty) "at the next graduation" (at the next election).  But Jeffy (Dubya) isn't sure he is up to following the life map laid out for him by his mother.  And he's not sure he WANTS to learn the alphabet, much less stick around in preschool long enough to get that preschool diploma.  What he really wants to do is be a beautician (so he can admire people's mouths and faces, and help them to become more lovely) -- but he knows this isn't an acceptable dream, so he bottles up his his feelings of loss and rage and expresses them through invading other countries. Note: Salon reviews three books which try to analyze Bush, and which speculate about what made him the way he is -- this piece offers all kinds of useful background for Family Circle predictions, such as this explanation of why Bush might have been so insistant on tackling Saddam: By Frank's formula, families like the Bushes, where difficult emotions are banished, produce children who cast other people as the symbols of their own unintegrated negative urges and feelings: "I don't want to kill my father, he does, and to prove that I'm devoid of such bad impulses, I'll take him out." But I thought this part was especially apropos for today's cartoon: By most reliable accounts a truly scary piece of work, Barbara Bush is known around the Bush home by the nickname "the Enforcer." (A family friend described her to George W. biographer Bill Minutaglio as "the one who instills fear.") Barbara seems to be the source of George W.'s penchant for teasing, that overtly chummy but covertly hostile technique he especially likes to use on the press, who alarm and intimidate him. The animosity swirling beneath the placid surface of the Bush family keeps leaking out in little puffs of chilly spite disguised as jokes ... Prediction: Following his failure to get reelected, George will go back on the sauce.  After being chewed out for taking brother Jeb's son along for a night of carousing, George will crash through some garbage cans and challenging his mother to "go mano a mano right here."  She will, and she'll clean his clock.  This will help George to get in touch with his feminine side, and he'll finally have the courage to open that salon he's always dreamed of.  6:55:26 AM

Five Degrees of Seb 1. From our friend Seb at Sadly, No! we learned the exciting news that Michelle Malkin has a blog (we already knew that she learned her research skills from Ann Coulter).   Here is one of our favorite entries from her spanking new site (which she apparently writes with a Parker pen, if you can believe the graphics): CURSE OF THE BLABBERMOUTHS Just got off deadline. So Drudge reports that the loose-lipped scribes at Time Magazine have divulged Dick Cheney's secret location. Funny how the hysterical privocrats - the brilliant Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald's term - shrug their shoulders at the casual disclosure of vital national security information. Who cares about the safety of the Vice President...the libraries aren't safe! Yes, who cares about the safety of the Vice President, protected by only a mountain fortress, tons of concrete and super weapons, the Secret Service, and a big chunk of the U.S. Army?  Now that Time has revealed where Dick was hiding after 9/11, it's clear that his days are numbered (sure, the death certificate will say "heart attack," but we'll know that his demise was actually caused by al-Qaeda and the loose-lipped scribes at Time).  Bush Administration sources say Time is also responsible for the death of Ann Frank. 5:54:02 AM

2.  Included on Michelle's blogroll is the Inkwell (which, as you will recall, is the blog of Independent Women's Foundation, and is run by the sinister Charlotte twins).   Let's pay it a visit, and share in the excitement as Charlotte A. presents a letter from a reader!  (And I thought that Michelle and I were the Inkwell's only readers.)  "I am writing to discuss the pervasiveness of the liberal bias in todays colleges. At my college I am forced to listen to my professors’ opinions and constantly have socialism shoved down my throat. Students today need to receive an unbiased education and to obtain a well-rounded look at the world we will be entering, which includes being presented with both sides of world and national issues. This includes both liberal and (gasp) conservative ideas. I often find that I have to research on my own to get the whole picture, while I am constantly having liberal opinions drilled into me through the lectures and reading material." Gee, another conservative having stuff shoved down her throat -- and this one also gets "drilled."  Somebody attending one of nation's liberal mind dungeons might want to write a socialist/Freudian thesis about the psycho/sexual causes of conservatism in college students.  And Charlotte will help you compile data, because she's asking for further examples of conservative throat-shoving:  Fear not, Brittany, we at the IWF are constantly on the alert for instances of radical-left professors shoving their prejudices down students’ throats. Please, readers, forward us your campus outrages. You heard the lady.  So, start composing your campus outrages, so we can forward them to Charlotte.  Here's mine: Dear Inkwell, My college offers a degree in Liberal Studies, but not one in Conservative Studies -- what clearer evidence of bias do you need.  Plus, once I had a history professor tell us that America dropped an atomic bomb on a Japanese city.  Why do liberals always try to ruin WWII by spreading lies like this?  And to top it all off, my college even sponsored a French Club!!! I am sick and tired of having organs of unpatriotism shoved down my throat.  I hope the CWF can do something to the verbal and oral abuses on our campuses. So, what's your story of outrage and things being shoved down your throat? 5:53:38 AM

3.   Also included on Michelle's blogroll (along with the usual suspects) we find a Sadly, No! favorite: Adam Yoshida! Since we hadn't visited Adam for months, we decided to pay him a visit.  His most recent post, Plamegate Nonsense, indicates that he hasn't changed much since we last saw him. As I predicted almost a year ago, a cadre of Democrats continue to pound away on the Valerie Plame issue, with the same sort of people who consider Jane Fonda’s jaunt in Hanoi to be an exercise in patriotism ranting about Republican “treason.” Well, I say, if any “treason” occurred here, it was certainly not on the Republican side. Whoever “outed” Ms. Plame as an employee of the CIA (assuming, of course, that it was someone in the White House) committed an act of true patriotism: bringing into the light of day the activities of an individual who was, quite clearly, obstructing US intelligence efforts. Gee, I wonder if Scooter's lawyer has considered the Yoshida Defense: "Your honor, yes my client may have technically committed a felony, but he did it because he knew that Ms. Plame was a Soviet mole who was secretly trying to undermine the already planned Iraq war by getting her husband to correctly report that Saddam wasn't attempting to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger.  Revealing her cover to Bob Novak was the only way he could keep her from traiterously reporting that there were no WMDs in Iraq, thus scuttling the invasion completely." Adam then details a bunch of misinformation and nonsense which we've dealt with previously (including the sleazy conjecture that Valerie probably blew her own cover by dating Senior Administration Officials).  But then Adam redeems it all with a fresh conclusion: that the real lesson we should learn from the Plame Affair is that the CIA should stop recrutiing smart people and women with children, and instead hire Freepers.  Oh, and CIA headquarters should be moved to, say, Canada, so its employees couldn't attend parties. In fact, the entire “Plamegate” affair is best an example of what’s wrong with a large part of the CIA. The Agency has, through the years, seemingly continued its old practice of recruiting largely from elite universities and largely people with a background in economics, or languages, or political science. In short, they’re recruiting liberals. For all the popular image of the CIA as an organization populated by dark reactionaries who’ve stepped right out of late Cold War-era thrillers, the culture of the CIA appears to, in fact, be not all that unlike that of any other elite modern organization (say, IBM or Merrill-Lynch). This is a problem. The idea of an intelligence agency populated with modern working women with twins parked in day care is absurd. I, for one, would be a lot more comfortable with a CIA full of angry super-patriots prepared to do anything it takes to advance the American cause. Additionally, the CIA ought not be headquartered anywhere near Washington, as another major problem appears to be that employees of the Agency end up becoming part of the Washington social whirl. I'm sure the CIA would welcome Adam's application (since the "angry super-patriot friendless loner obsessed nut" is exactly the personality profile they look for in their employees) if only he weren't a foreigner.  Damn his mother for not having the foresight to cross the border when she felt her water break 5:52:56 AM

4. And who's the first person who comes to mind when we think of Seb?  Amber Pawlik, of course!  While she apparently hasn't written any columns since coming down with mono, a visit to her site indicates that she is back to blogging (or ranting).  And one thing on her mind is what she can write about in future columns: I'm trying to think of articles to write. For some reason, I just feel like everything I say is something I already said. But, even so, that may not be a bad thing as repeating a consistent message is key to success. But, I really do prefer to say something new or insightful, and also to put in the necessary research and work to make thorough articles. Some article ideas I had: "Why Democrats Hate Guns and War" - Essentially, they always feel like the underdog, so they feel they will be on the receiving end of a gun or war. Also, they have a view of man as being irrational, therefore they believe that people who have guns will naturally turn them on each other, in a violent way. "Common characteristics of Democrats" - Liars, thieves, detached from reality, don't care about their or the country's self-interest, easily angered, among others. "Time to Call Democrats for what they are" - It is not the Republicans, but in fact the Democrats who are racists, womanizers, and anti-semites. From Bill Clinton to Democrat-led racist political policy to their hatred of Jews and Israel, it's pretty obvious Democrats *are* everything they accuse Republican of being. I don't really know why I have this anti-Democrat kick going. Probably just because they are stupid, and not only are their politics stupid, but it's hard to deal with them in everyday life. I don't really consider the Democrat party a party of the people anymore, nor do I consider the socialist Democrats (they are not "liberal", that's just a euphemism for socialist anymore) "nice people who are misguided." I consider them to be pure, raw evil, who want to destroy everything rational or beautiful in sight: success, prosperity, even the very security of the country.   Alas, Ann Coulter has already written all these articles, and has already denounced liberals as being pure evil who want to destory everything -- and Ann will scratch Amber's eyes out if she learns that Amber is trying to horn in on her territory.  So, I think Amber should stick to her specialty: giving young women advice about how too much sex will turn them into lesbians, and how they should find an overgrown 4-year-old to love.  And Amber now has practical experience to back-up her theorizing -- for, at age 24, she has found true love and has a perfect relationship that we should all emulate (or at least envy).  But it seems that she won't be sharing her personal life with us anymore because of an experience she had at a wedding last week.  See, Amber was telling a male friend about the great relationship she has with her boyfriend ("The things that really satisfied me in my relationship was feeling like I was physically protected from various threatining things by my boyfriend"). But the guy does not applaud her being half of the world's ideal couple, but instead wounds her to the quick by insinuating that she might not be quite so twitterpated in twenty years ("It upset me, because I opened up something private and personal, and he spat on it").  This causes Amber to vow to never talk about her boyfriend again.  ("Besides, as far as my relationship with my boyfriend, I don't have to tell people it's great; anyone with two eyes can see that.")  So, I guess we'll just have to imagine all the nasty details from now on.  But at least she does provide recipes (Cheesy Hashbrowns, made from "Oneida" brand frozen potatoes, Velveeta, and mayonnaise, sounds like a good candidate for the Regrettable Food Project, if we ever start that up again). 5:52:26 AM

5.  Amber's latest post starts with a reminder of "just how immature the left really is," as typified by an email she received: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, I figured that you were too stupid and ignorant to respond to my last e-mail! At a loss for words, huh? Well, I gues that means I WAS RIGHT!!!!! Tootles beeyotch!   While we can't prove anything, we are pretty sure that Seb wrote this (and we aren't just saying this because after we laboriously read and commented on that Adam Yoshida post, we found that Seb had alreadysummarized it ("Valerie Plame is a slut.") But Seb also has "YoshiRadio", so you might want to check it out, even if he is, as Amber put it, "an immature little girl." 4:17:07 AM

Name That Pundit! "He’s kind of a glib guy, and he’s a better writer than most of them. And that gets you a long way on that side," says Joe Conason, a liberal columnist for the New York Observer and Salon. "I mean, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter can’t write. The thing he shares with the rest of them, obviously, is that he has no idea of limits or boundaries or decency." Hint: the Boston Phoenix calls him "the most toxic right-wing pundit you’ve never heard of" -- but sadly, we've heard of him. Oh, and speaking of Ann, here's an example of her writing (taken from this week's column): Most peculiar, the passing of America's most pro-life president is supposed to be a clarion call for conservatives to support the disemboweling of human embryos -- in contrast to that heartless brute President Bush always prattling on about the value of human life. Of course, stem cells are taken from embryos that are only a few days old, when they are "no bigger than a pinprick"; they don't have bowels. But let's read some more of Ann's column, and note her passive-agressive dissing of Nancy Reagan for failing to support Ronnie's real son, George W. Bush, as he tries to protect life (but only fertilized egg-life, of course): Someone persuaded poor, dear Nancy Reagan that research on human embryos might have saved her Ronnie from Alzheimer's. Now the rest of us are supposed to shut up because the wife of America's greatest president (oh, save your breath, girls!) supports stem-cell research. [...] But you can't blame Nancy. As everyone saw once again last week, she's still madly in love with the guy. She'd probably support harvesting full-grown, living humans if it would bring back Ronnie.  Of course, I thought it was cute and not creepy that she consulted an astrologer about Reagan's schedule after he was shot. That didn't make astrology a hard science. While Joe Conason is right about Ann's lack of literary skills, I think he would agree that she is a past master at cattiness. 3:27:01 AM