May 26, 2004 by s.z.

Family Circus of Fate Today's comic (go here if you don't have the paper handy) shows a cynical Billy and a babbling P.J.  The tot's arms are extended, presumably to help him keep his balance --  indicating that he's either just learning to walk, or drunk. Billy delivers the caption: "P. J.'s lucky.  Almost everything is new to him." So, what does it mean?  I think it's advice for how to be able to appreciate Bush's speech from Monday night -- be like a little child, open and trusting, and totally innocent of any previous knowledge.  And then, lucky you, the speech will seem new to you, and you might be impressed by it. Well, that was my interpretation, but I'm open to other possibilities. 7:39:15 AM

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Townhall: Skanks Edition 'Nuff said.  Let's dig right in. Michelle Malkin Michelle tells off "The Skanks on Capitol Hill": Washingtonienne (Jessica Cutler) and Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox). Cutler, who aspired to be a journalist, spouted: "I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: How can anybody live on $25K/year??" When I was 24 and making less than that, I did it by eating Spaghetti-O's, Ramen noodles and Swanson pot pies for dinner; driving a Toyota Tercel with no air conditioning; and sleeping on a $30 futon. I did it the way most parents teach their daughters to succeed: through hard work, thrift, faith and perseverance. Michelle got Swanson meat pies and Spaghetti-Os?  When I was young and poor, I survived by eating bugs and dirt; walking everywhere I needed to go (through six feet of snow, without shoes); and working three back-to-back shifts (we didn't HAVE sleep back then).   I did it the way most parents teach their daughters to succeed: by hooking up with a conservative policy institute when I was 25 and riding the right-wing gravy train for the rest of my life.  No wait, that's what Michelle did -- I worked for a living.  I don't usually write about such inside-the-Beltway gossip, but Cutler's indecent conduct, glib rationalizations and in-your-face shamelessness, and the accompanying feeding frenzy over her, deserve a firm outside-the-Beltway lashing. Oooh, doesn't THAT sound like a profitable porn site: "Asian Bitch Gives Firm Out-of-the-Beltway Lashings to Capitol Hill Skank."  Cutler and Cox, 31, appeared together on Fox News Channel this week, where they giggled and guffawed and rolled their eyes as they reveled in their sleazy celebrity.  When Fox anchor Brigitte Quinn (who deserves a medal for her restraint) asked Cutler whether her parents knew about her raunchy sex life, she snorted: "They do now!" . . . This female Beavis and Butthead duo illustrate what normal Americans hate about the Capitol scene: narcissism, moral bankruptcy and self-congratulatory media-political incest. Michelle's just jealous because they didn't invite her to be on Fox News with them.  And she's been practicing the slutty look really hard! The Washington Post's legitimization of this shallow "story" illustrates something else: the mainstream media's perverted moral values. The paper's recent profiles and features of social conservatives drip with condescension and ridicule. Religious activists are portrayed as intolerant homophobes; Republicans as gun-toting rubes; abstinence promoters as freaks. But give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn't care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can't wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite. Well, I could point out that the Post's story on Cutler was hardly designed to make her look good, that Michelle has no reason to be dragging Wonkette's parents into this, and that I find the media's portrayal of intolerant homophobes, gun-toting rubes, and freaks to be quite fair.  But instead, I will just savor the mayhem which will assuredly come when Wonkette finds out that Michelle called her a "trash-mouthed skank." Jonah Goldberg Jonah claims (and he's probably right) that Fritz Hollings was being foolish rather than anti-Semitic when he said that Bush went to war with Iraq to win the Jewish vote. First of all, if Hollings is right, then all of the other nutso conspiracy theories, many of which he's peddled - about Halliburton, Bush's desire for vengeance for his father's sake, distracting voters from the economy, boosting his poll numbers - are wrong. More important, the notion that Bush and Karl Rove are pinning their reelection hopes on winning 10 percent or 20 percent of the Jewish vote by getting America embroiled in a risky, dangerous and costly war is batty. Yes, it is batty, especially because everyone knows that Bush and Karl Rove are pinning their reelection hopes on winning 90 or 95% of the Evangelical vote.  And since the Evangelicals believe that Jesus won't return to Earth until Israel has regained its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle East) and fought the legions of the antichrist, then it would have made more sense for the Senator to claim Bush went to war to help usher in Armageddon. (The Senator should read this Axis of Logic article for more details.) Thomas E. Sowell Thomas says that Kerry is a two-faced, opportunistic, unprincipled, lying, liberal phony who even pronounces his wife's name the American way in order to try to win votes.  Thomas also claims that Kerry isn't actually black.  Senator Kerry has no choice but to pretend to be something that he is not, both personally and politically. An aloof and self-infatuated man who is not liked even by fellow Democrats in the Senate, Kerry has to learn to smile and act like a regular guy during the election campaign. Wow, serving in elected positions for 20 years, you'd think that Kerry would have learned this before now.  Nothing is more phony than Kerry's statement that he would welcome being considered the second "black" president -- Bill Clinton having been considered the first. Yes, that IS phony because the first "black" president was considered to be Richard Nixon. But when Thomas implied that Kerry was two-faced, he didn't mention that Kerry has two perfectly good kidneys, and so could sell one to help with his campaign expenses. Ben Shapiro Per Ben, the nation's universities are run by liberals.  Hey, he should write a book about that! Graduation ceremonies themselves are being used to pound home some final liberal body blows. At the 50 highest-ranked undergraduate universities (according to U.S. News & World Report), liberals overwhelmingly dominate the list of graduation speakers. Of the 40 universities where commencement-speaker information was available, 29 speakers are politically partisan. Twenty-one of those 29 -- 72 percent -- are liberal.   [...]  You would think that graduations, at least, would be non-political.  Per the press, "Bush, his wife and his officials scheduled 31 graduation speeches this year, 15 of them in so-called battleground states where the presidential race is close."  So tell me about non-political graduations, Benny boy. Linda Chavez Linda isn't going to spend her hard-earned money for movie tickets (even discounted  senior citizen ones) and get propagandized.  She goes to Townhall for that.  And that's why she's mad that movies were made about Bush's ties to the Saudis, global warming, and gay ogre marriage. Remember when movies aimed to entertain? You could take the whole family, from grandma to the kids, and escape the quotidian for the silver screen, watching bigger-than-life heroes engage in daring and admirable deeds. Or you could share a few G-rated laughs without worrying about offensive double-entendres or scatological references. No, I can't remember that time.  But Linda is older than me, so maybe she can recall those halcyon pre-Birth of a Nation days. Ryan Zempel Ryan is also up-in-arms about The Day After Tomorrow, which is apparently part of some big liberal plot to make people believe in the environment -- you know, through the use of special effects.  It was made by the same guy who was in charge of that liberal plot to get Bush into office by having aliens blow up the Clinton White House.  (Hey, how come I never get invited to join these liberal plots?) One might suspect that the filmmakers themselves are liberal (initial news reports indicate that the Pope is, indeed, Catholic), given that the movie seems to have been tailor-made to accomplish their dubious aims. Despite the miserable propaganda failure the movie will be, Bush-hating liberals will still love it -- there are plenty of partisan potshots to keep them happy (I'd recommend conservatives sit this one out). The most obvious (liberals have never been ones for subtlety) is the valiant, prescient hero's nemesis, who just happens to be a Dick Cheney look-alike VP who tells the president what to do and who has this bizarre concern for the actual economic effect of the "Kyoto Accord" (those money-grubbing conservatives...). Hey, Ryan, all evil white men of a certain age look like Dick, so maybe the movie makers didn't actually mean anything by it. Brent Bozell I am shocked, SHOCKED to learn that Brent has found signs of liberal bias in the media. For liberal tilt, look no further than this number: 55 percent of national reporters think they haven't been "critical enough" of President Bush. After the media's aggressive air war on the White House this year, the only way they could be tougher would be to physically beat the president with clubs and baseball bats. But that's precisely the attitude of the liberal media elite. Bush isn't a completely roasted turkey yet. Turn up the oven another notch.  Yes, if, now that we're in a mess, many members of the media realize that they didn't ask enough hard questions about the President's reasons for invading Iraq and his plans for reconstructing the country, then it means they want to beat the president with baseball bats.  I'm sure Brent will pass along his information to the Secret Service. Walter E. Williams Walter says that some black kids are just hopeless, and we should quit trying to educate them so we can concentrate on the others.  See, our schools are the equivilent of a terrorist disaster, and we just don't have the time and resouces to teach every child. Educational triage would acknowledge that there are black youngsters who cannot benefit academically no matter how many educational resources are spent on them. They have little or no family support. Their very presence in school, through disruptive and criminal behavior, makes education impossible for others. Spending resources on these youngsters is the educational equivalent of medical practitioners spending resources on disaster victims who'll die even if treated. These youngsters should be removed and not allowed to take resources from and make education impossible for those who do have a chance for academic achievement.  Some might suggest that the idea of educational triage represents a callous lack of concern for students most in need. But would that same argument make sense when there's a terrorist or battlefield disaster? In other words, would it also be seen as callous for doctors not to treat victims most in need -- those who're going to die anyway? Efficiency criterion dictates that resources be allotted to those who can best use the resources as opposed to those who best need it.   What do we do with those kids we remove from our schools?  Well, doctors sometimes perform mercy killings on those who have no hope of survival.  And since we are in a terrorist disaster, I guess we might consider euthanizing the unfit, for the good of everyone else. Anyway, Townhall.  Not just for skanks anymore. 3:37:49 AM

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Lies and the Lying Liars Who Keep Telling Them As you will recall, this is the "Doors Concert/Marijuana Smoke" story Bill O'Reilly recounted on Sunday in Michigan, as reported by the Herald-Palladium: To explain his own stance, O'Reilly told the crowd at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center an anecdote from his past. As a teenager, he had been a fan of the popular rock band The Doors. Attending one of their concerts, he said he saw standing in front of him a family of four: a mother, father, and two young boys about 10 to 12 years old. Standing in front of them was a man smoking marijuana, and the smoke was drifting into the faces of the family. The mother tapped the man on the shoulder and asked him to put out the joint, but the man refused, uttering an obscenity. O'Reilly - there with a friend, "the Bear, who looked like a biker" - then tapped the man on the shoulder and told him, "you're gonna put it out, or you're gonna swallow it." Amidst laughter and applause from the crowd, O'Reilly squinted his blue eyes and said, "That guy did nothing (without the threat of physical force), because he lived in an 'open society.'" Here's the story he reportedly told on "The O'Reilly Factor" on 26 August, 2003: I went to a rock concert the other night, The Doors -- not so great – and in front of me are two boys about nine and 11 years old, sitting next to their parents. In front of them was a guy who lights up a marijuana cigarette. The father says nothing. But the mother taps the guy on the shoulder and says will you please not smoke that in front of my kids. The doper sneers at the woman, whereupon I, your humble correspondent, get involved. Thirty seconds later, after some friendly persuasion, the joint is on the floor. After the concert was over the mom thanked me. But I was stunned that the father just stood there and didn't do a thing. Barbaric behavior will continue in this country until good people do something about it. And, just to make sure we're not taking Bill out of context or anything, here's part of the "Talking Points Memo" transcript dated 28 August, 2003:  If you take the God factor out of the country, that agenda is easier to impose.  But that would lead to social chaos. Last night, I told you about a guy who lit up a marijuana cigarette in front of two young boys at a rock concert.  Now I made the idiot put it out, but he didn't want to.  And if drugs ever become legalized, he'll be able to blow that pot smoke right in your kids' face.  Is that the kind of society you want, where any kind of boorish behavior is acceptable? So, Bill was at a Doors concert as a teen in the '60s when some jerk blew marijuana smoke in the faces of a family with two preteen boys.  The mother asked him to put it out, but he refused and uttered a profanity.  So Bill, there with his Biker-looking friend "Bear," tapped the jerk on the shoulder and threatened to make the guy swallow his joint if he didn't put it out.  Children saved and civility restored.   Then, in 2003, Bill went to a concert by "The Doors of the 21st Century" (as you might imagine, Jim Morrision is not involved with the project).  Some jerk was smoking marijuana in front of of a family with two preteen boys.  The mother asked the guy to put it out, but the guy just sneered at her.  So Bill tapped him on the shoulder and used "friendly persuasion" to make the guy put it out.  The mother later thanked Bill for saving her children and being a real man, unlike her husband. Isn't that, like, the biggest coincidence you've ever heard of?  Bill attended two Doors concerts, decades apart, and at both of them a family with two preteen kids is in front of him.  What are the odds?  Oh, and what do you think ever happened to Bear?  My guess is that he either died of alcohol poisoning, or was killed in 'Nam.  I imagine that Bill did what he did at the 2003 concert as a memorial to Bear.  I wonder if Bill has any more Bear stories he could share with us. Anyway, like Bill says, these stories prove that we need to install Ten Commandment monuments in all concert venues, delegalize medical marijuana, and get rid of quasi-socialism.  Because it sounds like there is an epidemic of stupid people who take their young children to Doors concerts, where dopers blow marijuana smoke on them. * Thanks to reader Michael (in D.C.) for providing the link to a great Fanatical Apathy post from August 2003 which dissects Bill's (original) story.  StickyBuffalo and O'Reilly Watch also have posts which discuss it. 1:53:57 AM