I Was Wrong About This Guy

A long time ago I gave Dennis Miller a hard time. I still believe that the "Just For Men" thing in the beard was bad and made him look like a Saudi royal walking through a flowerbed holding hands with George W. Bush, but I have adjusted my views on his talents. I thought of Miller in the same way you think of a washed-up rock act that turns to country music because it's easy money; kind of like what Skynyrd is doing hanging around with Hannity. I thought, "Oh, failed comedian turns to the right wing for an audience that will lap up some easy jokes and give him a paycheck."

He didn't work out on Monday Night Football, where his obscure cultural references and intellectually-tinged asides were lost on his co-hosts and most of the audience. He didn't work out in his own late-night TV talk show. So it seemed like Dennis was grabbing for whatever he could when he showed up as a right-leaning talk-radio host.

But I've been listening to him every day during "exercise time" on the Blowflex out in the garage, and the guy - as he himself might say - "has some chops." He still has that funny habit of referring to men as "cats" and addressing women as "doll-face," but those idiosyncrasies are as endearing as they are goofy and they're part of the Miller shtick. What makes his show unique is that he (for the most part) refuses to tow the party line. He still comes from a conservative POV and is as critical as any pundit on the right of the administration and its allies in Congress, but he won't do the knee-jerk thing, and more importantly, he doesn't stoop to the demonizing rhetoric so popular among his right-side cohorts like Hannity, Crowley, Levin, Ingraham, Savage, Beck, Bortz or Limbaugh. I think that's because he's smarter than them and can actually think through an issue or the daily talking point issued by the spin firm of Gingrich, Rove & Associates. What's more, he hasn't lost the cutting-edge humor that made him popular years ago on SNL. He's almost like a Jon Stewart for the right, where politics and entertainment meet at that great intersection called comedy. 

There need to be more Dennis Millers. He can make you think, and he will engage someone with an opposing viewpoint without calling them names or labeling them insane. It's a shame his show isn't more popular. It sure should be.

None Dare Call it Astroturfing

A Li'l Bigger

Actual signs from the Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News inspired "march on Washington" on Saturday. See more signs here.

Grass roots, my ass. And please quit with the inflated crowd estimates. Media outlets are saying between 60 and 70 thousand showed up. Organizers of the event claim 1.5 million. That's a pretty huge discrepancy. Of course, those media outlets are "mainstream," aren't they? Can't believe them.

"Angry Mob" set is from McPhee.

Land of the Spin, Home of the Talking Point

I don't know how they can even call it a debate anymore. It's beyond hopeless. If you're not disgusted, you're not paying attention. I need a long vacation away from my country. When I come back, I fully expect it will be worse.

Click for the larger, stealable version.

Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon.

Be a Tea Bag Designer in Your Spare Time

A career with a promising future in today's America is banner ad designer for the right wing mob. I just threw this one together in about five minutes. I think it says everything they want me to say.

I love how the mob yells, "Do you want the government deciding who your doctor is? Do you want the government deciding what procedures you can get?"

Well, right now United Healthcare decides those things for me...at an exorbitant rate.

Or this is one of their favorites: "What has the government ever run right?"

Aren't these the same folks that love "our men and women in uniform" more than you or me? I'm pretty sure they'd have a hard time saying the military, a government entity, is shoddily run.

Now I need to make one showing him as the foreign-born Muslim prince boy, puppet of the Illuminati, destroyer of all we hold dear. Crushing baby skulls and lifting the dress of Lady Liberty while he urinates on Old Glory. Yeah.

Fair and Balanced

I like to keep an ear to both sides of the politically biased reporting. I listen to right wing radio to and from work. (Finding a left wing radio show in this market is very hard unless you have XM.) I go to crazy leftist sites like Huffington Post and 23/6, and I check in on the equally partisan Red State, Free Republic and Town Hall. In the evening, I like to switch around and get a dose of Matthews and Olbermann along with Hannity and O'Reilly.

And of all the places I have the option to listen to or participate in, the ones that squawk the most about bias are the right wingers. Daily they decry the unbalanced reporting of "the mainstream media" and those who are "in the tank." They act as though they are broadcasting on pirate wavelengths or short wave. They have a siege mentality that belies their stated objectivity. They thrive on the "us against them" game. They are haters and dividers.

Sean Hannity just renewed a multi-million dollar, multi-year deal with Fox. Limbaugh did the same with his affiliates. Apparently, they have a huge audience. But if any of their fellow broadcasters or columnists dare to say a nice thing about the other side, they are instantly shunned and treated as traitors.

There are just as many right wing, utterly biased sources for news and commentary as there are left. Quit yer bitchin', ya big babies. If I want to hear people getting a thrill up their leg for Obama, I know where to go. If I want to hear a bunch of old limp dicks who suddenly got boners for Sarah Palin, I know where to find that as well.

There are two mediums in America now. They are equal. Give yourself some credit, right wingers. You built Fox and revived AM radio and now your people have a place to go if they want one-sided attack journalism. You ARE mainstream. To act as though you are "outsiders" is disingenuous at best.

If I want truly non-partisan, fair and balanced coverage, I know where to go: CSPAN.

Obama - Eye for Detail

When you're this far ahead in the polls, with even Hannity wringing his hands and Limbaugh parroting the far right fringe fantasy that Obama is really a Muslim Kenyan Socialist, and he's only in Hawaii so he can kill his grandmother before she leaks his Big Secret, it might be easy to get complacent. Not Obama, he's got his hand in everything.

Click for the Big

The Spin is at Critical Mass

And I'll just leave it at that. We can let this cartoon do the talking. It's called , "CAPT John Sidney McCain III, USN (Ret.) Meets with his Troops."

Never let it be said again that John McCain doesn't know how to win a war.

Click for the super size

If you aren't disgusted with that has happened in the last couple of days courtesy of Rove, Limbaugh, Medved, Fox News, Hannity and McCain's other assorted students of Goebbels, you should maybe find a time machine and go live in another era.

Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon

McCain-Hillary '08

Following her Miss South Carolina performance with Katie Couric, it's hard to find a single pundit outside of Limbaugh or Hannity who still thinks Sarah Palin was a good choice for McCain, with some people suggesting she drop off the ticket to "spend more time with her family."

Here's what it looks like over at Johnny Mac HQ.

Click for big! Print it! Collect them all and trade with your friends!

Picnic At Karl Rove's Place

The McCain Campaign is reinventing the term “Kool-Aid Drinkers,” and my own family has been victimized.

A well-respected and formerly level-headed close relative of mine told me last night by phone, “You know that thing in Berlin for Obama? They were just there to see a rock concert! Did you see how bored they were? They didn’t know they had to sit through a speech before they could see their concert! I don’t know what he’s for except ‘Change.’ He can’t even talk without a teleprompter. It's all uhs and duhs.”

I said, “Mom! You need to balance your Limbaugh diet with some other news sources.”

Mom replied, “What? Those liberals at 6:30 who are all in love with Obama?”

“Try CSPAN,” I suggested. (Where full-length, actual sit-down interviews with Obama can be seen where he, surprisingly, is very articulate, bright and clean.)

The attack dogs are ahead of McCain, creating his talking points for him, setting his agenda and crafting his policy. My own dear mother has been duped by Limbaugh, Hannity and Rove.

Now the Republicans are attempting a very cheesy brand of humor. It’s not working.

Twice as Much The Son of Hell

This guy has ruined enough of my evening drives that I now must swear him off. At least Limbaugh has a sense of humor and a brain and can argue his points when someone disagrees with him. All this guy can do is shout over the caller and then say, "Hey, look. I'd love to go on with you but I'm up against a hard break. We're just outta time."

I think we're headed for a war within the so-called "religious community." On one side you will have those who wrap their God in the flag and political ideologies. On the other side you will have real believers.

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."

At the Risk of Alienating...

...some of my readers, I'm going to go out on a limb here and defend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years.

It's seriously not fashionable in this week's political climate to say anything good about Wright. He has uttered what are being roundly criticized as "inflammatory" and "divisive" comments. He has said things that are "unAmerican." Obama himself has been forced, in the interest of political expediency, to distance himself from his own pastor.

But if we look at who is making the loudest protestations about Reverend Wright, we find the usual suspects who long ago linked their flag with their God. "God Bless America" is not a prayer in the minds of these people. It is a demand. It is their right. It is expected. "God, you will bless America, and you will do it now!" They are also, by and large, White men who know NOTHING of the Black experience in America. These are the people most inclined to wave the "support the troops" banners, yet few of them ever served in the military. These are the people, who while claiming to love the God of the Bible (the God of Israel) will tell you with complete conviction, that, "America is the greatest land God ever gave this planet."

Do you seriously want to make that boast to the God of Israel?

Reverend Wright said that we as a country have done terrible things. Reverend Wright said that we as a country have some explaining to do to our God. Reverend Wright said that we as a country are not nearly what we claim to be. And I agree with him 100%. I have been saying the same things for eight years, though not as blatantly, as I learned quickly that knee-jerk "patriots" will not be able to hear you if you don't speak their language.

And have not the James Dobsons of the world been decrying the "sins" of America for decades? Didn't Jerry Fallwell call 9/11 God's judgement?

How is Jeremiah Wright any different?

Once again, to my Christian friends who have wrapped Jesus in the Stars and Stripes: Jesus is not an American. He sure as hell is not a Republican. And he damn well hates your nationalistic pride.

I guarantee it.

Lady Liberty has become a whore, and American Christianity is nothing more than cheap costume jewelry.

A prophet has no honor in his own country.
Gospel of John, 4:44

Surveys Show That Polls Are Stupid

We can't get through a day here in the US without a new poll suggesting which of the candidates is one point in front of the other. And from there, the poll results become news for two days with all the talking heads interviewing one another, asking, "What do you think it means? Did Romney's speech help him, hurt him? Is Huckabee a criminal loving rapist enabler? Is the Oprah factor hurting Hillary?" And the talking heads are trying to be Kingmakers, influencing the stories to benefit whichever candidate they like at the moment. I want to put Sean Hannity, Ariana Huffington, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh in a small locked room with no windows. And come back and check on them in a month.

Here's all you have to do to get a gauge of how Americans are thinking. (At least those who use YouTube.) Type a candidate's name in the search field and then type another. I just did this. My survey says that 4 out of 5 Americans view Hillary Clinton negatively. The same survey showed 4 out of 5 Americans view Barack Obama positively.

There. Done.