Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Drink a Twelve-Pack of Schaeffer's and Vomit in Norah O'Donnell's Lap (Again):


As you probably surmised, that's the array of malty, hoppy beverages sucked down by President Barack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge police officer James Crowley at their meeting (the photo is inaccurate, although it's a lovely still life - and do they really make Obama/presidential seal coasters?). And guess who drank the faggy, sweet Blue Moon? Surely the effete President or the effeter Professor. Nope. Obama demonstrated his man o' the people cred with the Bud Light. Gates, honoring America's founders the same way Harvard frat boys do, drank a Sam Adams Light. (Why was it originally reported he drank a Red Stripe? Because it's from Jamaica, where a lot of black people live? Racist fucking media...) And the Belgian longneck was deep-throated by Sgt. Crowley. With a slice of orange. Biden drank kiddie beer.

No, the problems of race weren't solved at the White House biergarten. But, as they slurped down more and more suds, things got a bit randy, as Skip Gates asked Crowley if he'd like the slave experience just to, you know, understand oppression a bit more. With a knowing smirk, Crowley responded that if Gates had the chains, he had the wrists. "Why don't you two get a room?" Biden exclaimed. Obama rolled his eyes, walked away, having had enough of this bullshit distraction, and told the Secret Service to let the Professor and the Cop have a couple of hours in the Lincoln Bedroom, where Gates could continue the lesson.

Alone, Biden sat for a few uncomfortable moments with his Buckler's before he sighed, looked around, and left.

(Note: Real life has reared its ugly head on the bloggery, thus the promised Part 2b will be posted Monday. Or maybe not. Who the fuck knows. It's a chaotic world we live in.)

Destroying Obama as Quickly as Possible, Part 2a: Sympathy for the Republican:
Sweet Jesus, dear Republicans, it must suck to be you. You came out of the 2008 elections having lost any semblance of power. And it only took two years from being the kings and queens of the Hill, contemplating what you were going to do with the coming decades of your reign, and then it all just fucking fell apart. And now you're not just in a minority, in theory you're about as powerless as the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Space Lizard Party. "In theory" because you still have catastrophe, or the hope of it. Yes, catastrophe is your currency, wilderness-wandering Republicans; it is your food, your air. It's all you have left, and you are going to flog catastrophe like a desperate, fix-deprived junkie trying to sell his shoes on the sidewalk.

This ain't about the conservative radio and TV hogfuckers who have Father Coughlin'd their way into our consciousness. Frankly, they have become re-empowered by the Democratic victories of 2008. It's easier to whip people into an incoherent frenzy in opposition than in support. Or, to put it simply, Barack Obama is the best thing that could have happened to Rush Limbaugh. He just sounded like the sad and lost fat man he is throughout the Bush years. 2008 just finally gave a new yin to his lonely yang.

No, this is about actual Republican lawmakers. What we're seeing in the savage attacks on the President and the Democratic congress by Republicans is the projection of eight years of being the beaten curs for all things Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld. You know how it is with a dog whose owner beats him to teach him how to behave. At some point, that fuckin' dog is gonna snap and rip the shit out of someone. You think it's gonna be the owner, who still, despite all the whippings and kickings, feeds the dog? Fuck, no. It's gonna be whatever else is around to be chewed.

Imagine you're that Republican in the House who, for eight long goddamn years, lapped up every bowl of vomit that the Bush administration placed in front of you. Imagine getting a phone call from Karl Rove if there was even a hint you were gonna go rogue and vote against, say, expanded surveillance. Imagine the threats to your career. Let's even, for the sake of argument, say, and why not, that you're an honorable Republican, trying to get some of that federal largesse for your district, steer a few jobs to the constituents, get some shit built. And you're listening to Rove threaten to cut off the campaign funding pump if you don't vote his way. So you do it. You suck it up and ask for more because you're convinced that, in the end, the overall goal of the Republican majority and cohesion of the party is better for the country.

And then all those promises that you were made, about hanging in there with Bush until the bitter end, it all just came apart, leaving you to face a future where not only is your party falling apart, but you've got a voting record that says you were Dick Cheney's convenient tool. Hell, let's just toss in there, for shits and giggles, that your district is becoming more Hispanic. What are you gonna do?

Why, you're gonna take it out on Obama. You're gonna join the effort to crush this presidency, no matter how fucking insane. And, fuck, add into the mix the fear of your white constituents (and maybe you) that a black man is the commander-in-chief? Motherfucker, the world's upside-down. Catastrophe is imminent. The end is nigh, man, it's nigh.

But here's the deal: of course Republicans were gonna do this. It's what they do. It's actually acting like an opposition party (if a bit drama queen-ish). If the leadership can outright lie about issues, well, then at least we know the rules of the game.

The reason, though, to bring all this up is not to chide Republicans for trying to bring down Obama. That's to be expected. No, the Rude Pundit's got two purposes: to understand why things seem just a bit more intense than usual. And to set up tomorrow's discussion: that perhaps we shouldn't have expected Democrats to be aiding Republicans.

Destroying Obama as Quickly as Possible, Part 1: 24 Hour News Is Wrecking America:
It must suck to have to feed a 24 hour news cycle. Although, let's be honest, it's only about 17 hours or so, excluding reruns. And, to be more honest, taking out the 6 or 7 hours of hosted commentary masked as news shows, we're pretty much down to 10 hours or less of actual news on your CNNMSNBCFox. That's leaving out weekends (save Sunday morning), when MSNBC becomes two days of prison sodomy and shivs, Fox "news" puts its crazy people on, and CNN cowers in the corner. But all in all, it's a lot of fucking time, and if your needle's not stuck on Michael Jackson or some such shit, you've gotta come up with something to say.

Compare that with the pre-CNN days. For years, the major networks had 30 minutes in the evening in which to tell the public something about the world. Let's not idealize this: the bullshit to real news content ratio was pretty much the same. They had to pick and choose among the constant wave of stories and opinions. But that necessarily meant that there were stories that weren't covered, for good or ill. It wasn't perfect, by any means, and it could be easily manipulated, but there was a sense that we at least had an idea of some of the important shit we needed to know to get by in our daily American lives. For more depth, there was 60 Minutes or it's genetically-mutated sibling, 20/20, or even, shockingly, hour-long specials on things that weren't serial killer or child molester-related that people really watched.

It's like the difference between an orgy and a really good night of fucking a single partner. Sure, an orgy's fun and all, but ultimately, if it's a good one, you're left exhausted, sticky, and overwhelmed, unable to clearly recall which cock was in which asshole or which mouth was on which cunt. Orgies are, by their nature, shallow experiences, rarely transcendental. However, a long evening of balling a single partner, the kind where you each actually give a damn what you're giving as well as what you're getting, that's the essential shit, the experiences that make us human animals, whether it's for a night or a year.

So because the role of news producer has become more like the ecstasy dealer at the orgy than an editor, because the filter's now just what is most exploitative, yet not too uncomfortable (Natalee Holloway above war contractor fraud, for instance), we get the mainstreaming of the most fucktarded, meaningless, fraudulent conspiracy theories that can be vomited out. Like whether or not Barack Obama was American-born (which, of all people, Mike Huckabee helped put to sleep with the notion that if Hillary Clinton's campaign believed it was bullshit, it was bullshit).

Or this latest trip to right-wing nutzoidville, a place where you shit out of your mouth and talk out of your ass, the whole "debate" over whether proposed health care legislation promotes killing old people. Or, as the National Review's Byron York put it when talking about any end-of-life issues that might be raised in the bill, "whether there's any coercive element to this." Hell, Obama was asked about it at a town hall meeting put on by AARP. It's enough to make you wanna yell, "Don't go into the orange room, Edward G. Robinson."

The point here is not about debunking such twaddle. The point is that we shouldn't even be hearing about it on the news. This is the kind of shit that used to be passed around by rumor and urban legend, occasionally surfacing when there was mass hysteria in some town over fluoride in the water or backwards "masking" in rock music, because stupid people will often be heard.

But there's something more insidious here than just the media running with a story that mixes murder and the legislative process. It's a larger narrative the media seems to need and promote through much of its neverending cycle. See, there's no drama in "Obama gets elected, does what he said he'd do, gets shit done." That plot doesn't give anyone anything to talk about. The plot that is more glamorous is of forces aligning to shove this president down (with all the racial implications intended). It ain't a conspiracy theory. It's a natural outcropping of giving a public some compelling reason to watch your network.

Why, with the death of Walter Cronkite, might Jon Stewart and The Daily Show be seen as the most trustworthy source of news (even beyond any worthless online poll)? Perhaps because Stewart's show has to whittle it down to a half-hour of shit you actually need to be informed about and not idly filling time with what is, really, fake news.

The Rude Pundit on Yesterday's Stephanie Miller Show:
The Rude Pundit has pillow talk about health care and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with Stephanie Miller on her radio lovefest.

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Health Care Reform: The Baseball Bat or the Spooge Spray?:
It doesn't really help matters when there's a half-dozen power-brokering Senators esconced in an office, having secret meetings that will, in all likelihood, determine the way the health care system in this country is "reformed." Let's be honest: at this point, when a scumfucker from an insurance company is confronted by a crawling middle-aged woman who can't afford the hip replacement she needs because of her years waiting tables at Waffle House, the insurance bastard has a choice: beat her with a baseball bat or jack off on her. Under the current system, he'd be wailing on her skull with that Louisville Slugger that reads "pre-existing condition." Under the reform being squeezed out like a hard turd in Max Baucus's office, that poor short order waitress would have a back warm and sticky with Blue Cross semen.

It is the usual way for Democrats, thinking that bipartisanship means giving Republicans what they want. It's as if the Democrats were a family inviting a Republican family over for the Democratic daughter's My Little Pony birthday party, but the Republican family won't come unless the Democratic family changes it to a Bakugan party so the Republican son can feel welcome. Instead of telling the Republican family to go fuck itself, the Democratic family makes sure that every cute plastic pony is facing down some horrible mutating machine. It's okay for bipartisanship to mean that Democrats invite Republicans to play. If they don't wanna, then the hell with 'em.

The right wing actually believes that any kind of health care reform is some Ernst Blofeldian nefarious plot (and, seriously, even though it's a "bipartisan" group in Baucus's office, it just doesn't help) to destroy the country. Here's Hugh Hewitt, whose picture looks like he's touching himself, thinking about how to fuck your child while your dog licks his asshole, doing one of those "I don't know what the fuck to write about today" columns, wherein the writer imagines the presumed thoughts of someone else and speaks in his or her voice. In the Washington Examiner, Hewitt gets inside Congressman Henry Waxman's head on health care reform, giving the mustachioed bald man the evil designs and voice of Montgomery Burns, as if his efforts to get poor people health insurance are actually just part of some Machiavellian megalomaniacal machinations to destroy America:

"But we are not there yet. Deep breaths and calm down. So close, and I have to deal with this yokel from Arkansas and this turnip from Louisiana. Why do those states even get to vote?...Blue dogs? Dead dogs when this is over. Another chapter for the memoir: 'Sucker punching the suckers from the South.' We really ought to have a literacy test for the House. But stay calm now. Stay focused. Thirty-five years to get to this precise moment --at the center of the rewriting of the American Constitution through the administrative state."

Does Hewitt actually imagine that that's what supporters of a state health insurance plan think? Even subconsciously? Let's put aside that it's shabbily written. Howzabout the fact that now Hewitt, who was like a high school cheerleader with a soaked pussy ready for team captain George W. Bush to fuck under the bleachers whenever he was between scrimmages, is concerned about the Constitution?

Who, exactly, are the Blue Dog Democrats (and the Republicans) trying to please here? Fucking Hugh Hewitt and the other conservative drones aren't gonna nuance this shit out. They're not gonna sit there and think, "Well, at least they didn't pass a public plan financed by a tax on rich people" and then accept whatever comes down the pike. If even the mildest health reform passes, the one that says one-legged American orphans with TB must get coverage, Rush Limbaugh will scream like someone at McDonald's told him they couldn't batter his Big Mac and put it in the deep fryer.

In the push to be able to say they got something passed when they had majorities in both Houses of Congress, the Democrats are shifting the organizing principle of the argument from universal coverage to keeping costs for the already-insured down. And you can bet that, even then, the vast, vast majority of Republicans will vote it down because it's not bipartisan enough.

Quotes That Make the Rude Pundit Want To Suck the Roe Right Out of a Salmon's Twat:
A few words from "A Farewell to Dinks":
"Some straight talk for some — just some — in the media. … You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you. That is why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier, ya’ quit makin’ things up?" - Now ex-Governor Sarah Palin, in her resignation speech, apparently missing the point that soldiers also die to ensure that America's leaders can do their jobs, as well as the point that democracy depends on elected officials.

"Alaskans need to really stick together…Stiffen your spine to do what’s right for Alaska when the pressure mounts because you’re going to see anti-hunting, anti-second amendment circuses from Hollywood… They use these delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets, they use Alaska as a fundraising tool for their anti-second amendment causes. Stand strong and remind them (that) patriots will protect our individual guaranteed right to bear arms. And by the way, Hollywood needs to know: We eat, therefore we hunt." - Now ex-Governor Sarah Palin, justifying why she's gonna get fat on raw wolf meat.

"Some still are choosing not to hear why I made the decision to chart a new course to advance the state. And it should be so obvious to you. It is because I love Alaska this much…that I feel that it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical, politics as usual, lame duck session in one’s last year in office….With this decision now, I will be able to fight even harder for you for what is right and for truth, and I have never felt you need a title to do that." - Now ex-Governor Sarah Palin, acknowledging, in the clearest language she can muster, that Alaska is better off without her.

One More Damn Reminder: The Rude Pundit in San Francisco on Sunday:
The Rude Pundit will be speaking at the Community Music Center at 544 Capp Street in San Francisco this Sunday at 7:30 p.m. It's an event in the 2009 Laborfest (scroll down a bit on the link). He'll talk on "Why Upton Sinclair Would Kick Arnold Schwarzenegger's Ass" as part of an evening of labor theatre and music.

Fer fuck's sake, it's all just for a 10 spot.

For advance tickets call (415) 431-8485 or e-mail: marcusd(at)igc.org.

Mike Pence Says Funding Planned Parenthood Makes People Sad:
In an op-ed at the conservative clearinghouse for all things bugfuck insane, Townhall.com (motto: "Masturbation guaranteed"), Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence calls for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood because he doesn't like that abortions are performed at some of the organization's locations. Living in Indiana is not unlike living inside the single toilet in a house of giants with irritable bowel syndrome, and Pence's district is one particularly awful part below the rim. It is also one of the whitest places left in America, where people from Appalachia moved when auto plant jobs were created decades ago, jobs that have since mostly dried up. You will see more Confederate flags on pick-up trucks in this part of this ostensibly northern state than you will in some areas of Mississippi.

Pence is sometimes seen as one of the saviors of the conservative wing of the GOP (also known, at this point, as "the GOP"). Here's how Pence puts the current funding of Planned Parenthood: "Last year alone, according to Planned Parenthood's own annual report, it received 34% of its $1.04 billion in revenue from government grants and contracts, and performed more than 305,000 abortions. Planned Parenthood and its advocates will claim that the money they have received from the federal government has not been used to fund abortions, and that is technically accurate." Because, you see, the money given to Planned Parenthood frees up abortion money, so we're indirectly paying for abortions.

So, by Pence's "logic" (if by "logic," you mean, "a strange amalgam of religious paranoia and dubious fiscal reasoning by a man who shoves corncobs up his own ass because he's the one Republican desperately trying to avoid fucking another man or woman"), as he writes, his amendment to an appropriations bill "would close the loophole that has forced millions of pro-life Americans to subsidize the nation's leading abortion provider, sustaining and underwriting the destruction of innocent human life that has been carried out on a massive scale by Planned Parenthood."

You got that right? We wouldn't want to offend the pro-life Americans by providing money to an organization that does more to actually prevent abortions than every bullshit abstinence program everywhere. No, no, we wouldn't want Planned Parenthood to be there to mop up for the utter failure of conservative sex education plan to actually educate about sex. Whores have to keep their babies.

Pence goes on to spout the anti-choice talking points of the Family Research Council and others, about the couple of cases involving improper practices by Planned Parenthood. And then throwing in the "abortion is racist" argument put forth, most recently, by Alveda King, the who-gives-a-fuck niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Seriously, just because you're the spawn of King's sibling, how does that give you any moral weight at all? How distant do you have to be from a person before their relation to you doesn't matter to idiots?)

Part of being in a representative democracy is knowing that you gotta suck it up. You hope that a good part of the shit you care about is actually dealt with, and if it ain't, then you elect people to change it. Now, Pence is trying to do that. But the argument that he's using is fucked and backwards. You don't defund the military because you don't believe in the war being fought. You work to stop the war.

And if your goal is actually to end abortions and not to please a bunch of craven zealots who don't wanna join the 21st century, then you would probably want to actually work with Planned Parenthood, not against it.

In Brief: What If Henry Louis Gates Had Had a Gun?:
Sitting in an airport, early morning, listening to a replay of Barack Obama's funny, angry, self-aware words on the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (the only bright spot in a pretty damn useless press conference), the Rude Pundit pondered not just the obvious question of "what-if-Gates-was-white," but a more intense one: what if Gates had had a gun? Go with this for just a second before it's time to board. Go beyond the also obvious "Well, he'd've been shot by the cops."

Instead, think like a gun-owning white guy who thinks that the government is trying to take away his guns and that a revolution is coming (and if you are that white guy, the Rude Pundit says, "Dude, get laid."). That ain't a fantasy person. It's the goddamned audience for much of the right-wing rhetoric these days. Now, think, if Gates had been armed, in his home, after having proven it was his home, what if he had threatened to shoot the cops for now engaging in a home invasion? Would he have been justified? Of course not. We in the rational world know this.

But now push it further: would those very real white guys have come to his defense? Or would they have rallied behind Gates only if he was white like them?

There's planes to catch. Miles to go. Perhaps more later.

Health Care Reform Vs. Selfish America:
As the Rude Pundit's noted before, in a way that makes most every other country look like a model of "Kumbaya"-singing, hand-holding unity, the United States is filled with selfish motherfuckers who are such desperate wannabes that they'd dine on their mother's innards if it got them closer to those with power. Listen: the truth about the powerful is that there's those who are trying to help you and there's those who want you to help them. Yeah, they're all self-interested fucks, but at least the former acknowledge that there's a difference between being inside and outside power. The latter? Oh, they're the type that will take you out to a nice restaurant, introduce you to a bunch of their powerful friends, give you little gifts, invite you back to their place, let you touch all their expensive trinkets.

And if you're someone who falls for this? Well, as you pass out from the drink they've given you, as the last thing you see is the powerful unzipping their pants and pulling out their cock, you'll think, "I'm so grateful. I'm so appreciated. I'm one of them," something you'll continue to think when you wake up with a sore ass, chapped lips, no memory of the last twelve hours, and a note telling you to shut the fuck up or your sister's family will be burned alive.

Here's a conversation that the Rude Pundit recently with the somewhat conservative friend of a friend:
FoF: You know, I'm not against a public option on health care.
RP: Really?
FoF: No. I just think that it should be mandated that the policy can't be lower than the average price of the policies of the major insurers.
RP: But then you're giving all the power to the insurance industry. Isn't that the problem?
FoF: The government shouldn't be doing anything to put an industry out of business.
RP: But the FHA didn't put banks out of the lending business. And fuck the health insurance industry. You work for diseased whores, you shouldn't be surprised if you get fucked. (That didn't actually make sense, but it seemed like it did at the time.)
FoF: You just want national health care.
RP: Yeah. I do.
FoF: Then why bother having this conversation?

(Hmm. Thinking about it, that's pretty much the way single payer was treated by the Obama administration. But, hey, we progressives gotta suck it up like good little punks.)

It has stunned the Rude Pundit that the major complaints about any health care plan the Democrats might eventually cobble together like some Frankenstein's monster with a Parkinson's-infected brain are that it will somehow damage the sacred relationship between a doctor and a patient and that President Obama wants to pay for it with a tax on really rich people. The only ones who seem to buy these bullshit lines are the media, who seem to be rooting for an Obama failure to keep the storyline interesting; the Republicans, who spend their evenings skull-fucking Michael Steele so that a brother can't put a thought together; the Blue Dog Democrats, who are listening to the media, who make them believe their constituents are going to hang 'em from the lamp posts; and the yahoo rich-people wannabe, who have virtually no understanding of how socialism or health care works, only what Rush Limbaugh, et al, tell them. That last group there desperately has to believe Rush, et al because it's the only thing left for them to cling to, the American Dream life jacket, the ones who tell them they can still be rich some day if only those who are actually trying to help them stop doing so.

As for the first myth, you know who gets to see whatever doctors they want whenever they want? Not you. That's some bullshit ideal that may have existed a long time ago for your middle or working class ass. But you can believe that somehow the inclusion of a public insurance option in legislation will force you to have your care "rationed." And you can believe that a slight tax increase on people making way more than you ever will is a tumble into socialism. But that's because you're just another grasping, pathetic wannabe who'll always watch the popular kids, hoping that you can be one of them, when they just look at you and laugh and tell you to do their homework. So, in an oversimplified way, the "rationing" part of the debate doesn't apply to you if you're already rich and/or powerful. (By the way, if you're rich and reading this, hey, toss some coins in the hat.)

Republicans are getting giddy at the idea of Barack Obama (and Nancy Pelosi) failing at passing any health care reform. It would please their lobbyist/donor masters to no end. Skeevy Senator Jim DeMint, the last of the triumvirate of South Carolina Republican creepy dirteaters, recently said, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

Putting aside that the failure of the health care push was hardly the end of the Clinton presidency, here's a history lesson for both Republicans and Democrats. The British alone didn't defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. They needed the Germans, the Belgians, and more. And Jim DeMint ain't exactly Lord Wellington.

Republicans better have more arrows in their quiver than the cry of "socialism." And Democrats better not give aid and comfort to the Republicans. No, we're not gonna get the health care bill we need. We'll get something. But we are not a nation that believes in huge transformations anymore. We could be, but we have abdicated that in favor of greed, self-interest, and fear. And it's a lot easier to give in to those things than to agree that you should help out the family down the block.

Right Wingers Ready for Violence to Defend the Rich, White Way of Life:
Lost amid the sublime delights of hearing Glen Beck totally lose his shit and screech like a wounded weasel in a bear trap on his radio show was his suggestion on the July 13 edition of his Fox "news" show, The Cleveland Steamer with Glenn Beck, that people should arm themselves for a coming revolution. No, really. In a conversation with NRA CEO Wayne "That Is a Gun in My Pants and I'm Not Happy to See You" LaPierre over whether Sonia Sotomayor would interpret the 2nd Amendment the way they believe it ought to be interpreted, Beck offered, "Would you say that our president or our government's stock market really is gun sales. That when gun sales go down -- everybody wants to say, 'Well, I protect guns for hunters,' even though -- I mean, look, I came from a family of hunters. I get it. But that's not -- the Founding Fathers weren't like, 'Well, we might want to go out and, you know, shoot some squirrel.' They did it because of an out-of-control government. And as gun sales go up, that's because we don't trust the government. That is -- that is the fundamental guttural understanding of the Second Amendment. People don't trust the government, they go out and buy a gun."

Did you get that? If you don't trust the government, go out and buy a gun. Because why? Because you can use the muzzle to push the buttons in a voting booth? Or because you can use it to shoot and kill any government motherfuckers who are going to...well, do what?

See, all the savage (and Savage) talk on the right that has inspired wackanoids to go out and shoot up unitarian churches and Holocaust Museum guards is for punk ass reasons. Glenn Beck, who may truly be straitjacket-and-rhino-tranq-his-ass crazy, and his ilk on markets large and small are whipping their frightened, underinsured, teetering on the brink listeners and viewers to a peaking froth because of their idiots' understanding of policy and history. They've reduced the American Revolution to being about taxes. Well, sure, and when a foreign government at the point of a gun and bayonet forces them to pay their tribute to the king, join their military, and quarter their soldiers, then we can talk.

The nation is always filled with wannabe revolutionaries. Usually they crop up when the actual physical well-being of themselves or others is threatened. Like, you know, back during 'Nam, when the federal government used troops to stop protests and a draft was sending people to a war they didn't want to fight. The Weather Underground (who have, indeed, had their welcome worn out for them) and other groups used violence as a tool because they saw the government violently oppressing them, through bullets at Kent State, through police clubs in Chicago. In other words, if the government was going to enforce its will and suppress the people by drawing blood, well, the thought goes, why not draw some, too? (Aside: it's one reason why non-violence is a truly revolutionary method of protest against those who are violent. Our visceral response is to want to kick some ass when someone tries to kick ours.)

So what is driving the good right wing to talk more and more openly about arming themselves for some coming uprising? Has Barack Obama sent the FBI to break down law-abiding conservatives' doors, take their guns, shoot their women, and rape their dogs? Did Joe Biden start an enemies list and had a handcuffed Sean Hannity dragged to a prison where he can be beaten until he gives the whereabouts of Steve Doocy? Holy shit, an ignorant outside observer might think, what is so deadly that a media figure like Beck is, in essence, telling people to buy guns now?

And the answer is a slight raise in the marginal tax rate on the wealthy? An attempt to provide health care to uninsured Americans? A legally-elected government in a representative democracy spending money in the way those campaigning said it would be spent? If Ben Franklin were around, he'd scoff, "Pussies," beat Glenn Beck unconscious with his cane, let Thomas Paine sodomize him, and head back to Paris for more time with whores.

(An uncomfortable tangent: Sometimes, within the rhetoric of insanity, violence can seem logical. Randall Terry and his pro-life legion of Jesus toesuckers believe that abortion is murder. The Rude Pundit's said it before: if you are so deluded as to think that women's health providers who do abortions are baby murderers no matter what the trimester, then you better be throwing your ass in the way to stop it, taking whatever consequences come like a good terrorist. Randall Terry is an attention-craving slugfucker whose cause should end up with him in prison, but he at least seems to think there are lives, not pocketbooks of the wealthy, on the line.)

The Rude Pundit on Today's Stephanie Miller Show (and a Reminder of His Upcoming S.F. Appearance):
Here's the Rude Pundit's latest appearance on The Stephanie Miller Show. Thrill to the undercurrent of unspoken want as they discuss more Republican shenanigans and abject failure at the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings:

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(By the way, you subscribe to the Rude Pundit's podcast.)

Reminder: The Rude Pundit will be speaking at the Community Music Center in San Francisco this Sunday, July 26, as part of the 2009 Laborfest (scroll down a bit on the link). He'll talk on "Why Upton Sinclair Would Kick Arnold Schwarzenegger's Ass" as part of an evening of labor theatre and music. Support the cause, brothers and sisters.

For advance tickets call (415) 431-8485 or e-mail: marcusd(at)igc.org.

Walter Cronkite in Purgatory (A Fantasia):
It's not that Walter Cronkite necessarily expected to go straight to Heaven after he died. No, he was used to being consigned to a vast, empty, middle space, having thought upon his retirement that, surely, CBS News would rely upon him as a kind of anchor emeritus. Instead, he was abandoned like an incontinent dog whose owners didn't have the time to care for. Done in by the very bastards he had elevated, told he was a fossil against the evolved, snappy shallowness of the news on ABC, he could at least comfort himself that he outlasted David Brinkley. And then, because he still had some things he wanted to say, Walter Cronkite did hour-long documentaries for the wasteland of barely-viewed cable stations, the kinds of things that the decimated network news bureaus used to do and that a public who at least pretended to give a shit watched.

So Cronkite was used to Purgatory. And when his soul stalled in an empty room, he knew he wasn't in Hell. But it wasn't Heaven. He figured he had a few sins to answer for. That time he broke Harry Reasoner's nose with a martini shaker when that son of a bitch stole an interview slot with Kissinger. That evening he spent masturbating in a corner while watching Ed Murrow madly ball Vivian Vance at the Plaza after a network banquet. That time he nude oil wrestled Chet Huntley for the deranged pleasures of Pat Weaver and William Paley. That weekend in Cape Cod with Barbara Walters where they never even saw the ocean. That tormenting thought that if he had opposed the Vietnam War even sooner, in 1967, in 1966, that it could have saved lives. Cronkite's conscience never let him rest while on Earth. Why would it in the afterlife?

The final straw for him was the coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. As he saw everyone who ever considered themselves a real journalist actually spend time, as if a president or civil rights leader had passed, delving into the death of another drug addict whose presence in the world had dwindled to a mere freak show burp in the wind was too much. There was no reason for him to be alive anymore. As he let himself die, he mourned not himself, but his profession. As degraded as it had become, one of the hopes after the September 11, 2001 attacks was that the news found its purpose again, that the brain-numbing concentration on gossip and bullshit like the Chandra Levy death was going to be consigned to the back pages, that the press was going to re-take its place as an unacknowledged check and balance.

But between the corporatization and concentration of the media and the uncritical reporting of the march to the Iraq War, the hyping of American bloodlust, when he had said, so very clearly, that such things were futile, assured the death of his kind of journalism. It's not that glorification of crime, violence, and celebrity, and the luscious mixture of them, didn't exist during his time. But those were blips, not the raison d'etre of the news. They were the occasional indulgences that lasted a day, not the bread and butter that fed the news cycle.

Still, though, Cronkite couldn't understand the purpose in the fact that his room in Purgatory was filled with televisions showing all the talking heads, all O'Reilly, Beck, Maddow, Olbermann, Hannity, Matthews, Grace, Sanchez, and more, every anchor on every 24-hour news network, none of them offering anything without commentary, none of them simply giving us the news, all of them spinning and breaking facts to suit their ideas and agendas, whether alone or with guests. Cronkite wanted to know why he should be forced to see this, these pretenders who would never command the respect he had had, let alone the numbers.

Three years of this, of the undying thrum of editorial masked as news, and he finally got it. He had to admit it: his proudest moment was also the beginning of the death of news. It wasn't just the corporate culture and the merging of commercial and press concerns. He had to say that his declaration of the Vietnam War as "unwinnable" was also his greatest sin. His outrage mainstreamed subjectivity. He had to accept that in order to get out and finally see Betsy again.

But not just that. No, that would be too simple, and God is nothing if not a tricky motherfucker. What Cronkite realized was that to just accept that he is one of the reasons that all television news now wears its biases as badges of honor would be to give in to those who had attacked him for turning on the war. What he also decided was that he had to understand the sin and then say he would do the same thing all over again. That it was both a betrayal of the trust he had built up and his sacred duty because of that very trust. His job was to report the news, yes, but it wasn't to watch idly as the leaders of the nation sent kids to death. So take the good with the bad. If Bill O'Reilly was the result, so be it.

As the room around him began to disappear, as his ascension began, Cronkite was mournful, because he had opened the floodgates. But he didn't make the flood. Johnson did. Nixon did. He merely tried, as best he could, in the only way he knew, to alleviate the damage.

The Rude Pundit in San Francisco on Sunday:
The Rude Pundit will be speaking at the Community Music Center in San Francisco this Sunday as part of the 2009 Laborfest (scroll down a bit on the link). He'll talk on "Why Upton Sinclair Would Kick Arnold Schwarzenegger's Ass" as part of an evening of labor theatre and music.

For advance tickets call (415) 431-8485 or e-mail: marcusd(at)igc.org.

The Rude Pundit on The Stephanie Miller Show Tomorrow (Updated with Audio):
The Rude Pundit starts his regular Monday gig with the exquisitely rude and funny Stephanie Miller. Listen in at 9:30 Eastern, 6:30 Pacific, and other times in other zones. (And if you don't get her on the radio, then there's always the magical internet machines. Like this streaming station in Chicago.)

You can hear last Thursday's fun here:

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Why Bill O'Reilly Ought to Be Sodomized with a Microphone (Blinking Edition):
Here's the bestest analysis you could desire on the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. It comes from Fox "news" host and a man who eats baby voles like peanuts, Bill O'Reilly, who was talking very seriously last night with very serious body language "expert" Tonya Reiman about Sotomayor's blinking and hand gestures (quoted in full in order to savor every delicious contour). O'Reilly first showed a clip of the judge and then:

"O'REILLY: Okay. So we had a lot of blinking there, Tonya. I should introduce Tonya. Joining us now from West Palm Beach, Florida, the body language czarina, Tonya Reiman. I got a little ahead of myself there. So anxious to hear what you have to say.

So we have fluttering of the eyes. You know, rapid blinking, as most people know if they watch The Factor, is usually associated with nervousness. And there would be no reason why the...

REIMAN: Right.

O'REILLY: ...judge shouldn't be nervous. I mean, come on. Everybody would be in that situation. But she has some fluttering. And that's what I wanted to know about.

REIMAN: Right. Well, you know what? It's funny because typically you're right, that's an indicator of anxiety of nervousness. When you're watching her, though, if you notice, if you base line her over a period of months, you will realize that's something she does all the time. That's one of her norms.

What I was looking at more was her hand movements, because typically she is a little bit more animated than she was here. Her movements were a little bit more dominant where they are normally a little bit higher up; her gestures are normally higher up.

O'REILLY: So what does that tell you? That she is consciously trying to play it down?

REIMAN: I think that she was really trying to control how she came across. One of the first things I noticed when she is asked the question about her temperament, she does this little unconscious head negation to say complete disagreement, in other words. And then I just noticed that the hand movements were kind of very low...

O'REILLY: Yes.

REIMAN: ...to the table...

O'REILLY: Yes.

REIMAN: ...yet they were open. The fingers were open, palms were down, which is of course the dominant role. And I think that she was controlled and really thinking about the movements she made.

O'REILLY: She looked to be a little hunched over to me. Does that indicate anything at all, or is it just habit? Just the way she sits?

REIMAN: No, because again I think that she typically sits like that. I noticed that in past videos I've looked at, she typically sits a little hunched over."

First off, being a "body language czarina" is like being a "three-card monte fuehrer." It's one of the easiest scams you can pull. Fuckin' Reiman even teaches a "Body Language University" (no, really). But, hell, she has "a degree in General Studies," so you know you can trust her insights. Let's hope the czarina of body language doesn't ever meet the Bolsheviks of real psychology. It can't end well for her. Mostly, though, fuck Reiman. Sister's got make a buck from the rubes, you know?

As for O'Reilly, yeah, filling forty minutes or so of show time a night has gotta be hard. 'Cause if you don't talk with some con artist who "has a passion for hypnosis" about whether or not Sen. Chuck Schumer was really choking up when he was giving Sotomayor's life story (which was the next topic after the judge), then you might have to spend more time on important issues like the Michael Jackson death story and make wildly unsubstantiated statements based on the observations of a twit.

Oh, wait, there's this exchange on Jackson's father:
"REIMAN: [W]hen he is asked about the drugs he goes from a steeple of power position to a hand folded position which tells me that he was hiding something there.

O'REILLY: All right, so there is deception in his presentation."

Ya gotta give some props to O'Reilly: Skeevy old guy and hot blonde chick? This shit is like vaudeville.

Sotomayor, Day 3 (and Some Day 4): More Random Observations of the Tedious Madness:
1. Honestly, watching even a couple of hours of the Sonia Sotomayor hearing makes you want to break a window and cut your chest with the glass just to make sure you're not too numb to feel anything. The endless ways the Republicans are asking the same things, over and over and over, focusing in on two things, her "wise Latina" remark and the Ricci case, as if they are KGB interrogators with a writer who said something nasty about Brezhnev. Ask enough, and surely there will be a contradiction, surely some crack will show the awful bean-eating beast within. It's all they've got. But this dead horse is just looking disgusting from all the beating.

2. Al Franken is smarter than almost every other Senator there. He was funny, sure, but compared to Arlen Specter, who acted like an old fucker no one likes who bitches that he doesn't get enough visitors at the nursing home, Franken was a model of decorum and preparation. And he broke Democratic protocol by taking head-on a right wing talking point, asking, "Do you believe that the Constitution contains a fundamental right to privacy?"

3. The best rubber/glue moment was from Lindsey Graham, who offered to the federal judge seated before him, "You have said some things that just bug the hell out of me." Graham is such skeevy son of a bitch, the kind of long-necked circus geek who hangs around in the back of shitty gay bars, sucking back longnecks, watching the men dance so he can go home and jack off at the vicarious feeling of pec on pec motion but who'll deny he's into dudes caused he's never fucked a guy.

4. Who the fuck cares what Frank Ricci has to say about a goddamn thing? Nothing against Ricci himself, but other than Sotomayor ruling, as part of a panel, on an appeal in a case he was the plaintiff on, what the fuck does he have to say? That if the Supreme Court hadn't overturned the ruling, he'd've had to take a test again? Fuck his opinion, unless it's on how to put out a goddamn fire. He's part of the show that the Republicans have planned, just like having the New Haven firefighters in uniform seated behind Sotomayor yesterday. Pure bullshit intimidation.

Ya gotta love that Ricci got his job by suing under the Americans With Disabilities Act because he's dyslexic, thus blocking a non-dyslexic from getting being a firefighter. Maybe he got it backwards and thought he was black, and that's why he sued again for promotion.

5. But Sotomayor, who, let's face it, is not a liberal, will kick Senators in the ballsack. Here's what she just said to Tom Coburn when he pushed her to take a stand on the right to bear arms: "Would you want a judge who said I agree with you, this is unconstitutional — before I had a case before me, before I had both sides discussing a case before me, and before I spent the time that the Supreme Court spent on the Heller decision?" and added, "I don't know that that's a justice that I can be."

This may actually end tomorrow.

Update: The Rude Pundit on The Stephanie Miller Show:
The Rude Pundit will appear tomorrow on The Stephanie Miller Show at 11:30 a.m. ET, 8:30 a.m. PT. For New York listeners, that means it'll be during the WWRL hour o' Miller on 1600 AM.

In even biggerer, betterer radio news, the Rude Pundit will become a regular weekly guest on the show, every Monday at 9:30 ET, 6:30 PT. Yep, each week, Miller and the Rude Pundit will try to make conservatives cry while we point and laugh. (He'll try to be a good podcast poster of the segments, too.)

And be sure to listen to the gleefully rude Stephanie Miller every day for a dose of liberal outrage and fart jokes.

A Few Random Observations Regarding the Behavior of Republicans at the Sonia Sotomayor Confirmation Hearing:
1. Let us be able to praise those Reublicans who actually wanted to talk about the law and cases and not whether or not wise Latinas are going to make pernil out of white men: Chuck Grassley, who engaged in an unbearably dull conversation about property rights, and Orrin Hatch, who talked about discrimination and gun rights, but through cases and not speeches. Yeah, they're still fuckers, but at least they didn't act like they were ready to move because a Latino family moved into the neighborhood (see Jeff Sessions' questioning - a view of a man shitting himself that Hispanics are walking on his side of the street).

2. Lindsey Graham's a creepy motherfucker who sounds like every child-molesting uncle in Charleston; to hear him say, as he did yesterday, the phrase "Kind of touchy-feely stuff" would send a chill into the loins of a good many people. Even though he was as twitchy and bizarre as monkey that got into the meth stash, Lindsey Graham was right when he said: "If Lindsey Graham said that I will make a better senator than X because of -- my experience as a Caucasian male makes me better able to represent the people of South Carolina, and my opponent was a minority, it would make national news, and it should."

But remember: when Trent Lott wrecked his career by saying that the nation would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had been president, it brought up every other shitty, racist thing he had done and said and voted on. In other words, you could prove he believed Thurmond's segregation-lovin' candidacy was what the nation needed. You can't do that with Sotomayor's career. As she keeps saying, "Look at the record." When you did that with Lott, it was a bloody beatdown of the redneck. And they can't lay a glove on Sotomayor when it comes to her actual judging.

3. So the Republicans are left with portraying her as some kind of Manchurian judicial candidate, ready to finally reveal the tentacled liberal inside as part of her nefarious plot throughout her life to get on the Supreme Court so that she could weave her relativistic, Latina ways into the American mainstream. So said John Cornyn today, sounding like every laconic donkey fucker ever to come from the prairie.

4. Graham was just a vicious bastard in attacking Sotomayor with evidence that probably would not have been allowed in court: "One thing that stood out about your record is that when you look at the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, lawyers anonymously rate judges in terms of temperament, and here's what they said about you: 'She's a terror on the bench.'" And he quoted a bunch of other shit that, if said about a man, would have been seen as mostly praise.

5. Essentially, the Republicans' argument by focusing on the Ricci case and the "wise Latina" remark is that they are against diversity. Jon Kyl made an idiotic point by mocking the notion that "There's no neutrality" as "relativism run amok." That's because "neutral" to Kyl and others is "what white men say it is." Because if you say that your experiences and background shouldn't matter, then why bother with diversity on the court? Or, more appropriately, you're saying that you want to put some chilies in your stew, but just for color, not flavor.

6. By the way, mostly, this shit is boring.

7. In this hearing, Republicans pretty much just fucked themselves for the Latino vote. They are so clearly the party of rural and Southern state whites, and they have done nothing to try to mitigate the racial politics of this entire process. They have set up a color line. And the whites that vote for them have to figure out what side they want to be on.

8. Maybe it would be better for Republicans if Sotomayor's mother cried at their questioning.

9. Let's end with another line from Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech, a remark that is about being humble and self-aware as a judge: "I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations."

What Judge Sotomayor was saying was that, as a non-white and as a woman, others were always looking at her to see if she was being biased, in a way that they would not look at white male judges. She was saying that the paradigm is wrong, that all biases need to be on the table. Unfortunately, those questioning her cling to that sinking raft of false objectivity.

Live-Blogging of Jeff Sessions Committing Fellatio at the Sotomayor Hearing:
Hey, look, it's racist wad of fuck Jeff Sessions of Alabama, getting ready to question Judge Sonia Sotomayor at her hearing for Supreme Court Confirmation. Let's watch (all quotes pretty much guaranteed to be right in spirit, wrong in wording):

- Jeff Sessions comes out of the gate with the cocksucking. This guy is bobbing on knob so voraciously it's like he thinks a dick is the same as his mama's titty. He goes for the full cock, too, not just the tip, deep throating to where your own gag reflex kicks in sympathetically. You can barely hear him ask about Sotomayor's statements on judges putting aside their prejudices while recognizing them.

- Sotomayor says, more or less, "Lick me, fucker. Look at what I did, not what I said." When Sessions asks about Sotomayor's statement that appellate court is where "policy is made," she kick Sessions' bony ass all over the place. She says what's true - that appellate courts do create the precedents that set policy based on the laws passed by Congress. Isn't this shit obvious? Isn't most of what's being asked of Sotomayor just obvious?

- Oh, yeah, Sessions is gonna act like he's got something, because the knuckledraggers back home need to see him beat up a Hispanic woman. You ever spent time with white Alabaman guys - natives, not the people who move to Huntsville to work? There's a reason why stereotypes of backwards ass country fucks exist. Sit on the couch on their front lawn and you'll learn. (Good liberal caveat: yes, there are native white Alabamans who are not racist, just like there's many a rat that doesn't carry disease.)

- Sessions tries to read Sotomayor's statements with evil emphasis regarding the prejudices of judges. Sotomayor kicks him in the nuts and says to stop teabagging himself and don't be an idiot, adding, "Of course judges have human opinions and prejudices that need to be recognized and addressed."

- Sotomayor's problem here is that she has said that people are not computers. She recognizes that, no matter what the background of a judge, that judge will be affected by it. It's nuance, and, remember, nuance is to conservatives as salt is to slugs.

- Sessions doesn't actually give a fuck what she says or how she answers. He is trying to get her to crack, like if she is pushed, she'll bring out maracas and yip and trill her voice, revealing the whitey-hating freakin' Rican within.

- Great point by Sotomayor, that appellate courts are panels because of a recognition that judges are people with prejudices and that the way to mitigate those prejudices is to have more than one person deciding cases.

- Look, for Sessions, this is an attack on relativism, is it not? It's a chance to trot out the bullshit conservative legal argument that there are objective ways to approach this shit. Where liberals would say that we just do the best we can with all the shit we carry and learn and experience, a conservative would attempt to lie about that. Or maybe that's too easy a way to put it.

Did anyone ask if John Roberts might have his privileged white background affect him, that he must overcome it in some way? Why is it always if some outsider, some "other" is nominated that the way they interpret the law based on identity politics is questioned? Yes, when a WASP-y motherfucker comes up for questioning, they're always asked if they give a shit about about non-whites, often based on their decisions in cases. But that's different than saying, outright, that you're worried that, because someone recognizes that she is an "other," that she won't judge cases "fairly" or "correctly," which means, you know, in favor of white people.

- So Sessions brings up the Ricci case in this context, asking, "Were there facts you chose not to see in this case?" Sotomayor says, "The Supreme Court changed shit just recently. If that shit had been the shit that was there before, I'd've used that shit."

- Sessions says, "Judge Cabranes, who has Puerto Rican background"? What the fuck? Is he saying, "Oh, look, one of your brothers disagrees with you"?

- Sessions: "Why didn't you use the cases I want you to use to decide Ricci?" Sotomayor: "Um, the Supreme Court decided it using the same issues I used."

- When Sessions asks if Sotomayor "understood" Ricci and the other firefighters and their concerns, it's really just "C'mon, Judge Spic, you don't give a shit about white people."

Thus, Jeff Sessions cupped the balls of the racist right as it came in his mouth and he sat back to wait for his chance to get that dick hard again.

Death Squads, Cheney, and American Standards:
If you're a manwhore occupying a bit of sidewalk real estate in Houston, you can tell every other cockgobbler-for-hire that you have standards, that you won't risk neck injury by blowing 400-pound dudes whose little dicks are barely visible in the intersection of pendulous guts and gelatinous thighs. That you won't get ass-reamed by any man who's dick has even a single scab or scar unless he's got a rubber. Sure, yeah, you can say that as much as you want, your little ethical code. But at the end of the day, meth doesn't buy itself. And pretty soon, you're going down on guys whose cock warts tickle the roof of your mouth and you're getting teabagged while being shit on by some fucker who has open sore needle tracks behind his knees. At that moment, in the back a pick-up in an alley in Montrose, hoping this ain't some repressed cowboy with daddy issues who'll beat the fuck out of you after he jacks off on your shit-covered face because it's harder to enjoy tweaking on that ice when your jaw is numb, you've pretty much lost the moral high ground on just about anything. So when some good looking guy drives up in a nice car a couple of nights later, you don't actually have a leg to stand on when you say "No" because he's Asian and you'd never let an Asian guy fuck you.

The point here is that, right now, with just a little revealed and a more-than-likely horrible lot more waiting in the shadows like Orson Welles in The Third Man, it seems that Dick Cheney was, at the very least, concocting with the CIA a plan for a secret assassination army. Surely, we'll hear soon about how many terrorists were killed by crack shots, their heads brought to Cheney so he could use them for a delicious freedom stew, keeping the skulls as trophies until he had enough to construct a throne of bone. And, really, and, c'mon, what would be surprising would be to find out that Dick Cheney wasn't constructing a skull chair.

Yet, bizarrely, some Republicans are saying there shouldn't be an investigation into the potential that the CIA was putting together a death squad and that the Vice President told the CIA to lie to Congress about it. It's as if they're throwing up their hands in a comical "what can you do?" gesture, as if they're saying, "Well, that's just Cheney," and a laugh track will play to cover their asses.

While it's screamingly frustrating to keep saying, "But...but...if Clinton..." and just sigh, Republicans set the bar lower than a snail turd as to what's a scandal worth having investigated. Fucking "Travelgate" was an eventual independent prosecutor's investigation, demanded by Republicans, into why the White House fired seven employees in the White House Travel Office. It was mostly about the involvement of First Lady Hillary Clinton in order to embarrass the President. Whatever the point of it was, there were motherfucking investigations, including one by a Republican-run House oversight committee, about it. Fucking Whitewater was about a goddamned real estate deal.

There's your scales of Republican justice: travel office employees fired? It's a crisis that demands millions of dollars spent to discover nothing. Potential secret CIA death squads and the involvement of at least the Vice President in lying to Congress in violation of the law? Nah, why bother? Let's move forward, not look back.

Yet the very nature of investigation and criminal proceedings is to look backward, with the knowledge that the past very much impacts the present. If Attorney General Eric Holder does go forward with a probe of Bush-era torture policies and if Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats are serious about looking into the CIA/Cheney story, then we will be making baby steps back to being a nation that actually gives a flying rat's fuck about the laws we pass.

And if we don't look back, if we simply attempt to bury the past in our inexorable march forward with the knowledge that unpunished crimes have been committed, then we, all of us, become co-conspirators. We all carry that burden then, that we know we are a country that has done wrong, but we are unwilling to prove it and punish those who ordered the commission of crimes in our name.

Friday Fun (Featuring More Ass Than Usual):
Truth be told, it is a nice ass. Jailbait ass, yes, but a nice ass. And if the photo actually showed President Barack Obama checking out junior delegate ass at the G-8 summit, it might be worth a word or two. But it doesn't. It shows a frozen moment when Obama was turning his head. (Nicolas Sarkozy is another matter - that's a man scoping out la booty.)

The response of some on the right is an ejaculatory spray of spooge as if Matt Drudge just got a picture of Barack Obama getting a blumpkin from a tranny whore in the men's room of the Buenos Aires airport (or, for Drudge, "Tuesdays"). Over at Ann Althouse's joint, there's a post that's gotta be a parody, for if it is not, then an "Althouse" must be "a place where people never get laid," for she details a comparison of the body language of Obama and Sarkozy that says, "The foot closest to the woman, like Sarkozy's, is planted and aimed forward, but the other steps off in the direction of the woman, bending the knee upward into a bit of a crotch-squeeze and forming the base of a dramatic tilt of the entire body into a flexible S-shape that leans toward the woman."

At least one of Althouse's commenters just decided to go full retard with racism. Max says, "Sarkozy is thinking, 'I go home to Carla and you go home to The Beast of ACORN!' There’s our leader doing what he does best – community booty organizer. The only ghetto mannerism missing is his unconscious hand clutching his boy-brain (crotch) in MJ fashion!" It's like the charming Freeper discussion detailed over at Kos about Malia Obama wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

The point here, as ever with the conservative commentariat, is not that they're having fun. It's that it's fun about a lie. When we in Left Blogsylvania laughed our asses off at Bush's stupid facial expression when he couldn't open a Chinese door or when he massaged the shoulders of the leader of another country, it was because he actually did those things. (And, well, that motherfucker did look like a chimp.)

It's just kind of pathetic, this desperate attempt to mock Obama, as if catching him in a butt glance will mitigate the myriad sins of the Republicans. It's like seeing a limping frog trying to get to a quickly drying puddle.

However, if Obama had been checking her out, well, c'mon, can you blame him? Look at that ass.

Easy Predictions: No One Will Apologize to Nancy Pelosi:
Some things are just cut and dried, no matter how much others try to complicate, obfuscate, or bloviate. So, just to get this right:

On May 14, 2009, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying about who was told what when at which briefing on waterboarding. She added, "They mislead us all the time." "They" is the CIA; "us" is the Congress.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who, it needs to always be mentioned, scampered away from Congress in disgrace, said back in May, "To have the person third in line to be president say that the CIA misleads us all the time is so utterly irresponsible and such an attack on the men and women who are risking their lives...that she disqualifies herself for being speaker of the House."

Fox "news" host Bill O'Reilly barely said (in an "interview" with Gingrich), "The unintended consequences of the Speaker of the House basically saying to the world, hey, the U.S. government is corrupt. You know, the CIA is a bunch of liars. And they misled the Congress and all of these terrible things, that's got to play out in a much bigger - you know, much more important role than just Pelosi versus the CIA."

Also on Fox "news," Sean Hannity said that Pelosi is "undermining our national security. She's emboldening our enemies, and it is reckless and irresponsible for somebody in that position."

There's endlessly similar blustering in print, on the radio, and on TV.

Here's a letter from yesterday, June 26, 2009, to CIA Chief Leon Panetta from seven Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee: "Recently you have testified that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all Members of Congress, and misled Members for a number of years from 2001 to this week. This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods." This is vague because the House members are dealing with classified material.

Or, in other words, "They mislead us all the time." Oh, by the way, the "us" there could also be the American people.

Was Palin Really Treated That Badly?:
Somewhere, you know the Clintons are laughing their asses off at Sarah Palin punking out of politics. And that'd be even as they shake their heads listening to bullshit pundit after bullshit pundit declare that poor Sarah Palin and her poor kids and her poor husband were treated oh-so-very cruelly by Katie Couric and the Bloggers.

John Fund in a "people are too stupid have too much information" column in the Wall Street Journal: "Everyone in the family was weary of endless personal attacks, including mean-spirited suggestions on liberal blogs that all of her children should have been aborted and that she would run on a presidential platform promoting retardation."

Kathleen Parker, in a "go the fuck away, Sarah" column in the Washington Post: "Undoubtedly and understandably, Palin is weary of the fray. The crucial turning point was the attacks on her family. No one can honestly make the case that the Palins didn't take more heat than other public families."

Shit like this is on an endless loop on CNNMSNBCFox. It's pick and choose the most fucked-up stuff some commenter on Daily Kos wrote while insisting that the beleaguered Palins were treated worser than the worstest any family has ever been worstly treated in the history of worstness. Oh, and Tina Fey hurt her feelings.

Fuck them and fuck her. Sure, people are gonna say mean shit about her. Sure, Andrew Sullivan might get a bit obsessed over whether or not Trig's Palin's kid or not. And if a candidate preaches abstinence but her daughter gets knocked up before marriage? That'd be kind of relevant. But the mainstream media, for the most part, when it wasn't jacking off about how mavericky this moose-huntin' twit was, questioned whether or not Palin was smart enough or experienced enough to be vice-president. Hey, those are legitimate lines of inquiry, even if George W. Bush took them off the table for a few years.

And as for who's been treated worse?

Whether or not Bill and Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered was discussed on mainstream news channels, not just dismissed as sheer madness. Elected Republicans made jokes about Chelsea Clinton's awkward adolescent looks. And when someone investigates Sarah Palin and talks about the shape of her vagina and how she sucks a dick, then we can even begin to talk about who is treated unfairly. It wasn't just some cranky-ass blogger. It was the way the national media functioned: as a nonstop Clinton attack machine. The Clintons fucking took it all, like Rocky against Apollo Creed, man, in Rocky II.

And all this shit was even before blogs existed. What kind of fucktarded shitstorm would have cycloned through the nutzoid right and the 24-hour news networks, desperately trying to fill time until the world ends, if blogs had been around? Oh, right, ask Barack and Michelle Obama about birth certificates, Bill Ayers, and secret Muslim terrorist agendas.

Palin got a taste of it, like a particularly intense amuse bouche. And, as the Rude Pundit said yesterday, if she were truly the honest person her plummeting number of supporters believe she is, she would have simply said last week that she couldn't take it anymore and everyone can kiss her ass. But, hey, maybe Rachael Ray needs some competition.

Radio Bonus: The Rude Pundit on The Stephanie Miller Show:
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit chatted with Stephanie Miller on her daily, syndicated radio show. Have a listen as they talk oh-so-gently and compassionately about Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, and more:

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(Major props to rude reader Rick S. for the audio clip.)

Palin Not Fade Away:
There's only one way that Sarah Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska might have provoked any sympathy whatsoever: if she had just admitted she was in over her head. If Palin had gotten up in front of Miked Duck Lake or wherever the fuck she was, and said, "Okay, look, ya got me. I was an overly ambitious dink who actually tricked people into taking me seriously as a political leader. Who'd've thought it would have worked so well? It was fun last year, talkin' to all those crowds who thought that 'folksy' was a substitute for 'competent,' but lemme tell you, Alaska, America, it ain't. And now that I've realized it, I've decided the best thing I could do is to get out before I do any more damage." It's basically a variation on the "Shit George W. Bush Should Have Said in 2002" speech. And it's pretty much what she actually said, but she didn't have the guts to say it, spinning it instead as bad ol' government and mean ol' media people chasin' her away from what she loves.

Hell, even if she had said, "Governoring is boring and I'm sick of people buggin' me for stuff. I'm headin' to L.A. to make shitloads of money, fuckers," it would have been more honest.

At this point, though, Michael Jackson's funeral has more dignity.

What's most depressingly predictable is the number of defenders she has among people not on her payroll. There's insanity abounding when you read or hear anyone contort themselves in order to justify all the time and effort they've put into attempting to make us believe that Sarah Palin is anything more than that fun one-night stand they keep texting over and over to see again. All of them just keep saying stupid shit that only the desperate speak. And none of it deserves any more of a response than a silent stare, wondering if the speaker is going to hurt themselves or others.

William Kristol, who, it should always be noted, was Alan Keyes' campaign manager, writes, "Why is it more admirable to run for national office while a sitting governor (or senator), spending a fair amount of time out of your state (or away from Congress), necessarily neglecting or delegating some of your duties -- than to turn the office over to your constitutional successor so your constituents have someone working full time on their behalf?" Reading Kristol's pathetic whine of a column is like taking pleasure in watching a man eat a shit sandwich and pretending it's fine ham.

In the Washington Times, Tony Blankley, a man who looks like he just ate a whole meatball sub, writes, "And though many a conventional politician might be seen as a quitter if he resigned from office -- I have a very strong hunch Mrs. Palin is constitutionally incapable of being seen as a quitter. Because she is not. She is constantly taking on the biggest challenge on her horizon." You got that logic? If anyone else quit, they'd be a quitter. But if Palin quits, she's not. Thus Tony Blankley finally achieved his goal of licking his own asshole.

Over on MSNBC's Morning Starbucks, Mika Brzezinski, who always looks like she's just aching for a spanking, said yesterday that if Palin were a man, we wouldn't be judging her so harshly for resigning. She's wrong on that account, but she's right that we'd treat a man differently. We'd call him a "pussy." (Bonus points: Brzezinski declared that she's not a feminist.)

Even if Eugene Robinson is right that we should blame John McCain for inflicting Palin on the nation like a diseased dude who doesn't tell his lover that he's got the herp, the real responsibility rests squarely with the people of Alaska who, like people all over the nation, elected the person who soothed their greed nerve best. Selfish people will, ultimately, behave selfishly. And the morons among us will reveal their true intelligence.

Standing in hip boots in some other damn body of water, Palin was interviewed by various and sundry networks, and she declared, "I am not a quitter; I am a fighter." Goddamn, there's two more words she doesn't know the definition of.

Pictures of a Tea Party:
It was the Fourth of July in Red State America, 2009. The Rude Pundit had celebrated by eating various kinds of grilled meat, and, yet, he still felt empty inside, like he needed to be among people who knew the meaning, the true meaning of this day. So he read about the local tea party going on in a local park, even though it was hotter than Satan's taint outside. After asking if any of the other carnivores wanted to go with him, alone he headed out.


In the park, there were about a hundred or so people gathered in the three strips of shade provided by the trees. The Rude Pundit walked through, looking at signs that proclaimed the people present disapproved of socialism, liberalism, and Barack Obama.


This gentleman's sign expressed his desire to not be anally raped, although he seems a bit ambitious in how low he could bend.


In case you can't tell, it's an image from the end of the film Planet of the Apes, with Charlton Heston on his knees before a ruined Statue of Liberty. That's President Obama's face as an ape. The Rude Pundit asked the man who was carrying it if he had gotten it off the internet. "No," the man said, "I made it myself."


Actual conversation (in play form):
RP: Did you make that yourself?
Man in Colonial Drag: No, Betsy Ross made it.
RP: (pause) So...um...General Washington?
Man: No, but I'm proud to be one of his aides.
RP: (thinking about an AIDS joke, but wanting to survive the day) Well, Ms. Ross did a fine job. Can I take your picture?

The man would later lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance, in front of a band's drum kit that had a confederate flag dangling from it. A woman in costume would sing the National Anthem. Another man would read from the bible. It was really a catch-all kind of event.


Inside the air-conditioned rec center gym, another 200 people or so gathered to watch a John Birch Society video about how communists take over the country. Not pictured are the people in the bleachers. Some long-haired dude in what looked like a buccaneer's coat told us at the end that the event was not sponsored by the John Birch Society, but that he just thought the video was informative.

There were tables with all kinds of information about health care, abortion, taxes. The Rude Pundit heard one table attendant hold forth on how fascism was more widespread than communism, but that we need to be cautious about both. It didn't make sense then. It doesn't make sense now. But the people he spoke to were nodding.


Much like that sign there, which says, "46 million without health insurance...who are they kidding? 9.7 million are not even Americans." How do you argue with someone who can't even admit that the stat is over 46 million Americans? You don't.

No, instead you sigh, thinking that it's too hot a day. You debate in your mind whether or not this is a real movement or just a bunch of people who too readily believe all the goddamn lies they're fed. You get a free sno-cone (sour apple flavor). You listen to the costumed kids sing, "God Bless America." You leave when the band starts to cover Lee Greenwood's fucking song. You go to see fireworks downtown after the local symphony plays. You hear that people around here don't put pro-choice or pro-Obama stickers on their cars because they'll get keyed. You know this is America, too, yes, and, unlike the tea partygoers, you recognize it because, even as they celebrate a so-called "revolution" and hope for another, some things never change.

On with Stephanie Miller This Morning:
The Rude Pundit is on The Stephanie Miller Show at 9:30 a.m Eastern, 6:30 Pacific. It oughta be big fun in the morning, like rolling over to your lover at dawn for one more...okay, maybe not that good, but still, damn fun.

You can listen online.

Because It Has to Be Said (Sarah Palin Resignation Edition):
In the 21st century, only complete fucking morons actually write multiple exclamation points into their political speeches. Jesus Christ, it's like a letter from a high school freshman girl about that cute senior.

(An earlier posted version apparently contained numerous words in all caps. One looks forward to the release of the shaky crayon draft.)

George Washington Would Kick Teabaggers' Asses:
The Rude Pundit is down in dwindling Red State America for the Fourth o' July this year. For shits and giggles, he'll be heading to a local Tea Party tomorrow, where people who honestly have no fucking idea about the history of the nation will gather and sacrifice goats to Fox "news," hoping that the blood will please the gods and their extraordinarily low taxes will be even lower.

Since those like the aforementioned mad Glenn Beck and his fellow nutzoids pick and choose what the nation's founders actually said and believed, with Beck's repeated reamings of Thomas Paine falling on the "what the fuck?" side of things, here's something from George Washington himself that'll fuck up a teabagger's day. It's from an April 5, 1783 letter Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette - you know, that French bastard without whom the American Revolution would have probably failed:

"We now stand an Independent People, and have yet to learn political Tactics. We are placed among the Nations of the Earth, and have a character to establish; but how we shall acquit ourselves time must discover; the probability, at least I fear it is, that local, or state Politics will interfere too much with that more liberal and extensive plan of government which wisdom and foresight, freed from the mist of prejudice, would dictate; and that we shall be guilty of many blunders in treading this boundless theatre before we shall have arrived at any perfection in this Art."

You got that? Washington feared that the states would fuck up the unity of the nation, that a nation fails if people are allowed to have each of its local bullshit take precedence.

"In a word that the experience which is purchased at the price of difficulties and distress, will alone convince us that the honor, power, and true Interest of this Country must be measured by a Continental scale; and that every departure therefrom weakens the Union, and may ultimately break the band, which holds us together. To avert these evils, to form a Constitution that will give consistency, stability and dignity to the Union; and sufficient powers to the great Council of the Nation for general purposes is a duty which is incumbent upon every Man who wishes well to his Country, and will meet with my aid as far as it can be rendered in the private walks of life; for hence forward my Mind shall be unbent; and I will endeavor to glide down the stream of life ‘till I come to that abyss, from whence no traveller is permitted to return."

Tell that to your favorite member of the teabag brigade: George Washington would tell them they're idiots. That's what you should do this July 4th weekend: make a conservative cry. It wouldn't be hard. They're on the edge of tears constantly these days.

Oh, by the way, the Marquis de Lafayette was also pushing for the freedom of slaves. Washington continued, "The scheme, my dear Marqs. which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart." But, because Washington was by no means perfect, he added, "I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business, ‘till I have the pleasure of seeing you."

Of course, Washington didn't get around to that business.